SOURCE: Semi-Satirical News
Preschooler outdoes climate models
Back in 2001, little Alby Brushtail was just 4 when he predicted global sea levels for a decade by drawing a straight line through a graph. Today, Will Steffen, Director of the Climate Institute admits that global climate models are woeful at predicting sea levels in a story titled: “Sea levels rising at top end of estimates”.
The failure of the sophisticated models is all the more baffling because by 2001, global sea levels had been rising at the not-so-tricky, fairly steady rate of 3mm a year for the previous nine years. Despite this simple linear trend, even with the worlds best equipment and budgets of millions, the top experts only barely managed to predict future sea levels within their broad error margins.
In the end, they couldn’t outdo the four year old who drew the line in with an orange crayon in his preschool class and who simply said that the 3mm a year trend would “just keep going”.
For his remarkable success in 2001, Alby credited Mr Squiggle, but says he’s moved on now, and uses a ruler.*
Satellites have been measuring sea levels, on a global basis, with unprecedented accuracy, since 1992. They show that the seas have been rising roughly 3mm a year over the last 18 years. The most recent figures hint that, if anything, the trend has slightly slowed in the last four years.**
Look at that linear trendGlobal Sea Level Change recorded by satellite at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Click on the graph to visit the site.
Not so satirical
Will Steffen is paid by the Australian tax payer, to provide the best, whole and complete information to the Australian public that he can. But it appears he chose not to tell Australians that global sea levels are showing absolutely no sign sign of upward acceleration. He spun a “business as usual” result into a hurry-don’t-wait message. And the Environment editor of The Australian didn’t seek out other opinions or bother to do the five minute web search that would have turned up the well recognized University of Colorado graph above.
Is this story anything other than one-sided PR dressed as reporting?
The phrasing is o-so-clever. Look for the weasel word “possible”:
“SEA levels are rising at the top of international estimates, making an increase of between 50cm and 1m possible over the next century.”
Possibly 1 meter? Why not 2 m, why not 10 m?
They’re too hard to get away with.
The Royal Society’s climate change summary said thermal expansion of the ocean made it very likely that for many centuries the rate of global sea-level rise per century would be at least 20cm.
(See, it will rise by a meter, and absolutely no later than the year …2500.)
Senior scientist John Church refers to a “long term” average of 2mm, but doesn’t say how long that long term average is, and doesn’t point out that sea levels have been rising at a similar rate for nearly a whole century before man-made emissions became significant (1945). The long term trend over the last 150 years remains remarkably constant.
Senior CSIRO scientist John Church this week launched a book that says sea levels are rising at about 3mm a year against a long-term average of 2mm a year. “We have been tracking sea level since 1993 and it is now at the upper end of the IPCC projections of 80cm by the end of the century,”
It doesn’t add up
And how do you get (!) 80cm from a 3mm a year trend running for 90 years? (90 x 3 mm is … 27 cm.) As always with establishment climate types, there’s an exponential curve coming, somewhere… sometime… “trust us”. (Hey, and it’s not like they would hide uncertainties, fail to mention counter examples, or cherry pick the data sets is it?)
Figure 2.
Glacier shortening[1] [2] and sea level rise[3]. Gray area designates simulated range of error in the sea level record. These measurements lag air temperature increases by about 20 years. So, the trends began more than a century before increases in hydrocarbon use. GRAPH from the global warming review by Robinson, Robinson and Soon.
[1] Oerlemanns, J. (2005) Science 308, 675-677.
[2] Jevrejeva, S., Grinsted, A., Moore, J. C., and Holgate, S. (2006) J. Geophysical Res. 111,2005JC003229. http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/au thor_archive/jevrejeva_etal_gsl/
[3] Leuliette, E. W., Nerem, R. S., and Mitchum, G. T. (2004) Marine Geodesy 27, No. 1-2, 79-94. http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
*Note the Satirical News.
** “Satellites are accurate” (at least according to the University of Colorado — where I sourced that information from, but a sharp commenter -Brego @ #3 notes that they also say “Jason-1, … providing an estimate of global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3-4 mm”. Yes. Hmmm. 3-4mm?!
Is 2 m too hard to get away with? I seem to remember that last spring there was new research presented that indicated that sea levels might rise 1.5 m, rhetorically rounded upwards to 2 m. This of course of course was shocking and alarming news, except that people might have heard 7 m from Al Gore and 25 m +++ from Mark Lynas. It’s higher than the IPCC AR4, though.
It’s the total chaos of having inconsistent degrees of alarmism among the alarmists that’s hard to get away with–as more people start to shaking their heads. And it’s compounded by the fact that the more moderate alarmists do nothing to correct the extreme ones. They think 50 cm and 25 m are basically the same thing because both can be used to deny the “deniers”. Then there are those who believe the arctic summer ice will be gone in 4 years, and those who think it will take 70 years. Just a slight difference of opinion that they think nobody will notice.
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I couldn’t find the 80cm GMSL rise by 2100 number in AR4.
I thought the “prediction” or “projection” for 2090-2099 decade was 18 to 59cm higher than the 1980-1999 mean.
Vague predictions/projections/hand-waving make it difficult to assess the skill of those guesses.
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“Satellites have been measuring sea levels, on a global basis, with unprecedented accuracy, since 1992.”
This is just bunk.
From the Jason satellite specs:
“The sea-surface height shall be provided with a globally averaged RMS accuracy of 3.4 cm (1 sigma), or better, assuming 1 second averages.”
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/J2_handbook_v1-3_no_rev.pdf
The error around the sea-surface height estimate is 10+ times greater than the annual trend! Based on this data they cannot exclude a flat or slightly declining trend since 1992.
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Based on figure 2 above I’ll have to say that the climate MUST be way more sensitive than I thought. Simply note how the sea level rise starts upward at just the slightest whiff of coal smoke in 1850………
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There is a huge difference between 50cm and 1 meter! In statistics, that is 100% error rate, and only worthy of sensationist journalism!
I will make a startling prediction now. Next year, the average temperature will be between the record low and the record high!
(And of course I get to adjust historical records to suit my needs – ala GISS).
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Mark D
Perhaps 1850 was not too long after the end of the LIA, so I guess the time would make sense.
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The long term average or 2 mm per year is derived from tide gauge data.
The “recent” increase to 3 mm is derived from satellite data.
This is comparing apples and oranges as they do not quite measure the same thing.
Looking at the long-term tide gauge trend in NZ (Auckland is a key site for the Southern Hemisphere in the 20th Century trend analysis), the rate is slowing down.
The satellite trend is slowing down.
You can also see the satellite data at the Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry.
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Off topic, but:
The BBC have promulgated new editorial guidelines in the way they report scientific matters, including climate variation, according to this link to the UK Daily Telegraph:
The resignation of Hal Lewis from the APS was also commented on by James Delingpole of the Daily Telegraph, and has brought a raft of comments from other practising and retired physicists.
It appears that the wheels are starting to wobble … we await the exodus as people start to disassociate themselves from the scam – being seen to be too close to climate science could yet prove to be a career-limiting factor.
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so what about Vincent Gray’s paper on sea level in the pacific.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/south_pacific.html
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completely off topic – Willem de Lange – it’s rare name – you wouldn’t be related to Angus De Lange the NZ artist would you?
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Not related as far as I am aware.
Incidentally, at the site I linked if you compare the sea level trends for different regions (oceans versus seas), you will see the difference between coastal sea levels (Tide gauge measurements)that are around 2 mm/y and the open ocean levels around 3 mm/y
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A most significant development in the MSM:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/vigorous-climate-debate-a-plus/story-e6frg71x-1225938366537
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/no-consensus-among-climate-scientists-after-all/story-e6frg6zo-1225938383591
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/physicist-mocks-climate-scam/story-fn59niix-1225938436693
Wow, all on one day!
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“They’re too hard to get away with”
Tim 60 metres Flannery has got away with it for years, even becoming Australian of the Year.
Australian = wood duck. We have a parliament that proves this.
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My mother taught me lots of scientific facts in the ’70’s that these “scientists” are still getting wrong.
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Off topic.
There is a new network site that has been set up with the view of uniting the sceptics through a network to challenge the AGW alarmists. A counter to GetUP that is the brain child of Cory Bernardi.
http://network.conservative.org.au/page/about-1
The problem that has identified is that the warmunists are organised yet the sceptics are splintered and not getting their message out.
I would encourage those here that want to be truly active to join CANdo.
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Joanne,
I take exception to your (?) statement that “Satellites have been measuring sea levels, on a global basis, with unprecedented accuracy, since 1992”. Please refer to previous remarks by myself and others, including Brego above. In fact, the altimetry-derived (satellite) estimates are almost double those obtained by global averages of more conventional tide guages, typically ranging 1.5-1.9 mm per year (many references). Remember that the TOPEX and JASON results need to be calibrated against tide guages, adjusted for vertical substrate movement. I wonder how well this is done. Can we find out?
Perhaps, with the likelihood that the coming super La Nina will be accompanied by global cooling over the next year or so, the upward trend will slow even more. Nevetheless, even this apparently inflated 3.1 mm/year is a far cry from the 80-90 cm/year predicted by Steffen. John Church’s claims are a bit ambiguous, since he published a rate of 1.7 mm/yr (Church and White, 2006) and 1.5 mm/yr (Domingues et al, 2008 – Church is second author). This difference between altimetry and tide guage methods really needs to be sorted out.
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This sea level rise thing has been over hyped. Really, we aren’t going to be able to do anything about it even if we all collectively committed suicide. It is a fact of being in an interglacial. Clearly the cryosphere/ocean system has not reached equilibrium since the end of the last ice age and probably won’t before the next one.
What we will do is locally build defences against the sea and the problem here is more storm surges than sea level rise per se. In other places we will abandon old infrastructure. So rate this a “ehhh who cares?” for me.
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SSL rise also assumes the hydrological cycle that believes all rainfall is recirculated and that new water isn’t really possible. New water?
1. Artesian water that comes from the mantle
2. Human extraction of ground water that once extracted stays at the surface, since the pore spaces it was initially found in close up and stop any rainwater from getting back into the ground.
The belief is that the water at the surface of the earth is more or less constant in volume and hence any changes in its volume has to be due to ice melting.
The measured rise in SSL can be partially attributed to human extraction of ground water, but associated with that extraction is land subsidence, and the dilemma becomes one of choosing a benchmark level to measure things from – so did the SSL rise mean more sea water as well as a drop in land mass? Or could the extracted water balance the subsidence and hence no SSL change?
And how much water is comes to the surface via vocanic eruptions, whether on land or more contentiously on the sea floor?
But when politics hijacks science then be prepared for sophisticated cherry picking, or in this particular case, ice-berg picking.
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But, but, but… we’re all living unsustainably… WWF says so:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/8131781/australia-in-top-10-most-destructive-countries/
Here it is from the source:
http://www.wwf.org.au/news/australian-lifestyles-ranked-among-the-most-unsustainable/
We need lots more earths it seems… no way the planet can support 9 billion people:
“Humankind began to go into ‘ecological overshoot’ in the 1970s, when demand on the planet began to outweigh the capacity of the Earth’s natural resources. Almost 40 years since surpassing this critical tipping point, we are now consuming the resource equivalent of 1.5 planet Earths each year, living way beyond our means.”
It’s Malthus & Club of Rome all over again… /yawn.
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Reminds me of the long past cigarette commercial about “one silly millimeter longer”. Silly is the word for it. Even if it is happening, what useful thing can we do about it?
Perhaps John Brookes will tell us.
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Louis,
What happened to Bullwinkle? Nothing will be the same without Bullwinkle! Please say he’s OK!
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Hey Roy@20, not much I can say. We have apparently got a few hundred years of sea-level rise locked in – regardless of what we do. Historically, it looks like we were just lucky that sea-levels didn’t change much over the period when modern civilisation developed.
Fool that I was, I followed all cynic@12’s links to the national tabloid. One of them had me worried, until I got to the end and saw the author was Des Moore. He is so predictable. Another was dissing The Age, because The Age had the temerity to diss the Oz. The 3rd was about the resignation from the APS of an 87 year old non-climate-scientist who had been a member since he was 20 (what sort of exclusive society lets 20 year olds in?). But don’t worry, he’s not out of a job, he “has joined the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation”. Global Warming Policy Foundation – I wonder where they get their money from…….
Oh well, one should not expect quality from a tabloid, particularly a Murdoch one.
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jo –
have u seen this?
14 Oct: Quadrant: BOM loses rainfall
by Tom Quirk
In the last two years some 900 mm of rainfall have been removed from the rainfall record of the Murray-Darling Basin. This startling discovery was made by comparing the annual Murray-Darling Basin rainfall reported on the Bureau of Meteorology website in August 2008 and the same report found yesterday.
The annual rainfall figures are shown as reported in October 2010 (GRAPH)..
The comparison with the August 2008 report is revealing. The difference is a decrease of 900 mm rainfall in the 2010 report.
The significant decrease occurs after 1948..(GRAPH)
The Bureau is already on record adjusting Australian temperature measurements and they now appear to have turned to rainfall, making the last 60 years drier than previously reported.
One can understand that adjustments might be made to a few of the most recent years as records are brought up to date but a delay of forty or fifty years seems a little long.
This raises the question how certain is the data that is used by policy makers?
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/10/bom-loses-rainfall
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Well, we certainly don’t expext anything of quality out of you, John.
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Oh please Mark@24, I try so hard!
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What does Alby Brushtail draw to the year 2100?
Does Alby think the not-quite linear sea level rise will continue on a linear path?
Perhaps Alby will need a bendy ruler?
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The uncertainties in the projection of sea-level rise arise because scientists don’t understand well how the Greenland ice-sheet and the West Antarctic ice-sheet will respond to warming.
If there is very little melt, the rising sea-level will be caused mainly by thermal expansion of the oceans (increasing approximately linearly).
If there is sudden, large-extent melting, then the sea-level rise will not respond linearly.
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TWinkler
Or a hockey stick perhaps?
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John Brookes @ 22
And that doesn’t sound elitist!
Tell me now at what age is one no longer valuable? 86 no 85 no 84?
You son of a bitch!!!! It is people of your age that have no value!!!
It is time you hear that; you personally will not save the world. You personally will barely be capable of raising a turd to maturity. You should not be allowed to vote.
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Hi scaper #15:
You say:
Doesn’t News Corporation get your message out for you? What about all those powerful organisations on your side, the big polluters, Exxon, the Koch brothers, the “think” tanks and other PR outlets, the conservative politicians, and the masses of scientifically-illiterate conspiracy theorists who have collective political clout? How are you “splintered”? Don’t you all band around websites like this one?
That you all stick together despite your views contradicting one another’s astonishes me. I suppose that’s oppositionism: the common denominator, the opposition to gummint, is sufficient to bind you all together. You claim to be a scientific movement: you’re not. You’re a conservative political movement.
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HAHA. Perhaps.
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It would be an interesting statistic to see what the age breakdown is between AGWers and antiAGWers.
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@ 32
It would be more interesting to observe what age group is responsible for birthing the likes of TWinker, yes but, oh my, brendon, [snip… –JN]
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Oh Dear – you know nothing about the sceptic movement so stop parroting the myths spread by the warmists.
You should do yourself a favour and read some of the articles that the sceptic sites post. You might finally learn something.
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TWinkler #32
”AntiAGWers”
Where did that come from ?
Just pro facts and science
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Hi Twinkler #32
An interesting point.
I’d also like to see the degree of correlation between “climate skeptics” and
[SNIP… and none of that would tell us anything about “the climate” would it? Oh-dreary-anonymous-what proves he thinks ad hominem and confounding issues is worth discussing…Proof instead of his inability to reason.–JN]
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Mark D. says:
Right up there with the “No Pressure” video. Nice.
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Hi Janama #34:
You say:
I do read articles on “skeptic” websites. I’ve learnt that
– “skeptics” keep repeating thoroughly discredited claims
– “skeptics” aren’t skeptical in the true sense of the word – they are rusted-on believers that AGW is not happening
– “skeptics” don’t scrutinise their own views to the same level that they scrutinise opposing views.
– “skeptics” views are contradictory
– “skeptics” seem to have no faith in reason
– “skeptics” seem extraordinarily politically attuned
– When arguing against AGW, “skeptics” usually talk about politics or the economy before the science.
– “skeptics” seem to have very little scientific expertise: the majority seem scientifically illiterate.
– many “skeptics” think that a “cold winter in Europe” is a counterexample to AGW
– “skeptics” use of “evidence” includes utterly irrelevant petitions
– many authors of articles on “skeptic” websites are deliberately misleading.
– there are many astroturf “skeptic” websites funded by the carbon lobby.
– “skeptics” think that because no-one has won the JunkScience guy’s $500 000 prize for “proving” AGW, therefore there is no AGW (they come undone when you ask them if the existence of atoms has been proven).
– “skeptics” tend to be conspiracy theorists
– “skeptics” seem to hold conservative political views
The list could go on and on…
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Oh Dear
A great list.
No science or facts. Great list…..
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Mark D@29 – why don’t you let go and say what you really mean?
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All Scientists are sceptical of all theories!
Anyone who is not sceptical of CAGW is therefor not a scientist, since they clearly don’t understand the scientific method!
The fact they call themselves “Believers” is proof of that
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I do read articles on “skeptic” websites. I’ve learnt that
– “skeptics” keep repeating thoroughly discredited claims
Yes we keep repeating the obvious, such as the discredited claim that sea level rises are accelerating is not happening
– “skeptics” aren’t skeptical in the true sense of the word – they are rusted-on believers that AGW is not happening
I agree there is AGW, its called urban heat islands
– “skeptics” don’t scrutinise their own views to the same level that they scrutinise opposing views.
Thats because we make up our minds by looking at the evidence
– “skeptics” views are contradictory
what, to the consensus? you know a consensus is unscientific don’t you!
– “skeptics” seem to have no faith in reason
When did “faith” become part of science, or did i miss something?
– “skeptics” seem extraordinarily politically attuned
Yes, I don’t trust any politician!
– When arguing against AGW, “skeptics” usually talk about politics or the economy before the science.
I would like to talk about the AGW science, but I’ve yet to find any!
– “skeptics” seem to have very little scientific expertise: the majority seem scientifically illiterate.
Yet climate scientists think computer models are correct, despite the fact that 100% are wrong 100% of the time
– many “skeptics” think that a “cold winter in Europe” is a counterexample to AGW
Didn’t you hear, they changed global warming to climate change and now the cold winter was caused by AGW
– “skeptics” use of “evidence” includes utterly irrelevant petitions
so you still think 30000 = only a handful
– many authors of articles on “skeptic” websites are deliberately misleading.
real climate still struggling to explain the lag of CO2 behind temp hey!
– there are many astroturf “skeptic” websites funded by the carbon lobby.
still looking for my bag of silver, can i borrow some of your 80 Billion
– “skeptics” think that because no-one has won the JunkScience guy’s $500 000 prize for “proving” AGW, therefore there is no AGW (they come undone when you ask them if the existence of atoms has been proven).
A theory that is not falsifiable is called pseudo science, have you heard of psychology?
– “skeptics” tend to be conspiracy theorists
you mean Al Gore isn’t in it for the money!
– “skeptics” seem to hold conservative political views
that must make me a conservationist then
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Well done RobJM: may I suggest you don’t waste your time on such trivia?
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oh dear @ 37:
Once again from a CAGWist, completely unsubstantiated claims that he’ll refuse to prove because he can’t. Thanks RobJM @ 41 – you read my mind and saved me a couple of minutes (not to mention all those “dangerous” CO2’s my computer would be puffing).. 😉
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This post may have been missed by many as it was a late addition to an older thread,and the link didn’t work. I feel it deserves wider exposure.
I hope Brian doesn’t mind me re-posting.
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So “Oh Dear” since you are so “scientific” I’m sure you can finally answer that question — where is the empirical evidence that there will be warming greater than 1.2 degrees.
See here for more explanation and the kind of papers that don’t qualify… http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/is-there-any-evidence/
Looking forward to your polite answer, we’ve been waiting a long time.
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Jo – I think I’ve found the problem. Most CAGWists are from the US and stare non-plussed at our spelling of “modelled”, completely failing to understand the word despite ours having an extra “l”. Apologies in advance US Climate Realists – Hail McIntyre and McKitrick.. 🙂
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McIntyre and McKitrick are both Canadians. Not that it matters. 😀
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Louis Hissink @18
I recall reading a Nat Geo article in the late 80’s about Californias use of water from acquifers. One farmer was using a well sunk by his grandfather in 1908. Then the water level was about 6 feet whereas now(1980’s)it was 114 feet. That’s a lot of water which is now above the surface and is likely to have made it to the sea. Add the water that once made it into an acquifer but is now being intercepted for irrigation or human consumption. Like Louis I think this water would add up to a significant amount.
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Jo,
If basic science is incorrect, how can advanced science models be correct?
We live in a pressurized environment built by rotation. Yet neither are included in current science just many theories that fall apart when adding history, time or pressure.
Water is made of gases pressurized.
We have a multi-billion dollar collider that is based on incorrect science. Yet millions of dollars are still being spent to educate people into idiots over bad science.
One big bang theory is incorrect as solar systems are 2 dimentional spread out on a flat plane. Everything in the solar systems would be the same age if this was true.
Bad science expanded upon just breeds ignorance.
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Thanks Dagfinn.. I’m stupid and consider US and Canada as a single continent. Now where was Australia again..? 🙂
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Dear Jo #46
OK, I acknowledge that post 38 isn’t so polite, but Rob did have fun with it in #42. It even made me chuckle. I’ll try harder to be nice.
I had a look at your link, and I even agree in principal with many of the things you say. A quote of Feynman succinctly sums it up:
“the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment.”
I suppose you’re going to sneer at me because I am going to fall back to GCMs to answer your question. The justification is that every scientific theory is an algorithm that approximates reality, and in the case of AGW theory the core algorithms are the GCMs. The GCMs are useful: the projections of older GCMs and the actual warming trends that followed agree quite well. The current GCMs are more sophisticated and the computers more powerful.
Have a look at figure 10.4 in http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter10.pdf
You see that even in the low GHG emission scenario the average temperature at 2100 should be about 1.5 deg C warmer than now, with uncertainties of about 0.5 deg in either direction (just from a brief look at the plot).
In higher GHG emission scenarios the temperatures will be higher in 2100 – in a high emission scenario, temps could rise by about 3.5 deg C.
It’s nothing new, but that’s all that’s needed to answer your question.
By the way, I responded to your responses to my post in http://joannenova.com.au/2010/10/is-the-western-climate-establishment-corrupt-part-5-co2-emissions-versus-temperature/
See comment #79.
Thanks.
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I so much like this (old-ish) comment I saw made on the junkscience website (I think), that went something like this…
To understand the absurdity of CAGW’ers, imagine the world of 2050, with giant emission reductions already achieved and powerful models showing that “anthropogenic interference” amounting to +1.7C. Still, if by pure misfortune natural variability summmed up to +0.4C, the CAGWers say we have failed – despite having achieved the wildest dreams of the average 2009 Greenie!.
Imagine now another world of 2050, with no emission reduction at all and “anthropogenic interference” running at +3C. Still, if by pure stroke of luck natural variability summed up to -0.9C. Eg a series of giant volcanic eruptions from 2045 onwards, the AGWers say we have succeeded -despite having done nothing at all!!.
I heard on 6PR today that the city has spent another $200K plant car-park carbon offset trees in merredin.? Great for the contract winner or will it? do they know the rainfall that far in from WA coast? Will they water the trees until maturity? Will they replace any that die or pay a portion of the money back (not off setting any longer)? What happens if there is a bush fire? Will they replace for free AND the extra due to the burnt wood emissions?.etc etc.
Finally, is water not a more scarce resource in WA NOW that the potential for CO2 induced effects at some inconclusive point in the future? Isn’t bush fires a far higher risk to attend to? (start by asking any one of those 37 households that lost everything out near York last year).
Sorry, sea levels and CO2 levels are not a worthy risk rating at this time….
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“every scientific theory is an algorithm that approximates reality”; that doesn’t merit a sneer; sympathy would be more appropriate; algorithms are problem solving or task methodologies; the GCMs have bad ones because their assumptions are wrong; eg; clouds, water and the ocean, saturation, feedbacks, forcings etc. Figure 10.4 has been critiqued so many times it resembles a rorschach blot into which the AGW devout can see their faithful reflections; it certainly has no verisimilitude as Koutsoyiannis, McKitrick and McIntyre and Stockwell have shown.
“In higher GHG emission scenarios the temperatures will be higher in 2100 – in a high emission scenario, temps could rise by about 3.5 deg C”
Yeah, and AGW will still have a head full of jellibeans and Steffan will be known as the Edsel of climate scientists and a new strain of influenza will be named after Al Gore.
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Your resident troll’s name is well chosen. “It’s like living in the mind of a depressed hippy”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCBG4bvIueA
Pointman
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Mysteriously High Tides on East Coast Perplex Scientists
Mr Steffen believes carbon dioxide was detected in the area and that it is to blame.
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only because that is where most of the money for AGW comes from. If the money was in the UK or Oz, most would be there.
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Along with Mexico, it is a single continent (North America), just separate nations.
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And links to a parabolic trend fit of sea levels.
TWinkler, did you know that a simple 2 piece linear fit with a breakpoint around 1930 has a much lower RMS residual? A single linear approximation of GMSL from 1870 onward is a reasonable approximation. A parabolic approximation only slightly improves the fit. Two linear segments with a breakpoint around 1930 is a much, much better fit.
But noting that the true acceleration in GMSL took place in 1930 doesn’t fit the AGW hypothesis, so let’s ignore it.
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oh dear:
At #51 you assert:
You could not be more wrong!
The relevant issue is how well the model reproduces reality, i.e. whether the model “works” and is fit for its intended purpose.
However, in the case of climate models it is certain that they do not reproduce reality and are totally unsuitable for the purposes of future prediction (or “projection”) and attribution of the causes of climate change.
All the global climate models and energy balance models are known to provide indications which are based on the assumed degree of forcings resulting from human activity resulting from anthropogenic aerosol cooling input to each model as a ‘fiddle factor’ to obtain agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature. This ‘fiddle factor’ is wrongly asserted to be parametrisation.
A decade ago I published a peer-reviewed paper that showed the UK’s Hadley Centre general circulation model (GCM) could not model climate and only obtained agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature by forcing the agreement with an input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.
And my paper demonstrated that the assumption of anthropogenic aerosol effects being responsible for the model’s failure was incorrect.
(ref. Courtney RS ‘An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of global climate using the general circulation model of the UK’s Hadley Centre’ Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999).
More recently, in 2007, Kiehle published a paper that assessed 9 GCMs and two energy balance models.
(ref. Kiehl JT,Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GRL vol.. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007).
Kiehl found the same as my paper except that each model he assessed used a different aerosol ‘fix’ from every other model.
He says in his paper:
And Kiehl’s paper says:
And the “magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing” is fixed in each model by the input value of aerosol forcing.
Kiehl’s Figure 2 can be seen at http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/8167/kiehl2007figure2.png
Please note that it is for 9 GCMs and 2 energy balance models, and its title is:
The graph shows the anthropogenic forcings used by the models show large range of total anthropogenic forcing from 0.8 W/m^2 to 2.02 W/m^2 with each of these values compensated to agree with observations by use of assumed anthropogenic aerosol forcing in the range -0.6 W/m^2 to -1.42 W/m^2. In other words, the total anthropogenic forcings used by the models varies by a factor of over 2.5, and this difference is compensated by assuming values of anthropogenic aerosol forcing that vary by a factor of almost 2.4.
Anything can be adjusted to hindcast obervations by permitting that range of assumptions. But there is only one Earth, so at most only one of the models can approximate te climate system which exists in reality.
The underlying problem is that the modellers assume additional energy content in the atmosphere will result in an increase of temperature, but that assumption is very, very unlikely to be true.
Radiation physics tells us that additional greenhouse gases will increase the energy content of the atmosphere. But energy content is not necessarily sensible heat.
An adequate climate physics (n.b. not radiation physics) would tell us how that increased energy content will be distributed among all the climate modes of the Earth. Additional atmospheric greenhouse gases may heat the atmosphere, they may have an undetectable effect on heat content, or they may cause the atmosphere to cool.
The latter could happen, for example, if the extra energy went into a more vigorous hydrological cycle with resulting increase to low cloudiness. Low clouds reflect incoming solar energy (as every sunbather has noticed when a cloud passed in front of the Sun) and have a negative feedback on surface temperature.
Alternatively, there could be an oscillation in cloudiness (in a feedback cycle) between atmospheric energy and hydrology: as the energy content cycles up and down with cloudiness, then the cloudiness cycles up and down with energy with their cycles not quite 180 degrees out of phase (this is analogous to the observed phase relationship of insolation and atmospheric temperature). The net result of such an oscillation process could be no detectable change in sensible heat, but a marginally observable change in cloud dynamics.
However, nobody understands cloud dynamics so the reality of climate response to increased GHGs cannot be known.
So, the climate models are known to be wrong, and it is known why they are wrong: i.e.
1. they each emulate a different climate system and are each differently adjusted by use of ‘fiddle factors’ to get them to match past climate change,
2. and the ‘fiddle factors’ are assumed (n.b. not “estimated”) forcings resulting from human activity,
3. but there is only one climate system of the Earth so at most only one of the models can be right,
4. and there is no reason to suppose any one of them is right,
5. but there is good reason to suppose that they are all wrong because they cannot emulate cloud processes which are not understood.
Hence, use of the models is very, very likely to provide misleading indications of future prediction (or “projection”) of climate change and is not appropriate for attribution of the causes of climate change.
Richard
10
Oh dear (rant at #51),
Thanks for the long-winded admission at Jo’s question (#45) that there is no empirical evidence of climate sensitivity beyond 1.2. A simple “No” would have been sufficient.
This is supposed to be an answer to Jo’s question? LMAO.
Maybe you’d be interested in what your hero, the Reverend James Hansen, thinks about the forcings used in IPPC climate models. The aerosols were “pretty much pulled out of a hat” and “their effect on clouds even more uncertain”.
10
oh dear (rant at #30),
You forgot to mention the skeptics connections to Hitler.
10
Charlie @ 58
Great, what would be your physical reason behind the need for a breakpoint?
So it is accelerating. Thanks for pointing that out again.
And 100 line segments will fit it even better. So what? Are you suggesting Alby can keep his straight edge ruler and just keep making more smaller straight lines. OK – I can agree with that.
Why ignore it? There’s many factors influenccing sea level rise the warming of the planet is just part of the picture.
10
Mark D @ 29:
Don’t let John B get under your skin — he’s a totally predicable Useful Idiot. He’s incapable of understanding the class of scientist Lewis is, and uninterested in doing the research to find out, even if you put it under his nose.
It’s quite possible, given his lack of intellectual curiosity and capability, that he’s here for the sole purpose of irritating people. Don’t feed his psychosis — ridicule him instead.
While your remarks may be technically accurate, I would, respectfully, prefer to keep the tone of Joanne’s blog more circumspect.
10
When these trolls start responding rationally to Richard Courtney (#59), that will be time enough to start taking them seriously.
My prediction: Pigs will fly first.
10
John Brookes @22,
I’ll not go as far as Mark D. But it’s not because I’m not tempted.
It’s not enough that I put up with completely invented smears against Republicans by Democrats leading up to Election Day. Then you have to smear someone too.
I will admit that I tried to tempt you into a comment. But the content was all yours.
Your character is always on display and we don’t find it hard to read.
10
I’m not sure whether this is the best place to post the information, but I have recently read a recent paper on the effect the so-called ‘green house’ gases have on the surface temperature.
Downloaded from this blog site : —
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Physicist: CO2 “Greenhouse Effect” is Already Saturated
The report, in .doc format, and 27 pages in length, closely analyses, at the molecular level, the physics of the transfer of energy from the earth’s surface, through the atmosphere until it is finally radiated back into space. As I am writing I have noticed that the author is resident in Australia.
A few things stand out from this analysis and its conclusions : —
1. When a photon of infra-red radiation is absorbed by a CO2 molecule, this additional energy within the molecule is transferred into kinetic energy and warms the surrounding non-CO2 air molecules 99% of the time, leaving only 1% to be re-radiated as a photon of energy.
This was something that I had suspected but I could not find anywhere where the after-effects of the absorption of radiation by CO2 had been directly dealt with.
2. Nearly all absorption of the initial radiation from the earth’s surface is absorbed in the first few feet of the atmosphere, where 99% of the energy is shortly transformed into kinetic energy of the surrounding molecules at which time convection transports the energy to the top of the troposphere from whence it is radiated into space.
This was also something that seemed to be the case from simple observation of what happens on any sunny day, where the temperature of the atmosphere resists any surface-air warming from the infra-red radiation from the surface, with cooling air-currents transporting the energy to higher levels.
3. There is indeed a vanishingly small amount of back-radiation but it occurs only in the small window where the atmosphere is transparent to those parts of the infra-red radiation spectrum. Hence the amount of ‘back-radiation’, which is the essential mechanism of the ‘classical’ explanation of AGW, is not only close to zero, but is furthermore incapable of being increased by any further increases in atmospheric CO2 or other so-called ‘green house gases’ since these already are fully saturated.
This little bit of information closes the circle and leaves nothing left to be explained. To exaggerate this minimal, fixed amount of ‘warming’ into a scare of ‘Catastrophic Global Warming’ necessitating the dismantling of Western developed economies and the transfer of trillions of dollars to developing countries as repayment of a ‘carbon debt’, stands in all its stark nakedness of the ‘Emperor’s new suite’.
20
I didn’t mean to upset Mark D. I’m not as young as Mark D might think, but I am immature, and on the internet that is all you can see 🙂
10
Paul@66, got to Dr Roy Spencer’s website where you can see the simple experiments he does to show that the greenhouse effect is real. Its a good fun read.
BTW, he is a climate skeptic, but probably classified as a luke-warmist. I think maybe a luke-warmist is someone who is prepared to say exactly where they depart from AGW climate science, whereas a true skeptic simply doesn’t believe a word of it.
10
John Brookes,
That being the case, I wouldn’t be proud of it if I were you. That you haven’t made an effort to improve your act is a pretty sad commentary on your life.
However I think you pretend a bit too much. But it’s your image, not mine. So enjoy it if you can.
10
Richard S Courtney@60: Nice post. Was the cooling after Pinutobo due to aerosols? If so, wouldn’t that give some evidence as to which (if any) value for aerosol forcing is best?
As for clouds, I don’t think they could be too much of a negative feedback, since the temperature in the past has been higher than current values.
I imagine its “completely discredited”, but I quite like Hansen’s analysis of climate sensitivity based solely on the changes in radiative forcing from a stable period in the last ice age to the stable climate of the past few thousand years. It doesn’t depend on models at all.
10
So, why don’t you do some research on it? You seem to think that everyone else here is just waiting to do it for you.
The problem of you “thinking” with out any supporting data is that you have a vanishingly small chance of being correct. For some data from people who have actually measured cloud effects, see here.
If you bother to read it, you will find that, from 1994 to 2006, the solar forcing change (due to albedo changes) first grew by 7w/m^2, then dropped even more. This is 3 times the total GHG forcing change since 1900 of 2.4 w/m^2. This both accounts for most of the observed temperature changes (other than local causes like Pinatobo and the 1998 El Nino), and demonstrates that Hansen’s value for climate sensitivity is much too high.
I imagine you like it because it reinforces your beliefs. However, it’s junk science, since the key assumption that Hansen’s “analysis” depends on is that CO2 changes can and do explain all temperature changes. He simply assumes what he is trying to prove (and then, of course, has to ignore the inconvenient fact that the correllation is backward — temperature changes precede CO2 changes). Given that measured albedo forcing changes in the last 25 years have swamped (3X) the entire GHG forcing change since 1900 (and indeed, during the entire last few ice ages), this assumption can only be maintained by a grim determination to ignore reality.
Unfortunately for the warming alarmists, no one has the slightest idea how to predict changes in albedo. (Of course, GCMs can’t predict the weather or climate, as Richard shows, but that hasn’t stopped the politically-captured “scientists” from claiming it — or fools like you from parroting it.)
Yeah, some “response” to Richard’s referenced and well-argued post.
I’m still waiting for pigs to fly.
10
Now BobC@72:
Hey, I was asking Richard S Courtney, who has published on climate science. Yes, its lazy, but I don’t have all day, and just thought he might know off the top of his head, having thought a lot about this stuff. You see, BobC, I do want to know more, and the stuff in Richard’s post was new to me, and I thought it made a bit of sense, so I asked. Don’t shoot me for that.
10
John Brookes:
At #71 you ask me:
No. The direct effect of sulphate aerosol cooling from a measured magnitude of sulphate emission is estimated from volcanic emissions. But this cannot provide any indication of the effect of anthropogenic sulphate aerosols for two reasons.
Firstly, the volcanic emissions do not indicate the large warming (n.b. warming, not cooling) effect of the proportion of anthropogenic sulphate emissions which are associated with black carbon.
Jacobson estimated that sulphate aerosols combined with soot particles had a strong warming effect of 0.55 Wm-2 over the twentieth century, and this warming was greater than that of methane (0.48 Wm-2). These combined sulphate/soot particles are linked with the burning of fossil fuels. Jacobson’s estimate has not been seriously challenged.
(ref. Jacobson MZ, Nature, vol. 409, 695-697 (2000)).
The models assume that the net effect of anthropogenic sulphate is cooling, but Jacobson’s work suggests that their net effect is probably warming. If so, then the sulphate ‘fiddle factor’ in the models has the wrong sign!
Secondly, the magnitudes of past anthropogenic sulphate emissions is not known.
This ignorance of the amount of past anthropogenic emission of anthropogenic sulphate aerosol enables the wide range of assumed values adopted in the models as ‘fiddle factors’ as a method to get each model to match mean global temperature over the past 100 years.
This ignorance is explained in Section 2.4.4.1 of IPCC AR4 which you can read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-4-4-1.html
It says there;
Please note that the above two facts mean the models’ “projections” of the future can only be meaningless. If anthropogenic sulphate were to reduce in the future then this would increase the effect of the wide range of climate sensitivies in the models.
At #73 you say of this subject;
and I suggest the link I here provide is a good starting point.
Richard
10
Some people have given a ‘thumbs down’ to my post that suggested reading what the IPCC AR4 has to say about sulphate aerosol forcing.
I am more than willing to agree that the IPCC AR4 contains many, many errors and some blatant falsehoods. But I think its Section 2.4.4.1 gives a good – although one-sided – summary of the sulphate aerosol forcing issue.
Richard
10
you think a one-sided commentary is good? Follows on from your analysis of CO2 being a plant food.
10
Well:
I thought you believed in the fraud of AGW. The IPCC Report that I cited biased in favour of that fraud.
What do you want to claim
(a) the IPCC AR4 Report is rubbish because it is biased,
or
(b) the IPCC AR4 Report is sufficiently accurate for it to be cited despite its bias?
I think the Section I cited is sufficiently accurate for it to be cited despite its bias, but I would be to consider your argument that it is rubbish if you were to explain why.
And, yes, CO2 is plant food. That is why horticulturists pay to pump CO2 into their greenhouses.
Richard
10
and they pump water into greenhouses too to stop the ground from drying out, and they weed them, and they protect them from insects.
10
no harm done luv. just showing how you like to be shallow and don’t mind being one-sided when it suits you.
(You talk like a troll,irritating and without valid reason.You keep it up and you will be blocked from posting here anymore) CTS
10
An amusing/exasperating example of how “Government Science” actually works out in practice:
In the 1980s I was working for a company that built atmospheric flight instruments for aircraft (often NASA aircraft, including their U2s). We responded to a request for an instrument that could measure and identify sulphate aerosols in flight, thus addressing the very problem Richard refers to.
We came up with a neat combination of an undisturbed airflow sampling system (that would not bias the particle size spectrum due to different particle sizes responding differently to induced turbulence) and an X-ray spectrograph that was compact enough to fit in the standard under-wing can (about 10 X 36 inches).
The instrument was never funded due to the “expert” reviewers not passing it:
1) The ones who were experts in airborne measurement agreed that the innovative sampling system would likely work and was worth trying — but refused to believe that a focusing X-ray grating spectrometer could be built, despite the instrument’s design (the Rowland circle) having existed and been used since the late 19th century.
2) The ones who knew about X-ray spectroscopy, refused to believe that we could do the sampling at up to 200m/s (high altitude U2) without causing differential particulate dis-entrainment from the airflow and subsequent particle size bias.
There wasn’t enough room in the 25 page technical section of the proposal to educate each group about the other’s speciality, and the reviewers (Government Scientists all) — apparently comfortable with the notion that their opinions on things they knew nothing about were definitive — refused to educate themselves via the references we provided, and instead slammed our proposal by doubting that the parts they didn’t understand would work.
(This is somewhat similar to J.B’s technique of “doubting” things he knows nothing about — perhaps you could have a career as a government scientist John.)
No doubt many of these scientists are active in the AGW alarmism campaign today, and are behaving about the same: Some of what they do they understand; Some they don’t have a clue about — and they can’t tell the difference.
10
Well well well… even that prestigious scientific institution in London, the Royal Society, has been caught out big time… over a major blunder in relation to the life of CO2 in the atmosphere:
http://www.suite101.com/content/royal-society-humiliated-by-global-warming-basic-math-error-a296746
For years we have witnessed the fraudulent rise in “man-made global warning mania”. Now we are seeing its humiliating collapse! It is now just a matter of time before the IPCC’s mantra lies in ruins and the recriminations begin.
I sincerely hope that the time will come, and it seems most likely to happen first in the US, where those responsible for promoting the world’s greatest con will be hauled before Senate hearings and inquiries to be held to account for the corruption of science in the name of politics.
10
Well:
If you dispute that CO2 is plant food then either you are ignorant of photosynthesis or you need psychiatric treatment.
As I said on another thread, you are clearly an offensive little troll with nothing of value to contribute. So, post whatever you like, but I will make no further responses to you. Others can judge your posts for themselves.
Richard
10
What, exactly is the point you are trying to make? That CO2 isn’t plant food? Please let us know what style of “reasoning” you are using to make these remarks, and what is their point? We’re having a little trouble following you — perhaps because we have an expectation of logic that isn’t really there?
10
I didn’t say it wasn’t used by plant, I say it’s a one-sided poor scientific view to think that the ONLY effect CO2 has is to increase plant growth.
It doesn’t always induce growth, a warming planet will also mean there is less moisture in the groun. Better for plants means better for weeds too. Which will win? Insects may also like the warmer climate.
Richard (SNIP) Courtney want to only focus on one aspect and ingore all others.
That’s what I’m saying. 😛
(Here is what I AM SAYING,stop with the irritating comments you post!) CTS
10
So, what’s your CV, eh? I’m dying to see a list of your publications.
BTY: every question in your last post has been addressed by numerous studies and published papers. Your asking the questions without a shred of an attempt to educate yourself first tells us a lot about your intellectual capacity.
(And, no — I’m not going to provide you with a list.)
10
Is this (NOAA Greenland ice core) the “stable climate” you’re referring to? Note that chaotic variations in this “stable” climate greatly exceed the current warming that is being “explained”. (Supposedly, this period is one in which CO2 concentrations were also stable (link to alarmist site), hence incapable of explaining the variations.)
Like I said: Hansen’s analysis of climate sensitiviy = junk science.
10
BobC @ 64: and Roy Hogue @ 66
Of course you are right and I shouldn’t loose my cool on the likes of these trolls. I sent these words to Jo to apologize:
Whithout Eddy A. here regularly, someone has to be the “say it like it is guy” right? 🙂
10
You’re got my vote! 🙂
10
@john Brookes 69
I’ve taken another look at Dr Roy Spencer’s site and find that he does indeed concede that there is a greenhouse effect and argues for it. However I find his arguments rather confusing and unconvincing.
However I have found another site which, much more simply and clearly, disproves the greenhouse effect using basic physics, without the very difficult mathematics of the article I posted earlier. It is : —
Amongst his arguments he recounts an experiment, with greenhouses, one with glass and the other of halite, and shows that there is essentially no difference between them even though glass, which is opaque to infra-red radiation, is supposed to be able to retain more heat in the greenhouse than the sheet of halite, which is transparent to infra-red radiation. Thus the analogy of the atmosphere to a greenhouse as the basis for a belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming is shown, clearly, by a reproducible experiment, to be fallacious.
What more evidence do you need to see that the mechanism, the ‘greenhouse’ composed of atmospheric CO2, by which AGM is hypothesised to exercise its force, simply does not exist?
Paul
20
Paul @67 and 89,
Now that I’ve had the time to read the Casey paper you linked I’m surprised that you don’t have a couple of dozen thumbs up clicks if for no other reason, at least for good research. I always favor something based in real world physics that doesn’t break known laws of physics, is straight forward and is thoroughly backed up with references. It’s also not the first time I’ve seen this position and the arguments begin to be persuasive.
The IPCC should be as thorough.
Challenge: can anyone point out flaws that shoot Casey down? This is exactly the kind of discussion we should be having.
10
A Health Warning to the residents of JoNova AU
Toxic material has been issuing from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, producers of groundbreaking studies in this genre:
The Social Simulation of the Public Perception
of Weather Events and their Effect upon
the Development of Belief in
Anthropogenic Climate Change
Residents are advised to stay well away to avoid contamination. Entry should be undertaken only under extreme caution and with appropriate protective equipment.
This warning courtesy of the Climate Conversations Group (NZ) in the interests of international cooperation and collaboration.
Feel free to browse the wide range of specialties offered in the drop down menu of the new ‘Open Threads’ section.
Cheers.
10
Translation:
We don’t know what we’re talking about but just look at all those nice buzz-words we managed to get in there.
Now please send us some more money.
10
Roy.
Sorry, but a correction to #92 is in order.
I doubt that mob would say “please” where money is concerned.
10
Mark,
I stand corrected.
10
Roy 92
What!
Is that in addition to what’s already been sunk?
Tyndall Centre Funding (2002 – 2003)
The core funding of the Tyndall Centre (£10 million over 5 years) is composed of contributions of £5 million from NERC, £1.25 million from ESRC and £3.75 million from EPSRC.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmsctech/55/5505.htm
Those were GBP’s guys (thank goodness – bear in mind I don’t have a US-AU parity perspective, NZ has a ways to go)
10
Here is another paper by Casey linked from the one Paul called out at 89. It’s apparently part of a whole write-up he’s doing on the subject although I haven’t read all of what he has on his site.
This demolishes the whole climate change catastrophe house of cards and does it with apparently well accepted knowledge from research having very little to do directly with global warming. It’s not short but well worth the read.
I just love it when I find something like this because it’s so thoroughly documented and hard to counter.
http://climate.geologist-1011.net/
20
Richard C (NZ) @95,
Can’t really say much. I don’t know anything of substance about them and was reacting to the ridiculous study they are documenting.
If the money was mine they wouldn’t get a dime just based on what I read — another case of a bunch of people with no job to do and a lot of time to do it.
10
Roy 97
Amazing isn’t it.
BTW “Climate Change Catastrophes in Critical Thinking” is a fantastic resource, thanks for the link.
That will be VERY helpful in discussions of the nature that I’m currently experiencing – one “Samoht”, has taken up residence here:
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2010/10/royal-society-humiliated/#comment-26107
Have you had any past encounters with same? If so, a link would be helpful. I haven’t heard from him for a while so he may in for a re-charge.
10
Roy Hogue@90
Thanks for the affirmation. I am so accustomed to being ridiculed for my views that it is refreshing to have a positive comment! Thank you.
As to the quality of scientific research, in general, and of the field of medical research in particular, this article has some important information to convey that has a bearing on this whole debate on the claims of AGW.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science
That puts the claims of the IPCC into a good context in which to evaluate their credibility.
Paul
10
@ Paul @89
Nice !!
10
Richard C(NZ),
No, I’ve not seen that name before. It’s a monumental job to get around to all the possible sites of interest these days and so I don’t try to cover every one of them.
Roy
10
Paul,
I’m not at all surprised by Lies, Damned Lies and Medical Science. I could relate some medical horror stories from personal experience. Suffice to say that I’ve seen both medicine’s bright shining successes and the cesspool where they throw their mistakes.
This line near the end of the article is spot on.
A similar question needs to be asked before anyone ever dares to present himself as an expert on something (but don’t hold your breath waiting for it).
So today the big sop being thrown to skeptics to reassure an ever more dubious public is, well, yes, there are some uncertainties and we’re looking into them but it is still warming and humans are responsible.
I say to them, if you’re uncertain then quit bothering me about it until you are certain. I should add what a bunch of hypocrites they are because not all that long ago they were absolutely certain.
10
What? No takers for post 63. Cat got your logic?
10
Nah! When we stopped laughing we did not bite because nobody with any sense replies to nonsense with logic. Sensible people merely enjoy the laugh.
Richard
10
Richard S Courtney: 104
From another R.S.C. – this time a nonentity (Richard S. Cumming):
Thank you.
One of the R.S.C’s around needed to say it – better it was you.
BTW, I would really value your observations on this:
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2010/10/royal-society-humiliated/#comment-26206
Not the RS post, but O/T discussion brought about by Dr Roy Spencers post:
“Does CO2 Drive the Earth’s Climate System? Comments on the Latest NASA GISS Paper”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/10/does-co2-drive-the-earths-climate-system-comments-on-the-latest-nasa-giss-paper/
i.e. Is my analysis way off?
10
Must be frustrating when “skeptics” disagree on what to disagree about. First it’s not warming, then it’s warming, but it’s natural and CO2 has nothing to do with it. Then it’s warming and CO2 has only a minor part to play. Oh, but then the first “skeptic” says no it’s definitely not warming.
10
Richard and Richard,
I ran across this by accident. It says quite unequivocally that there is no greenhouse effect. I’ve seen this kind of argument before and of course Lionell Griffith also makes this same basic argument. I’m beginning to find it persuasive. I’d very much appreciate it if you have the time to read it and let me know what you think. If this is true then CO2 becomes completely irrelevant, not that that would stop any of the nonsense.
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
10
Roy 107
Am just getting to grips with that paper (there is another one, same site) and have not got around to crunching it – distractions, passing troll Samodt etc..
May I suggest that, along with anything further here at JoNova, there is a forum to discuss this that stays current.
I have posted the paper abstract and link in Open Thread here:
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/open-threads/climate/disproving-agw/#comment-26141
So replies can be made directly to the paper (and others there). The Blog employs a different system to this here at JoNova – not better, just different, in the interests of encouraging “conversations”.
The site (not mine) is a work in progress, so please temper your criticism but present it nevertheless. The Blog owner, Richard Treadgold (yes, another one), has only just opened up Open Threads in the weekend just gone so we’re just starting to use it – a bit messy initially (use drop down menu rather than clicking “Open Thread”.
I agree, this paper needs attention and I’m amazed it’s only just popped up (reason?). I see it’s a revision, so that might be a clue:
First Uploaded ISO: 2009-Oct-13
Revision 4 ISO: 2010-June-25
10
Re 108
Swamped by Climategate?
10
That’s the way science works, TWinkler — nothing is ever known with 100% certainty, and you’re always striving for more information and better theories. It almost never happens that everyone agrees on anything.
Now, the CAGW cargo-cult “science” — that’s much easier: You just believe what you’re told to by the “experts” and never mind looking at evidence (it’ll just confuse you). Of course, you’re living in a fantasy world (and being a tool for other’s interests), but that’s OK — you’re not “frustrated”.
Your misunderstanding of science and this discussion is nearly total. Thanks for letting us know.
10
Richard C (NZ),
Thanks. I’ll look there to see what’s going on.
10
Hi Richard Courtney (#60):
You say:
If it was an important paper, why did you publish it in Energy & Environment? Couldn’t you have published it in an academic journal?
Scopus lists Energy & Environment as a trade journal. Its definition of a trade journal is “a serial publication covering and intended to reach a specific industry, trade or type of business” and is “usually a glossy magazine type of periodical with articles on topical subjects, many news items and advertisements that will appeal to those in the field. Trade Journals are seldom refereed and do not always have an editorial board. Abstracts are usually short or non-existent, and few or no references are given.”
Here’s what Energy & Environment’s editor, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, has said about publishing papers such as one advancing a theory that CO2 concentrations have actually fallen since 1942:
“I’m following my political
agenda — a bit, anyway,” she said. “But isn’t that the right
of the editor?”
Boehmer-Christiansen happens to have been the editor at the time you published your paper.
“FIDDLE FACTORS”
You claim that aerosol cooling input is a “fiddle factor”, wrongly asserted to be parametrisation.
So I presume you are saying that it is determined in some models by calibration against training data? How does this invalidate a model?
Of course it would be best to determine aerosol forcing contribution directly and independently, but there seems to be difficulty making precise measurements of the aerosol forcing.
I don’t know enough about the technique used or the robustness of the aerosol forcing input derived this way to evaluate it. But the problem of aerosol forcing is tackled by trying a wide variety of approaches, trying to find methods that yield robust results (which are independent of model and simulation type, make physical sense and agree with observations).
You say that climate models are wrong (I presume you mean useless – please clarify) because:
That doesn’t make the models useless (or if you think it does, how so?). Calibration is an essential step in model simulations used in all disciplines of science to determine the values of some parameters.
You say:
No, not anything, Richard. These models are physics based (as opposed to statistically based); moreover, the validation step is not unique to climate modelling. The use of calibration and validation to tune models is standard practice in scientific modelling: that historical data is separated into disjoint sets of training data and validation data is not unique to climate modelling, but is a fundamental technique used to tune simulation models in various scientific disciplines.
Lots of tests are used to validate climate models. Basic tests include whether climatological averages such as temperature, rainfall, winds and clouds are approximated acceptably over a particular month or season. Other tests check whether models have a realistic North Atlantic Oscillation, ENSO, and MJO. Models are tested against the natural occurrences such as the eruption of Pinatubo, when a known amount of aerosols was ejected into the stratosphere. They are run over the 20th century, Maunder minimum, last interglacial maximum and so on.
Models are iteratively improved by calibration and validation. An “invalid” model has its physics reviewed and modifications (eg additions of new phenomena) are made until it reflects reality as much as possible.
You say:
Climate modelling groups worldwide use their own aerosol inputs and these do vary, due to the uncertainties associated with them. Again it is good science to run simulations throughout the uncertainty range, so that the multi-model datasets have good uncertainty envelopes.
UNCERTAINTIES
You say regarding climate models
No scientific model perfectly reproduces any aspect of reality. Arguably the most useful scientific model of all, Newton’s Laws of Motion, does not reproduce reality.
The guys at Real Climate agree with you here. Their climate model FAQ includes this little tid-bit: How do I write a paper that proves that models are wrong?
(http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/)
You quote Kiehl:
The equilibrium climate sensitivity is very likely to be between 1.5 and 4.5. Given the uncertainty here, what is wrong with simulations being run at varying climate sensitivities? Isn’t that good science, as opposed to cherry-picking one value of sensitivity and running all models on that value? Remember that this uncertainty contributes to the uncertainty of the multi-model data set.
The issue of climate sensitivity is closely related to the thermal inertia of the climate system. The greater the inertia, the more sensitive the system; that is, the greater the equilibrium sensitivity of the system, the longer it takes to respond to a perturbation. I presume that in the short term the two characteristics counter each other; therefore various models, with their varied sensitivity estimates, must only diverge significantly in their long-term projections.
You say about models:
But cloud behaviour can be estimated within uncertainty constraints, and again this uncertainty contributes to the uncertainties of the projections. Just because a quantity has uncertainty doesn’t mean that we can’t get some useful information from what is known about it.
Cloud parametrisations are becoming increasingly detailed. Rapidly growing bodies of observational data are being compared with the parametrisations. However, there is still not enough data to constrain the models. The same can be said of aerosol parametrisations.
To improve understanding of cloud and aerosol feedbacks, a strategy that’s used is to try as wide a spectrum of simulation approaches as possible and to check for robust results, results that are independent of model and simulation type, make physical sense and agree with observations.
You say:
But don’t all the models approximate the climate system to SOME degree?
Also, it turns out that if the projections from a large number of models are combined to form a multi-model data set, the resulting projection is more accurate than any single model and the uncertainty envelope more acceptable.
Since there is only one Earth, climatologists need ‘virtual laboratories’ to test their ideas in a controlled manner. Can you think of another way to test ideas about climate?
You say:
Can you suggest an ”alternative” adequate climate physics? And would that “alternative” adequate climate physics use climate models? Or in other words, can you think of a better way to weigh up the effects of the forcings and feedbacks in the climate system than using climate models?
A weakness in the climate “skeptic” position is they don’t have an alternative theory which explains the global warming trend of 0.13 C per decade since the 1950s that stands up to scientific scrutiny.
You say:
Sure some effects can not be predicted though modelling. But other effects certainly can.
Certain results from models are robust: they make physical sense, there may be evidence of similar phenomena in paleoclimatic or observation records. They are seen in multiple models and multiple simulations, and the magnitude of the effect is independent of model or simulation type. These results are therefore insensitive to the relatively arbitrary differences between different types of models and simulations. Robust results include warming responses to increasing GHGs, or change in water vapour with temperature. Non-robust results include changes in El Nino as a result of changes in forcing, or effects on hurricanes.
In 1981, James Hanson successfully predicted the warming trends in the following decades and had a good approximation for the uncertainty, using a model and computer that were relatively unsophisticated.
If the models are unsuitable for attribution, then what alternative attribution methods do you suggest? And why are they unsuitable?
To finish off, here is a passage from the IPCC AR4 physical sciences basis (WG1) report (p 749, ch 10):
“There is close agreement of globally averaged
SAT multi-model mean warming for the early 21st century for
concentrations derived from the three non-mitigated IPCC
Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES: B1, A1B and
A2) scenarios (including only anthropogenic forcing) run by
the AOGCMs (warming averaged for 2011 to 2030 compared
to 1980 to 1999 is between +0.64°C and +0.69°C, with a range
of only 0.05°C). Thus, this warming rate is affected little by
different scenario assumptions or different model sensitivities,
and is consistent with that observed for the past few decades”
I have to say that a discussion about climate models is a step up from trying to make sweeping conclusions about attribution from a single-time series of historical data, as many “sceptics” tend to do.
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Hi Jo Nova (RE your censoring of my post #36):
You say:
Your censorship of my comment (#36) suggests that I struck a nerve. If it was just a moronic comment I’m sure you would have left it there for your audience to laugh at and to attack as sport.
It seems that you don’t like people criticising what is emerging to be the global warming theory of choice for climate “sceptics” – that AGW (and possibly unattributed global warming in general) is nothing but a conspiracy. For a group who are so extraordinarily rigorous about science that they don’t accept most of the reasoning or evidence of climate scientists, isn’t it astonishing that their theory, which seems to hold almost consensus support, is a conspiracy theory without a shred of supporting evidence?
It seems, Jo, that you got really touchy when I suggested that the “climate sceptic” movement could just be a bunch of “big gummint” oppositionists who have a tendency to believe a broad range of conspiracy theories that directly involve government (for example theories involving a New World Order, Illuminati, Bilderberg Group, Trilateral commission, Obama, 9/11, or fluoride or vaccine denial). I also think that the correlation between someone believing that AGW is fraudulent and believing unrelated pseudoscience nonsense (such as creationism, cold fusion, free energy, or nutty theories about Nicola Tesla) is significantly higher than the correlation between people who accept the AGW theory and believe in some pseudoscientific theory (which is unrelated to AGW, for those who claim that AGW is pseudoscientific).
Jo, whenever one of your darlings runs out of answers, they can always be guaranteed to revert to “but it’s all a fraud I tells ya” or “it’s a whitewash”, with no compelling evidence. It’s mightily hard to be an “informed” climate “sceptic” if you don’t believe that the AGW theory is fraudulent.
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Paul @ 89:
Fascinating link, thanks. I’m particularly interested in Wood’s experiments and the fact that no one has answered them in any way that would preserve the “greenhouse effect” as it is now promoted (pretty much identical to what Arrhenius did). I have read on a number of warmist blogs that “no one has refuted Arrhenius” — now I have an answer.
Just searched “RealClimate.org” for Robert Wood, and found that they now attribute the “Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” to Gilbert Plass (in the 1950’s), based on his radiative calculations on the effect of GHGs in the atmosphere. However, since his results are essentially what Arrhenius’ were, it would seem to me that his results are equally refuted. Have you any links pertaining to this?
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It’s hard to follow your “reasoning”, o.d., when you are coming from an alternate universe. Just where are the compelling evidence and arguments for CAGW that skeptics are unable to answer? Just telling us that they exist and we can’t answer them (hence being forced to descend into madness, presumably) might make you feel good, but it doesn’t carry any weight with anyone else.
Assuming that you are participating here to actually engage others in discussion (I realize I have no evidence of this, and am making a great leap), why don’t you try listing some of this “compelling” evidence?
Until you can do that, I think that Jo’s evaluation holds: “Proof instead of his [your] inability to reason.”
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oh dear @112:
You’re completely missed the point of Richard Courtney’s critique of climate models. Let me give you an example of a successful model:
I have a friend who spent a number of years at NCAR developing models of thunderstorms. He succeeded in creating models that behaved, in many ways, similar to actual storms. One could then study the model to see what parameters were responsible for various effects in the model and make a reasonable guess that these parameters were similarly active in the real storm. In this sense the models were successful.
However, real storms are chaotic, and no one would have expected these models to be able to predict the future state of any real storm, for more than a short time before the model and reality diverged.
Climate is predicted by Global Circulation Models (GCMs), which predict weather. While the serial prediction of weather does indeed predict a climate, it is fabulously unlikely that it will predict our climate (and you would not be able to tell if it was). This is because the weather is a chaotic system — it’s future track is sensitively dependent on very small differences in initial conditions.
There is only one way to prove that a chaotic system can be predicted, and that is by demonstration. No amount of back-calibrating or theoretical analysis is relevant. So far, GCMs have demonstrated weather prediction capabilities out to about 10 days. They have not shown any skill at multiple-year climate prediction beyond simple linear extrapolation (curve-fitting).
If that’s not enough, the non-physical way “climate predictions” are run, renders them useless for even guessing at future climate. For example, model runs are nearly always done assuming 1%/year CO2 growth (see here), even though the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has been growing at an average rate of 0.4%/year for the last 50 years.
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Hi BobC #115
You aren’t the famous Bob Carter, are you? The one who said that global warming stopped in 1998?
Here’s an example of a claim that climate scientists make that the “sceptics” cannot refute: “the troposphere hot-spot is not uniquely attributable to greenhouse gases”. Try refuting it without degenerating to “but they’re fraudulent”.
Or on the the claimed “whitewash”, can you prove that the six independent commissions that exonnerated the ClimateGate scientists of scientific misconduct were indeed whitewashes? The six commissions I refer to are:
– NRC panel
– Independent Penn State Committee
– House of Commons Report
– International Panel
– Penn State Investigatory Committee
– Independent Climate Change Email Review
By the way if you are THE Bob Carter, I listened to a talk by a climate scientist who knows you. He was asked by someone: “So what can you tell me so that I stop looking up Bob Carter’s papers?”
He said something like:
“I know Bob Carter. I don’t want to go into why he takes the position that he takes, but it’s nothing to do with physics,” and “just look at the evidence. See if his claims are backed up by evidence.”
Doesn’t sound like a friend to me.
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Leaving your ad homs aside, your defence of those “inquiries” is laughable. They resembled a Court hearing where the only parties present were the accused and his counsel.
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o.d. @117
You’re flailing about like a wounded animal. I notice you didn’t respond to anything I said in the post you are presumably replying to. Seems like you are the one who has no answers, and “responds” with irrational babbling. Jo seems to be right about you: “Incapable of logical thought”.
Just for the record:
Correct for once — I’m not Bob Carter.
Try sourcing your claim — you’ll find that “climate scientists” have been on both sides of this.
Since the “ClimateGate scientists” admit in their emails to such misconduct (trying to prevent disagreeing papers from being published, pressuring publications to blackball authors, getting editors who don’t go along fired, hiding data that doesn’t fit their story, etc.) as well as actual criminal behavior (conspiring to avoid complying with FOI requests, including destruction of evidence) — as well as computer code with clearly fraudulent data manipulation and falsification (which, BTY, wasn’t considered by any of the commissions) —— Who you gonna believe, the “independent” commissions, or your lying eyes?
This is what is known as a “shot in the dark”. It’s resorted to by those who have absolutely nothing relevant to say.
And all of the above is irrelevant to the issues you supposedly brought up in #112:
So, how do you get from a “discussion about climate models” to repeating rumors about “Bob Carter”? You appear to be logically dysfunctional.
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Hi BobC
You say:
As far as I know, most climate models are not used to predict weather (Hadley is an exception).
You say that GCMs can’t predict climate because
I can think of chaotic systems which have behaviour that is predictable. Predicting the outcome of a coin tossing machine at say the 5th toss is extremely difficult to do with a high level of confidence. We can say with a high level of confidence though that over 1 000 000 tosses the probability of a “head” outcome is close to 50%.
Despite the chaotic nature of weather you can say, with confidence, that the northern hemisphere average temperature will be lower in January 2030 than in July 2045.
There are many climate characteristics that scientists can make conclusions about, even though weather is chaotic. On the other hand, if there are chaotic climate behaviours, these will not be predicted by climate models.
You say:
Strawman argument.
Weather is simply a “noise” around the climate signal. That’s why one needs to look at multidecade trends to make claims about climate, and despite what you say, the multi-model data sets have been successful in their predictions.
You say:
What is “multiple-year climate”? Sorry to nitpick, but it’s not clear. Do you mean that the climate models are not taking into effect internal climate variability? The multi-model data sets do have pretty good unceertainty envelopes that should take this into account.
And what was the skill of the linear regression fitting? If the skill was good, then what is wrong if climate models have the same skill?
You say:
No they aren’t. You misquote the page that you link.
The page is for currently available simulations in the DOE climate model data archive.
The outputs that used 1%/year CO2 growth are listed under the heading “Idealized CO2 only forcings.”
Other outputs include:
Ensemble of historical Greenhouse Gas + Sulfate aerosol (GS) forcings
Future Scenario forcings
Historical GHG + SO4 + Ozone+ Solar Variability Ensemble
Historical GHG + SO4 + Ozone+ Solar Variability + Volcanoes Ensemble
Historical Natural Forcings only (Solar + Volcanoes) Ensemble
Historical Solar Variability only Ensemble
Historical Volcanic Forcing only Ensemble
Natural + Ozone Forcing changes only Ensemble
Historical GHG + SO4 + Solar Variability + Volcanoes Ensemble (constant ozone)
So you are being dishonest (or lazy) to claim “model runs are nearly always done assuming 1%/year CO2 growth.”
You say:
A strawman fallacy and an argument from ignorance fallacy.
10
Hi BobC #119
You say:
Ok, if you put together a compendium of evidence demonstrating that the “ClimateGate” scientists were involved in scientific fraud, and gave it to an independent, critically thinking judge who had to examine that evidence along with the reports from the six commissions, whose side do you think they’d back? Given that you have no evidence (only repeating hearsay and sceptic blogosphere rumours) your chances of having your claims upheld is pretty slim, don’t you think?
And of course you can’t provide any evidence that refutes the statement “the troposphere hot-spot is not uniquely attributable to greenhouse gases”. That some scientists may have believed that at some point in the past is irrelevant – I’m talking about contemporary understanding.
10
Corrcecting #121
I say:
I meant “that some scientists in the past may have disagreed with that assertion is irrelevant – I’m talking about contemporary understanding.
10
Sure, if you make the “uncertainty envelopes” large enough, then nothing the climate can do is beyond your model’s “prediction”. Of what use is such a prediction, except to illustrate that you don’t know what will actually happen?
Amazing. You seem to have lost sight of the fact that the proponents of these models are trying to get us to starve civilization of energy. This will have major bad effects. So, if these billion-dollar models are only as good as an extrapolation of a time series using no actual knowledge of causation, that is good enough to justify draconian efforts to reduce CO2 emissions? I’d love to see you try to make this connection logically.
Check out this temperature record (NOAA Greenland ice core). Find me a climate model that, when fit to the first half of this record, can reproduce the second half. (I’ll save you the trouble — there isn’t any.)
Note that there are many sections of this record that can be fit with a linear trend — 800 to 1000 AD, for example. It’s obvious that that trend does not constitute a “prediction” or explanation of the record, however. If that’s all climate models can do, then they are equally useless. (BTY, this entire record covers a period when climate scientists maintain that CO2 was at low and stable levels, hence these temperature fluctuations cannot be attributed to CO2.)
Lest you lose sight of it, what you are trying to argue for is the claim that Human production of CO2 is going to cause a future climate catastrophe, and this is provable through computer climate models. To prove this, you would need to prove that
1) Humans have any significant control over atmospheric CO2 concentrations;
2) Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are the main driver of global temperatures (already falsified by the linked graph);
3) The Earth’s response to this can be predicted far enough into the future (50-100 years) to show a significant change; and
4) The predicted change represents a serious enough threat to justify risky actions now.
So far, climate “science” is 0 for 4. Your attempt to justify #3, for example, is apparently: “Just make the error bars large enough and the prediction is correct.” How about I just draw a straight horizontal line through the NOAA graph, with error bars big enough to include all values, and then claim that “the prediction that climate will remain the same is thereby proven”?
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o.d. Re: Climategate:
Good grief! The evidence is their own words and computer code, which they have admitted. This stuff is available on the net, and the scientists have admitted that it is their own writings. You may rely on hearsay and rumours — I’ve read what they wrote.
Are you really this ill-informed?
10
Hi BobC #124
You say:
That’s not evidence.
10
When climate scientists were touting the hot spot as proof that warming was being caused by GHG, it was kind of embarrassing that it didn’t show up in the temperature records. They wanted it to be there so badly that they went as far as claiming that we shouldn’t use the temperature records to determine the temperature, but should infer the temperature from wind shear measurements instead (this is all in the peer-reviewed literature).
Now, the claim is that warming by any cause will create a hot spot. It seems this still leaves them in an embarrassing position, given there is no evidence of such a hot spot, since lack of a hot spot implies lack of warming.
Regardless, climate scientists apparently are now agreed that a hot spot (should one appear) is not evidence of GHG-caused warming. How this helps their claims of impending Human-caused catastrophe escapes me.
I also haven’t the slightest interest in trying to refute this belief, and don’t see what relevance it has for the truth value of the CAGW hypothesis anyway.
10
Acknowledged statements are not evidence? You do come from an alternate universe.
10
Part of the “Miranda warning” given to people arrested by the police in the United States.
Indeed, things you say (or write down and acknowledge authorship of) do constitute legal evidence.
10
You say:
Obviously if the uncertainty envelopes are too large, the models become useless. Do you think the uncertainty envelopes of the CMIP3 multi-model dataset is so large it is rendered useless? (see fig 10.4, IPCC 2007 AR4 Physical Sciences Basis report). You didn’t answer the original question to which your above quote pertains.
You say:
Do you have any evidence that [all proponents of climate models are trying to starve civilisation]? Or are you just repeating “sceptic” hearsay? You are responding to a scientific claim with a political claim, a common fallacy for a climate “sceptic”.
You say:
First, climate models don’t predict climate effects in specific locations. Their regional accuracy is typically not great below the continental scale. You are making a typical “sceptic” statistical fallacy.
Second, why are you using NOAA data if NOAA is full of people who are proponents of climate models? Aren’t they fraudulent? Couldn’t their plot be fraudulent?
You say:
Big “if”. After evaluating the truth of the conditional formed with the implied conclusion, you would need to show that “these billion-dollar models are only as good as an extrapolation of a time series using no actual knowledge of causation” is a certain statement.
In fact, attribution (ie causation) has been determined with these models, so you have a long way to go to prove your claim.
See the http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment…/ar4/…/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf for a discussion of the subtle and powerful ways that attribution is worked out. A vast amount of references are listed in the bibliography.
You say:
First, the CO2 that is being added to the atmosphere is mostly due to human activity: this is revealed by carbon isotope studies (fossil fuels and the CO2 they generate have a much smaller C13/C12 ratio than would be expected from decaying biomass, and don’t indicate volcano emissions); the measurements of oxygen concentrations are so precise that changes in the O2 concentration have been shown to correspond to the stoichiometric amount that would be expected from fossil fuel combustion; accounting estimations of the annual CO2 production are in agreement with the average CO2 levels (after compensating for ocean/biomass absorption).
Point 2: your claim is about a locality. Just because temperature has declined at some locality doesn’t contradict that the global surface air temperature has increased. Here’s a simple example that’s even more regionalised: (11, 13, 15) could be the average temperatures of 3 equal sized regions covering earth, averaged over 30 years. Average global temp over those 30 years is 13C. Suppose that in the following 30 years, the temps (in the same order) were (11, 12, 18). The global average temperature over this 30 years period is now >13C. The global average temperature over the 60 year period has increased. Moreover in your claim 2 you are fallaciously trying to make conclusions about attribution by looking at a single time-series, and not using other lines of evidence.
Point 3: I think you meant “cannot”? Please clarify. Obviously we cannot predict exactly what will happen in 50 or 100 years: after all economic conditions and technology are difficult to forecast. There are uncertainties in various forcings and feedback which add to an uncertainty envelope. My contention is that climate models are useful for giving us information about what is likely to happen, even if the are “wrong”.
Point 4: the attribution of global warming to human produced greenhouse gases is scientific; whether we should or could respond is not a scientific claim; it does not bolster any assertion about attribution. The projections themselves do indicate that global average temperatures will rise extremely rapidly (the rate is unsurpassed in the observational record). The problem of working out the implications of these projections is generally tackled by people who are not climate scientists.
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Hi BobC #127
Your perception of what you read is simply your perception, coloured by the rumours in the “sceptic” blogosphere. Just because you believe something, it doesn’t make it true. That’s just more relativist nonsense propagated in the “sceptic” blogosphere.
You need to find dispassionate evidence of fraud, and you have so far failed.
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Hi BobC #126:
You say:
The problem is that people like Jo Nova propagate the belief that if no hot spot is satisfactorily detected, then there is no AGW. See her little signature
just above where the comments start on this page.
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No you blockhead. If no hot spot is detected, like the one that theoretically ought to be detected, THEN THE THEORY IS WRONG. So the upshot is not that there is no global warming. The upshot is that the theory was wrong. And the theory being wrong, the political movement is therefore baseless for the time being. In reality its baseless for all time, but pertaining to the hotspot, the hotspot not being there, meant that the fraud-pushers were obliged to BACK OFF, stop scaring the public, and get down to the business of finding out why their falisified theory didn’t pan out.
Now this they did not do. And we might mark the rough date of this out, as the point where the movement went from being wrong-headed to brazenly fraudulent.
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Hi Graeme #132
You say:
Maybe if you capitalise your entire message I’ll believe you.
If there is no hotspot detected, that could be because it is hard to make the high resolution measurements that are required. It doesn’t mean the theory is wrong. The hot spot is linked to climate sensitivity: the more subtle the hotspot, the greater the equilibrium climate sensitivity and the greater the thermal inertia of the climate system.
Try actually reading into the troposphere hotspot and you’ll see that it is just a simple consequence of any warming, it’s not exclusively caused by AGW. The observational records show that global average surface air temperatures have been increasing at a rate of about 0.13C/decade since the 1950s, so warming is occurring.
By the way, the hot spot has been well observed over short-time scales:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Santer_etal.pdf
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/JClimTvertStruct.pdf
Titchner 2009, Sherwood 2008, Haimberger 2008 have shown that the observations from weather balloons agree with climate models.
Allen 2008 has used wind shear measurements to calculate the troposphere temperatures indirectly, and has also demonstrated the existence of the hot spot.
Jo Nova is simply trying to mislead her readers – she has no evidence for her assertion that the hot-spot is a unique signature of GHGs.
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Hi All, the noise to signal on this thread is about 10 to 1! Makes for discouraging reading for me. I’ve debated with Real Believers in CAGW in another forum and found that no amount of factual information or reason can sway them from their belief. There is such a lot of ‘ammunition’ available to them, to shore up their belief system, that they can go on shooting down the facts ad infinitum.
One of those sources, emanating from Australia, I believe, has text messages answering all sceptical arguments. I started to read a refutation of the first 25 of their 100 such ‘answers’ and it was salutary indeed. It is easy to see how those who rely on the official pronouncements of the experts are lead astray with half-truths and cherry-picked information. One has to work hard and dig deep to learn enough to be immune to such noble-sounding dogma.
http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/arguing-with-an-iphone-app/
The lesson, perhaps, is to stick to the science, especially where claims can be falsified or where alternative theories can shed light onto poorly understood processes. to me it becomes counter-productive to let my limited energies be consumed in rebutting the instantly repeated ‘confession of belief’ by the true believers. Sometimes I think that they get personal satisfaction out of taunting, if they are responded to. Oh dear! I think you get my drift!
Those experiments, simple enough to repeat, virtually rule out both the absorption and the re-radiation of OLR, to any significant degree, by atmospheric CO2. In any case the fact that latent heat of vaporisation and conduction at the surface, combined with convection, completely swamp radiation in transporting heat through the troposphere leaves room for only a trace component of radiation, as any body can confirm by observation on any sunny day. At night, once conduction ceases, then the presence or otherwise of clouds is all that matters.
I read something today that may be of use.
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/The%20Greenhouse%20Effect%20Origins%20Falsification%20%20Replacement%20by%20Timothy%20Casey3.pdf
He goes into the history of the ‘science’ quite extensively so you may find some clues you are looking for there. It is interesting how some misconceptions keep getting recycled!
“None so blind as those who don’t want to see!”
Paul
10
If you don’t find the hotspot, then the theory of the hotspot would be wrong. That’s not the same as the theory of CO2 warming up the atmosphere.
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I should have said ‘At night, once convection ceases’ not ‘At night, once conduction ceases’
10
Opposite way for me. Seems that whenever you dig into a “skeptics” claim it end up being cherry picked data, or it relies on one scientists paper whilst disregarding all others, or even worse, ends up as being some half-baked theory from a would-be climate scientist who’s delusionally under the belief that they hold the key that proves AGW wrong, no matter what the experts say.
Oh yeah, then there’s the “conspiracy” bunch!!
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Perhaps you don’t realise that the theory, for it to be true, requires that there be a hot-spot? All the GCMs predicted that hot-spot for that very reason. How else do you suppose that atmospheric CO2 is going to warm the atmosphere? Will it be at the poles where it is absorbed into the cold oceans?
That the hot-spot has not appeared is very certainly because the theory that predicted it has got it all wrong, along with all those GCMs based on the faulty theory.
In science, one contradictory fact is enough to falsify the theory which then has to go back to the drawing board for revision or be thrown out completely.
The fact that so many contradictory facts are not allowed to falsify the CAGW theory is evidence that this is a political construct and not really a scientific theory.
Paul
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So where is there any scientific data in this response?
It has been clearly shown that the peer-review process has been ‘managed’ by a few key players to keep all sceptical papers from publication. That was after the process of selection had been skewed by the allocation of funding entirely towards verifying the AGW claim in the first place. And it is unnecessary to appeal to ‘conspiracy theory’ to account for the continued dominance of CAGW theory in the public domain. All that is needed is for there to be a common belief system and the supporting financial and political inducements to account for the flurry of activities, world wide, all tending in the same direction. But there were conspiracies which have come to light in the wake of Climategate so there is no ‘conspiracy theory’ there, just known facts.
Any way, did you find a refutation of the physics paper I posted that proved there to be no back-radiation from ‘greenhouse gasses’? No, I thought not. I make a prediction : you never will!
Paul
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Rubbish. There are many skeptics that publish and many different journals to publish in.
To think that all facets of science that support global warming theory are controlled by “a few key players” is ridiculous. Nutter conspiracy territory.
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Richard C;
It is spot on and not “way off”.
Please see my post at #60 above.
I there quoted (and referenced) Kiehl reporting:
It shows that the applied forcing is assumed (n.b. not estimated) anthropogenic effect in each model. But, in each case, the assumed anthropogenic forcing is very large.
As I said at #60,
And, as Kiehl reports, the models use a variety of climate sensitivities from 1.5 to 4.5 deg C for a doubling of CO2 to get this large range of assumed anthropogenic forcings. But there is good reason to consider that the real climate sensitivity is much lower. For example, Idso snr. reports his 8 natural experiments that indicate a “best estimate” of climate sensitivity of 0.10 C/W/m2 which corresponds to a temperature increase of 0.37 Celsius for a doubling of CO2.
His summarry can be read at http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/Idso_CO2_induced_Global_Warming.htm
and lists a range obtained from his experiments of 0.1 to 0.173 C/W/m2 from the 8 natural experiments.
And there is a link from that URL to his paper in Climate Research (1998).
So, nobody knows what climate sensitivity really is.
The models use a wide range of assumed climate sensitivities.
The lowest assumed climate sensitivity used by a model is probably too large by about an order of magnitude.
And on the basis of that, the modellers assert that climate sensitivity is large.
Their assertion is a purely circular argument.
It is the logical fallacy of arguing the affirmative.
And it is a clear example pure pseudoscience.
I hope this answer is sufficient.
Richard
10
So you say, but those who try to get papers published which call in question the ‘consensus’ position report that they have been up against it.
Add to that the clear admission of such tactics in the Climategate emails, none of which have been denied as not genuine, and my case stands with evidence to support it. Yours is just your say-so.
Many sceptics may publish, but most have had their conclusions watered down so as to be ‘acceptable’ or they were delayed for years. Had it not been for the dam-burst of Climategate far fewer critical papers would have been coming forward now, and that’s for sure.
10
Oh dear:
Your post at #112 is silly. so I will only refute its specific lies.
E&E is an academic journal and is NOT a “trade journal”.
What “trade” do you think it addresses, academia?
Sonja still is the Editor. I know her well because I am on the Editorial Board of E&E.
Your “quotation” is a lie. She never said it.
She has repeatedly refuted that lie including in writing to the Parliamentary Committe that supposedly investigated the CRUtape emails.
You have no right to “presume” other than what I said unless you can show what I said is wrong. You cannot show what I said to be wrong because it is right (and I proved that with documentary evidence). So, your presumption is a lie by implication.
NO! They are assumption based and they each use different assumptions. I clearly explained this.
Your assertion is a lie.
No climate model or energy balance model has produced a successful prediction to date.
There are no tests to validate climate models. That is why the IPCC stopped using the word “validate” after a peer review comment objected to it.
Either you do not know what model validation is or your statement is a lie.
This is the most flagrant of your lies.
The rate and range of climate variation in recent decades is within the range of previous climate variations in the holocene, and that previous variation was caused by natural climate variability. Hence, the ONLY scientific conclusion is that the null hypothesis applies: i.e. climate varibility is not observed to have changed so there is no reason to suppose that the cause of climate variability has changed.
So, natural climate variability is the only scientific explanation for all past climate changes including the changes over the most recent 50 years.
None of the results from any climate model are “robust” because none of the models is validated.
They are physical nonsense.
There may or may not be evidence of similar phenomena in some records. But so what?
A possibility that there “may be evidence” of something is a meaningless statement.
(There may be evidence of Santa Claus living at the North Pole.)
No!
TThere are no “robust results” – only outputs – from the models.
A not vaidated model cannot provide robust results.
I do not know why you “have to say” that. I did not put a gun to your head.
But almost anything is better than the climate models as indications of climate behaviours.
The models’ results are not reality: they are merely the outcome of understandings of reality that are built into the models.
Studies of the models’ results show the behaviour of the models, and studies of the real climate system show the behaviour of the real climate system.
Differences between findings of these studies inform about the models and not the climate system, because the climate system is reality and the results of the model emulations are merely virtual realities.
Also, the failure of a virtual reality to match reality without inclusion of an effect in the virtual reality indicates nothing concerning the existence of any particular postulated effect.
So, the difference between a model’s results and observed reality informs about the model, and this difference is not “evidence” for the existence or otherwise of any postulated effect – for example, anthropogenic global warming – in the real climate system.
If you cannot grasp this simple point then you should consider the following. Computer models based on fundamental physical laws can very accurately emulate the behaviours of battling spaceships, but this cannot provide any “evidence” for the existence of alien monsters in real space.
Richard
10
Oh Dear:
You realy do make some silly assertions.
This one for example:
“Here’s an example of a claim that climate scientists make that the “sceptics” cannot refute: “the troposphere hot-spot is not uniquely attributable to greenhouse gases”. Try refuting it without degenerating to “but they’re fraudulent”.”
The IPCC AR4 refutes it.
The pertinent item is Chapter 9 and specifically Figure 9.1
The Chapter can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
and its Figure 9.1 is on page 675.
The Figure caption says;
Figure 9.1. Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999 (°C per century) as simulated by the PCM model from
(a) solar forcing,
(b) volcanoes,
(c) wellmixed greenhouse gases,
(d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes,
(e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing and
(f) the sum of all forcings.
Plot is from 1,000 hPa to 10 hPa (shown on left scale) and from 0 km to 30 km (shown on right). See Appendix 9.C for additional information. Based on Santer et al. (2003a).
Only Figures 9.1(c) and 9.1(f) show the ‘hot spot’.
In other words, the ‘hot spot’ is a unique effect of “wellmixed greenhouse gases” predicted by the PCM model the IPCC approves. And that effect is so great that the model predicts it has overwhelmed all the other significant forcings.
But the ‘hot spot’ has not occurred, and this is indicated by independent measurements obtained by radisondes mounted on balloons (since 1958) and by MSU mounted on satellites (since 1979).
In other words,
IF ONE BELIEVES THE IPCC THEN THE ABSENCE OF THE ‘HOT SPOT’ IS A DIRECT REFUTATION OF THE AGW HYPOTHESIS.
Of course, I would be willing to accept that this is merely a model result so should be ignore or rejected. What say you?
Richard
10
oh dear @129,130:
I see you have a reading comprehension problem. I’ll try to clarify some of the statements that you seem to have trouble with:
Let’s start with #130:
Spoken so authoritatively! One might suppose you were a lawyer (albeit an extremely bad one). OK, kindly produce some precedents on how freely written confessions of criminal behavior, acknowledged by the authors, is not admissible evidence. Make it easy on yourself: Start by explaining why the Miranda Warning is meaningless (and where the US Supreme Court went wrong in requiring it).
Perhaps you should change your moniker to “oh no-no” — you simply deny anything you don’t want to (or can’t) respond to rationally.
Now to #129:
I clearly said that climate alarmists must show evidence that they can predict the future course of the climate — else their dire predictions amount to the same as a crazy guy on the street corner claiming the world is about to end. How you got this exactly backward is baffling.
Then you say:
Good that you agree with me. So what’s the (unpredictable) problem we need to take drastic action to avoid?
Partially right. As with the example of thunderstorms — models of chaotic events, when “correct”, can help elucidate the mechanics of the phenomenon. They cannot tell us what is “likely to happen” in the sense of predicting a specific future path in any detailed sense. The way the CAGW alarmist crowd tries to use them is bogus – if they (or you) don’t know that, they (you) are ignorant.
(BTY: One result of the thunderstorm modeling is that an enormous amount of heat is removed from the Earth by the combination of convection to near the top of the atmosphere and subsequent IR radiation to space. Nobody can say exactly how thunderstorm activity — or convective strength in general — will respond to an increase in temperature: But if it were to increase by 3%, the resulting heat loss would completely cancel a doubling of CO2, even given the high estimates of sensitivity by the IPCC. This is just one of the many unknowns “parameterized” in GCMs which is tweaked to produce the desired results.)
A requirement for human produced CO2 to build up to any significant level is that the atmospheric lifetime of CO2 must be on the order of > 100 years, and indeed, AGWers produce scores of papers with CO2 cycle models showing this level of lifetime. The problem with these theoretical papers is that the 36 published, peer-reviewed (since 1950), empirical measurements of CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere have all shown lifetimes < 15 years, with an average of ~ 7 years. These observations have not been shown to be in error, and are mostly ignored.
In science, when theory and observation disagree, theory changes. The AGW hypothesis ignores observations and is not science.
The problem here is that the people who are pushing the “solutions” are the same people who decide who gets the funding for research. Perhaps you don’t see the conflict of interest here (after all, you think that freely given admissions of illegal behavior is not “evidence”), but most rational people do.
10
@BobC: 145
Perhaps we are not addressing the real problem here – mass-induced fear of immanent catastrophe and resultant hysteria. In that case the emotion of fear militates against rational evaluation. Unfortunately, some just do not have the rational and educational capabilities to be able to overcome their unfounded belief that has been deliberately and callously induced in them by the very people whom they trust. And our best attempts to get them to see reality and to calm their fears is misinterpreted as a dangerous failure on our part to take the scare seriously enough.
I am reminded of my younger days when riding horses on the farm in the summer holidays. On occasion, when crossing a bridge, the horse would fear for its safety and simply refuse to cross, no matter what urging I gave it. In the end, the only way to get it to cross was to dismount and lead the protesting, trembling animal over.
Applying this to the matter in hand, perhaps, instead of trying to persuade some by detailed and difficult arguments, which may seem persuasive to us, what we need to do instead is to show why we are not at all frightened by the scare of ‘Global Warming’ and seek to allay their fears.
Fear is a useful and necessary emotion, but it does not respond well to logic and needs a different approach. Driving a person to a conclusion that they fear just increases their fear and a combative attitude does not induce trust in what is being said.
Paul
10
Here are a few simple facts that can assist in evaluating the confusing claims and counter-claims regarding the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the warming of the earth’s surface.
: —
1) The primary source of heat on earth is solar radiation, the intensity of which is given by the temperature of the sun and the earth’s distance from it.
2) Reflection from clouds and the surface of the earth, combined with absorption of some incoming radiation, warming the atmosphere, somewhat modulates how much radiation reaches the surface of the earth and that radiation is the primary source of warmth at the surface.
3) The oceans are the primary store of the heat that is available at the surface, having a heat-capacity hundreds of times greater than that of the atmosphere and being penetrable by the sun’s rays to about 100 M in depth, whereas land surfaces are impenetrable and lose most of their daily heat-gain overnight.
4) The air, when warmer than the surface of the ocean, is able to heat the oceans by radiation but that radiation penetrates only the skin of the water and will then be quickly transformed into the latent heat of vaporisation and returned to the atmosphere.
Putting all that together, it is clear that the driver of global warming/cooling can only be increased/decreased surface solar radiation since the direction of permanent heat exchange is always from the sun to the oceans and from the oceans to the atmosphere.
The confirmatory evidence that this is so can be clearly seen in the latest warming/cooling episode, in the latter part of last century/start of this century, where the oceans fist warmed at the same time and rate as did the atmosphere and now they are cooling at the same time and at the same rate. They have, therefore, a common driver, which is the changes in surface solar radiation received.
Since no one contends that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide has any effect on the climate without first warming the atmosphere, the fact that both the oceans and the atmosphere are seen to be equally and at the same time driven by surface solar radiation received leaves no room for any amplification effect. Therefore any increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will demonstrably have no effect on the climate.
It really is a simple as that.
Paul
10
You say one thing.
Then contradict yourself by stating that the “unknown” figure is now too large. Not only that, you can quantify the magnitude of the error in the unknown value.
Well done Richard. A true show of your genius!
And you wonder why people doubt your scientific ability?
10
Paul 147
Thanks for the list Paul, it will be put to good use at Climate Conversations.
10
Twikler:
Your post at #148 is completely daft. It demonstrates you are such a complete idiot that you choose to proclaim and to demonstrate your idiocy for all to see.
My post at #141 I correctly said and referenced:
And on the basis of that I stated the only reasonable conclusion;
Your silly response to that is to assert of me:
There is no contradiction of any kind in what I said.
Clearly, your delusional assertions are either pretended or they are an indication of mental illness. I strongly suggest that you seek medical aid.
Richard
10
Hi Richard S Courtney #143
Given the large number of times you use the words “lie” or “lying” in your comment, you’re not getting defensive now, are you?
You say:
[Watch oh-anonymous-dear use the fallacious argument from authority… as if anything about the publishing house has anything to do with the evidence or reasoning. From the outset showing how unscientific he/she/it is– JN]
So how do Scopus get it wrong? I know that E&E superficially resembles an academic journal, but it publishes shoddy papers like Beck 2007 (180 years of atmospheric CO2 gas analysis by chemical methods), which would not have been published in any journal that uses a genuine peer-review process.
As an aside, there is a case where Reed Elsevier published a fake journal (Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine) that only contained articles that were favourable to Merck products. It had the superficial appearance of an academic journal but was in fact a PR publication. I presume that AJBJM would be classified as a trade journal. Just because it looked like an academic journal and had an editorial board and claimed to be peer-reviewed did not make it an academic journal.
If E&E is indeed an academic journal, it’s trying to contend with a dismally poor impact rating.
[ Ahh then the ad hom – based on… no source, no document, no reasoning, and not even a tabloid newspaper reference. And Oh-Drear-the-hypocrite attacks Courtney for his “sources”. — JN]
I think that Energy & Environment is the trade journal of choice for the multi-billion dollar climate misinformation industry.
You say, regarding Sonja’s quote:
How do you know she didn’t say it? According to Richard Monastersky of the Chronicle of Higher Education, she did say it.
And if she was trying to present a case showing that the CRU scientists were engaged in fraud, the Parliamentary committee obviously dismissed her “evidence”.
[More cheap insults. He/she/it has been reading from the Handbook of global warming attack dogs. Spot any science?]
You say:
I actually couldn’t find your article. I looked online without any luck, and the university here – a fairly major one – doesn’t have any sort of library subscription to Energy & Environment. Why don’t you put your paper up onto the internet so that people can see it? After all, you seem to be constantly quoting it and Energy & Environment seems to have so few university subscriptions.
[Now if Drear was a real person with a real interest he would have asked Richard Courtney politely, (like I did) and then been grateful when Courtney provided a copy. But this is not about the science. It’s about the insult-value — JN]
The funny thing is that Google Scholar does not give a single citation for your paper – that is, it seems no academic paper published after your paper actually cites it. If it was ground-breaking and “right”, how could this possibly be the case? Beck 2007, sloppy as it was, actually has citations.
I am bemused that you have not clarified my misunderstanding, instead accusing me of lying. I wonder why that is?
After I said that the climate models are physics-based you said:
[Watch – from the Attack Dog handbook, it’s important to use the words, “embarrassing”, “gaffe”, “mistake”, “peer review” and usually “cherry picking”. — JN]
This is an embarrassing gaffe for someone who has published an allegedly peer-reviewed paper on modelling.
Every single model that has ever existed, scientific or not, simulation-based or not, has inbuilt assumptions; this obviously includes climate models.
My assertion is that the algorithms in climate models are fundamentally based on physics as opposed to statistics. That is, the fundamental algorithms in these models are based on theories of fluid physics and thermodynamics, as opposed to algorithms based on the statistical analyses of observational data.
I do contend that some of the parameters in climate models are determined using statistical techniques, but fundamentally the models are physics based.
You need to provide evidence backing your claim that the models are not physics based. Just because you say it’s so, doesn’t make it so.
You say:
What degree of uncertainty are you assuming in this statement? Obviously there are wiggles in any climate model that won’t match wiggles in the global average SAT trend. But you are ignoring the uncertainty envelopes.
Please provide documentary evidence showing that the global average SAT warming trend is incorrectly predicted by a contemporary CMIP ensemble, taking into account the uncertainty envelopes of the CMIP ensembles.
You say:
Another embarrassing gaffe! It seems, from this comment, that you don’t understand what “validation” means in a scientific modelling context. Here are some links to help you out:
http://www.mathworks.com/help/toolbox/ident/ug/bq3633u-1.html
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section4/pmd44.htm
Also, try looking up “training (or estimation) data” and “validation data”.
The onus is on you to provide documentary evidence showing that none of the tests that I quote in comment #112 is used in the validation of any climate model:
– climatological averages such as temperature, rainfall, winds and clouds are approximated acceptably over a particular month or season
– dynamic effects such as North Atlantic Oscillation, ENSO, and MJO are simulated realistically
– Pinatubo effect is simulated
– runs over 20th century, Maunder minimum, Last Interglacial Maximum are acceptably simulated.
And another thing: I suggest you learn the basics of scientific modelling before writing another “peer-reviewed” paper on climate models.
When I claim that a weakness in the “sceptic” position is that they don’t have an alternative theory describing the warming trend since the 1950’s, you say:
First, the rate of warming of the global average surface air temperature (SAT) since the 1950s is about 0.13C/decade.
There is no other case in the observational record where the global average SAT has increased at the same rate over an equivalent period of time. That sort of warming may have occurred at a particular locality in the past, but this is irrelevant: I am talking about global average surface air temperature trends.
So please provide documentary evidence that shows a global average SAT temperature trend of about 0.13C/decade in the observational record for at least 60 years (outside the 20th or 21st centuries).
Second, the warming trend has been attributed to AGHGs using climate models. Therefore, if one accepts that the warming trend is due to AGHGs, previous trends or temperatures are irrelevant. This time it is caused by AGHGs, which are rapidly increasing in amount; the temperatures will therefore continue to increase aggressively in response to GHG emissions (if we accept the validity of the models).
If you are so adamant that the AGHG attribution is incorrect, please provide a rigorous refutation of chapter 9, “Detecting and Attributing Climate Change”, IPCC WG1 AR4 Physical Sciences Basis report.
Third, you say something like, “because there has been similar trends of warming in the past, therefore the cause of the warming now is the same as then”, without using other lines of evidence to back up your assertion (really poor logic!!). You incorrectly assume that you have ruled out the AGW hypothesis when you claim that the null hypothesis applies, but you haven’t ruled out the AGW hypothesis at all.
If you can find a scientifically-rigorous counterexample to the AGW theory then your null hypothesis will apply. Can you provide such a counterexample?
Fourth, you seem to have a global warming hypothesis: “natural climate variability is the only scientific explanation for all past climate changes including the changes over the most recent 50 years” Why don’t you, or other “sceptics”, turn it into a scientifically-rigorous theory?
You say:
Again, that’s another embarrassing statement for a self-acknowledged expert on climate modelling. You seem to misunderstand the technical meaning of “robust”, in the context of scientific modelling.
Robust results in climate modelling are those that are projected by lots of different climate models and simulations and are independent of the differences between models and simulations.
And you are yet to prove that the climate models aren’t validated, in the technical meaning of the term.
Here’s a robust result that all models predict: that the total content of water vapour in the atmosphere increases as the global average surface air temperature increases. Please show how that assertion is “physical nonsense”.
You say:
You’re misrepresenting climate models here, and trying to demolish the misrepresentation. This is a text-book case of a strawman fallacy.
You say:
I think you are referring to a quick method of attribution (determining causation), where a simulation run with only natural forcings does not produce an acceptable output, but a simulation run with the GHG forcing + natural forcings does produce the an output that matches the warming trends of the past 60 years.
Attribution is not that simple though – other possible causes of warming must be ruled out too. Ch 9 (Detection and Attribution) of the IPCC AR4 WG1 Physical Sciences Basis report (and the literature in its bibliography) covers this is much more detail, covering some of the powerful methods that are used in attribution.
Finally, you say:
For someone who is purported to have a PhD, your use of fallacious reasoning is astonishing.
After your comment #143, I am left wondering, “does Richard Courtney have poor reasoning skills, or is he just an industry shill who is accomplished at fooling people who have poor critical thinking skills?” I think the answer is: “Both.”
[ The litany of ad homs… Name yourself Oh dear. Anonymous people throwing ad homs is too low base even for the comments thread. — JN]
[Snip – ad hom ]
[snip] [at] hotmail [dot] com
10
@oh dear:
October 19th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
It seems to me that that applies rather to you.
The scientific content of your last post being nil I have to wonder what your contribution is.
Pray tell us, what is the actual evidence that you base your belief in CAGW upon? Or is it just the case that you choose to believe on the basis of what someone else has said? In that case what you are presenting here is just your belief system, which you are entitled to have, but please don’t call it ‘science’ because science depends on facts that can be verified by reproducible experiments.
Paul
10
Richard never proves that global warming is not caused by shortage of pirates either, you know with the increasing popularity of “Talk like a Pirate Day” they have indeed managed to turn around the warming trend better than any other initiative to date. Pretty strong correlation to argue against.
If you can find a scientifically-rigorous counterexample to the pirate theory then your AGW hypothesis will apply. Can you provide such a counterexample?
10
Oh Dear:
At #151 you ask me:
No. I am being factual.
You made a series of lies. And I began my post at #143 by saying:
I rebutted each lie and ignored the rest of your silly twaddle.
You have come back with more lies and twaddle.
Your posts clearly demonstrate that you know nothing about the matters on which you pontificate.
So, go away, learn at least the basics of these matters, and when you have done that, then you can return and attempt to write something constructive.
Until then just go away. Your posts are a distracting waste of space (and I suspect that is their intention).
Richard
10
Readers here may like to see another aspect of how far from reality the models are, from the site : —
Fact 6A: Model Simulations Don’t Match the Average Surface Temperature of the Earth.
Fact is, the models can’t even predict the current temperatures, let alone future ones! They vary from about two degrees below to one degree above – a three degree spread – when the amount of warming that we have experienced over recorded thermometer records, is less than one degree. How great is that?
10
thanks for another web-science blog Paul. that’s really interesting.
[Thank you for sincere comments not designed to irritate.] ED
10
Oh Dear. You’re really pushing the bounds to the max. No more ad homs, no more argument from authority. No more indulgent, patronizing, over-long effusions from a stone age anonymous thinker. Catch up with the reformation, we’re 400 years ahead of you.
Name yourself Oh dear. You speak for the dominant paradigm. What on earth could you be afraid of? That we might google you like you did to Courtney?
10
“oh dear” has certainly picked an appropriate nom-de-plume. About his/her knowledge of science, logic and reality one can only say, “Oh dear!”
From WordWeb Dictionary: oh dear
1. Used to express shock, dismay, disappointment,
sympathy, etc.Three out of four ain’t bad. Good show there, oh dear!
10
Paul @146,
Unfortunately all those reasons I’m not afraid of the global warming scare are only stated by words that will contradict those like oh dear.
I’m not afraid of it because there’s absolutely no evidence to support it. In fact there’s evidence shooting it down. But then oh dear comes back with what we’ve been getting all along.
Like I said above, “oh dear” is a very appropriate alias.
10
Here’s an interesting fact. I Googled “Kirchoff Exchange Law” to learn more about this central part of the theory and found, on the second page of results, this PDF document
Kirchhoff’s Law of Thermal Emission: 150 Years
which concludes : —
So there you have it! While some repeat ad nauseum that “the science is settled”, in fact we still do not know any mechanism whereby the radiation, on which our lives depend, functions.
Couple that with the fact that, in the troposphere, the temperature is controlled by gravity, another physical ‘law’ of which we have no idea why it operates, and there is plenty of room for some humility in our profession of ‘scientific knowledge’ don’t you think?
Come to think about it, the reason why the predicted ‘hot spot’ has never materialised is probably because the models ignore the predominant role of convection for transportation of heat in the troposphere – it ain’t ever going to be found!
Paul
10
A thought has occurred to me relating to the claim that those who are opposed to the ‘Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming’ hypothesis are “anti-science.”
The reality of this situation is actually the exact opposite.
In this debate there are many who have an extremely limited understanding of the science involved. Most just parrot what they have heard or read someone/some organisation/some web site claim, which they then ‘believe’, propagate the message and advocate for action to be taken to prevent a global calamity.
Then you have some, of celebrity status, who have put their name behind the global movement to correct the situation in which part of the world is ‘developed’ and the rest of the world is ‘developing’. The solution seems to be to collapse the economies of the developed world and at the same time to get the developed world to pay for the developing world to develop by way of a very large transfer of wealth in discharge of a ‘carbon debt’. All this is imagined to be done on the basis of newer, greener, more sustainable technologies yet to be discovered.
Aiding these celebrities there are a small cabal of ‘scientists’ who have dedicated their lives to finding evidence to support this scary and radical hypothesis, who have been funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in their pursuit of their goal as governments around the world have increasingly come on board with this global movement.
Surprisingly, nearly all the scientific communities, scientific journals and scientific organisations have got behind this global movement as advocates.
Adding to the din, the mass media, almost without exception, have broadcast the Global Warming message without any critical analysis, creating an atmosphere in which nearly the whole world was at the point of surrendering their freedom, their property rights and even their freedom of speech, in order to take united, global action to prevent this supposed calamity.
Sitting on top of this mountain of pseudo-science is the IPCC itself, a political and bureaucratic organisation that has one aim only and that is to ‘solve’ the hypothetical problem of Global Warming. The links between this organisation and science are tenuous at the best and non-existent at the worst. Yet it is regarded as the highest authority on the question, “Is mankind responsible for the latest warming episode?”
Finally, a few brave souls have raised their voices questioning aspects of this juggernaut, been branded first ‘sceptics’ then ‘deniers’, their very sanity being questioned, their motives impugned and their work ridiculed. And, although this group is the only group which has any rightful claim to be following the scientific method, they have been labelled as ‘anti-science’ by their critics.
All this proves one thing to my way of thinking, and it is this : what we have seen in recent times is the rising of a new religion/political ideology which dresses itself in the garments of ‘science’ while at the same time flouting all the rules of the scientific method. So, to their way of thinking, anyone who does not go along with the dogma emanating from the official spokespersons of the movement, is ‘anti-science’, but the definition of ‘science’ is now subtly changed to mean the pronouncements of scientific authorities.
Doesn’t this make sense of an almost unbelievable nonsense otherwise?
Paul
10
Paul:
At #161 you say:
Yes, and the tactic is not new.
It is a well attested precept that was famously advanced by Niccolo Machiavelli five centuries ago in his seminal treatise on statecraft, ‘The Prince’, that an entirely innocent antagonist may be unsettled by accusing him of precisely the offences of which you yourself are most guilty.
Richard
10
I don’t think there is anything new about it — doesn’t it strike you that the goals of the alarmists are the same as the goals of the Collectivists for the last 100 years? Also, if you do some exploring on sites like Horowitz’s “Discover the Networks“, you will find that many of the major players are the same also.
Of course, that doesn’t make it any more understandable or any less nonsense.
10
Hi Richard S Courtney #144,
You say:
Nowhere in the IPCC report is there a claim that the troposphere hotspot is uniquely attributable to greenhouse gases.
The caption that you have copied from fig 9.1 certainly doesn’t say it.
Any source of warming will cause a troposphere hot-spot, regardless of whether it is caused by increasing solar radiation or reduced albedo, for example (in other words, if the global warming trend had natural causes, there should also be a hotspot). It is a consequence of the moist adiabatic lapse rate.
So readers can understand this, I will first explain the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Suppose a packet of dry air rises (due perhaps to convection). As it rises, the pocket of air expands with decreasing atmospheric pressure (pressure at higher altitudes is lower). To expand, the packet of air pushes against air surrounding it, doing work on the surrounding air. This work reduces the internal energy of the air packet, so its temperature decreases. Hence there is a decreasing temperature with altitude.
Then there’s the moist adiabatic lapse rate: heat radiation incident on the surface may cause enhanced evaporation of water, instead of increasing the temperature of the surface. Moist air is less dense than dry air, because H2O molecules are lighter than N2 and O2 molecules. As a packet of moist air rises, it cools, for the same reason cooling occurs with dry air. As the moist air packet reaches the dewpoint-line, condensation occurs, releasing heat. As the packet of moist air continues to ascend beyond the dewpoint-line, it cools more slowly than a packet of dry air would, due to the heat being released by condensation. A hot-spot arises in the tropics because the lapse rate is dominated by the moist convective effects. It is not uniquely caused by greenhouse gases; any warming will have the same effect.
Then you say:
The reason that there is a hotspot in figure 9.1(c) is because the warming has been attributed to greenhouse gases. If one of solar forcing, volcanoes, ozone changes or sulfate aerosol were responsible for the warming, then we would expect to see a hotspot in the corresponding diagram.
You say:
Your first sentence is wrong. Troposphere warming is a signature of greenhouse warming, but it is not “the unique signature of greenhouse warming”.
The greenhouse warming overwhelms other possible causes of warming because it is THE cause of warming.
You say:
The “hot-spot” has been observed, as the references in my post #133 will attest. However, the observational evidence for a mulitidecade “hot-spot” is not as satisfying. The problem could be that the uncertainty in the measurements and the noise due to a couple of ENSO events are swamping the signal. Measurements need to be carried out over a much larger number of El Nino events so that the statistics improve.
You say:
Nope, according to the above arguments.
You say:
In the extremely unlikely event that the troposphere hot-spot is demonstrated unequivocally not to exist, then the theory of lapse rates will need to be changed.
The lapse rate is a negative feedback, so if this feedback is missing from the models the climate sensitivity will be higher.
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Hi Richard S Courtney #162,
You say, quoting Machiavelli,
In post #143, you accuse me of being a liar. According to your logic, wouldn’t that make you a liar?
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…and you know this how? You are simply assuming the answer you would like. The measured change in albedo over the last 20 years has changed the effective solar forcing by over 7 W/m^2 — nearly 3 times the total forcing change from CO2 since 1900 (link) — and, in fact, more than the forcing change (due to CO2) over the last 400,000 years. So how do you know albedo changes (unknowable in the past) weren’t responsible for the majority of temperature changes? Oh, that’s right — you just assume whatever you want, data be damned.
The temperature record over the last 10,000 years (NOAA ice core) shows much larger temperature excursions than we have seen over the last 200 years, yet CO2 is believed to have been nearly constant (and low) over that period. If CO2 is the cause of warming, what caused all that?
And, before you claim that it is just one location; The Vostok ice core correlates fairly well with the Greenland one, where they overlap.
It’s easy to get to the desired conclusion when you make up your own “facts”.
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Hi Jo Nova (RE your comments in #151)
You say:
Hold on Jo. If I just accepted Richard’s word couldn’t you accuse me of an argument from authority fallacy?
I have double-checked the claim that Scopus classifies Energy & Environment as a trade journal. It actually happens to be outdated claim (my apologies Richard); Scopus now classifies E&E as an academic journal. My original claim was sourced from (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_%26_Environment), but it seems that Energy & Environment was classified as a trade journal as recently as 29 March 2010.
You say:
Actually, it is sourced. The relevant sentence begins “I think…”. It is my personal opinion.
You say:
There’s no science because I was disputing whether E&E was an academic journal when Richard published his paper. It’s likely that only two people know for sure whether Sonja actually said that; just because Richard says something, or because someone denies something in writing, doesn’t make it so (argument from authority fallacy, remember?).
You say:
Well, you do delete my email addresses in my comments, including in a subsequent message where I asked Richard for a copy of the paper.
You say:
Funnily enough, you take exception to my choice of words, but you don’t actually rebut the arguments (style-over-substance).
And that handbook you talk about – where can I find it? It sounds like a great read.
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Hi Richard S Courtney,
I just want to clarify my post at #151. One of my comments was caught in a “block quote” where I quote you. I’ll try again:
You said:
I said: Yet another strawman fallacy.
Thanks Rickard.
Oh, I’m still waiting for a substantive rebutal. Tell your lawyer to hurry up, hey?
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Oh Dear:
(SNIPPED demands for personal information) CTS
Richard
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Friends:
At #164 the offensive, cowardly liar demonstrates demonstrates why he/shey/they has been hired by Greenpeace as one of their professional trolls: he/she/they lacks the intellect to get a job flipping burgers.
He/she/they asserts:
But the ‘hot spot’ is missing.
Measurements from radiosondes on balloons (since 1958) and from microwave sounding units on satelites (since 1979) each show it has not happened.
So, there are two circumstances.
1.
As the IPCC says, the absence of the ‘hot spot’ idicates there has been no global warming as a result of increase to “wellmixed greenhouse gases”.
OR
2.
As the offensive liar says, the absence of the ‘hot spot’ idicates there has been no global warming as a result of “Any source of warming” including increase to “wellmixed greenhouse gases”.
Richard
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Hi Richard #169,
You say:
You still haven’t rebutted comment #151.
You need to provide the needed information that your assertions demand. I’ve pointed out what needs to be provided. You are an expert, after all you have written an allegedly peer-reviewed paper on the topic.
So why is it so hard to rebut the comments of an amateur?
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Hi Richard S Courtney #170
You say:
I’m chuffed that you think I’m a professional troll. Nice compliment Richard.
So if I have such a shockingly poor intellect, why can’t you address the substantive comments in #151? What do you think that suggests about your intellect?
You say:
Point 1. Where does IPCC say that there has been no global warming? The global average surface air temperatures have risen at about 0.13C/decade since the 1950s. This implies that there is global warming.
Point 2. I don’t say that there has been no warming. I say that each source of global warming should produce its own contribution to the “hot spot”. The models show that the current warming is not due to natural causes; that is why no natural forcing contributes to the “hot spot”. The only significant forcing that is responsible for AGW is GHGs.
That a really strong long-term hot spot remains to be detected satisfactorily is because there is so much noise in the data – the uncertainties in the measurements are greater than the actual effect. The hotspot is very subtle.
No one has showed that the hot-spot doesn’t exist. You have failed, despite your obvious attempts.
So both points 1 and 2 are false, hence your conclusion is false. You’ll need to use better logic than that.
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well et al
Pray tell us what facts would falsify AGW?
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Richard S Courtney:
Any you think this disproves AGW how exactly?
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Mark, I guess it’s quite simple.
To disprove AGW a combination of at least two of the following should happen
– new developments in physics changes what we understand to be the physical properties of CO2 gas
– new measurements of CO2 levels in the atmosphere show that CO2 levels are dropping
– a new understanding of chemistry shows that the burning of fossil fuels doesn’t actually release CO2
– a long-term statistically-significant downward trend in global average temperatures becomes known
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Vince:
Thanks for the responses.
The first one would just be the start of another argument between the two sides and would quickly get nowhere.
The second assumes that CO2 causes warming anyway.
The third is fatuous.
The fourth is sound.
However, AGW protagonists will simply claim “underlying warming” anyway even if we plunged into an ice age. They will not be pinned down to a simple statement of a statistically significant period of cooling.
This why I believe that, come what may, AGW followers will never accept any evidence that contradicts their belief. I’m supposed to accept a lower and more expensive standard of living for this?
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Vince you have left several things out (no doubt by accident)
How about:
A perfectly clear understanding of ALL thermal properties of the atmosphere.
Perfectly reliable sensing systems,
Perfectly trustworthy, unbiased climate scientists.
Perfectly independent peer review.
That should keep you busy for a while…….
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Mark D. wants a *perfect* understanding of everything, or he doesn’t believe it.
Tell me something, what is your *perfect* understanding of the mechanism underpinning the Theory of Gravity, and do you believe that if you drop something it will tend to fall?
The fact is we are emitting lots of CO2, CO2 causes warming, warming is measurable, sea levels are rising, etc…
Nobody credible denies these basic facts – genuinely under discussion is the extent of the problem.
The people who *do* deny any of it tend to be kooky pretend-scientists with CV’s padded-out with nonsense such as “IPCC Reviewer” because they have never had any actual science published under their name.
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Vince, you have been here often enough to know how much we appreciate argument-from-authority. Pretty bold statement: NOBODY CREDIBLE DENIES followed by KOOKY PRETEND, NON-PUBLISHED
Blah blah blah. So where is your published work? Or should you be ignored too?
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Vince:
Deliberations on gravitational theory are not going to lay waste to our economies. You may choose to make light of the excesses of AGW luminaries. We here don’t.
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Hi Richard S Courtney,
I have posted an apology. Please see comment #95 at
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/10/what-the-heck-are-science-journalists-for/comment-page-2/#comment-110092
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Oh Dear:
Re your post at #95.
Yes, thankyou. I have posted an acknowledgement of my fratitude immediately after it.
If you look, you will see that I was not alone in being impressed by youir apology.
Again, thank you.
Richard
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Vince Whirlwind @175
Or actual good science finally gets through to you and you realize that it has demolished the mistakes, fraud and lies on which AGW has been based.
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While reading a report about the discovery of water on the moon, my eye was caught by one of the advertisements and I followed it up to learn more.
http://the-green-guide.info/VarC.htm
I sent away for the free booklet but so far haven’t received the promised email. But doesn’t that really sum up the situation in a nutshell? “who can profit, who can lose and the legal hinges its growth (or death) depends on.” Little doubt should remain in anybody’s mind as to what this ‘debate’ is really about! Everything hinges on getting that critical legal hinge in place before the scam is discovered. Once in place, vested interests will ensure that it does not get removed, leading to a market in fraudulent carbon credits that will exceed any market in the world today.
Add to that the amount of centralised political power that will accrue to the bureaucracy that will administer this market and the nations that subscribe to the protocol, and the profits by the international bankers who will handle these billions of dollars in transactions, for a fee, and one can easily see the motivation that lies behind this ‘scientific’ endeavour.
Paul
10
Here’s what it is all about : —
http://the-green-guide.info/index.php
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I’m not sure if this is the best place to post an interesting bit of information I’ve just picked up from an email : —
http://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2010/10/ronald-kitching-planets-most-dangerous.html
which is confirmed somewhat by : —
http://www.termitedetector.com/emissions.cfm
Has anyone prior knowledge of this field of research?
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Truly incredible, Paul! I eagerly await the emergency formation of a UN committee to address this dreadful problem. /sarcasm off
10
Bob,
Just call an exterminator.
10
The point is, that many natural sources of ‘greenhouse’ gasses are either unknown of poorly estimated. Hence the attribution of ‘anthropogenic’ to the recent moderate warming at the end of the last century is without basis, being truly an argument from ignorance.
I have been reading also about the extent of volcanic sources of CO2 and this may have been underestimated by at least an order of magnitude also.
Volcanic Carbon Dioxide
Paul
10
And, from the same source, the loss of carbon dioxide up-take, as the consequence of continued deforestation, represents a far greater impact on the ‘carbon budget’ than the use of fossil fuels, such that ignoring the greater and concentrating on the lesser impact is a recipe of guaranteed failure!
I wonder how they missed that in the models???
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Paul, I’m having a computer problem, so am using my laptop and don’t have access to all my notes — e.g., I can’t give you references, but you may already know about these studies:
1) Studies of the CO2 content of the air over the Pacific and the Atlantic show that N. America is a net CO2 sink — more CO2 is absorbed from the air as it passes over North America than is emitted by all our industry. Exactly where it goes is currently unknown, and NASA has passed on funding satellites to track it.
2) The estimates of undersea volcanism have grown by several orders of magnitude over the last 25 years. This is a completely ignored source of CO2 by the AGW crowd.
I’ll look up the refs when my computer is back up.
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Bob,
I’ve not heard of this and I will eagerly await your computer coming back to life. It makes cap-and-trade look even more ridiculous than it already is.
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Roy,
Found the carbon sink reference: Here is an overview, and a pdf of the paper can be found by googling “A large terrestrial carbon sink” (with the quotes).
You will also get lots of papers speculating on what the sink is — re-forestation is one of the suspects.
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Bob,
Thanks!
Roy
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CobC@191&193
Thanks for the information and references.
It’s no wonder that the CAGW crowd wanted to rush through a treaty using their alarmist predictions and the ‘precautionary principle’ before the real science was considered and seen to be against their predictions.
The greatest need, apparently, is for reforestation to maintain an adequate rainfall and prevent/reverse desertification. It didn’t take a hundred billion dollars of research to come to that conclusion, either, but there are no sudden riches to be made from it either, so that accounts for its low profile!
Paul
10
Bob,
I just got through that pdf myself and it’s not hard to see why NASA would decline to research the matter.
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Just hot off the press [via email from Climate Realists Newsletter number thirty-two.
Disclaimer : I have not read any yet!
Lots of other good resources on this site also.
Paul
10
I’m not sure if someone posted this, but here’s an older study, in Israel, showing how reforestation in a very arid region has progressed much faster than expected, due to the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide which allows the plants to produce hydrocarbons through photosynthesis with less water-loss. The forest is not only increasing faster but is progressing into the desert area.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030509084556.htm
You most likely won’t have read that in your daily newspaper, though, nor heard it on the six o’clock news. Too encouraging, not scary enough to be newsworthy.
Paul
10
Perhaps more relevant to the topic of General Circulation Models and their role in the Global Warming ‘consensus’, I would like to recommend the blog of Judith Curry, ‘Climate Etc.‘ and in particular her recent posts : —
Overconfidence in IPCC’s detection and attribution: Part I
and
Overconfidence in IPCC’s detection and attribution. Part II
Judith Curry is a Climate Scientist. She is regarded as an apostate by some of her colleagues, such as those at RealClimate, because she at one time deferred her judgment to that of the IPCC, considering them to be more expert than herself, but she has in recent times become vocally critical of the IPCC, its processes and the narrative that it supports. She says that, at one time she let the IPCC do her thinking for her, but now sees the need to think for herself, having felt betrayed by the IPCC in the wake of the Climategate scandal. As a real scientist she took the scandal more seriously than the general public and the Mass Media, which tended to play down the importance of the revelations that came out at that time. She has shown real courage and integrity in speaking out.
I have found her posts to be informative, balanced and extensive in their coverage of the issues.
Paul
10
I’m sure that our regular members would know of “sod’ from his posts at various blogs. He has posted a thread at his own site purporting to prove… well, I’m not quite sure what. He’s clearly not an idiot; if anything, someone who should get out and smell the roses (coffee?).
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/11/01/theory-and-experiment-atmospheric-radiation/
Thoughts please? And after that a couple of quotes are apt.
“Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”
Nikola Tesla.
“if your experiment depends on statistics you should have devised.a better eperiment”.
Sir Ernest Rutherford.
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Paul @ 197
Thanks Paul – really good link. Plenty there to keep me occupied (between reading such captivating blogs as this one!).
Your link appears broken, however – I found it off the home page of Popular Technology.Net.
Try this (click)
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Mark @200
I’m not sure that ScienceOfDoom has disproved that paper he purports to critique. Neither am I sure that he understands the subject as well as he thinks he does.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are mistakes in Dr. Nicol’s paper. Anything that needs to be corrected should be corrected – that is part of the vaunted peer-review process. The peer-review process has been noted as a necessary but insufficient process guaranteeing nothing. However I do think that this paper deserves study and should not be ignored just because of someone’s ridicule and appeal to authority.
For a start, the accepted theory, which ScienceOfDoom seems to support because
and yet this theory leaves out entirely the observable fact that the dominating form of heat transfer from the surface, by day, is convection, from the surface to the tropopause, rather than radiation.
On a clear, sunny day, observe what happens. As the sun’s warmth is felt increasingly in the morning the surface begins to warm. However there is virtually no increase in the temperature of the air from a few inches above the surface as the warmed air rises with convection and is replaced with cooler air. That, to me, says it all.
The whole idea of a ‘greenhouse’ effect is untenable. It has been clearly shown that a greenhouse retains its warmth by preventing the loss by convection of the air within the glass/plastic structure and that prevention of outgoing long-wave radiation plays virtually no part in this.
Therefore to maintain that the equations of radiation, and they alone, describe the process that is happening in the real atmosphere, where no such prevention of convection can occur, is just loony, belief-persistence, self-persuasion or some combination thereof. Appealing to some laboratory experiment on radiation with gases or to some equations that supposedly explain ‘radiation’ simply are irrelevant to the real atmosphere, since there it is convection, not radiation, that rules.
Another aspect that I don’t think that ScienceOfDoom has right, is the absorption and re-emission of photons of long wave radiation. What I understand, here, is that a photon, once released from the surface, will collide with a molecule of CO2, H2O or other radiatively receptive molecule within a very short distance – there are a lot of molecules moving at high speed in ambient air. What predominantly happens next is that the excited molecule collides with another molecule, of nitrogen, oxygen, water or other molecule and loses some of the energy, captured from the photon, to the other molecule. This effectively absorbs the radiant energy and converts it to kinetic energy, and Dr Nicol says this occurs in 99% of the instances. Furthermore, the radiant energy will be fully absorbed within the first 50 meters or so of the atmosphere. From that point on convection must take over and transport the energy, as heat, to the tropopause.
So for those two reasons, at least, I find that ScienceOfDoom has not adequately defended the ‘consensus’ position.
Paul
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Mike Jowsey @201
Somehow the ‘l’ at the end of the link, ‘.html’, was omitted in my link. Probably a selection error when creating the link. You can see the ‘l’ showing in black and not in red like the rest of the URL.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html is the right link. Unfortunately there is no way to edit a post on this blog site.
Paul
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Mark @ 200:
All in all, this (Science of Doom) is a pretty informative website. The particular argument you linked to is about the effect of radiative transfer on a toy, 1D model of the atmosphere. SoD calculates a 1 deg C rise in the “Earths” temperature for a doubling of CO2. He claims that anybody who calculates this toy model differently doesn’t understand how to use the radiative transfer equations.
My response is; So What? Like Paul pointed out (@202), the model doesn’t tell you anything very interesting about the real Earth and atmosphere, as it completely leaves out convection (as well as the day/night cycle). It isn’t even clear that he is calculating the temperature of the surface — the temperature rise could occur in the upper atmosphere, just as well.
Thunderstorm convection, particularly, takes warm air near the surface and pumps it high (100,000 ft+) into the atmosphere where it radiates heat into space. Thunderstorms are particularly interesting because they are self-sustaining — once they get going, from a radiative input, they continue until the surface has been cooled more than the initial input: i.e., they act to cool the Earth. The “radiative transfer equations” and models made from them tell you absolutely nothing about how convective action behaves, or responds to changing temperatures.
At any rate, a 1 deg C temperature rise in the next 140 years (how long it takes CO2 to double at the 0.5%/year rate that has been constant over the last 50 years) is not particularly alarming.
The argument the CAGW crowd is making is that they understand the climate system so well, that they can predict that a doubling of CO2 will result, not in the one degree SoD calculates, but 3-5 degrees, due to feedbacks (and that doubling will somehow occur twice as fast as it has been proceeding for the last 50 years).
This is irrelevant to the correctness of the radiative transfer equations, and there is no evidence that any of this is true.
The Science of Doom website has a lot of good information on the whole modeling subject. He shows that the models do a fair job at what they were designed to do — model day/night temperature shifts, yearly rainfall and temperature patterns, and generally serve as a test bed for learning about the mechanics of the real climate system.
He also shows their complete inability to model the past 5000 years of climate and the lack of convincing evidence that they are of any use in predicting the future. This is not too surprising, as we don’t know what was driving the climate over that period (nor, how those drivers are changing today).
Actual observations, like Sherwood Idso’s paper, give us more real information about how the climate system responds to varying input, than any theoretical calculation, especially when the theoretical calculation disagrees with measurement.
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Paul and BobC.
Many thanks for your respective comments.
I had a sense that sod is putting more weight on this highly theoretical aspect than can be empirically verified in the complex, real world that we live on. Sort of “clutching at straws”.
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Mark @200,
If Tesla had not been so disdainful of the math he might be well known today for the useful things he invented instead of spectacular fireworks from his failed attempts to transmit power via RF.
Perhaps it takes the math and the experiments.
10
Roy,
I hardly believe Tesla was disdainful of mathematics. Rather, that he disdained mathematical constructs for their own sake as a substitute for real experimentation.
10
A few people have commented about my recent article – Theory and Experiment – Atmospheric Radiation, and I thought it might be worth addressing one point.
Paul said on November 1st, 2010 at 10:46 pm:
The theory of radiative transfer through the atmosphere is just that – radiative transfer.
Convection changes the temperature profile of the lower atmosphere. Everyone understands and accepts that. It isn’t some missing element of atmospheric physics – it’s in all the atmospheric physics textbooks.
Because convection changes the temperature profile of the lower atmosphere it affects the radiation we will measure at the top of atmosphere – and at the ground.
The measurements that were noted in the article all relied on knowing the temperature profile in the atmosphere.
If you know the temperature profile in the atmosphere and you know the concentration of radiative absorbers (CO2, water vapor, CH4 etc) then you can calculate the interaction between the atmosphere and radiation.
If someone has a theory about what flux (W/m^2) or spectrum (W/m^2.sr.um vs wavelength) they will see at the top of atmosphere or the ground then their theory should match reality.
The standard theory does match reality (measurements) – all provided in the article. Dr. Nicol’s paper appears to miss a very important part of the theory and also provides no experimental evidence to back up whatever it is he is claiming.
The fact that convection is the dominant form of heat transfer in the lower atmosphere doesn’t falsify the theory of radiative transfer. It’s only because so many people write dodgy papers on the subject of radiation that it gets attention. If the major confusion was about convection then I would write many articles on convection – and probably then people would comment:
Perhaps if I start every article with a paragraph on the importance of convection as the dominant form of heat transfer in the lower atmosphere less people will think it has been neglected?
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@ScienceofDoom:
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Well thanks for the frank admission that convection, not radiation, is the dominant form of heat transfer in the lower atmosphere. By ‘lower atmosphere’, you mean the troposphere, a column of air seven to seventeen kilometres in height and including not only the bulk of the atmospheric water vapour but also all of our clouds and weather systems.
I beg to differ in the conclusion that you take from that, that this simple fact “doesn’t falsify the theory of radiative transfer.”
That is like saying, in terms of blockading a city with sea-access, that because 50% of the city’s needs are imported from the surrounding countryside, it would only take a few weeks of a land blockade to bring it to its knees, ‘assuming that the sea-transport remains the same’. Any assumption needs to validated in terms of the real world or else the discussion is only in relationship to hypothetical situations divorced from reality.
When you apply the physics that relate to a parcel of gas, contained in a vessel within a laboratory, to a column of air ten kilometres in height in the real atmosphere and assume that the same conditions will apply that is a non sequitur of the highest order. Yet, for the ‘green-house’ conjecture to be true requires, absolutely, that assumption be made and applied to the real world atmosphere. At that very point the theory breaks down as an absurdity.
The reality is that the surface is cooled, not by radiation but by conduction and convection. And it is at the surface that the issue of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’ applies, nowhere else. Who cares if the height of radiative balance is a few meters lower than without the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide?
The conjecture by Arrhenius that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide would warm the surface of the planet was falsified by the experiments by Professor R. W. Wood in which he replaced the glass or a green-house with rock salt which is transparent to both long-wave and short-wave radiation. This experiment eliminated radiation as the cause of increased temperature inside the green-house and demonstrated that the actual cause was the prevention of convection.
Also, it is noteworthy that about 45% of the incoming solar radiation is in the infra-red spectrum, so heating the atmosphere from above at a rate that is orders of magnitude above that of the radiation from the surface of the earth.
Finally, the hypothetical back-radiation from the atmosphere that is supposed to be heating the surface is imaginary. The atmosphere cools with elevation and so heat cannot pass from a cooler body to a warmer body, with the result that the window of radiation is opening wider with altitude.
What part of that is so hard to understand?
Appealing to innumerable scientific papers that ignore such simple realities does nothing to add scientific weight to the argument in favour of the anthropogenic component of the latest warming episode.
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Science of Doom:
First: I really like your website — it does a great job of presenting much information that is hard to accumulate otherwise.
But: Your statement: “The fact that convection is the dominant form of heat transfer in the lower atmosphere doesn’t falsify the theory of radiative transfer.” This has nothing to do with my point.
1) Of course, it doesn’t falsify it — the theory of radiative transfer says nothing about convection, and the fact of convection says nothing relevant to the theory of radiative transfer. The interesting question is: What is the importance of these two mechanisms to the heat balance and subsequent temperature of the Earth?
2) When you say “convection is the dominant form of heat transfer in the lower atmosphere”, you are presumably talking about the Troposphere. I was specifically talking about thunderstorms, which often (in Kansas and Florida, for example, where they have been extensively studied) drive large amounts of warm, moist air to altitudes in excess of 100,000 ft — well above the Troposphere into the Stratosphere where convection is normally inhibited by the temperature profile. At this altitude, the remaining atmosphere is essentially transparent to infrared and large amounts of heat are radiated into space (according to radiative transfer theory, of course).
There is sufficient evidence that thunderstorms, once started, are self-sustaining for a period, and end up dumping significantly more heat to space than was needed to get them started. They act as a significant negative feedback to input energy increases — more than a feedback, actually they act as a governor, removing more heat than was input.
My point was, that you cannot decide what the temperature consequences of doubling CO2 concentration is if you don’t know what the effect the increase of temperature has on thunderstorm activity. The calculation of what the effect of doubling CO2 is, due to radiative transfer, “if all else remains equal” is an academic exercise, not likely to relate to what will be observed on the actual Earth.
As to the electrical energy dumped to space by thunderstorms (“sprites” and “blue jets”) — we hardly have a clue about that yet, except to note that the development of highly sensitive commercial video cameras and their use by pilots has finally ended the 50 year denial of such events by atmospheric scientists.
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I have been reading with interest about the original experiments by Tyndall : —
as made available at http://tyndall1861.geologist-1011.mobi/
It is wonderfully instructive to read about these painstaking and carefully documented experiments in which the radiative properties of various gases and mixtures of gasses were studied. One thing, in particular, that is noteworthy is that Tyndall used equipment that separated the source of radiation, by a vacuum, from the tube containing the gases being tested, before passing the radiation through the gas. The small size and shape of the tube meant that convection could also be ignored, confining his results therefore entirely to the absorption/transmission of the radiation by the gas mixture under test.
So, by corollary, for the radiative values he derived to be applied to the earth’s atmosphere, one would need to separate the atmosphere from the surface of the earth by a vacuum of similar extent in order that conduction be suppressed and the energy derived from the sun’s radiation should be, in its entirety, radiated from the earth’s surface. At the same time it would be necessary to prevent convection from transporting any heat that might be generated in the atmosphere through the absorption of such radiation.
Since no such vacuum exists, the values of the radiative-absorption properties of the mixture of gasses in the earth’s atmosphere, as derived by Tyndall, are of little value, on their own, in describing the process whereby the earth and its atmosphere come into radiative balance with incoming solar radiation. Nor are they in any way useful in deriving a surface temperature, based on such properties without regard to either conduction at the surface or convection throughout the troposphere.
This has to be the most fundamental error in the logic of the CAGW hypothesis. It cannot be remedied by any amount of money invested into computer models,based as they are on such an erroneous application of Tyndall’s work.
That the CAGW believers do make this catastrophic mistake can be readily seen by looking at the way they communicate this supposed effect to the wider community. As an example, look at this site which claims to explain the ‘Greenhouse effect’
The Greenhouse Effect Explained
On the linked page they show a diagram of the ‘greenhouse effect’ with the atmosphere shown as a simple expanse of still air!
Notice how conduction and convection are entirely omitted from this ‘explanation’, although they are admittedly the predominant means by which surface heat is conveyed to the stratosphere, and the ‘back-radiation’ from high, cold clouds is illustrated as warming the surface. This could only hold true in the situation where there is no convection taking place – which never exists contemporaneously with the sun’s rays shining on the surface as depicted. This whole diagram is therefore a total nonsense, yet it, and others similar, are regularly posted by supposedly scientific bodies.
Once having admitted the absence of a vacuum between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere, and the presence thereby of conduction at the surface, and convection of warmed air from the surface to the stratosphere, the entire argument about the radiative properties of air cease to have any relevance to surface temperatures.
Shouldn’t someone have applied a little common sense before spending billions of dollars on research to solve this non-problem?
Paul
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Mark,
Point well made. Forgive revisiting this. But after thinking about what you said, I still can’t escape the conclusion that Tesla’s work is virtually impossible to explain unless he was ignoring the math that would have told him he could never succeed at wireless power transmission. The surface area of a sphere as a function of its radius was well known, 4(pi)r^2. If it had not already been there for him to see, he could have easily figured it out himself. The rest follows just as easily. Perhaps some other word is a better description but I don’t know what that word is. How could such a brilliant man not sit down with pencil and paper and simply work out the behavior of what he proposed to do? He launched off into experimentation without a thought given to basic physics. He tried ever larger experiments, all a failure.
In Los Angeles’ Griffith Park there is an observatory and they have a big Tesla Coil on display. They demonstrate it hourly. By my estimate it throws an arc about 4 feet (~1.3 meter) long. It’s for this spectacular but utterly useless device that Tesla is known to the public. Only people like us who bother to be interested in such things know he invented the induction motor. I’d call that one of the most important devices ever conceived. How many do you have in your home? I have 17 in regular constant use. It ought to be called the Tesla Motor.
His impact on modern life is huge. Remembering him for his fireworks is as big a shame as it would be to remember Edison for his failed attempt at a direct current power distribution system.
10
Paul,
On second reading I realized the impact of this statement that I overlooked the first time.
I’ve never seen anyone mention the IR from the sun that does the real heating of the planet. But of course, to the alarmist the atmosphere can tell from which direction it’s receiving radiation. Right?… …No! Oh, bad mistake then, huh!
Do you have a source for the 45% figure?
Roy
10
Roy #212.
Your point well made too, Roy.
It wouldn’t be the first time (and won’t be the last) that a great mind came undone by overlooking something very basic.
10
Roy Hogue@213
Unfortunately I don’t recollect where I read about the spread of solar radiation and the figure of 45% for infra-red. A quick Google search, however, brought up lots of places where the information is recognised – it is mainstream information. Typically of the CAGW propaganda, though, it is never ever mentioned, forcing everything to be explained by atmospheric CO2 and thereby implicating anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 as the driver of ‘Global Warming’.
I think that I read about it in one of the PDF files I have downloaded so can’t do a quick search on that.
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, as the old saying goes, and the first link I checked from the above search led me to : —
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/09/climate-scientist-skeptical-science.html where one of the comments gives the relative abundance of radiation as : —
Infrared 45%
Visible 44%
Ultraviolet 11%
The comment was posted by Charles R Anderson, who, if I remember rightly is the author of a paper that I quoted earlier. I have a lot of reading to do!
Paul
10
Paul,
Thanks for the link. I wanted to have something on the subject that can be authoritiative. I find Anderson’s argument to be interesting as well.
Roy
10
In The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
it is clearly shown that, once heated, whether by conduction, convection or by absorbed radiation, all gasses emit infrared radiation. The inference is drawn that, accordingly, the 99% of gasses that are ignored by the CAGW theory would, if the theory were true, also be warming the surface of the earth. Not only so, but it therefore follows, as the day the night, that all atmospheric gasses are capable of radiating infrared radiation into space, thus cooling the earth.
Now wouldn’t it make it a lot harder to convince someone that a slight increase in one trace atmospheric gas is the cause of all recent global warming if they knew that? Perhaps that is why this property of all gasses is glossed over without the slightest mention in any ‘official’ accounts of the ‘Global Warming’ problem.
And maybe, just maybe, this one simple fact is why they cannot find, in the real atmosphere, the ‘hot spot’ which all models predict as increased levels of CO2 ‘traps heat and warms the lower atmosphere’.
Also, maybe, just maybe, it was nothing more than coincidental that atmospheric carbon dioxide was rising at the same time as temperatures were rising as we came out of the last Little Ice Age. Perhaps this is also why the global temperatures have stabilised and begun to diminish even while the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide continue to increase in a steady progression.
Paul
10