From NewKerala.com, via the Thin Green Line:
According to Prof McGuire, in Taiwan the lower air pressure created by typhoons was enough to “unload” the crust by a small amount and trigger earthquakes, reports the Scotsman.
Uh, right. We don’t know what triggers earthquakes in general, so we certainly don’t know the affect of atmospheric conditions on earthquakes. This is outrageous speculation from an all night session at the pub, breathlessly reported as actual news.
Let’s do a thought experiment. A strong typhoon might drop local atmospheric pressure by 0.2atm. The pressure at the bottom of the ocean averages 200-600atm, and under a few miles of rock is even higher. I would challenge someone with measurement instruments on a fault to even detect such an atmospheric change. Even on surface faults, we are talking about gigatons of force held in check by friction — this is roughly the equivalent of a feather landing on the Empire State Building and collapsing it.
I sometimes wonder if we will see a future SAT question whose answer is “climate studies are to science as alchemy is to chemistry”.
Excellent work hunter, what reality is this? you are diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
I shall endeavor to make myself more precise: Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) at the time of IPCC4 were the warmest, in terms of average global surface temperature (measured easily and accurately for 150 years by non corrupt scientifically trained organisations). This temperature increase is widespread, global, and, as has been predicted by climate models is greater at higher latitudes, and almost twice the global average in the Arctic. This warming, initially unobserved, has now been observed in the upper and mid tropospheres (the initial satellite data has been corrected for diurnal effects and orbital variations, if you know what that means), and as has been predicted, is also accompanied by a cooling in the lower stratosphere.
This is said with highest confidence, meaning there is virtual consensus amongst the studies done – therefore the data is as conclusive as can be without being 100% certain. All the current laws of physics are not certain, but we used them to get men on the moon.
You have merely looked at another skeptic website and copied someone else’s crap without bothering to check yourself because you are a lazy ignoramus. Once again – HAVE A LOOK AT THE LITERATURE, if you are capable of higher brain function, you will now go and look at the literature. Maybe do a search for some key papers from the scientific community. But i know you will not.
In fact i challenge any skeptic on this site to now go and do your own research on temperature studies, with a broad spectrum of peer-assessed reviews. ‘Science blogs’ count for nothing. Then if you feel the need to comment, please do.
And i am a climate scientist, my training is in environmental geosciences, with honors in climate science, applied environmental geochemistry and global environmental change. My specific fields include Permo-triassic extinction from global warming and ocean acidification, hydrogeological modelling and anthropogenic climate science. This from one of the leading universities in climate and geology in the world – i.e. taught by the world leaders. What credentials do you have?
Now my reasoning behind continuing to post here is to perhaps INFORM the uninformed and reverse the misinformed about the science. Not to argue with you, a blatant idiot.
NEILC,
Clearly you are sseeking full troll status in a hurry, so rather than slow you down, I will just hit a few points in your ridiculous spew.
Your assertion about land temperature accuracy is hotly disputed by climate scientists and statisticians who review them.
Gosh NEILC, I am wondering if the collegiate and respectful parts of scinece were also areas that you slept through?
My credentials are that I read carefully decline to fall for bogus crap written by the likes of you. Unlike AGW true believers, skeptics do not simply believe womething because neverwuzzers like you say it must be so.
In ~150 years of record keeping all the AGW fear mongers have to show is ~1o of warming which is historically nothing out of the ordinary.
And the IPCC/GCM failure at precepitation predictions, storm predictions, etc. are there in the stats.
Since CRUgate and multiple sources confirms that the people you support are/were engaged in distorting peer review, you can keep harping on peer review all you want- and you will look no brighter.
All you are demonstrating for people with your posting here is that you are a derivative thinker who is practices true believer syndrome rather well.
Ah so you have no prior training at all, so you can easily differentiate between crap is non-crap. Please answer me this, have you read any scientific papers or publications? Have you?
Several points,
CRUgate: i knew you would bring it up, it is an obvious choice to cling to as proof of some sort of corruption within the system. The global temperature series tallies with those of almost every other, completely independent, groups of scientists working around the globe. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them. Once again you pick up only on scraps to back yourself.
GCM’s have difficulty at simulating precipitation, storms, etc, and by no means are they perfect. The main reason being the complex teleconnections that exist between land ocean and atmophere, see Bjerkness feedbacks and the role of Pacific Oscillators in the ENSO system. This illustrates my point well. Good references to read are those of McReary, Tudhope, Wang, Jin, Cane and Zebiak.
Climate models, need to be simplified versions of real climate and i expect they will never be able to fully simulate every aspect of climate perfectly.
But the simulations speak for themselves even if they are simplified. The modest warming at the moment will have little effect on climate, but climate feedbacks will amplify it. Now, you are thinking, ‘but these feedbacks are unproven!’. So why then, in past reconstructions, when models were combined with all the feedbacks that we understand well enough (and those we do not are positive feedbacks anyway), were past events modelled so accurately?
For example, the glacial cycles depend on climate feedbacks in order to switch between glacial and interglacial. Solar cycles (Milankovitch) do not present a big enough forcing to switch between climate regimes, it is the presence of feedbacks that shift the earth from one to the other.
These were modelled very accurately by coupled ocean-atmosphere models. In other words, we predicted the past with feedbacks, so logic dictates that future predictions will as well. There is no logic in assuming that models worked with feedbacks from the past, but they will not in the future.
It defies belief that you diminish the credibility of peer review, which is without doubt the foundation of scientific advance.
Neil,
Roger Pielke posted climate projections of all of the IPCC ARs, and in every case they overstated by at least .4 deg C/decade the amount of warming the globe would undergo. He began with the 1992 AR and ended with the 2002. So, I’m not sure where you are getting your verification information from. Yes, after the fact the climate models are adjusted to get them in line with current conditions. But never have the models had to be adjusted upwards -it’s always downwards. NOAA has the same problem with thier seasonal and annual climate projections. Never has NOAA had to adjust thier temps upward.
And, as far as modeling past climates -if those models cannot even capture decadal trends, how accurate are they? There are a thousand ways one can model past climate regimes and still “be wrong”. The future is the only thing that counts. If our climate modelers were areospace engineers, I would certainly not wish to fly in thier aircraft.
NEILC,
Yes, I have read and do read the papers.
Yes, I knew you would dismiss CRUgate as nothing here move along. which is the typical response for someone engaging in true believer syndrome.
GCM’s are not perfect, but we need to radically change our economies and lifestyles based on what those made those imperfect models demand.
Yeah, you want me to pull the other finger?
Yes, of course the fantasy that we have strong feedbacks is transubstantiation of AGW true belief. Or should it be renamed the immaculate feedback?
It is beyong belief that you call the bogus crap climate scientists engage in ‘peer review’. It is an insult to real science and peer review.
No what is the foundation of science, like all human endeavor, is something lacking in climate science: integrity. By skippig the integrity part, climate science has made peer review and every other aspect of what they are peddling a sham.
And by the way, it is clear you have nothing to offer except trolling.
Troll on, wannabe.
“GCM’s have difficulty at simulating precipitation, storms, etc, and by no means are they perfect. The main reason being the complex teleconnections that exist between land ocean and atmophere, see Bjerkness feedbacks and the role of Pacific Oscillators in the ENSO system.”
Actually the modelers got cloud cover 180 degrees backwards -especially tropical cloud cover. If climate models cannot model ENSO with any degree of precision then they are worthless.
JP,
that is exactly my point about trying to model weather and complex climate systems – ENSO modelling is really poor quality, and probably worthless at this time. But the models i am referring to run on a global scale and miss out this sort of complexity. This is of small consequence – the effect of leaving out systems such as ENSO will be minimal on projections of average global temperatures. Sure it will never be able to model interannual or interdecadal variability, but that is not the sort of resolution being attempted, nor is needed.
And i cant see how every projection by the IPCC was over the expected warming by .4 degrees, since every report includes a number of projections, based on economic progress and emissions etc, providing a range of projected warmings, not a single warming trend per report. But in any case, there will always be uncertainties, probably large ones, but the general trends from most model runs are the same, and even the IPCC most modest projections spell no good under the business as usual regime. Even warming of 2 degrees will displace millions of people around the globe alone – maybe that is worth avoiding.
Hunter, i can only laugh at your response. You do your side of the debate no justice because you have no place in a scientific debate. You dont even know the difference between a GCM (global circulation model) and a coupled model which is what my last post referred to.
Neil,
But you’re forgetting errors compound over time. So you can’t accurately predict interdecadal variability, you have little hope at predicting decadal variability either. The basic idea is that while your error in year 1 might be +/- .5 degrees (just made up here for example), and you can’t predict a warming that grows outside of that error until 20 year later, but by year 20 your error has increased to +/- 2 degrees, which now obscures any predicted temp increase. This is the ultimate hack job of every IPCC predicted warming, they don’t show you the error. Or if they do, they pretend that the error in predicting 2020’s global average temp is the same as the error in predicting 2100’s global average temp. It should be pretty intuitive that those errors will not be the same in a system as poorly understood as global climate. Maybe if we were talking about the position of the Earth relative to the sun, but not in this case, not even close.
Agreed, climate forecasts will become less accurate the further they project.
However, climate models in the newest IPCC do include errors:
“Advances in climate change modelling now enable best estimates and likely assessed uncertainty ranges to be given for projected warming for different emission scenarios. Results for different emission scenarios are provided explicitly in this report to avoid loss of this policy-relevant information”
Taken from http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html
Which is moot if the whole model’s fundamentally flawed anyway. Which appears the case.
Neil,
But what exactly is a “likely” range? I don’t see anything pinned down to a strict confidence level. I realize these things are written for politicians (which is problem number one), but how hard is it to understand a confidence level? “Likely” just doesn’t mean anything. I could tell you its “likely” you die on your way home from work today, or are killed by a bee, or will likely see the sun set in the west. It just has ZERO meaning.
And ADiff is exactly right. Just because a model predicts some amount of warming and estimates a certain error, that model maybe full of crap. And without knowing more of the physics of our climate, we “likely” have a bunch of crappy models. One way to test this is drag out the time period they run for thousands of years. Do they ever predict cooling? Is it constant run away warming? If the models can’t predict any cooling forces that would take place over thousands of years, do they appropriately, or even at all, consider those forces acting now, or in the near future? I mean, people still debate the cause of the little ice age. And if we don’t understand the forces that caused that, how can we expect to predict future climate? Further, even if we understand some of those forces, we don’t understand what controls the timing of those forces.
Without knowing these things, can we even make a model, much less trust one to a certain degree of “likelihood?”
Well its been established that the physical basis for the models is sound, but the climates response in the future in terms of feedback strengths of course is not certain. Nobody is arguing that there are not uncertainties, but the common them here is to use these to minimise and play down potential change. It must be remembered that it can swing both ways: if someone told you there was between 5-70% chance of death if you walked through a doorway would you automatically assume a 5% chance? How lucky do you feel?
The terms ‘likely’ ‘very likely’ etc are set out by the IPCC at the start of the report, with confidence limits, if i remember correctly very likely was a greater than 90% probability. So it does has statistical meaning.
You really should investigate before commenting that the models are based on a load of crap. Many areas of climate are very well understood, and the models have been able to predict and reconstruct many aspects of past climate using the same understandings of what is happening at the moment. The little ice age was caused by natural forcings, this is not debated, and what do you mean by the ‘timing of those forcings’. Climate forcings are very well understood, do you in fact mean climate responses to forcings? these are still largely understood. There are exceptions such as the response of clouds to warming, but will this response be dwarfed by other climate feedbacks? ‘very likely’
Neil,
“Well its been established that the physical basis for the models is sound, but the climates response in the future in terms of feedback strengths of course is not certain.”
Please, isn’t the feed back response part of this supposedly well established physical basis? If you knew the physical basis, you’d know the feed backs.
“It must be remembered that it can swing both ways: if someone told you there was between 5-70% chance of death if you walked through a doorway would you automatically assume a 5% chance? How lucky do you feel?”
Is this your way of responding to the question of just what they mean by “likely?” Of course error swings both ways, but if the error is so large as to engulf any trend did you actually learn anything? If I told you it was going to raise 2 degrees +/- 10 degrees by the year 2200, how much information did I just give you?
To me the most damning aspect isn’t within the models themselves (as serious as the divergence between predictions and observations are, going both forward and backward). It’s the associated “impacts” predicted that are not occurring, and in fact show no particular sign of incipient occurrence that’s at all observable. For example, sea level increases are static across periods of significant CO2 level changes, and are not observably accelerating. None of changes in incidences of drought or extreme weather events (hurricanes, tornadoes, & etc) are observable. All of these are dramatically stable. Irregardless the accuracy of the temperature predictive models (which looks rather poor), if there’s no real concomitant negative impacts of substantial magnitude, what’s the point? All the fuss and bother’s a waste of energy. Even worse, it makes all the attention an utter and tragic waste of attention and resources, at a time when circumstances dictate serious attention to many clearly legitimate and well demonstrated environmental issues which worsen, perhaps irretrievably, due to the completely unjustified and uncalled for myopia on the apocalyptic visions of catastrophic ‘global warming’. It seems to me more likely than anything else that the so-called ‘environmental community’ is writing its very own grandiose chapter based on Tuchman’s “The March of Folly”, in its blindered commitment to a belief,
Neil,
“Many areas of climate are very well understood, and the models have been able to predict and reconstruct many aspects of past climate using the same understandings of what is happening at the moment.”
Predicting past events is usually a waste of time in modeling. All you need to do is create a set of equation that you believe describe the mechanism at work and then use those equations with the data to create a fit. Its a circle jerk. You have to use past data to create a model, there is just no way around that in a field that can’t experiment. So, you then want to say they can reconstruct past climate with these models. Well no shit. One way or another they used past climate to make the model in the first place. The trick is predicting the future, or what would be better, the outcome of a controlled experiment. But climate science doesn’t have those.
>Climate forcings are very well understood, do you in fact mean climate responses to forcings? these are still largely understood. There are exceptions such as the response of clouds to warming, but will this response be dwarfed by other climate feedbacks? ‘very likely’<
I again call BS. If you don't know how something responds to a given stimulus, you can't know how it will respond compared to other things you might understand. You can't even guess at some probability. As for knowing other forcings, that's another pill of BS. Do you know long range sun cycles (not talking about the roughly decade long cycles here, but ~100-1000 year variations)? No. Do you know of any mechanisms controlling volcanic activity? No. Do you know about our solar system's movement into or out of dirty or clean areas in our galaxy? No. Do you know how warming might change ocean current flows? No.
These models, as complex as they are, are not even close to accurately describing the system.
Wally: “These models, as complex as they are, are not even close to accurately describing the system.”
Neil: “You really should investigate before commenting that the models are based on a load of crap.”
I’m wondering, Wally and ADiff, if you could provide some specific examples of where the climate models have failed? I’m seeing a number of generalities in your comments. Let’s see what you are talking about and where your information comes from. I would be interested in what Neil has to say about your sources.
National Climatic Data Center, 2008, Drought in Northern Hemisphere 1900-2008, trends contradicting predictions of AGW (IPCC)
IPCC 2007, trend of Methane concentration 1983-2006, contrary to predictions of AGW (in fact, of IPCC itself!)
Douglass et al 2007, IGRA,HADAT2, RATPAC, RAOBCORE observed temperatures widely diverge from model predictions
NASA 25 Sept 2007 Press release on Greenland ice melt – observations clearly diverge from predictions
IPCC 2007 vs Observed temperatures, “Climate of Extremes” p 115, clear variation from AGW predictions (yup, all of them!)
Knutsen & Tuleya,, 2004 Sea Surface Temperatures and Hurricane Intensity, trends are opposite of predictions of catastrophic AGW
Unisys Weather, 2008, Number of Tropical Storms and Hurricanes 1930-2007, number shows no such trend as those predicted by catastrophic AGW
Woppelmann et al, 2007, measurements of sea level 70% below AGW predictions
McKitrick & Michaels, 2007 decadal temp. trends, clearly divergent from predcictions.
NY Times, 16 Jan. 2007, divergence of purported ‘evidence’ of warming, re: Greenland melting, vs historic observations.
IPCC 2001 extrapolated trend in temp. vs observed temps since (IPCC Mann, IPCC 2007)
Arctic Climate Assessment 2004, http://www.acia.uaf.edu
Climate of Extremes, p 122, Arctic Sea Ice extents from Johannessen, et al.
Alaska Climate Research Center, U of Alaska, – no significant warming on balance since 1977.
Journal of Climate, Hartmann & Wendler, 2005, No significant cooling trend on balance since 1977.
Velicogna & Wahr, 2006, no net Antarctic ice loss continent wide, contrary to AGW predictions
Cryosphere Today 2007, arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu – Southern sea ice anomaly, shows ice extent growing – contra to AGW predictions
Masiokas et al. 2006, Ice pack stability in Andes, no melt as predicted by AGW
Matulla, et al 2007, Daily Wind Strength Europe – No increased variations as predicted by AGW
Barring & Von Storch, 2004, Barometric variations contrary to AGW predicted behavior
1948-2006 Annual & Extreme Precipitation, National Climatic Data Center, trends contradict AGW predictions
National Climatic Data Center 2007, U.S. Precipitation by season 1948-2006, trend shows no significant change, contrary to AGW predictions
And I could go on and on and on….
But just pick up a copy of “Climate of Extremes” by Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling, Jr. which references example after example from many highly reputable sources clearly contradicting the apocalyptic predictions of catastrophic AGW of droughts, floods extreme weather and other trends not observed to actually be occurring at all…it;s well referenced and cited.
Badn:
“Take a look at the scientific consensus mabe: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), The American Chemical Society (ACS), The American Geophysical Union (AGU), The American Meteorological Society (AMS),The Geological Society of America (GSA), G8 science academies, the Oregon Petition, NASA, The UK MET Office.”
Thanks for the perfect illustration of how groupthink produces a false consensus. How many climate scientists in the ACS or the GSA? My best guess is none. Chemists and geologists aren’t climate scientists. Perhaps 1% of the AAAS and the G8 science academies might be climate scientists. So why did these organizations say anything on a subject of which they know little to nothing? Because they were told that conservative creationists are opposing science, and they rushed out to defend their fellow scientists, without first taking a good look at the alleged “science”.
As for the rest: corrupting the peer review process (CRU in the UK), hiding data (NASA and CRU), and writing sloppy reports to the satisfaction of corrupt UN politicians (IPCC) are not science.
NEILC,
You don’t get it.
Use all of the models you want. They are all crap.
The confidence levels never rise to scientific confidence.
The most important thing for you and other true believers to realize is that your pile of alleged stats and self-fulfilling models do not make your conclusion that we are facing a climate catastrophe any less wrong.
The science behind AGW is not relevant to the social movement that AGW is.
You have glommed on to modern popular delusion and are not yet ready to let go.
End of the world stories are fun and make good novels and movies and religions, but there was no world wide flood, and there will be no worldwide CO2 caused catastrophe, either.
I do like how you avoid anything of substance and, troll that you are, just repeat yourself endlessly.
Waldingo,
Nice of you to stop by, take a quote from my message, and make an argument from that quote that is directly contradicted by other parts of my message. You say I gave only generalities, yet I listed several factors that are not understood and thus can’t be taken account for in models. Wasn’t it you that was saying I was cherry-picking? Well look in the mirror, hypocrite.
Oh and looky there, ADiff seems to have plenty of specifics for you besides.
Anything else your trollness would like to bring up?
ADiff,
some of these references are fine, it is good to see you have done some research but most of these references refer to poorly modelled weather, which, as we have already discussed is difficult to do, but frankly it is not relevant that such complex dynamics have not been modelled well. The eventual effect of warming on precipitation etc can only be a result of warming, therefore the focus should be on modelling the warming trend before trying to simulate trends in precipitation and storms etc.
I personally would not bother using with any confidence the modelled weather patterns. But again the point of modelling, in terms of climate change is to simulate global trends such as average temperature – on a large scale. It is well known that warmer climate will make more storms in some regions, this is a simple matter of physics, but the real uncertainty with modelling weather is on how warm the climate will get. Recently, a UK modelling centre published precipitation data on a 5km scale, this i believe, and many other climate centers believe goes too far. Greenland ice pack dynamics are not fully understood, that is why they have been left out of IPCC predictions, and antarctic ice pack has been discussed earlier in the thread.
Wally:
“Do you know long range sun cycles (not talking about the roughly decade long cycles here, but ~100-1000 year variations)? No. Do you know of any mechanisms controlling volcanic activity? No. Do you know about our solar system’s movement into or out of dirty or clean areas in our galaxy? No. Do you know how warming might change ocean current flows?”
Sun cycles really do occur on several timescales, but not on 100-1000 years.The 11/22 years solar spot cycles and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles including the 41ky, 23ky and 100ky cycles are very well understood and their respective forcings known to a very high accuracy. So, yes!
Mechanisms of volcanic activity are very well understood, we know exactly why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity. Predicting exactly when eruptions occur is a different story, but not needed in a climate model. So, yes!
Jesus you are not seriously talking about the solar system moving through ‘dirty or clean’ galaxy.
We know quite well how warming might affect ocean circulation, see heinrich events, or look through some glacial stratification papers, or how in the past warming has been seen to decrease pole-equator heat gradients and, by using proxy data have been shown to reduce upwelling etc. Exactly how much warming will be required to affect circulation is not fully known, but one thing is for sure is certainly will not strengthen global circulation, therefore the global ocean sink of carbon will not strengthen but can only either stay constant or decrease.
Hunter: nobody wants to read your tabloid crap, you weigh in with nothing and would fit in at Fox News.
Neil,
So you’ve resorted to lies?
“Sun cycles really do occur on several timescales, but not on 100-1000 years.The 11/22 years solar spot cycles and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles including the 41ky, 23ky and 100ky cycles are very well understood and their respective forcings known to a very high accuracy.”
No cycles of 100-1000 years uh, just this 11/22 year and things in the 23-100ky range? How in the hell could oscillations with those kinds of periods be fit to explain a graph such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg?
“Mechanisms of volcanic activity are very well understood, we know exactly why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity. Predicting exactly when eruptions occur is a different story, but not needed in a climate model.”
That’s complete BS. There are theories as to what kind of predictable cycles controlling the timing of eruptions, but nothing that is very certain and when modeling climate on the scale of 10-100 years, you do need to know when they happen. You can’t just brush this off. If you knew “EXACTLY why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity” you also be able to predict “EXACTLY when eruptions occur.” Your logic is crap, for lack of nicer word, and you of course can’t/won’t actually support any of these bold statements. Such blatant disregard for backing up your opinion and even twisting to the truth to the extent of creating a lie, such as above, is just proof of an irrational bias toward your particular opinion on this matter.
“Jesus you are not seriously talking about the solar system moving through ‘dirty or clean’ galaxy.”
Yes, I am. Parts of our galaxy is known to have higher concentrations of dust in the spiral arms (that’s the whole reason you can see them against things that aren’t the spiral arms). So as we move in and out of the spiral arms the amount of energy coming to the planet from the sun obviously changes with it. Maybe you should educate yourself before brushing off such matters with these pathetic appeals to ridicule. Honestly, it would take about a 5 second google search to check and see if what I’m saying is actually backed up, but no, you make this lazy appeal to ridicule hoping it goes away. Just another sign of an irrational attachment to your side of the debate.
http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/news/expandnews.cfm?id=9252
http://www.nature.com/news/1998/030707/full/news030707-1.html
“Exactly how much warming will be required to affect circulation is not fully known, but one thing is for sure is certainly will not strengthen global circulation, therefore the global ocean sink of carbon will not strengthen but can only either stay constant or decrease.”
You pretend a decrease in ocean currents will increase warming by less carbon sink? What of the effects of a loss of heat transfer meaning expanding ice sheets, increased albedo, and how these things will effect the climate in combination? This is in deed one of the theories as to what caused the little ice age, and some folks might argue the current warming period could cause this to happen again. Ah how the feedbacks matter uh? Which factors will win out? The positive or negative….does anyone actually know, or are they just basically guessing while they set the parameters in their models so as to achieve a particular desired outcome?
As Waldo would likely point out, if only he did have an irrational bias, you are cherry-pick here sir. You talk only of CO2 sink, forget heat transfer effects, and at the same time wish to come of as the one in the debate with superior knowledge of matter. Sorry, this is yet another sign that you have an irrational bias toward supporting this particular side of the debate.
So after all four of your defenses, you’ve really only provided evidence towards one thing, you’ll support your opinion through lies, appeals to ridicule, and unsupported claims of fact. This leads to the nature question of why. Why do you behave in such an irrational manner yet attempt to pretend you’re so educated on the subject?
Volcanic Activity increases in frequency when the Sun goes into very low activity mode. Like the last few years.
Seismic Activity increases as a Delta in Solar Activity undergoes a marked shift. Makes little difference which way the metal is bent: when it is stressed enough, it breaks. There’s plenty of brittle/faulted crust out there just waiting for the final ‘bend’ in solar activity increase/decrease.
This makes a chaotic up & down roller-coaster Solar Cycle 24 ride a dangerous one.
And you were worried about the Climate?
Bateman, you have been misinformed somehow, none of these things are true in the slightest.
Neil,
So you’ve resorted to lies?
“Sun cycles really do occur on several timescales, but not on 100-1000 years.The 11/22 years solar spot cycles and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles including the 41ky, 23ky and 100ky cycles are very well understood and their respective forcings known to a very high accuracy.”
No cycles of 100-1000 years uh, just this 11/22 year and things in the 23-100ky range? How in the hell could oscillations with those kinds of periods be fit to explain a graph such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg?
“Mechanisms of volcanic activity are very well understood, we know exactly why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity. Predicting exactly when eruptions occur is a different story, but not needed in a climate model.”
That’s complete BS. There are theories as to what kind of predictable cycles controlling the timing of eruptions, but nothing that is very certain and when modeling climate on the scale of 10-100 years, you do need to know when they happen. You can’t just brush this off. If you knew “EXACTLY why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity” you also be able to predict “EXACTLY when eruptions occur.” Your logic is crap, for lack of nicer word, and you of course can’t/won’t actually support any of these bold statements. Such blatant disregard for backing up your opinion and even twisting to the truth to the extent of creating a lie, such as above, is just proof of an irrational bias toward your particular opinion on this matter.
“Jesus you are not seriously talking about the solar system moving through ‘dirty or clean’ galaxy.”
Yes, I am. Parts of our galaxy is known to have higher concentrations of dust in the spiral arms (that’s the whole reason you can see them against things that aren’t the spiral arms). So as we move in and out of the spiral arms the amount of energy coming to the planet from the sun obviously changes with it. Maybe you should educate yourself before brushing off such matters with these pathetic appeals to ridicule. Honestly, it would take about a 5 second google search to check and see if what I’m saying is actually backed up, but no, you make this lazy appeal to ridicule hoping it goes away. Just another sign of an irrational attachment to your side of the debate.
http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/news/expandnews.cfm?id=9252
http://www.nature.com/news/1998/030707/full/news030707-1.html
“Exactly how much warming will be required to affect circulation is not fully known, but one thing is for sure is certainly will not strengthen global circulation, therefore the global ocean sink of carbon will not strengthen but can only either stay constant or decrease.”
You pretend a decrease in ocean currents will increase warming by less carbon sink? What of the effects of a loss of heat transfer meaning expanding ice sheets, increased albedo, and how these things will effect the climate in combination? This is in deed one of the theories as to what caused the little ice age, and some folks might argue the current warming period could cause this to happen again. Ah how the feedbacks matter uh? Which factors will win out? The positive or negative….does anyone actually know, or are they just basically guessing while they set the parameters in their models so as to achieve a particular desired outcome?
As Waldo would likely point out, if only he did have an irrational bias, you are cherry-pick here sir. You talk only of CO2 sink, forget heat transfer effects, and at the same time wish to come of as the one in the debate with superior knowledge of matter. Sorry, this is yet another sign that you have an irrational bias toward supporting this particular side of the debate.
So after all four of your defenses, you’ve really only provided evidence towards one thing, you’ll support your opinion through lies, appeals to ridicule, and unsupported claims of fact. This leads to the nature question of why. Why do you behave in such an irrational manner yet attempt to pretend you’re so educated on the subject?
And now you further tell rbateman he’s wrong, but you again don’t say how/why, or even give a link.
Neil,
“Sun cycles really do occur on several timescales, but not on 100-1000 years.The 11/22 years solar spot cycles and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles including the 41ky, 23ky and 100ky cycles are very well understood and their respective forcings known to a very high accuracy.”
No cycles of 100-1000 years uh, just this 11/22 year and things in the 23-100ky range? How in the hell could oscillations with those kinds of periods be fit to explain a graph such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg?
“Mechanisms of volcanic activity are very well understood, we know exactly why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity. Predicting exactly when eruptions occur is a different story, but not needed in a climate model.”
That’s complete BS. There are theories as to what kind of predictable cycles controlling the timing of eruptions, but nothing that is very certain and when modeling climate on the scale of 10-100 years, you do need to know when they happen. You can’t just brush this off. If you knew “EXACTLY why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity” you also be able to predict “EXACTLY when eruptions occur.” Your logic is crap, for lack of nicer word, and you of course can’t/won’t actually support any of these bold statements. Such blatant disregard for backing up your opinion and even twisting to the truth to the extent of creating a lie, such as above, is just proof of an irrational bias toward your particular opinion on this matter.
“Jesus you are not seriously talking about the solar system moving through ‘dirty or clean’ galaxy.”
Yes, I am. Parts of our galaxy is known to have higher concentrations of dust in the spiral arms (that’s the whole reason you can see them against things that aren’t the spiral arms). So as we move in and out of the spiral arms the amount of energy coming to the planet from the sun obviously changes with it. Maybe you should educate yourself before brushing off such matters with these pathetic appeals to ridicule. Honestly, it would take about a 5 second google search to check and see if what I’m saying is actually backed up, but no, you make this lazy appeal to ridicule hoping it goes away. Just another sign of an irrational attachment to your side of the debate.
http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/news/expandnews.cfm?id=9252
http://www.nature.com/news/1998/030707/full/news030707-1.html
“Exactly how much warming will be required to affect circulation is not fully known, but one thing is for sure is certainly will not strengthen global circulation, therefore the global ocean sink of carbon will not strengthen but can only either stay constant or decrease.”
You pretend a decrease in ocean currents will increase warming by less carbon sink? What of the effects of a loss of heat transfer meaning expanding ice sheets, increased albedo, and how these things will effect the climate in combination? This is in deed one of the theories as to what caused the little ice age, and some folks might argue the current warming period could cause this to happen again. Ah how the feedbacks matter uh? Which factors will win out? The positive or negative….does anyone actually know, or are they just basically guessing while they set the parameters in their models so as to achieve a particular desired outcome?
As Waldo would likely point out, if only he did have an irrational bias, you are cherry-pick here sir. You talk only of CO2 sink, forget heat transfer effects, and at the same time wish to come of as the one in the debate with superior knowledge of matter. Sorry, this is yet another sign that you have an irrational bias toward supporting this particular side of the debate.
So after all four of your defenses, you’ve really only provided evidence towards one thing, you’ll support your opinion through lies, appeals to ridicule, and unsupported claims of fact. This leads to the nature question of why. Why do you behave in such an irrational manner yet attempt to pretend you’re so educated on the subject?
“Sun cycles really do occur on several timescales, but not on 100-1000 years.The 11/22 years solar spot cycles and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles including the 41ky, 23ky and 100ky cycles are very well understood and their respective forcings known to a very high accuracy.”
No cycles of 100-1000 years uh, just this 11/22 year and things in the 23-100ky range? How could oscillations with those kinds of periods be fit to explain a graph such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg?
“Mechanisms of volcanic activity are very well understood, we know exactly why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity. Predicting exactly when eruptions occur is a different story, but not needed in a climate model.”
That’s complete BS. There are theories as to what kind of predictable cycles controlling the timing of eruptions, but nothing that is very certain and when modeling climate on the scale of 10-100 years, you do need to know when they happen. You can’t just brush this off. If you knew “EXACTLY why they occur and why there are periods of higher volcanic activity” you also be able to predict “EXACTLY when eruptions occur.” Your logic is terrible and you of course can’t/won’t actually support any of these bold statements. Such blatant disregard for backing up your opinion and even twisting to the truth to the extent of creating a lie, such as above, is just proof of an irrational bias toward your particular opinion on this matter.
“Jesus you are not seriously talking about the solar system moving through ‘dirty or clean’ galaxy.”
Yes, I am. Parts of our galaxy is known to have higher concentrations of dust in the spiral arms (that’s the whole reason you can see them against things that aren’t the spiral arms). So as we move in and out of the spiral arms the amount of energy coming to the planet from the sun obviously changes with it. Maybe you should educate yourself before brushing off such matters with these pathetic appeals to ridicule. Honestly, it would take about a 5 second google search to check and see if what I’m saying is actually backed up, but no, you make this lazy appeal to ridicule hoping it goes away. Just another sign of an irrational attachment to your side of the debate.
http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/news/expandnews.cfm?id=9252
http://www.nature.com/news/1998/030707/full/news030707-1.html
“Exactly how much warming will be required to affect circulation is not fully known, but one thing is for sure is certainly will not strengthen global circulation, therefore the global ocean sink of carbon will not strengthen but can only either stay constant or decrease.”
You pretend a decrease in ocean currents will increase warming by less carbon sink? What of the effects of a loss of heat transfer meaning expanding ice sheets, increased albedo, and how these things will effect the climate in combination? This is in deed one of the theories as to what caused the little ice age, and some folks might argue the current warming period could cause this to happen again. Ah how the feedbacks matter uh? Which factors will win out? The positive or negative….does anyone actually know, or are they just basically guessing while they set the parameters in their models so as to achieve a particular desired outcome?
As Waldo would likely point out, if only he did have an irrational bias, you are cherry-pick here sir. You talk only of CO2 sink, forget heat transfer effects, and at the same time wish to come of as the one in the debate with superior knowledge of matter. Sorry, this is yet another sign that you have an irrational bias toward supporting this particular side of the debate.
So after all four of your defenses, you’ve really only provided evidence towards one thing, you’ll support your opinion through lies, appeals to ridicule, and unsupported claims of fact. This leads to the nature question of why. Why do you behave in such an irrational manner yet attempt to pretend you’re so educated on the subject?
It makes me laugh when I read something like this:
(Wally says): ‘ …you’ll support your opinion through lies, appeals to ridicule, and unsupported claims of fact.’
Yeah right. Because you are so squeaky clean Wally.
You’ll prob. respond with a ‘show me where I said blah blah…!’ but there is no need. Everyone knows you can come off as a jerk.
Hey NeilC.
Being a climate scientist and all, you prob. have shit loads of extra cash so could probably spare some time to help these Meyer and Company get something in a publishable form fit for peer-review, so that they can show the scientific world their amazing truths. It would be really good to get it over and done with you know?
Ah, now shills comes in with nothing more than an ad hominem attack.
Good to see you again too. How you been?
Wally, well i guess it is because of your references to google, wikipedia, and the fact that you read somewhere in google that when he earth moves through a dirty spiral arm it will change climate? i ridicule because it is genuinely ridiculous, not because it is undeserved – bring this theory to any professional and you will get laughed at i guarantee.
And i deservedly should be picked up for being aggressive in debate, but because it is so irritating to read posts like yours i cant help it really: you have no understanding of the processes or how important they are related to climate, you speak about ocean dynamics as though you know better than all the professionals.
“You pretend a decrease in ocean currents will increase warming by less carbon sink? What of the effects of a loss of heat transfer meaning expanding ice sheets, increased albedo, and how these things will effect the climate in combination”
You have simply read this from google and pasted it here.
I do not pretend, it has been well documented in literature about the effects of increased ocean stratification (ie reduced circ.) and its effect of diminishing biological pump (primary production reduced via decreased nutrient availability via reduced oceanic upwelling, decreased aragonite supersaturation and possibly undersaturation – coral growth rate declines of up to 30% have been reported in the great barrier reef, a very well monitored reef which 1980-2000 i think, underwent no statistical change, but since then has undergone a 15-30% reduction in growth rate in large areas. Plus decreased solubility of CO2 in oceans with warming – maybe look these up they have been very well documented).
Now by heat transfer do you mean latent or sensible heat, and do you know what difference the two forms have on ice sheet growth? Loss from heat transfer (if i think you mean what you mean) will result in less heat being transported to the poles. Now you would intuitively think that this would be good for the growth of ice caps. Not so, decreased latent heat will result in less moisture content in the air around ice caps, reduce precipitation and therefore cap growth. Now even if this was the primary control on ice cap growth, which it is not, is would spell ice cap loss. Primary control on an annual basis is by summer temperatures among other things, which are projected to rise the most in the poles. However their dynamics are very complex, and, especially in greenland may have a lot to do with the effect of ice cap ‘plumbing’ or basically routes through which meltwater may travel to the ocean.
I have attempted not to cherry pick here but to give you as full a view as i can think of at 2 in the morning! Should you wish more info, go and look it up, but i would not focus on dirty galaxy spiral arms. Does that quench your thirst for some general science wally? you probably wont get this stuff from wikipedia i guess.
Shills: yes good point well made.
***”Yes, I am. Parts of our galaxy is known to have higher concentrations of dust in the spiral arms (that’s the whole reason you can see them against things that aren’t the spiral arms).”
Wally, I’m just curious. You reject entire books written by IPCC scientists, years of research by people like James Hansen, and virtually anything posted on Real Climate (if you are even willing to read them at all). But a couple of brief news articles on a new, intriguing, but controversial and unproven theory convince you enough to argue with Neil and even, in fact, to accuse him of being “irrational” in this instance while you find it perfectly rational to argue cosmic dust changes our climate from space.
The theory doesn’t strike me as the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard, mind you, and might be true for all I know – but I do have to ask how you decide what you believe, Wally? I hate to ask it (since you are obviously still stinging from our last conversation) but are you, um, ‘choosy’ in which information you argue? Rejecting information you dislike and fully endorsing information you do like? Is this what a scientist with your training reacts?
*****************************************************************************************************
ADiff, could you provide a little more information about the papers you’ve cited above – maybe the actual titles? – it is difficult to know what you are talking about, although I have found some which might make for an interesting conversation. Bit busy at the moment, so I’ll have to get back to you.
Quick question somewhat related to my question to Wally above: why do you focus so much on Alaska? Interesting, no doubt, but aren’t there other states with weather patterns? And, while you are correct that temperature in our northernmost state has been more or less steady since 1977, I did notice a marked and sudden increase in 1959. And aren’t we most worried about global not regional temperature increases?
Just curious.
Wally says: ‘Ah, now shills comes in with nothing more than an ad hominem attack.’
Ah, wally. You sure that’s an ad hominem? Maybe you wanna double check?
And wally, as for
“No cycles of 100-1000 years uh, just this 11/22 year and things in the 23-100ky range? How could oscillations with those kinds of periods be fit to explain a graph such as this…”
that d14C graph you have obtained from wikipedia – do you know what d14C is? The 22 year sun-spot cycle has been proposed to have varied over the past millenium, and is one of several theories as to why the little ice age occurred. There is no 23-100ky range, it is several distinct frequencies based around variations in axial precession, obliquity of axial tilt, and eccentricity of orbit, some of the forcings of which have been associated with glacial cycles.
NEILC,
Tabloid crap?
lol.
The tabloid crap is AGW promoters claiming the world is in a climate crisis. IOW, what you believe and claim to work at doing.
Pointing out the social context for how dupes like you and your pals fall for obvious garbage would of course be rejected by the dupe. After all, dupes are self-regulating idiots, well trained at keeping the idiocy alive no matter the lack of evidence.
You and Waldo, our recent trolls, are fun and predictable and pitiable.
Neil,
“The 22 year sun-spot cycle has been proposed to have varied over the past millenium, and is one of several theories as to why the little ice age occurred.
So a 22 year cycle varies of ~1000 years, obviously a much sorter time peroid than 23ky and much longer than 22 years? But yet there are no cycles or variations on this 100-1000 year range? Again you logic is terrible. You try to tell me one second that you know with very high accuracy what kind of sun output we will see in the future, but none of the cycles you reference could have caused the last 100-1000 year sun output. Which is it? Do you know or not?
“There is no 23-100ky range, it is several distinct frequencies based around variations in axial precession, obliquity of axial tilt, and eccentricity of orbit, some of the forcings of which have been associated with glacial cycles.”
I was not saying that those peroids changed just used the 23-100ky as short hand for each cycle with a peroid in that range. Sorry you misunderstood.
Shills,
Yes, you’re attacking my argument because I “come off as jerk.”
Neil,
“Wally, well i guess it is because of your references to google, wikipedia, and the fact that you read somewhere in google that when he earth moves through a dirty spiral arm it will change climate? ”
Did you fail to click on the links to a nature article and nasa page? This is yet another fallacious argument from you. You’re attacking the source’s name not the argument/data.
“i ridicule because it is genuinely ridiculous, not because it is undeserved – bring this theory to any professional and you will get laughed at i guarantee.”
Yes because things that show up in Nature and Nasa will get me laughed at. And I’m still awaiting a rational and logical argument that this is not a factor. Thus far your only defense is “you’ll get laughed at?” Ok, I could blindly claim that about anything you say, does that make me right and you wrong? No. You do yourself a disservice by acting this way.
“you have no understanding of the processes or how important they are related to climate, you speak about ocean dynamics as though you know better than all the professionals.”
Exactly what? All the professionals? I’m getting this argument from them actually, I didn’t just pull it out of my ass. More bull shit from you.
“You have simply read this from google and pasted it here.”
Yes I read it on Google, because Google publishes SOOOO much information? Google is a search engine Neil. I might have read it on something I found through google, or maybe a different source, but I didn’t read it on Google.
“I do not pretend, it has been well documented in literature about the effects of increased ocean stratification (ie reduced circ.) and its effect of diminishing biological pump (primary production reduced via decreased nutrient availability via reduced oceanic upwelling, decreased aragonite supersaturation and possibly undersaturation – coral growth rate declines of up to 30% have been reported in the great barrier reef, a very well monitored reef which 1980-2000 i think, underwent no statistical change, but since then has undergone a 15-30% reduction in growth rate in large areas. Plus decreased solubility of CO2 in oceans with warming – maybe look these up they have been very well documented).”
Maybe you can give me a source? Maybe you could look up papers arguing loss of heat transfer leading to a colder temps in mid-high latatudes and causes ice sheet explansion? Since apperently you live in a world where one doesn’t have to site their information, I’ll leave it to you as you’ve left it to me. Sound fair? And man this will get us somewhere uh?
“Now even if this was the primary control on ice cap growth, which it is not, is would spell ice cap loss. ”
Except this all didn’t happen in the little ice age. Where are you getting your information exactly, Mr. Professional that doesn’t site a damned thing?
“I have attempted not to cherry pick here but to give you as full a view as i can think of at 2 in the morning! ”
The time of day is irrelevent. If you can’t back up your statements of fact, then those statements are meaningless. That goes for 2am or 2pm.
“Should you wish more info, go and look it up, but i would not focus on dirty galaxy spiral arms. Does that quench your thirst for some general science wally? you probably wont get this stuff from wikipedia i guess.”
Yes, because the graphs on wikipedia that are just pulled from various research articles or texts are such BS! More attacking names and arguments themselves. Oh well, what else should I expect from a climatologists I guess?
Well im not quite sure what you are getting at. The solar CYCLES are accepted as the 22 year and the milankovitch, if you are referring to the proposed sun-spot minimum during the little ice age as evidence of a ‘cycle’ then your logic is not quite there. im sure there has been nothing published on evidence of a cyclical nature of sun-spot minima such as the ‘maunder minimum’ – i may be wrong and would be willing to be corrected on that with evidence. So perhaps you misunderstood really.
You do have a point about there being the possibility of some non-cyclical (or as yet to be proven cyclical) nature of solar activity such as proposed in the LIA, and as we all know it is a subject of fierce debate with respect to current climate change.
Waldo,
“Rejecting information you dislike and fully endorsing information you do like? Is this what a scientist with your training reacts? ”
Can you ask that in a non-loaded way? I’m not rejecting or accepting information based on bias. What would be my ultimate motivation for doing so anyway? If the earth really were warming towards catastrophy, wouldn’t I want to attempt to stop it? Why would I sit back and deny something that adversly effect me or at least my childred?
Anyway, it ignore your idiocies, I’m attempt to make sense of every piece taken together. So when someone claims there are no cycles on 100-1000 year peroids, but data clearly shows large variations in those time scales, I think WHY? What is our gap in knowledge? Neil seem to want to pretend we already know what we need to know and ignores these gaps. And maybe we do know a lot about it, maybe we can explain 80% (just pulling numbers out of my ass, I don’t think that’s actually true) of climate science. But my point here is that not knowing that 20% is going to fuck every model you attempt to make to hell.
Neil seems to be arguing at every turn that either something doesn’t matter or we know something very accurately, or even exactly. But if that were true, our models would be nearly perfect. They are not.
Neil,
“The solar CYCLES are accepted as the 22 year and the milankovitch, if you are referring to the proposed sun-spot minimum during the little ice age as evidence of a ‘cycle’ then your logic is not quite there. im sure there has been nothing published on evidence of a cyclical nature of sun-spot minima such as the ‘maunder minimum’ – i may be wrong and would be willing to be corrected on that with evidence. So perhaps you misunderstood really.”
True one data point doesn’t prove a cycle, but its more than that right? We have a Sporer and Wolf mins at maybe 200 year distances. This suggests other forces outside of 11/22 year, 23Ky, 41Ky, and 100Ky year cycles. It may not be sinusoidal cycle, but obviously something is there, and we don’t understand yet what it is. And if this force is in large part responsible for the most recent swings from the MWP to the LIA to the current warming, then exactly how much do we really know about the next 100 years?
“You do have a point about there being the possibility of some non-cyclical (or as yet to be proven cyclical) nature of solar activity such as proposed in the LIA, and as we all know it is a subject of fierce debate with respect to current climate change.”
Gosh, it only took you 24 hours (or there abouts) of various appeals to ridicule and bald face lies, to admit to such a thing. Somehow you went from “Sun cycles really do occur on several timescales, but not on 100-1000 years.The 11/22 years solar spot cycles and Milankovitch cycles. Milankovitch cycles including the 41ky, 23ky and 100ky cycles are very well understood and their respective forcings known to a very high accuracy.” to that above. I congratulate you for ignoring your apparent bias and recognizing a gap in knowledge that could swing this entire climate debate one way or another once understood.
OK. for heat transfer and sea ice, try
Arctic climate change: observed and modelled temperature and sea-ice variability. Johannsenn et al, 2004.
Polar amplification of climate change in coupled models. Holland & Bitz, 2002
Good summary article for Cenozoic climate with solar pacing,
Trends, Rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65Ma to present.Zachos et al 2001
Ice cap mass balance,
Oceanic gateways as a critical factor to initiate icehouse Earth. Smith & Pickering, 2003
For some ocean feedback basics like bio pump and upwelling,
Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model. Cox et al, 2000
The Southern Oceans biological pump during the last glacial maximum. Anderson et al 2002
The reason i wouldn’t cite for aspects of ocean dynamics such as the biological pump, is that a first year university student would be getting taught these, it is readily available in textbooks.
It is ridiculous to bring in the spiral arm theory into the debate, because i did in fact go and look up the papers about it, and to their own admission there is little convincing evidence that it has any impact on climate, since there are huge lag factors and timing issues involved with the palaeo-glacial formations that they needed to find as evidence. Therefore, with something that is as yet completely unproven as this, compared to say the proven impact of volcanic activity on climate, bringing it into the debate, interesting as it is, brings little to the issue. And not everything in wikipedia is sound, especially when folks such as yourself are editing it.
Well thats not really fair at all, all i said was the FORCINGS OF SOLAR CYCLES are very well known, and that they are, i never declined that there was no debate about solar activity forcing past climate such as in the LIA. So what i said was perfectly true.
Neil, I believe your comment “most of these references refer to poorly modeled weather, which, as we have already discussed is difficult to do, but frankly it is not relevant that such complex dynamics have not been modeled well” rather misses my point. The references are relevant not with respect to modeling weather, but with respect to their character as measures of observations of weather trends actually occurring. The point isn’t whether or not the data bear out weather models as such, but that they dramatically contradict predictions made (with concrete conviction!) by catastrophic AGW theory advocates as rational for Policy actions. The argument runs: if we don’t do X, then we’ll pay price Y! But the evidence suggests that we have no real reason to believe the claim “we’ll pay price Y”. So regardless whatever other faults underlying theoretical models may or may not possess, incurring very real costs to avoid what increasingly appear to be purely speculative predicted costs is nonsensical…at face value. There’s not much point in getting into discussion here of possible ulterior motives and such. There’s plenty of that everywhere without adding to it here, and it’s not really my topic here at all. At the same time, with respect to the models underlying AGW, in general (not strictly those predicting dramatic change), these data surely argue for skepticism. As does Mr. Meyer (and the authors of “Climate of Extremes”), I view the data as clearly showing a current localized warming trend (localized within the context of even a historic time-frame, much less a rather policy irrelevant geologic one), some of which, as Mr. Meyer agrees and the cited authors support with scientific references, appears resulting from greenhouse gas effects. But the current AGW models do appear to come up very short in terms of accurately describing the magnitude or mechanisms of the nature and significance of that contribution, and appear to more or less grossly exaggerate this. I’m not at all suggesting ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’, so to speak. This area certainly merits much more attention and work (as does so many areas). But in this case it also seems pretty clear to me that this ‘baby’ definitely needs ‘to be changed’, and that badly. The worst damage of the diffusion and inbreeding between policy advocacy (a political and economic exercise) and Science, appears very much being inflicted, increasingly, on Science itself, both actually and perceptually. Politics is (as always) notoriously corrupt. What’s the profit to Science to pursue emulation of Politics in that regard?
This is without going into the actual debate about the little ice age, whether it was a ‘real’ and global event:
see Mann 2002: Little Ice age.
see Bradley and Jonest, 1993, ‘Little Ice Age’ summer temperature variations: their nature and relevance to recent global warming trends
The IPCC says thus about it:
Evidence from mountain glaciers does suggest increased glaciation in a number of widely spread regions outside Europe prior to the 20th century, including Alaska, New Zealand and Patagonia. However, the timing of maximum glacial advances in these regions differs considerably, suggesting that they may represent largely independent regional climate changes, not a globally-synchronous increased glaciation. Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of “Little Ice Age” and “Medieval Warm Period” appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries… [Viewed] hemispherically, the “Little Ice Age” can only be considered as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C relative to late 20th century levels
Neil,
“Well thats not really fair at all, all i said was the FORCINGS OF SOLAR CYCLES are very well known, and that they are, i never declined that there was no debate about solar activity forcing past climate such as in the LIA. So what i said was perfectly true.”
Umm, you also said there are no 100-1000 cycles. We’ve just established that we don’t know that, or we’ve just established that they is a lot more to it than the cycles we’ve mentioned. At the very least you’re guilty of obfuscating the issue and ignoring a valid criticism by bring up things we know more about. I can understand you feel the need to defend yourself as a climatologist, but sometimes the best way to answer a criticisms is “yes, that’s good point and something that requires further research.” No one expects you to know it all, but if you pretend like you do, that’s when you get into trouble and that’s what you did here.
ADIFF,
I rather agree with you on most of that, in my opinion new climate models can only predict more accurately and with greater confidence and so increasingly the cost Y will be claimed with more accuracy.
I am glad to read you would not throw the baby out with the bathwater, since i think it is inherently dangerous to do so: should it turn out that cost Y is high, the earlier action is taken the better. That is where you find increasing urgency for action from the scientific community.