Using Computer Models To Launder Certainty
(cross posted from Coyote Blog)
For a while, I have criticized the practice both in climate and economics of using computer models to increase our apparent certainty about natural phenomenon. We take shaky assumptions and guesstimates of certain constants and natural variables and plug them into computer models that produce projections with triple-decimal precision. We then treat the output with a reverence that does not match the quality of the inputs.
I have had trouble explaining this sort of knowledge laundering and finding precisely the right words to explain it. But this week I have been presented with an excellent example from climate science, courtesy of Roger Pielke, Sr. This is an excerpt from a recent study trying to figure out if a high climate sensitivity to CO2 can be reconciled with the lack of ocean warming over the last 10 years (bold added).
“Observations of the sea water temperature show that the upper ocean has not warmed since 2003. This is remarkable as it is expected the ocean would store that the lion’s share of the extra heat retained by the Earth due to the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. The observation that the upper 700 meter of the world ocean have not warmed for the last eight years gives rise to two fundamental questions:
- What is the probability that the upper ocean does not warm for eight years as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise?
- As the heat has not been not stored in the upper ocean over the last eight years, where did it go instead?
These question cannot be answered using observations alone, as the available time series are too short and the data not accurate enough. We therefore used climate model output generated in the ESSENCE project, a collaboration of KNMI and Utrecht University that generated 17 simulations of the climate with the ECHAM5/MPI-OM model to sample the natural variability of the climate system. When compared to the available observations, the model describes the ocean temperature rise and variability well.”
Pielke goes on to deconstruct the study, but just compare the two bolded statements. First, that there is not sufficiently extensive and accurate observational data to test a hypothesis. BUT, then we will create a model, and this model is validated against this same observational data. Then the model is used to draw all kinds of conclusions about the problem being studied.
This is the clearest, simplest example of certainty laundering I have ever seen. If there is not sufficient data to draw conclusions about how a system operates, then how can there be enough data to validate a computer model which, in code, just embodies a series of hypotheses about how a system operates?
A model is no different than a hypothesis embodied in code. If I have a hypothesis that the average width of neckties in this year’s Armani collection drives stock market prices, creating a computer program that predicts stock market prices falling as ties get thinner does nothing to increase my certainty of this hypothesis (though it may be enough to get me media attention). The model is merely a software implementation of my original hypothesis. In fact, the model likely has to embody even more unproven assumptions than my hypothesis, because in addition to assuming a causal relationship, it also has to be programmed with specific values for this correlation.
This is not just a climate problem. The White House studies on the effects of the stimulus were absolutely identical. They had a hypothesis that government deficit spending would increase total economic activity. After they spent the money, how did they claim success? Did they measure changes to economic activity through observational data? No, they had a model that was programmed with the hypothesis that government spending increased job creation, ran the model, and pulled a number out that said, surprise, the stimulus created millions of jobs (despite falling employment). And the press reported it like it was a real number.
Postscript: I did not get into this in the original article, but the other mistake the study seems to make is to validate the model on a variable that is irrelevant to its conclusions. In this case, the study seems to validate the model by saying it correctly simulates past upper ocean heat content numbers (you remember, the ones that are too few and too inaccurate to validate a hypothesis). But the point of the paper seems to be to understand if what might be excess heat (if we believe the high sensitivity number for CO2) is going into the deep ocean or back into space. But I am sure I can come up with a number of combinations of assumptions to match the historic ocean heat content numbers. The point is finding the right one, and to do that requires validation against observations for deep ocean heat and radiation to space.
netdr:
People’s willingness to ascribe more wisdom to a computer program than to a man with a dozen notebooks and a supply of #2 pencils never ceases to amaze me.
Computers make as many mistakes as people do it just makes them faster.
I believe Mr Meyer likened it to “money laundering”. You encode your ideas then it plays them back to you and somehow they seem more valid.
Several years ago I was dragging a small manufacturing company kicking and screaming into the 20 th century.[not 21 st]
I was the only engineer and the boss of the assemblers kept questioning why I did things the way I did them.
I programmed the computer and called him over.
When I asked the computer why I had done something.
It responded “BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO DO IT THAT WAY.
He left confused.
July 29, 2011, 12:09 pmrenewable guy:
“Observations of the sea water temperature show that the upper ocean has not warmed since 2003.
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http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Cooling-Corrected-Again.html
Figure 1 -Revised estimate of global ocean heat content (10-1500 mtrs deep) for 2005-2010 derived from Argo measurements. The 6-yr trend accounts for 0.55±0.10Wm−2. Error bars and trend uncertainties exclude errors induced by remaining systematic errors in the global observing system. See Von Schuckmann & Le Traon (2011)
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cross posted from Coyote Blog. Now there’s a real authoritative voice of honesty. Not.
Try real science.
July 29, 2011, 6:57 pmrenewable guy:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Cooling-Corrected-Again.html
Ocean warming in context
The warming trend observed is slightly smaller than that seen in Von Schuckmann (2009), where the authors measure down to ocean depths of 2000 metres, and found a warming trend of 0.77 ±0.11 watts per square metre. However, it completely refutes a recent (2010) skeptic paper which suggested the oceans were cooling, based on the upper ocean down to 700 metres. Clearly much heat is finding it’s way down into deeper waters. And although small in comparison, the deep ocean is gaining heat too.
Upper ocean warming (0-700mtrs) is slower than that observed during the 1990′s, but the oceans are still gaining heat. Indeed, the slow-down is to be expected if recent papers on increased reflective aerosols in the atmsophere are correct.
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The whole article is based on the oceans cooling. Warren Meyer is just an opinion column with really no back up in serious understanding of the true climate science. He is just a mouthpeice of denial of the co2 problem.
July 29, 2011, 7:05 pmDavid in Cal:
I’ve seen business applications of the problem pointed out by Warren Meyer. E.g., a consultant wanted to sell us a model that would predict future profit by sub-unit. It needed as input a mean and a standard deviation from each sub-unit manager. Now, these managers were not statistically sophisticated. A typical manager would probably set a mean profit of around 5% regardless of underlying conditions, because 5% is acceptible and not too ambitious. And, the manager wouldn’t have a clue of what the standard deviation might be. So, in a real application, the consultant would probably choose the standard deviaion. Furthermore, the model assumed a certain family of probability distributions without any evidence that this family fit the company. In short, what came out of the model was worse than any seat-of-the-pants guesses the manager might make.
We turned down this consultant, but I suppose other companies bought their software and got nice-looking spreadsheets with attractive graphs.
July 29, 2011, 10:37 pmnetdr:
Renewable
Upper ocean warming (0-700mtrs) is slower than that observed during the 1990′s, but the oceans are still gaining heat. Indeed, the slow-down is to be expected if recent papers on increased reflective aerosols in the atmsophere are correct.
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What the skeptics don’t realize is that the aerosol argument shoots the “warming is in the pipeline ” argument. in the foot
When we asked why the past observations didn’t match what was expected from that amount of CO2 we were told the “warming is in the pipeline”. We were told that temperatures would shoot up at 5 or 6 times faster than had ever been observed in recorded history because of the stored heat.
No we are told the radiation was reflected into outer space and that “warming is in the pipeline ” is Bovine Scatology.
How are we going to get the monster warming necessary to get + 3 ° C by 2100 ? Answer Smoke and mirrors and positive feedback which has never been observed in the climate record.
It seems to be a major coincidence that the aerosols get stronger just when the PDO [La Nina's] would have caused cooling anyway [1940 to 1978] , and the aerosols get weaker when the PDO [El Ninos] would have caused warming anyway [1978 to 1998].
It is easier to look at the El Nino / La Nina balance which mirrors the PDO fairly accurately but not perfectly. El Nino years are always warmer and several in a row cause warming. This pattern persists for 20 to 30 years.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
Why use 2 variables to explain what one will, especially when the aerosols are undocumented and the effects are unknown in magnitude ? They are the great “fudge factor” of climate science.
July 30, 2011, 9:29 amnetdr:
So the positive feedback which hasn’t happened on the amount of CO2 we have already emitted will somehow occur on the CO2 we emit in the future.
The alarmist position gets shakier and shakier.
July 30, 2011, 9:38 amrenewable guy:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.gif
Your link doesn’t seem to even relate to what you are talking about. Above is the long term temperature increase of the earth over the last 110 years.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/lacis_01/
co2 is the thermostat that controls the earth’s temperature. I can’t agree that you are a lukewarmer. Your rebuttals are based in homegrown logic. For a supposed college or university teacher, that is pretty poor. Time to buck up and do your homework.
July 30, 2011, 11:16 amrenewable guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Observed_CO2_Emissions_from_fossil_fuel_burning_vs_IPCC_scenarios.jpg
Fossil fuel emissions vs the ipcc scenario. We are pretty much on track with IPCC “computer model” worst projection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#External_forcings
Naturally occurring amounts of greenhouse gases have a mean warming effect of about 33 °C (59 °F).[36][C] The major greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36–70 percent of the greenhouse effect; carbon dioxide (CO2), which causes 9–26 percent; methane (CH4), which causes 4–9 percent; and ozone (O3), which causes 3–7 percent.[37][38][39] Clouds also affect the radiation balance through cloud forcings similar to greenhouse gases.
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So above is the natural amount of GHG’s we already have from about 150 years ago.
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Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide. The concentrations of CO2 and methane have increased by 36% and 148% respectively since 1750.[40] These levels are much higher than at any time during the last 800,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores.[41][42][43][44] Less direct geological evidence indicates that CO2 values higher than this were last seen about 20 million years ago.[45] Fossil fuel burning has produced about three-quarters of the increase in CO2 from human activity over the past 20 years. The rest of this increase is caused mostly by changes in land-use, particularly deforestation.[46]
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We have changed the makeup of the atmosphere. All this resistance does benefit the carbon based industries. But it is at the expense of transforming our environment into something less livable for ourselves.
July 30, 2011, 11:32 amrenewable guy:
netdr:
So the positive feedback which hasn’t happened on the amount of CO2 we have already emitted will somehow occur on the CO2 we emit in the future.
The alarmist position gets shakier and shakier.
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The oceans are still warming Net. THe data now confirms that. THe PETM (paleocenc eocene thermal maxim) took place over several thousand years. Was much slower emissions of co2 into the atmosphere than ours by several thousand years and yet caused one the great extinctions on earth.
Would you care to refute this?
July 30, 2011, 11:36 amnetdr:
renewable guy:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.gif
Your link doesn’t seem to even relate to what you are talking about.
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If you had bothered to look at the link you would have seen that it is a chart of El Nino/La Nina activity.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
I pulled the chart into Excel and kept a running sum of the monthly values. [Even when they weren't enough to be a full El Nino or La Nina].
The simple fact is that if you keep a running sum of the values in excel from 1950 [when the chart starts] until 1978 the sum keeps gong down and the temperature cools.
From 1978 to 1998 the sum keeps getting bigger and the temperature rises.
From 1998 to present the sum wobbles some but doesn’t go up or down much just like the temperature.
Since positive values always cause warming and negative values cause cooling this is to be expected.
The alarmists, without any measurements hand wave and claim that aerosols mirror the same pattern. Since there is no data to support their clams they have a free hand
Isn’t it a coincidence that the alarmists claim that aerosols track this publicly available data ?
There were hundreds of variables we can’t measure during the PETAM so blaming it on CO2 is just hand waving.
You didn’t address the issue
I said:
“So the positive feedback which hasn’t happened on the amount of CO2 we have already emitted will somehow occur on the CO2 we emit in the future.
The alarmist position gets shakier and shakier.”
You couldn’t rebut this position because it is true? It is Illogical but that is the alarmist position no matte how silly it sounds.
Throwing red herrings like the PETAM in is just silly.
There are hundreds of unknowns and you pick one of them and blame everything on it. That is ludicrous grasping at straws. I am sure that the water vapor and dozens of other things were affected too and CO2 does go up after warming occurs so cause and effect is hard to prove after 55 million years. There are earth wobbles and going in and out of arms of the galaxy and dozens of other unknowns involved.
Grasping at CO2 as the cause is funny. Can we even separate the times close enough to determine if the CO2 came first? I will bet not ! Even 800 years is pretty hard to measure out of 55,000,000
[It is .0014 %]
So we are supposed to fear positive feedback from the future CO2 we emit when even the alarmists seem to admit there hasn’t been any from what we have already emitted ?
Without this positive feedback alarmism makes no sense at all. [.4 ° C from a doubling of CO2 isn’t very scary.
Lastly the PTAM occurred over thousands of years and we just have to get through 100 years to convert to renewables.
Less if you are right.
The PETAM warming lasted thousands of years and we will have converted to renewables in hundeds of years.
July 30, 2011, 3:49 pmnetdr:
The whole alarmist house of cards stands of falls on the positive feedback which hasn’t happened yet but we are told it will happen in the future. [.4 ° C for a doubling of CO2 isn't very scary.]
Since water vapor has gone down since 1950 the theory that warming would cause more water vapor which would amplify the warming is obviously incorrect yet the alarmists cling to it like drowning men/women.
http://climate4you.com/ greenhouse gasses and many other sources confirm this.
How can anyone defend such silliness ?
A wise man once said:
“You have a right to your own opinion but not your own data.”
July 30, 2011, 3:57 pmnetdr:
Renewable
Perhaps you should do your homework.
When I posted the well established fact that the alarmist theory of warming consisted of two parts 1) .4 ° C of warming for a doubling of CO2 and 2) feedback caused by water vapor entering the atmosphere and causing much more warming than the CO2 you were surprised ! Why ?
You denied this well known fact as I remember and needed the quote from the British royal society before you believed it.
CO2 is a poor GHG not what the average lay alarmist thinks it is. You were obviously a lay alarmist.
Observations are now showing that #2 isn’t happening. Whatever happened to the “C” in CAGW ?
NASA observations are now confirming that the radiation of the earth goes up far more than expected for each degree of warming so the combination is much less sensitive than thought.
The alarmists just got around to admitting it hasn’t warmed as expected and invoked the unknown and undocumented aerosol excuse, which boil down to “we don’t know” !
July 30, 2011, 5:53 pmrenewable guy:
NetDr:
Where are your sources? All of a sudden you are right and all these scientists are wrong.
Oscillations are not a source of energy. That would be the sun.
ONe of the symptoms you are ignoring is the cooling stratosphere while the lower troposphere is warming. That is part of AGW theory, and has been observed.
Another symptom you are ignoring is that the nights are warming faster than the days. That would be form co2 reflecting more infrared back to the earth’s surface.
The oceans are not cooling, observations are they are warming.
Water vapor in the atmosphere has increased 4% since 1970. H2O is a stronger GHG than co2 is. THere is your positive feedback.
Winter is warming faster than summer.
Heat records outnumber cold records now at least 2 to 1 and by the end of the century it will 50 to 1.
Oceans are now acidifying. THis will throw off the balance of life that needs calcium for their shells.
Humans are changing the planet. Its more the wealthy people fighting the change.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/pdfs/ClimateIndicators_full.pdf
Global warming is integrating into policy in the Government, in which the Bush administration resisted the whole way. Even told California they couldn’t self regulate.
July 30, 2011, 6:07 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
Renewable
Perhaps you should do your homework.
When I posted the well established fact that the alarmist theory of warming consisted of two parts 1) .4 ° C of warming for a doubling of CO2 and 2) feedback caused by water vapor entering the atmosphere and causing much more warming than the CO2 you were surprised ! Why ?
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Source for your .4 degrees
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You denied this well known fact as I remember and needed the quote from the British royal society before you believed it.
CO2 is a poor GHG not what the average lay alarmist thinks it is. You were obviously a lay alarmist.
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YOU HAven’t shown co2 is a poor GHG. Lindzen, Christy, and Spencer have yet to show good work on that issue. The science community isn’t buying it.
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Observations are now showing that #2 isn’t happening. Whatever happened to the “C” in CAGW ?
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The past year has been exreme weather in many ways. And the climate is just getting warmed up.
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NASA observations are now confirming that the radiation of the earth goes up far more than expected for each degree of warming so the combination is much less sensitive than thought.
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source?
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The alarmists just got around to admitting it hasn’t warmed as expected and invoked the unknown and undocumented aerosol excuse, which boil down to “we don’t know” !
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If you can show that fine. LIke I said, your part is the easy part. All you have to do is say no I don’t believe it.
The EPA has a nice list of symptoms. WHether we fully understand aerosols or not, the earth is still warming at a sensitivity of 3C for a doubling of co2.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/pdfs/CI-summary.pdf
July 30, 2011, 6:35 pmrenewable guy:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-we-know-were-causing-global-warming-in-single-graphic.html
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Current global warming shows all the distinctive signatures of greenhouse warming. To be skeptical that humans are causing global warming, you must believe two things. Something unknown is causing warming that happens to mirror the greenhouse effect. And something unknown is somehow suppressing the well understood (and well observed) greenhouse effect. So we can accept what we know to be true (greenhouse warming) or we accept two unknowns.
The saying goes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck. But climate skeptics are trying to convince us it’s some other, undefined animal impersonating a duck that’s also mysteriously hiding the real duck.
July 30, 2011, 6:48 pmnetdr:
Renewable
Walks like a duck.
An alternative explanation exists in the peer reviewed literature. [I have cited it many times but you keep forgetting]
I have also repeatedly cited the British Royal society position paper but you keep forgetting that also. This is like the Polish army having to be retrained after lunch.
http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/
British Royal society.
“29)
Application of established physical principles shows that, even in the absence of
processes that amplify or reduce climate change (see paragraphs 12 & 13), the climate
sensitivity would be around 1oC, for a doubling of CO2 concentrations. A climate forcing
of 1.6 Wm-2 (see previous paragraph) would, in this hypothetical case, lead to a globally averaged
surface warming of about 0.4 °C.” [I don't know how it could possibly be more explicit .]
2) Any additional warming theoretically would be caused by increased water vapor but since 1950 water vapor has gone down.
http://climate4you.com/ [greenhouse gasses]
Moreover many peer reviewed studies show the feedback may be negative.
The warming of CO2 is logarithmic so each molecule of CO2 causes less warming. The amount of CO2 would have to rise exponentially to keep warming constant which hasn’t happened yet.
We are experiencing a long slow [1/2 ° C warming] caused by either coming out of the Little Ice Age along with whatever feedbacks occur these can last hundreds of years according to Dr Hansen [but he was speaking of CO2 induced warming but the feedbacks work the same for any cause.]
On top of that there is a 60 year sinusoid which happened to fit perfectly with the 1940 to 1978 cooling and 1978 to 1998 warming. This causes no long term warming but scares the SH** out of the alarmists.
The true long term warming after the sinusoid is removed is 1/2 ° C per century which is a big Ho HUM !
CO2 is even a remote possibility but the warming started before much CO2 was emitted and saying that LIA rebound warming switched off just when CO2 warming switched on is brain damaged.
July 31, 2011, 6:55 amnetdr:
Renewable
I started reading the walks like a duck paper and I read:
“Our understanding of the greenhouse effect provides a number of verifiable predictions. If carbon dioxide is trapping more heat, we should see less heat escaping to space. Satellites measuring infrared radiation coming from Earth find less heat escaping to space over the last few decades, at those exact wavelengths that carbon dioxide absorbs energy (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007). The researchers who analysed this data described this as:”
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Recent NASA data shows that current models assume CO2 traps far more heat than observations confirm.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/07/28/2249238/New-NASA-Data-Casts-Doubt-On-Global-Warming-Models
As I said the error is in the feedbacks and multiplying factors.
The crisis is between the ears of the alarmists not in nature.
July 31, 2011, 7:02 amnetdr:
Renewable
I find it amusing that even after being shown the British Royal Society’s position paper on global warming you still continue to refuse to believe that CO2′s maximum warming is .4 ° C for a doubling of CO2. Some climate scientists like Dr Hansen put it at 1 ° C for a doubling but this makes me believe even that value isn’t really known. [250 % disagreement doesn't seem to mean the science is settled to me.]
This confirms for me that most lay alarmists are ignorant of the real debate going on.
The only part of climatology which matters at all is feedback. The rest is unimportant, at least to the catastrophe.
Don’t claim other branches of science confirm the catastrophe that is Bovine Scatology the alarmists cling desperately to the positive feedback life raft because without it there is no catastrophe.
Papers like the one from NASA are causing the life raft to sink.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/07/28/2249238/New-NASA-Data-Casts-Doubt-On-Global-Warming-Models
July 31, 2011, 7:57 amnetdr:
Renewable
From the “Walks Like a Duck”
Tyndall made another prediction of what greenhouse warming should look like. Just as greenhouse gases slow down nighttime cooling, they also slow down winter cooling. So Tyndall anticipated winters warming faster than summers. Again, recent analysis of temperature trends over the last few decades bear this out (Braganza et al 2003, Braganza et al 2004). Both thermometers and satellites find winters warming faster than summers.
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But yet when Great Britain had the COLDEST January in 120 years [I believe] we are told CO2 causes COOLING ? Snowfall is different from cooling isn’t it ?
Climate Astrology at it’s finest.
This paper is easy to shoot down paragraph by paragraph. That is like most skeptical science arguments. When I try to post I am blocked repeatedly and if I do get a point in the moderator posts a nonsensical argument which I am not allowed to respond to. [snip]
It may be crooked but it is the only game in town.
I would like to see a website similar to skeptical science which allowed all viewpoints without the moderators having an obvious bias.
July 31, 2011, 8:12 amnetdr:
Renewable
WHether we fully understand aerosols or not, the earth is still warming at a sensitivity of 3C for a doubling of co2.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/pdfs/CI-summary.pdf
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Actually since 1998 we have jumped the track. We should have warmed .36 ° C in that time but it clearly hasn’t happened. Saying “warming is in the pipeline” has been disproven by the recent research.
You state
Water vapor in the atmosphere has increased 4% since 1970.
Source please !
The charts I have seen [climate4u greenhouse gasses] show it to have declined 1950 to present. Even 1970 to present shows a decline so we have a data disagreement.
July 31, 2011, 9:01 amrenewable guy:
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/071029Wentz.pdf
Its partly a discussion at Nasa how they straightened out Spencer’s bullshit. There is a great deal of discussion of the trends of increasing water vapor in the atmosphere.
July 31, 2011, 9:45 amrenewable guy:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-3-20.html
One more figure on water vapor.
July 31, 2011, 10:00 amrenewable guy:
Actually since 1998 we have jumped the track. We should have warmed .36 ° C in that time but it clearly hasn’t happened. Saying “warming is in the pipeline” has been disproven by the recent research.
source?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Observed_CO2_Emissions_from_fossil_fuel_burning_vs_IPCC_scenarios.jpg
emissions vs ipcc scenarios. We are very much on track. Maybe you forgot about thermal lag due to the oceans.
July 31, 2011, 10:05 amMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
emissions vs ipcc scenarios. We are very much on track. Maybe you forgot about thermal lag due to the oceans. — You don’t understand. Emissions go according to the scenarios used by IPCC. But the global temperature does NOT go according to predictions made by IPCC for these emissions. Ie, the inputs fed to the models more or less resemble what is going on in reality (someone made a good guess at how the emissions would grow), but the outputs of these models are at grave odds with that reality (the same person absolutely failed at predicting what effect these emissions will have on the temperatures).
Do you see it now?
July 31, 2011, 11:12 amMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
To be skeptical that humans are causing global warming, you must believe two things. Something unknown is causing warming that happens to mirror the greenhouse effect. And something unknown is somehow suppressing the well understood (and well observed) greenhouse effect. So we can accept what we know to be true (greenhouse warming) or we accept two unknowns. — That’s complete BS. That’s like a paranoiac saying to himself that yes, Renewable Guy indeed hangs out on this forum in order to eventually get to him. The paranoiac might say to himself:
“To be skeptical that Renewable Guy is out to get me, one must believe two things. Someone unknown is out to get me and he is pretty good at making me feel exactly how I would feel if he was Renewable Guy. And something unknown keeps Renewable Guy from acting like he is well known to act, and getting to me. So we can accept what we know to be true (Renewable Guy is out to get me) or we accept two unknowns.”
That’s the position you are trying to argue, Renewable Guy.
July 31, 2011, 11:25 amnetdr:
renewable guy:
Actually since 1998 we have jumped the track. We should have warmed .36 ° C in that time but it clearly hasn’t happened. Saying “warming is in the pipeline” has been disproven by the recent research.
source?
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Source: arithmetic.
The recent research I referred to is what you have yourself cited.
The aerosol excuse says the missing heat is in outer space. How can warming be in the pipeline ?
July 31, 2011, 11:32 amnetdr:
Renewable
The charts I have seen clearly show falling water vapor contrary to what your paper says. Perhaps it is the elevations chosen or some other factor.
I believe Dr Jones even used it as an excuse for the lack of warming since 1998 but I can’t prove it.
I think it was about the time when he admitted that the 1978 to 1998 warming was not unusual and had in fact happened 3 times since records were kept.
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Q&A: Professor Phil Jones
… The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin put questions to Professor Jones, including several gathered from climate sceptics. The questions were put to Professor Jones with the co-operation of UEA’s press office.
________________________________________
A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.
.
Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
[This indicates that the recent warming is not exceptional. Moreover, even if it had been “exceptional,” that would not prove it is due to greenhouse gas emissions?]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-science-is-settled-issues/
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I will continue to believe that the water vapor is decreasing worldwide unless good evidence comes to light to the contrary.
Both your and my citations seem valid. I will choose to believe my own.
July 31, 2011, 11:47 amrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
emissions vs ipcc scenarios. We are very much on track. Maybe you forgot about thermal lag due to the oceans. — You don’t understand. Emissions go according to the scenarios used by IPCC. But the global temperature does NOT go according to predictions made by IPCC for these emissions. Ie, the inputs fed to the models more or less resemble what is going on in reality (someone made a good guess at how the emissions would grow), but the outputs of these models are at grave odds with that reality (the same person absolutely failed at predicting what effect these emissions will have on the temperatures).
Do you see it now?
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Your point of view of grave odds and mine will be two different things. If we can agree to one standard and then see if the model meets that standard.
It appears quite accurate to me. We are on track for the highest emissions scenario A1F1. Your whole argument is that the consequences are none or minor. I disagree. The IPCC and you are on different tracks.
Maybe there is a graph for that?:)
July 31, 2011, 11:48 amrenewable guy:
20 warmest years on record (°C anomaly from 1901–2000 mean)
Year Global[40] Land[41] Ocean[42]
2005 0.6183 0.9593 0.4896
2010 0.6171 0.9642 0.4885
1998 0.5984 0.8320 0.5090
2003 0.5832 0.7735 0.5108
2002 0.5762 0.8318 0.4798
2006 0.5623 0.8158 0.4669
2009 0.5591 0.7595 0.4848
2007 0.5509 0.9852 0.3900
2004 0.5441 0.7115 0.4819
2001 0.5188 0.7207 0.4419
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#Warmest_years
You defintely are a head in the sand type. How do you get no warming out of this data. There is only one 1990′s data point in the table above. The last decade was easily warmer than the 1990′s.
1990–1999 0.313 °C (0.563 °F)
2000–2009 0.513 °C (0.923 °F)
The 2000′s were warmer by about .36 C anomoly.
Are you sure who you say you are. You aren’t using your head very well. Or you are too lazy to change.
Its the long term average rather than the cherry picked 1998 point.
Average warmth has increased over the decades and the oceans respond by getting warmer and putting more water vapor into the atmosphere. As I have indicated by the Nasa Scientists in previous posts.
Of course by your judgement Watts Up is your authority. To bad they are wrong most of the time. So when is Watts Up accurate? You may never know and may even don’t want to know. Their story is good enough for you.
July 31, 2011, 12:06 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
renewable guy:
Actually since 1998 we have jumped the track. We should have warmed .36 ° C in that time but it clearly hasn’t happened. Saying “warming is in the pipeline” has been disproven by the recent research.
source?
***********
Source: arithmetic.
The recent research I referred to is what you have yourself cited.
The aerosol excuse says the missing heat is in outer space. How can warming be in the pipeline ?
#############################
Like I said before, you haven’t been studying what you disagree with. That one is pretty lame. It’s the thermal lag of the oceans. From your engineering background you should be able to get that one. It takes a lot more energy to heat water than air.
I have shown the oceans are warming or do you need to see that one again as usual.
Is this that hard for you to absorb?
97% of peer reviewed climatologists agree humans are the cause of this change in climate. How do you know they are wrong? What can you show me? Possibly nothing?
July 31, 2011, 12:15 pmYou are a doubter but really have no good explanation for why the earth really keeps warming.
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
It appears quite accurate to me. — What appears quite accurate to you – the predictions of IPCC as regards global temperatures? If so, which ones? The early ones, which overestimate warming by a factor of 2 and more, or the later ones, which, by IPCC’s own admission, are too young (too close to the initial conditions) to be used for validation?
We are on track for the highest emissions scenario A1F1. — Yes, I don’t dispute this. Did you read what I said?
Your whole argument is that the consequences are none or minor. — No, my argument is not that. Did you read what I said? Seriously.
July 31, 2011, 12:17 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
It’s the thermal lag of the oceans. — Prove it.
July 31, 2011, 12:18 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
97% of peer reviewed climatologists agree humans are the cause of this change in climate. — Dammit. Prove it.
July 31, 2011, 12:19 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
You are a doubter but really have no good explanation for why the earth really keeps warming. — And this has nothing to do with whether we are going to have a catastrophe and whether the models or the IPCC are right or wrong. Heck, the entire point of skeptics is that nobody knows exactly what to expect from the climate (we’d love to, but we don’t), and that the guys who tell us that they do know are exaggerating, to put it mildly. Stop using this as an argument, because it is not an argument.
July 31, 2011, 12:24 pmnetdr:
Renewable
First of all it isn’t at all clear that the ocean is gaining heat.
[You believe it is I believe it isn't]
C. A. Katsman and G. J. van Oldenborgh, 2011: Tracing the upper ocean’s ‘missing heat’. Geophysical Research Letters (in press).
The abstract reads
“Over the period 2003–2010, the upper ocean has not gained any heat, despite the general expectation that the ocean will absorb most of the Earth’s current radiative im- balance. Answering to what extent this heat was transferred to other components of the climate system and by what process(-es) gets to the essence of understanding climate change. ”
If it is gaining heat, which I don’t concede:
It is all about the numbers.
It isn’t a Boolean value warming / cooling, like all non engineers you make the same mistake.
If the oceans are gaining heat as you claim is it enough to cause 3 ° C warming in 100 years ?
I doubt it ! Especially since they claim the atmosphere is failing to warm and the energy is being reflected out into space. The alarmists contend the heat is reflected back into space but the oceans are continuing to warm at a rate which will produce 3 ° C warming in 100 year while the atmosphere clearly isn’t.
What rubbish !
July 31, 2011, 1:00 pmnetdr:
renewable
You act like the “missing heat” of Trenberth has been somehow found and one paper doesn’t prove it.
There is a debate raging in the literature about this very subject with Roger Pielke etc in the lead.
So claiming the battle is over and the alarmists have somehow won is pretty funny.
July 31, 2011, 1:10 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
renewable
You act like the “missing heat” of Trenberth has been somehow found and one paper doesn’t prove it.
There is a debate raging in the literature about this very subject with Roger Pielke etc in the lead.
So claiming the battle is over and the alarmists have somehow won is pretty funny.
#############################
Somehow 97% just isn’t good enough for you. If you can see cooling in the instrumental temperature record, that pretty much gives you license to say whatever you want.
It’s clear that the 2000′s are warmer than the 1990′s. With 2010 warmer than 1998. It’s obvious from there the earth is holding in more energy.
##########################
I’ve copied a comment from this link. Rob Painting wrote the article. There are some weaknesses in the denier side of things.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Cooling-Corrected-Again.html
Rob Painting at 22:56 PM on 28 July, 2011
JoeRG – it intrigues me how you gloss over the obvious. The oceans down to 1500 metres are warming. It utterly refutes the claims made by Knox & Douglass (2010). They basically insinuate that global warming has stopped. They’re wrong – as the continuing sea level rise also confirms.
Furthermore, you missed the section in my post discussing the sensitivity of analyses based on using the uncompleted ARGO data (pre November 2007) versus the completed network. Peruse the previous analyses highlighted in Knox & Douglass (2010) – there’s only 1 year of data using the completed network, making the result even less robust. If you read Von Schuckmann and Le Traon (2011) you’ll gain an understanding of some of the issues involved.
July 31, 2011, 2:03 pmrenewable guy:
Net
http://www.knmi.nl/publications/fulltexts/katsman_voldenborgh_grl_all.pdfhttp://www.knmi.nl/publications/fulltexts/katsman_voldenborgh_grl_all.pdf
If you read further and deeper into the paper, the author talks about the uncertainty in the data and the deep ocean issue. The turnover of the oceans isn’t automatic. That’s what the argo buoys are about. There is just starting to get enough data to gain certainty in the readings they are bringing in.
July 31, 2011, 2:16 pmnetdr:
Renewable
Somehow 97% just isn’t good enough for you.
******
Bovine Scatology these were a carefully selected cross section of people with a lot to loose if global warming were found to be natural.
This has been refuted so many times it is ridiculous.
Only a few climate apostles still believe it.
The Oceans are cooling as the study I cited above proves.
The missing heat is still missing.
July 31, 2011, 2:19 pmrenewable guy:
I doubt it ! Especially since they claim the atmosphere is failing to warm and the energy is being reflected out into space. The alarmists contend the heat is reflected back into space but the oceans are continuing to warm at a rate which will produce 3 ° C warming in 100 year while the atmosphere clearly isn’t.
##################
You are basing this on too short of a signal. The stratosphere isn’t warming, its cooling. That suggests co2 is holding in heat more than in the past.
When the world catches up to reducing aerosols as we have done, there will be less energy reflected into space assuming other variables don’t change.
July 31, 2011, 2:21 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
You are a doubter but really have no good explanation for why the earth really keeps warming. — And this has nothing to do with whether we are going to have a catastrophe and whether the models or the IPCC are right or wrong. Heck, the entire point of skeptics is that nobody knows exactly what to expect from the climate (we’d love to, but we don’t), and that the guys who tell us that they do know are exaggerating, to put it mildly. Stop using this as an argument, because it is not an argument.
#########################################
You would be wrong on this one Malcolm. The IPCC is forcasting a warmer planet due to increase in GHG’s mainly co2. Even the simplest of models show this. The models get the forcast wrong if they leave out co2. I’ve shown that many times before. The trend is correct with co2 included and the trend is warming. They have made that very clear. The IPCC has come to a consensus on 3C warming for a doubling of co2. No less than 1.5C and cannot rule out 10C.
July 31, 2011, 2:27 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
97% of peer reviewed climatologists agree humans are the cause of this change in climate. — Dammit. Prove it.
###########################
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm
Get with the times. Where have you been hiding yourself.
Subsequent research has confirmed this result. A survey of 3146 earth scientists asked the question “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” (Doran 2009). More than 90% of participants had Ph.D.s, and 7% had master’s degrees. Overall, 82% of the scientists answered yes. However, what are most interesting are responses compared to the level of expertise in climate science. Of scientists who were non-climatologists and didn’t publish research, 77% answered yes.
((((((((((((In contrast, 97.5% of climatologists who actively publish research on climate change responded yes.)))))))))))
As the level of active research and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement that humans are significantly changing global temperatures.
July 31, 2011, 2:33 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
It’s the thermal lag of the oceans. — Prove it.
##############################
This is the simple explanation
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/HeatBucket/
One reason the ocean heats more slowly than the atmosphere is the difference in their total mass. “The atmosphere only weighs a tiny fraction of what the ocean weighs,” Willis explains. “But there’s also a sort of intrinsic property of the air that makes it not quite as good at holding heat as the ocean. That property is called the specific heat. You probably have a feel for this if you’ve ever tried to boil a pot of water. You have to burn a lot of gas or wood to heat up the water. But if you had a similar quantity of air, it would take a lot less energy to heat it up to the same temperature. The water’s heavier, and it has a higher specific heat, and both of those things give it a much bigger heat capacity.”
July 31, 2011, 2:39 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
emissions vs ipcc scenarios. We are very much on track. Maybe you forgot about thermal lag due to the oceans. — You don’t understand. Emissions go according to the scenarios used by IPCC. But the global temperature does NOT go according to predictions made by IPCC for these emissions. Ie, the inputs fed to the models more or less resemble what is going on in reality (someone made a good guess at how the emissions would grow), but the outputs of these models are at grave odds with that reality (the same person absolutely failed at predicting what effect these emissions will have on the temperatures).
##########################
I didn’t catch this graph right away. It compares the IPCC scenarios of co2 emissions to the International Energy Agencies observed emissions. We are on track with the highest emission scenario. That was an educated guess. They made several guesses at different runs to show what the future might be. We are in the worst case scenario of the IPCC and they have spelled what consequences may result because of that. These scientists volunteered their time to do this. Plus they are hamstrung politically by their home country. And the IPCC did all this during the Bush administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Observed_CO2_Emissions_from_fossil_fuel_burning_vs_IPCC_scenarios.jpg
English: Shows in graphic form the projected increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in five of the IPCC emissions scenarios, compared to the International Energy Agency’s actual observational CO2 emissions data from fossil fuel consumption.
July 31, 2011, 2:54 pmrenewable guy:
but the outputs of these models are at grave odds with that reality (the same person absolutely failed at predicting what effect these emissions will have on the temperatures).
Do you see it now?
################################
You are going to have to show me your source on that one. The IPCC notoriously underestimates projections.
July 31, 2011, 2:57 pmnetdr:
The more scientifically literate you are the less you believe in CAGW..
http://www.sodahead.com/living/survey-by-yale-oregon-george-washington-and-temple-universities-found-that-the-most-scientifically/question-1952963/
This doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Alarmists I chat with on line are so uninformed that they don’t even know that CO2 can only cause .4 ° C without help which hasn’t happened up to now.
Warming is somehow in the pipeline but we don’t know where it is at now now. [almost certainly not in the oceans despite what you believe.]
They don’t know that CO2 blocks only 3 small bands of radiation which contribute very little even if
they were totally blocked. 100 % CO2 doesn’t mean infinite temperature, each molecule causes less waring than the last. The effect is logarithmic. Ninety percent of the alarmist laymen are ignorant of this simple physical law.
What they don’t know fills books.
97 %
Study claiming ’97% [of 79 = 76] climate scientists agree’ is flawed
No one claims 97 % of all scientists [Even Dr Hansen doesn't have a PHD in climate ] or even climate scientists agree. That is just misquoting the study.
Perhaps the most common argument used when urging action on climate change is the appeal to scientific authority. Previously this was accomplished by pointing at the IPCC, but since they have lost a significant portion of their credibility recently it has become more frequent to point out the scientists themselves. The most common claim that I encounter is a variation on this claim:
First I’m going to address a common response to this study. In this post at The Hockey Schtick, it is pointed out that the 97% statistic is based on only 79 climatologists, and that those participating were self-selected. There are two concerns here. The first is sample size. While climate science isn’t a massive field, 79 participants is fairly small. To claim definitely that 97% believe this or that you would need to poll significantly more people. The second concern is the fact that the scientists were self-selected by an online survey. This may not have led to a representative sample.
Other concerns with the study deal with numbers behind it, or other reasons to consider it a poor study. However, these aren’t my primary concern. My concern is the actual questions asked in the study, which I will show in a moment.
The study on which these claims are based is available here. It is an paper by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman written in 2009, entitled “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change”. Here is the citation:
Doran, P. T., and M. Kendall Zimmerman (2009), Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Eos Trans. AGU, 90(3)
The questions
The study is fairly simple. It has a large database of earth scientists, and sends them an invitation to participate in their study. If they accept, then they take an online survey. The survey asks two primary questions:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
[Even I would answer this one YES !]
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
[I would agree with this partially, the only word I would disagree is "significant".]
The unasked question is “Is a catastrophe imminent within the next 100 years but they were too timid to ask it.” The answer of course is NO and they should know it.
July 31, 2011, 3:13 pmrenewable guy:
http://climate4you.com/
he above diagrams indicate that none of this has been the case since 1948. Only near the planet surface, the relative humidity has remained roughly constant (although with variations), but in the remaining part of the Troposphere below the Tropopause the relative humidity has been decreasing. Even for the specific humidity, this appears to be the case. It has, however, recently been suggested that it that the negative long-term specific humidity trends shown by the above data series are doubtful, and that instead the trend is towards ((((((((increasing specific humidity))))))) (see, e.g., Dessler and Davis
#######################
Same source.
July 31, 2011, 3:16 pmnetdr:
renewable guy:
but the outputs of these models are at grave odds with that reality (the same person absolutely failed at predicting what effect these emissions will have on the temperatures).
Do you see it now?
################################
You are going to have to show me your source on that one. The IPCC notoriously underestimates projections
*************
I have done so repeatedly.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/06/a-spectacular-failure-latest-hadcrut-nasa-temperatures-significantly-below-ipcc-climate-model-predic.html
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
Hansen’s defense looked good in 2007 but terrible in 2011.
Here are the AR4 predictions.
Even in the short time they have run they have jumped the shark.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/strandwg/CCSM3_AR4_Experiments.html
Please show me one that has been reasonably accurate.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/strandwg/CCSM3_AR4_Experiments.html
July 31, 2011, 3:19 pmrenewable guy:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
With 3146 individuals completing the survey,
Approximately 5% of
the respondents were climate scientists,
That makes about 150 climate scientists. If you look at the survey graph, all of them answered yes at a rate greater than 88% or above. With peer reviewed paper writers at 97.5%.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm
Experts in academia and government research centers were e-mailed invitations to participate in the on-line poll conducted by the website questionpro.com. Only those invited could participate and computer IP addresses of participants were recorded and used to prevent repeat voting. Questions used were reviewed by a polling expert who checked for bias in phrasing, such as suggesting an answer by the way a question was worded. The nine-question survey was short, taking just a few minutes to complete.
July 31, 2011, 3:38 pmnetdr:
Renewable
Even I could have answered the softball questions asked “Yes”.
[As long as you defined significant as 10 % human effect.]
There has been only about 1/2 ° C warming per century from all sources. One tenth of that is .05 ° C.
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
[Even I would answer this one YES !]
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
[I would agree with this partially, If you define significantly as 5 to 10 %.]
The unasked question is “Is a catastrophe imminent within the next 100 years but they were too timid to ask it.” The answer of course is NO and they should know it.
July 31, 2011, 4:31 pmrenewable guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Risks_and_Impacts_of_Global_Warming.png
They call it the burning embers diagram. This ties in with the world negotiations of limiting temperature increase to 2 C. By this diagram, the serious problems are just beginning. If we let loose and to hell with carbon restrictions, 6 C is a problem for everyone. By this diagram it could be a small problem or could be the disaster that you say it could never become.
Remember the Bush-Cheney administration signed off on this. They could of vetoed it if they wanted to.
Both your numbers of 10% and .5 C low. What is your source?
July 31, 2011, 7:55 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
You would be wrong on this one Malcolm. The IPCC is forcasting a warmer planet due to increase in GHG’s mainly co2. Even the simplest of models show this. The models get the forcast wrong if they leave out co2. I’ve shown that many times before. The trend is correct with co2 included and the trend is warming. They have made that very clear. The IPCC has come to a consensus on 3C warming for a doubling of co2. No less than 1.5C and cannot rule out 10C. — That the models get the forecast wrong if they leave out their figures for CO2 does not mean their figures for CO2 are right. The consensus is not science.
A survey of 3146 earth scientists asked the question “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” (Doran 2009). More than 90% of participants had Ph.D.s, and 7% had master’s degrees. Overall, 82% of the scientists answered yes. However, what are most interesting are responses compared to the level of expertise in climate science. Of scientists who were non-climatologists and didn’t publish research, 77% answered yes. — If you ask me the same question, I will answer yes. You said that “97% of peer reviewed climatologists agree humans are the cause of this change in climate”. The question asked by the survey asks if humans are one of the causes of this change, not if they are the only cause, or the most significant cause. If you meant to say that humans are one of the causes, nobody disagrees with you. If you meant to say that humans are the most significant cause, you haven’t shown that. So, please stop citing this 97% figure because it either does not mean what you think it means or it is not backed up.
This is the simple explanation. — I asked you to prove that the extra warming predicted by the models that we don’t see is in the oceans. Your link does not contain anything resembling proof. It’s just a couple of paragraphs with no real statements, plus a nice picture of a coral reef.
I will reply to other points later.
July 31, 2011, 10:09 pmnetdr:
Renewable
The 97 % number is meaningless because of the softball questions the survey asked.
If they asked meaningful questions like” Is mankind facing catastrophe from global warming if nothing is done.
I’ll bet less than 50 % would agree.
We will never know.
August 1, 2011, 4:43 amnetdr:
Renewable
“Our model doesn’t track observations without CO2″ is the lamest excuse for believing CO2 is doing anything !
.
Their models don’t include ocean currents which were pretty obviously responsible for the 1978-1998 warming. While they do include solar they don’t include Gamma rays which are thought to influence cloud formation and hence temperature. Dozens of other important parameters aren’t included but these are the 500 Lb gorilla’s. Not including ocean currents assures us that the models will predict far more warming over the next 30 years than will actually happen.
.
Even what they do model are approximations and parametrization not based on first principals and so are pretty crude and inaccurate.
August 1, 2011, 5:43 amnetdr:
Renewable
To take a survey with 2 innocuous questions written in such a way that Drs Christy, Lindzen and I could answer YES to and extrapolating that to mean that 97 % of climate scientists believe in CAGW is brain damaged.
.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it. Voltaire
August 1, 2011, 9:10 am.
CO2 causes
Volcanoes [No joke, just after the Iceland volcano there were peer reviewed studies
linking it to global warming]
Earthquakes [Same thing after the Japan earthquake]
More snow
Less snow
Heat waves
Intense cold
Floods
Droughts
More extreme weather
Less extreme weather
Melting ice
Freezing water
More hurricanes
Fewer hurricanes
More cloud
Fewer clouds
Stratospheric warming
Stratospheric cooling
etc. etc. ad nauseum.
The science is settled.
.
How many of the above do real scientists believe in ?
.
I’ll bet very few.
renewable guy:
netdr:
Renewable
“Our model doesn’t track observations without CO2″ is the lamest excuse for believing CO2 is doing anything !
#######################
No. It means the model does not match observations in hindcasting. If the model has to be perfect before you can use it, then its like throwing the baby out with the bath water. A lot of good useful information can be gleaned from a model.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm
Figure 1: Comparison of climate results with observations. (a) represents simulations done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity. (b) represents simulations done with anthropogenic forcings: greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols. (c) was done with both natural and anthropogenic forcings (IPCC).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model#Accuracy_of_models_that_predict_global_warming
No model – whether a wind tunnel model for designing aircraft, or a climate model for projecting global warming – perfectly reproduces the system being modeled. Such inherently imperfect models may nevertheless produce useful results.
(((((In this context, GCMs are capable of reproducing the general features of the observed global temperature over the past century.))))[21]
.
Their models don’t include ocean currents which were pretty obviously responsible for the 1978-1998 warming. While they do include solar they don’t include Gamma rays which are thought to influence cloud formation and hence temperature. Dozens of other important parameters aren’t included but these are the 500 Lb gorilla’s. Not including ocean currents assures us that the models will predict far more warming over the next 30 years than will actually happen.
.
Even what they do model are approximations and parametrization not based on first principals and so are pretty crude and inaccurate.
August 1, 2011, 7:51 pm###################
Accurate enough to know within acceptable uncertainty what more co2 will do to our future.
renewable guy:
netdr:
Renewable
To take a survey with 2 innocuous questions written in such a way that Drs Christy, Lindzen and I could answer YES to and extrapolating that to mean that 97 % of climate scientists believe in CAGW is brain damaged.
########################
You haven’t read the whole survey. There are many other groups with much lower acceptance of AGW. Another point is the inside scientists studying the material have a much higher acceptance rate than those outside.
The role of co2 is clear to the inside scientists because they have studied it the most. Somehow you just can’t seem to accept that. That’s why you aren’t really a lukewarmer. You can’t really wrap your head around the fact that there is a great deal of consensus amongst the scientists.
As for Lindzen Christy and Spencer, they are basically seen for what they. Science lobbyists for the carbon industry. Can you wrap you head around that one. These peer reviewed scientists don’t agree with the carbon trio.
.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it. Voltaire
.
CO2 causes
Volcanoes [No joke, just after the Iceland volcano there were peer reviewed studies
linking it to global warming]
Earthquakes [Same thing after the Japan earthquake]
More snow yes
Less snow yes
Heat waves yes
Intense cold no
Floods yes
Droughts yes
More extreme weather yes
Less extreme weather ?
Melting ice yes
Freezing water ?
More hurricanes ?
Fewer hurricanes ?
More cloud no
Fewer clouds yes
Stratospheric warming ?
Stratospheric cooling yes
etc. etc. ad nauseum.
The science is settled.
.
How many of the above do real scientists believe in ?
.
I’ll bet very few.
#############################
peer reviewed studies take time of which the scientists are doing over the last 150 years. Within the uncertainty levels there is a 95% chance of the earth getting warmer with more emissions of GHG;s
August 1, 2011, 8:08 pmrenewable guy:
Abstract:
The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: Limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A large survey of U.S. adults (N = 1540) found little support for this account. On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones.
More importantly, greater scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with greater cultural polarization:
Respondents predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence became more dismissive,
##################
Hmmmm anyone here fit into this one?
#################
and those predisposed by their values to credit such evidence more concerned, as science literacy and numeracy increased.
We suggest that this evidence reflects a conflict between two levels of rationality:
The individual level, which is characterized by citizens’ effective use of their knowledge and reasoning capacities to form risk perceptions that express their cultural commitments;
and the collective level, which is characterized by citizens’ failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on how to promote their common welfare. Dispelling this, “tragedy of the risk-perception commons,” we argue, should be understood as the central aim of the science of science communication.
#################
In reading other discussions online conservatives are described as tribal in their response to AGW or CAGW.
Chris Matthews described democrats as falling in love with who they vote for and republicans fall in line. A different social response to the world.
August 1, 2011, 8:43 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
This is the simple explanation. — I asked you to prove that the extra warming predicted by the models that we don’t see is in the oceans. Your link does not contain anything resembling proof. It’s just a couple of paragraphs with no real statements, plus a nice picture of a coral reef.
I will reply to other points later.
##############################
I started with something simple and it was done by an authority who understands the principles. Its also at a level for those reading whose science comprehension isn’t at our level.
If your own science comprehension was higher, you would’nt be asking me this question. Its a very basic understanding. Water is denser than air.
August 1, 2011, 8:50 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
I started with something simple and it was done by an authority who understands the principles. Its also at a level for those reading whose science comprehension isn’t at our level. If your own science comprehension was higher, you would’nt be asking me this question. Its a very basic understanding. Water is denser than air. — So, that’s your proof that the extra warming predicted by the models that we don’t see is in the oceans?
August 1, 2011, 9:00 pmTed Rado:
The ongoing debate re CAGW is interesting, but irrelavent. Without a viable alternative energy source, there is no option but to move north as the earth warms (assuming the AGW stuff is correct). The Canadians, Scandinavians, and Siberians would love it!
Every existing alternative energy scheme is only valid if it is on a relatively small scale and is government subsidized. The two most prominent schemes (wind and solar) fall apart without government subsidies. If they expand to where dedicated backup or energy storage is needed, they collapse completely. Biofuels are a joke, as land area is limited and the fuel needed to grow the crops and convert them to fuel is near, or exceeds, the fuel produced.
We need to put first things first. Find a viable alternative energy source FIRST. Then, and ONLY THEN, consider dumping our fossil fuels.
I am all for climate research. However, basing HUGE IMPACT decisions on computer models, which everyone agrees are full of fudge factors and are no doubt missing many variables we are not even aware of, is madness.
August 2, 2011, 7:52 amnetdr:
Renewable
No model – whether a wind tunnel model for designing aircraft, or a climate model for projecting global warming – perfectly reproduces the system being modeled. Such inherently imperfect models may nevertheless produce useful results.
*************
We are asked to pass taxes which are obviously damaging to our economy [and the world economy as well] to avoid warming which is only present in the models. [Observations fail to show any since 1998.]
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So using a failed model as a guide to policy decisions involving much expense and pain is brain damaged thinking.
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If I created a model of an airplane which predicted it would behave in one way and it behaved the opposite I would fix the model [but I wouldn't take actions based on it until the fix was carefully verified] .
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The airplane model can be verified and fixed in weeks or months but climate models take 20 to 30 years to verify. The rate of learning is glacially slow by comparison. The current crop haven’t verified at all well. They are in the “diddle a few parameters and try again ” stage where they will remain for the next 30 to 50 years.
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Climate science isn’t like medicine or electronics where experiments can be run in a laboratory and results available in weeks at worst. Doctors can even do “double blind” experiments. We don’t have a spare earth to experiment with and hundreds of unknown variables interact in a chaotic fashion, so teasing out the effect of any single variable is almost impossible. The observers are so non objective that prying their science away from their near religious fervor is impossible.
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I laugh at the people who liken climate science to medicine saying “If a Doctor said you needed an operation …… ” As I have shown that is insulting to the doctor.
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We know thousands of times more accurately the effect of various medicines and the symptoms and cures of various diseases because doctors can “practice” many times. We have one earth and our rate of accumulating climate knowledge is very very slow for the reasons state above.
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August 2, 2011, 8:07 amClimate science is more like Astrology than medicine and it is an insult to the doctors to equate them !
netdr:
Renewable
Have you ever read your Horoscope ? I have and it was interesting and it seems that whatever happens has been predicted. The predictions are so general they fit millions of people and mean everything and nothing.
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Alarmists predict everything and when any normal thing happens they claim victory, in a huge planet some pretty abnormal things are normally happening somewhere:
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I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it. Voltaire
.
CO2 causes
Volcanoes [No joke, just after the Iceland volcano there were peer reviewed studies
linking it to global warming]
Earthquakes [Same thing after the Japan earthquake]
More snow yes
Less snow yes
Heat waves yes
Intense cold no
Floods yes
Droughts yes
More extreme weather yes
Less extreme weather ?
Melting ice yes
Freezing water ?
More hurricanes ?
Fewer hurricanes ?
More cloud no
Fewer clouds yes
Stratospheric warming ?
Stratospheric cooling yes
etc. etc. ad nauseum.
The science is settled.
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How many of the above do real scientists believe in ? Have they no shame ?
.
August 2, 2011, 8:44 amrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
I started with something simple and it was done by an authority who understands the principles. Its also at a level for those reading whose science comprehension isn’t at our level. If your own science comprehension was higher, you would’nt be asking me this question. Its a very basic understanding. Water is denser than air. — So, that’s your proof that the extra warming predicted by the models that we don’t see is in the oceans?
##############################
Show me what you are made of Malcolm. I’m growing tired of your position. I’ll let you show me different if you want.
August 2, 2011, 8:50 pmrenewable guy:
Ted Rado:
THis seems to fit you and Net quite well. Your identity with the established way of what is now. The information of science demands change. Which you have shown to be very resistant to.
#####################################
http://www.grist.org/people/David+Roberts
There’s a study running soon in the journal Global Environmental Change called “Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States.” It analyzes poll and survey data from the last 10 years and finds that … are you sitting down? … conservative white men are far more likely to deny the threat of climate change than other people.
OK, that’s no surprise to anyone who’s been awake over the last decade. But the paper goes beyond that to put forward some theories about why conservative white men (CWM) are so loathe to accept climate change. The explanation is some mix of the following, all of which overlap in various ways:
First there’s the “white male effect” — generally speaking, white males are less concerned with a variety of risks. This probably has to do with the fact that they are less exposed to risk than other demographics, what with running things and all.
Then, as Chris Mooney notes, there’s the “social dominance orientation” of conservatives, who see social life as following the law of the jungle. One’s choice is to dominate or be dominated; that is the natural order of things. Such folk are leery of climate change solutions premised on fairness or egalitarianism.
Then there are the well-understood “system-justifying tendencies” of conservatives. The authors explain that conservatives …
… strongly display tendencies to justify and defend the current social and economic system. Conservatives dislike change and uncertainty and attempt to simplify complexity. Further, conservative white males have disproportionately occupied positions of power within our economic system. Given the expansive challenge that climate change poses to the industrial capitalist economic system, it should not be surprising that conservative white males’ strong system-justifying attitudes would be triggered to deny climate change.
Finally, there’s “identity-protective cognition,” a notion borrowed from Dan Kahan at Yale. (See this PDF.) Here’s how Kahan and colleagues sum it up
August 2, 2011, 9:00 pmrenewable guy:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-advanced.htm
Fundamental physics and global climate models both make testable predictions as to how the global climate should change in response to anthropogenic warming. Almost universally, empirical observations confirm that these ‘fingerprints’ of anthropogenic global warming are present.
Surface Temperature Change
More warming at night than day
Stratospheric Temperature Change
Tropopause Height
Upper Atmosphere Temperature Change
Ocean Heat Content
Sea Level Pressure
Precipitation
Infrared Radiation
August 2, 2011, 9:13 pmIncrease in downward longwave radiation
Malcolm:
Malcolm:
Show me what you are made of Malcolm. I’m growing tired of your position. I’ll let you show me different if you want. — I am not sure what you are asking me to do. Netdr said that with the unreasonably large estimates of the climate sensitivity parameter used by IPCC we should have had much more warming than we had to date. You said that ‘It’s the thermal lag of the oceans’. I asked you to prove this, three times already, and you continue to evade. So, can you cite a paper that proves that the extra heat is in the oceans by citing measured, verified numbers? Either link such a paper or admit that there is no definitive research that allows one to ultimately conclude that ‘It’s the thermal lag’. This is my position, a very simple one. I don’t care if it makes you tired. You keep throwing statement after statement which are untrue or misleading. Stop doing that.
August 2, 2011, 10:10 pmPauld:
Renewable Guy says: “Fundamental physics and global climate models both make testable predictions as to how the global climate should change in response to anthropogenic warming.”
Renewable: have you counted how many people on this board who are interacting with you dispute that some warming has occurred that is at least partially attributable to CO2 emissions?
My count is zero. The question in contension is whether the moderate warming that has actually been observed will greatly accelerate in the future so as to create catostrophic consequences. Focus on that question.
August 3, 2011, 9:04 amTed Rado:
Where do you get the idea that I identify with the establishment? My friends would find that statement very funny. You seem to be saying that anyone that doesn’t buy the CAGW thing lock, stock, and barrel, is some sort of neanderthal. The day will never come (I certainly hope) when we all fall in lock step behind the “experts”. There will always be free discussion of new ideas. That’s how you validate or invalidate them.
People have been searching for energy sources since the dawn of time. Many ideas have been investigated long before the USG started pushing money out the door. If there ia a good idea, engineers and businessmen will pursue it. If it not a good idea, they will not waste money on it but search elsewhere.
Inventors, engineers, scientists, and businessmen have fathered virtually all the modern stuff we are surrounded with without USG intervention. If someone has a technically feasible, economically viable idea, it will be pursued vigorously. To suggest that we agree to pursue nonsense so as to meet with your approval, or so as not to seem negative, is hilarious.
Another point: It seems to me that if some USG official decides what to pursue, the chances of finding new energy sources are far less than if left to the business, technical, and research community. The USG certainly does not have a good track record compared to competitive private enterprise. Effort diverted to nonsense is not available to pursue promising leads. Thus, we lose twice. Once with the money we waste, and secondly we lose what might have been fruitfully done with the wasted resources. I am all for free enterprise searching for better ways rather than to follow USG diktat.
Free debate is part of scientific and technical progress. If what you are pushing cannot stand up to questioning and discussion, you might want to consider that your idea is no good. I am sure that historically, for every successful idea, there were hundreds of failures. Hopefully, these are found out and abandoned before too much money is wasted. The procedures to accomplish this weeding out are well established in the engineering world, but seem to be completely lacking in the USG. I personally have never shied away from discussion of my ideas. If they are wrong, the sooner we find out the better.
By the way, I have REPEATEDLY explained the problems with current alternative energy schemes. You never reply except to say “the Spaniards are doing it, so it must be right”. Merely stating that climate scientists, Spaniards, or whoever say it’s Ok is not a convincing argument.
The facts are: 1) The CAGW thing is based on models full of fudge factors, are missing some variables, and do not agree well with real data. There is much dispute over the whole idea. This research and discussion should continue until there is a convincing outcome (not just a majority vote). 2) There are currently no alternative energy schemes that are viable on a large scale. For example, wind and solar require energy storage or backup. Therefore, we have nowhere to go if we substantially do away with fossil fuel use, except to move north. 3) To plunge shead with CO2 reduction absent Chinese and Indain participation would result in the demise of our industrial economy.
On a personal note, I have no idea whether the CAGW thing is correct or not, although there are enough questions to cause me to be doubtful. The consequences of fully implementing it (80% CO2 reduction by 2050) are so severe that I am not prepared to jump on board. Let’s continue to investigate before we do something stupid.
August 3, 2011, 9:35 amTed Rado:
Now, I’m always wrong because I am a white male! What a brilliant stroke of debating technique. Perhaps the next time I get into a debate with my lady, I will tell her she is wrong because she is a white female. Then I will not only be wrong because I am a white male, but because I am a white chauvenist male! Wow! What a strong set of arguments. I should join a debating society.
August 3, 2011, 9:41 amnetdr:
Renewable
PaulD nailed it.
” Have you counted how many people on this board who are interacting with you dispute that some warming has occurred that is at least partially attributable to CO2 emissions?
My count is zero. The question in contension is whether the moderate warming that has actually been observed will greatly accelerate in the future so as to create catostrophic consequences. Focus on that question.”
***********************
It is possible that some of the warming since 1860 is due to CO2. The fact that the warming began before significant CO2 was emitted tells me that it can’t all be.
I also think the fact that we are at the peak of the current PDO cycle accounts for some more of it. It is suspicious that the 1978 to 1998 warming occurred right when it should have occurred due to ocean currents.
So what is left ? [.01 or .1 or .2 ° C ?]
Why should we believe this will accelerate greatly in the future ? As you noted recent studies have found that the missing heat is in outer space not in some magical “pipeline” waiting to cause warming in the future.
New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html
And Dr Mann’s latest attempt to explain the lack of warming.
So why should we believe in massive future warming ?
August 3, 2011, 4:39 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Malcolm:
Show me what you are made of Malcolm. I’m growing tired of your position. I’ll let you show me different if you want. — I am not sure what you are asking me to do. Netdr said that with the unreasonably large estimates of the climate sensitivity parameter used by IPCC we should have had much more warming than we had to date. You said that ‘It’s the thermal lag of the oceans’. I asked you to prove this, three times already, and you continue to evade. So, can you cite a paper that proves that the extra heat is in the oceans by citing measured, verified numbers? Either link such a paper or admit that there is no definitive research that allows one to ultimately conclude that ‘It’s the thermal lag’. This is my position, a very simple one. I don’t care if it makes you tired. You keep throwing statement after statement which are untrue or misleading. Stop doing that.
#################################
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-the-40-year-delay-between-cause-and-effect.html
Can’t say that I’m going to follow your rules. I find you lazy and petulant. You can also do some of your own digging and then talk about it.
The reason the planet takes several decades to respond to increased CO2 is the thermal inertia of the oceans. Consider a saucepan of water placed on a gas stove. Although the flame has a temperature measured in hundreds of degrees C, the water takes a few minutes to reach boiling point. This simple analogy explains climate lag. The mass of the oceans is around 500 times that of the atmosphere. The time that it takes to warm up is measured in decades. Because of the difficulty in quantifying the rate at which the warm upper layers of the ocean mix with the cooler deeper waters, there is significant variation in estimates of climate lag. A paper by James Hansen and others [iii] estimates the time required for 60% of global warming to take place in response to increased emissions to be in the range of 25 to 50 years. The mid-point of this is 37.5 which I have rounded to 40 years.
################
So Malcomb. What haven’t I done this time? Maybe you can show me what you know. What do you know?
August 4, 2011, 7:57 pmrenewable guy:
Pauld:
Renewable Guy says: “Fundamental physics and global climate models both make testable predictions as to how the global climate should change in response to anthropogenic warming.”
Renewable: have you counted how many people on this board who are interacting with you dispute that some warming has occurred that is at least partially attributable to CO2 emissions?
My count is zero. The question in contension is whether the moderate warming that has actually been observed will greatly accelerate in the future so as to create catostrophic consequences. Focus on that question.
########################
It’s easier to look at small single things at a time. I believe the answer lies in positive feedbacks. The earth is 70% water. As the oceans heat up we are in a point of no return for more than a thousand years. I can list the consequences that the scientists say come with the temperature increase. Don’t know the speed of it.
That’s why models are used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Risks_and_Impacts_of_Global_Warming.png
The higher the global average temperature increase the stronger the C in CAGW. I’m sure you have seen this before.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming#Temperature_changes
This article breaks down some of the impacts of climate change according to different levels of future global warming. This way of describing impacts has, for instance, been used in the IPCC’s Assessment Reports on climate change.[8] The instrumental temperature record shows global warming of around 0.6°C over the entire 20th century.[9] The future level of global warming is uncertain, but a wide range of estimates (projections) have been made.[10] The IPCC’s “SRES” scenarios have been frequently used to make projections of future climate change.[11] Climate models using the six SRES “marker” scenarios suggest future warming of 1.1 to 6.4°C by the end of the 21st century (above average global temperatures over the 1980 to 1999 time period).[12] The range in temperature projections partly reflects different projections of future social and economic development (e.g., economic growth, population level, energy policies), which in turn affects projections of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The range also reflects uncertainty in the response of the climate system to past and future GHG emissions (measured by the climate sensitivity).
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From the projections of the scientist if we reach 6 C average increase in earth’s temperature we are in for a rougher way to live, along with huge expenditures in infrastructure change.
August 4, 2011, 8:14 pmrenewable guy:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/02/23/203730/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections/
The MIT Integrated Global System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model’s first projections were published in 2003 substantial improvements have been made to the model and improved estimates of the probability distributions of uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections, e.g., the median surface warming in 2091 to 2100 is 5.1°C compared to 2.4°C in the earlier study.
[Note: That rise is compared to 1990 levels. So you can add at least 0.5 °C and 1.0 °F for comparison with pre-industrial temperatures.]
Their median projection for the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2095 is a jaw-dropping 866 ppm.
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WIth a Ted Rado point of view, don’t change unless you have to, our gooses are pretty much cooked. It will be hot and we will reach the IPCC worst case scenario.
#######################
For the no policy scenario, the researchers concluded that there is now a nine percent chance (about one in 11 odds) that the global average surface temperature would increase by more than 7°C (12.6°F) by the end of this century, compared with only a less than one percent chance (one in 100 odds) that warming would be limited to below 3°C (5.4°F).
##########################
Like you have heard before, it is shaking dice. By the MIT models under business as usual, the positive feedbacks are going to take off.
This is from the same university as the all mighty Richard Lindzen, who says climate sensitivity is low and has to retract his paper for correction because of serious flaws in his work.
August 4, 2011, 8:57 pmrenewable guy:
Ted Rado:
Now, I’m always wrong because I am a white male! What a brilliant stroke of debating technique. Perhaps the next time I get into a debate with my lady, I will tell her she is wrong because she is a white female. Then I will not only be wrong because I am a white male, but because I am a white chauvenist male! Wow! What a strong set of arguments. I should join a debating society.
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This group ignors the science and feels put upon by society. RIghtfully so. Annnnnnnnd hates the science because its knowledge demands fundamental change. The conservative climatologists know what is coming in CAGW.
August 4, 2011, 9:01 pmrenewable guy:
New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html
And Dr Mann’s latest attempt to explain the lack of warming.
So why should we believe in massive future warming ?
#####################################
According to more than one critical scientist, this was an intentionally wrong paper. Fake science especially for your consumption.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedback/
August 4, 2011, 9:22 pmrenewable guy:
Net:
It is possible that some of the warming since 1860 is due to CO2. The fact that the warming began before significant CO2 was emitted tells me that it can’t all be.
I also think the fact that we are at the peak of the current PDO cycle accounts for some more of it. It is suspicious that the 1978 to 1998 warming occurred right when it should have occurred due to ocean currents.
So what is left ? [.01 or .1 or .2 ° C ?]
#########################
Sources?
August 4, 2011, 9:24 pmrenewable guy:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedback/
Chris McGrath says:
29 Jul 2011 at 5:23 PM
Andrew Dessler seems to have summed the goal of this publication up well in a comment published on Climate Progress:
“[This] paper is not really intended for other scientists, since they do not take [Roy Spencer] seriously anymore (he’s been wrong too many times). Rather, he’s writing his papers for Fox News, the editorial board of the Wall St. Journal, Congressional staffers, and the blogs. These are his audience and the people for whom this research is actually useful — in stopping policies to reduce GHG emissions — which is what Roy wants.”
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/29/282584/climate-scienists-debunk-latest-bunk-by-denier-roy-spencer/#more-282584
August 4, 2011, 9:27 pmrenewable guy:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/articleimages.php?id=12851&iframe=true&width=378&height=403
MIT brings it down to a single graphic. On the right side is business as usual with a range of 3 thru 7C. The probabilities are discussed above.
The left graphic gives us a milder climate change to adapt to.
We will have to adapt to climate change. That is a given. The higher the average climate temperature rises, the more extremes we will have to adapt to. Not everyone will die, just some.
August 4, 2011, 9:44 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
[URL to skepticalscience snipped] — Good, here is a different paper that includes a graph of actual measurements for 2003 through 2008:
http://www.ncasi.org//Publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152
The graph looks like this:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/loehle_ocean-heat-content-blog-300×189.jpg
We can talk about whether or not it makes sense to display a linear fit for 4.5 years worth of data, but you can see that the amount of heat is going down with your own eyes.
So?
August 4, 2011, 9:48 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
This is just too funny to let pass. Your words:
“The MIT Integrated Global System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model’s first projections were published in 2003 substantial improvements have been made to the model and improved estimates of the probability distributions of uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections, e.g., the median surface warming in 2091 to 2100 is 5.1°C compared to 2.4°C in the earlier study. [Note: That rise is compared to 1990 levels. So you can add at least 0.5 °C and 1.0 °F for comparison with pre-industrial temperatures.] Their median projection for the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2095 is a jaw-dropping 866 ppm. ### WIth a Ted Rado point of view, don’t change unless you have to, our gooses are pretty much cooked. It will be hot and we will reach the IPCC worst case scenario.”
So what, Ted Rado has to change his point of view (which is: please show we can really live off these ‘new’ energy sources before shutting down ‘old’ ones, perfectly sensible if you ask me), because someone, somewhere adjusted their model, saying “it’s going to be alright this time, folks, we are going to hit it now” and that model increased the magnitude of doom it predicts?
Laughable.
August 4, 2011, 9:56 pmTheChuckr:
Renewable- “According to more than one critical scientist, this was an intentionally wrong paper. Fake science especially for your consumption.”
Really? Give us nonbelievers just one reason why we should believe anything from a website which censors anyone who posts something that does not agree with the party line.
“MIT brings it down to a single graphic. On the right side is business as usual with a range of 3 thru 7C. The probabilities are discussed above.
The left graphic gives us a milder climate change to adapt to.
We will have to adapt to climate change. That is a given. The higher the average climate temperature rises, the more extremes we will have to adapt to. Not everyone will die, just some.”
No GCM has shown skill in predicting long-term climate trends. Pielke Sr. has written numerous papers on this topic as have others or maybe Dessler, Romm, or Schmidt don’t take Pielke Sr. seriously, either
August 5, 2011, 4:27 amYeah, Everyone's Opinion is Equally Valid in Science:
Skeptic’s Small Cloud Study Renews Climate Rancor
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON July 30, 2011 (AP)
A study on how much heat in Earth’s atmosphere is caused by cloud cover has heated up the climate change blogosphere even as it is dismissed by many scientists.
Several mainstream climate scientists call the study’s conclusions off-base and overstated. Climate change skeptics, most of whom are not scientists, are touting the study, saying it blasts gaping holes in global warming theory and shows that future warming will be less than feared. The study in the journal Remote Sensing questions the accuracy of climate computer models and got attention when a lawyer for the conservative Heartland Institute wrote an opinion piece on it.
The author of the scientific study is Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama Huntsville, a prominent climate skeptic. But even he says some bloggers are overstating what the research found. Spencer’s study is based on satellite data from 2000 to 2010 and is one of a handful of studies he’s done that are part of an ongoing debate among a few scientists.
His research looked at cause and effect of clouds and warming. Contrary to the analysis of a majority of studies, his found that for the past decade, variations in clouds seemed more a cause of warming than an effect. More than anything, he said, his study found that mainstream research and models don’t match the 10 years of data he examined. Spencer’s study concludes the question of clouds’ role in heating “remains an unsolved problem.”
Spencer, who uses what he calls a simple model without looking at ocean heat or El Nino effects, finds fault with the more complicated models often run by mainstream climate scientists.
At least 10 climate scientists reached by The Associated Press found technical or theoretical faults with Spencer’s study or its conclusions. They criticized the short time period he studied and his failure to consider the effects of the ocean and other factors. They also note that the paper appears in a journal that mostly deals with the nuts-and-bolts of satellite data and not interpreting the climate.
“This is a very bad paper and is demonstrably wrong,” said Richard Somerville, a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. “It is getting a lot of attention only because of noise in the blogosphere.”
Kerry Emanuel of MIT, one of two scientists who said the study was good, said bloggers and others are misstating what Spencer found. Emanuel said this work was cautious and limited mostly to pointing out problems with forecasting heat feedback. He said what’s being written about Spencer’s study by nonscientists “has no basis in reality.”
August 5, 2011, 5:47 amYeah, Everyone's Opinion is Equally Valid in Science:
****”Ted Rado has to change his point of view (which is: please show we can really live off these ‘new’ energy sources before shutting down ‘old’ ones, perfectly sensible if you ask me),”
That is perfectly sensible. Unfortunately, that is not Ted’ POV. Ted wants to shut down invention BEFORE we invent these ‘new’ energy sources. He wants to give up before we’ve had the chance to develop them.
August 5, 2011, 6:03 amnetdr:
renewable guy:
Net:
It is possible that some of the warming since 1860 is due to CO2. The fact that the warming began before significant CO2 was emitted tells me that it can’t all be.
I also think the fact that we are at the peak of the current PDO cycle accounts for some more of it. It is suspicious that the 1978 to 1998 warming occurred right when it should have occurred due to ocean currents.
So what is left ? [.01 or .1 or .2 ° C ?]
#########################
Sources?
**********
I have posted them many times.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1860/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1860/to:1880/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1978/to:1998/trend
There have been 3 periods of warming since records have been kept.
[1860 to 1880; 1910 to 1940; and 1978 to 1998]
The 1978 to 1998 period isn’t in any way special or unnatural.
As I said warming started long before CO2 emissions were significant.
Sunspots have been slowly building since records have been kept. [1860 or so]
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfaml.html
Of course the sun cannot cause warming can it ?
The 1978 to 1998 positive PDO cycle.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/nasa-says-pdo-switched-to-cold-phase/
Notice that the PDO was almost continuously positive from 1978 to 1998 but that couldn’t cause warming could it ?
Notice that 1999 and 2000 the PDO was negative and these were cool years.
[But that is just a coincidence isn't it ?]
From 1998 to present the positive PDO and negative PDO periods have been roughly equal and temperatures have gone sideways.
[But that too is just a coincidence isn't it ?]
As I said, if these natural sources of warming were subtracted there would be almost no warming left over to blame on CO2.
August 5, 2011, 6:38 amnetdr:
Yeah, Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid in Science:
********
That is a profound name.
Yes everyone’s opinion is equally valid if backed up by a valid set of testable observations.
Even Einstein believed that to be true.
When Albert Einstein was
informed of the publication of a book entitled 100 Authors
Against Einstein, he is said to have remarked, ‘If I were wrong,
then one would have been enough!’ (Hawking, 1988); however,
that one opposing scientist would have needed proof in the form
of testable results.
So far the CAGW hysteria is short on testable results.
By predicting everything they predict nothing. Saying that every weather event is climate is silly.
So inadvertently your name speaks a profound truth.
August 5, 2011, 6:50 amnetdr:
Yeah, Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid in Science:
**********
You have without knowing it hit on one of the profound reasons science works.
If it were otherwise the upstart Einstein could never have challenged to wise and venerable Newton.
In fact the established scientists who held that the earth was the center of everything would still be the prevailing theory.
So you are 100 % correct !
“Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid in Science”
That is why it is called “science” not “politics” or something else.
August 5, 2011, 7:00 amMalcolm:
Yeah…:
At least 10 climate scientists reached by The Associated Press found technical or theoretical faults with Spencer’s study or its conclusions. They criticized the short time period he studied and his failure to consider the effects of the ocean and other factors. — Oh, 10 scientists. What, are we taking polls again? Where are the specifics? “Short time period” / “failure to consider” is too vague.
They also note that the paper appears in a journal that mostly deals with the nuts-and-bolts of satellite data and not interpreting the climate. — Ah, right, here we are. This, of course, answers everything. The paper is wrong because it is published in the wrong journal.
Ted wants to shut down invention BEFORE we invent these ‘new’ energy sources. He wants to give up before we’ve had the chance to develop them. — Right.
You know, you are really grasping at straws now.
August 5, 2011, 7:57 amTed Rado:
Where do you get the notion that I want to shut down anything BEFORE we invent it. That is idiotic.
We don’t give up before we develop it. We do things in an orderly, well established manner in order to minimize wasting resources and maximizing the chance of success. This gets us to where we want to be quickly and economically.
1) Have an idea.
2) Do paper studies so that, if it works, it is feasible technically and economically.
3) If it passes muster on paper, go ahead and spend money on developing it.
4) If the development works out (no insurmountable problems show up), go ahead with a pilot project.
An example is ethanol. The USG went ahead and sponsored (indeed, passed laws forcing ethanol production) ethanol plants. Many were built. Now, it is apparent that diverting 40% of our corn production to ethanol reaults in:
a) Large increase in food prices.
2) Diversion of farmland from other crops to corn, thus increasing the price of those other commodities.
3) The net impact on energy is almost zero, as the fuel to grow, harvest, and convert the corn almost equals the fuel value of the ethanol. In fact, some investigators calculate that there is a net loss.
Many years ago, in a couple hours time, I looked up US corn production, how much ethanol could be produced from this total, read up on fuel required to produce it, and came up with a NET energy production of 250,000 BBL/day gasoline equivalent. This sort of study should have been done ahead of time. I have not mentioned the fringe effects, such as starvation in Africa. Also, the total costs, including increases in other ag commodities costs, must accrue to the ethanol, not just the direct cost. Even with just the direct cost, a subsidy is required to keep the thing going. If the total, including indirect costs, were added, ethanol would cost many tens of dollars/gal instead of the reported cost.
In the case of wind and solar, there are no viable backup or storage schemes. I have studied the subject for years. Every scheme, such as water or compressed air storage, is nonsense. Do the numbers youself!!
I cannot be sure, but inasmuch as mankind has been searching for new sources of energy for centuries, all the obvious schemes have long since been looked at. This suggests that something new, similar to the development of nuclear energy, must be found. Rehashing ideas that have been around for a long time is unlikely to come up with a different answer. In the meantime, don’t wreck what we have.
All this is standard practise in the engineering world. To plunge ahead and spend piles of money with no idea of how you will finish the job is madness. If anyone can show me a viable backup or storage scheme for wind and solar, I would be delighted to hear it. I have made this point repeatedly with no response from the wanna be engineers. All I get is that I am Mr. No because I don’t want to jump off the cliff. Show me a COMPLETE scheme, with numbers, and I will immediately back down.
By the way, I don’t intend to give up on energy. I devote a lot of my time to studying potential sources of energy. So far, they have all failed when I do the numbers. Some times I wish I was not an engineer. I could then push things like making gasoline out of CO2 with a straight face, to say nothing of all the time I would save studying and doing calcs.
I continue to be astonished at the number of people who are devoid of any understanding of engineering principles, but insist we throw out standard engineering methods and do it their way. I wish I was that egotistical and adventuresome (not).
August 5, 2011, 8:08 amnetdr:
Ted has stated the engineering method well.
When we started a new project we spent months on steps 1 & 2.
We would write a “proposal” proving it worked on paper. This could cost as much as a million dollars and take the whole department months to write.
The political method the alarmists espouse is “pass a law and pray”.
The laws of unintended consequences then bite you in the B**.
Ethanol is a good example.
BTW: I am in Dallas and it is about as warm as it gets [110 the record is 115 for an August day] but there is no wind.
The flags are drooping straight down as they always are when it is really hot. It’s a good thing we aren’t relying on wind power.
August 5, 2011, 8:47 amTed Rado:
Netdr:
Well said. It is comforting to find another engineer who understands the engineering approach.
“Yeah, evryone”‘s opinion seems to be that we aught go out and by a car with no idea where we will get the wheels. In fact, we don’t even know what is supposed to fit on the axles. How brilliant.
August 5, 2011, 9:12 amnetdr:
Ted
To a non-engineer the world is a binary place. Numbers don’t seem to matter to them at all.
To an engineer the “devil is in the details”. [I try to put myself in their shoes but it is impossible.]
Engineers tend to be skeptics:
“Burt” Rutan is a fine example. Anyone who can build and test a working space ship is a rocket scientist by definition. Separating the flyspecks from the pepper is part of the job.
He is a well spoken and ardent skeptic for good reasons. He has a well thought out power point presentation.
AS shown many times the more scientific and informed someone is the more likely he/she is a skeptic of CAGW. [particularly the "C"]
http://www.sodahead.com/living/survey-by-yale-oregon-george-washington-and-temple-universities-found-that-the-most-scientifically/question-1952963/
August 5, 2011, 11:41 amTed Rado:
Netdr:
I am absolutly astonished that people with no technical background run their mouth on engineering and scientific things they know nothing about.
Many years ago, I was doing some consulting in Turkey re a hydrogen peroxide synthesis project. One of the lead people was a World Bank guy (Harvard MBA). He made a complete ass of himself. He kept talking nonsense about things he was totally ignorant of. Later, the German engineers and I had a good laugh on the flight back to Frankfurt. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I have enough sense not to run my mouth when I don’t know what I’m talking about. I have been asked to consult on a chem eng area where I have no specific experience. I turned it down for obvious reasons and referred tham to a friend who was experienced in the field. I did not feel stupid for doing so. I was being professionally honest.
Waldo reminds me of that Harvard MBA in Turkey.
August 5, 2011, 1:53 pmnetdr:
Yeah, Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid in Science:
**********
You have without knowing it hit on one of the profound reasons science works.
If it were otherwise the upstart Einstein could never have challenged to wise and venerable Newton.
In fact the established scientists who held that the earth was the center of everything would still be the prevailing theory.
So you are 100 % correct !
“Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid in Science”
That is why it is called “science” not “politics” or something else.
Apparently sock puppet agrees with me. At least he has no reasonable response, but that usually doesn’t stop him.
Science is founded on the principal that ” Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid ” !
Does sock puppet know a better method for determining truth ?
Perhaps those with more alphabet soup after their name should win always.
August 6, 2011, 7:43 amrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
[URL to skepticalscience snipped] — Good, here is a different paper that includes a graph of actual measurements for 2003 through 2008:
http://www.ncasi.org//Publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152
The graph looks like this:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/loehle_ocean-heat-content-blog-300×189.jpg
We can talk about whether or not it makes sense to display a linear fit for 4.5 years worth of data, but you can see that the amount of heat is going down with your own eyes.
So?
##############################
If you choose to read the article, there is discussion about the argo float data and the accuracy of short term trends. There is a section called the more data the better. The long term trend is still a warming earth.
###########################
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Cooling-Corrected-Again.html
Ocean warming in context
The warming trend observed is slightly smaller than that seen in Von Schuckmann (2009), where the authors measure down to ocean depths of 2000 metres, and found a warming trend of 0.77 ±0.11 watts per square metre. However, it completely refutes a recent (2010) skeptic paper which suggested the oceans were cooling, based on the upper ocean down to 700 metres. Clearly much heat is finding it’s way down into deeper waters. And although small in comparison, the deep ocean is gaining heat too.
Upper ocean warming (0-700mtrs) is slower than that observed during the 1990′s, but the oceans are still gaining heat. Indeed, the slow-down is to be expected if recent papers on increased reflective aerosols in the atmsophere are correct.
August 6, 2011, 12:31 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
[URL to skepticalscience snipped] — Good, here is a different paper that includes a graph of actual measurements for 2003 through 2008:
The graph looks like this:
We can talk about whether or not it makes sense to display a linear fit for 4.5 years worth of data, but you can see that the amount of heat is going down with your own eyes.
So?
##############################
If you choose to read the article, there is discussion about the argo float data and the accuracy of short term trends. There is a section called the more data the better. The long term trend is still a warming earth.
###########################
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Cooling-Corrected-Again.html
Ocean warming in context
The warming trend observed is slightly smaller than that seen in Von Schuckmann (2009), where the authors measure down to ocean depths of 2000 metres, and found a warming trend of 0.77 ±0.11 watts per square metre. However, it completely refutes a recent (2010) skeptic paper which suggested the oceans were cooling, based on the upper ocean down to 700 metres. Clearly much heat is finding it’s way down into deeper waters. And although small in comparison, the deep ocean is gaining heat too.
Upper ocean warming (0-700mtrs) is slower than that observed during the 1990′s, but the oceans are still gaining heat. Indeed, the slow-down is to be expected if recent papers on increased reflective aerosols in the atmsophere are correct.
August 6, 2011, 12:32 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Yeah…:
At least 10 climate scientists reached by The Associated Press found technical or theoretical faults with Spencer’s study or its conclusions. They criticized the short time period he studied and his failure to consider the effects of the ocean and other factors. — Oh, 10 scientists. What, are we taking polls again? Where are the specifics? “Short time period” / “failure to consider” is too vague.
They also note that the paper appears in a journal that mostly deals with the nuts-and-bolts of satellite data and not interpreting the climate. — Ah, right, here we are. This, of course, answers everything. The paper is wrong because it is published in the wrong journal.
###################################
No Malcolm, it was so wrong it couldn’t make it into the quality journals. They don’t publish far right propaganda.
Remote sensors magazine for climate science?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/just-put-the-model-down-roy.html
Here is Barry Bickmore basically showing how Spencer adjusted the numbers to get the results he wanted. You know how this blog talks about conspiracy of the scientists fudging numbers. Here is a prime example of just such a paper. The very one you are defending. Good luck on that one.
August 6, 2011, 12:39 pmrenewable guy:
The Chuckr:
No GCM has shown skill in predicting long-term climate trends. Pielke Sr. has written numerous papers on this topic as have others or maybe Dessler, Romm, or Schmidt don’t take Pielke Sr. seriously, either
#################
August 6, 2011, 12:42 pmsource?
renewable guy:
NetDr:
So far the CAGW hysteria is short on testable results.
By predicting everything they predict nothing. Saying that every weather event is climate is silly.
So inadvertently your name speaks a profound truth.
###################################
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
The skeptic argument…
There’s no empirical evidence
“There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. Note that computer models are just concatenations of calculations you could do on a hand-held calculator, so they are theoretical and cannot be part of any evidence.” (David Evans)
What the science says…
August 6, 2011, 12:49 pmDirect observations find that CO2 is rising sharply due to human activity. Satellite and surface measurements find less energy is escaping to space at CO2 absorption wavelengths. Ocean and surface temperature measurements find the planet continues to accumulate heat. This gives a line of empirical evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.
renewable guy:
http://skepticalscience.com/lindzen-illusion-2-lindzen-vs-hansen-1980s.html
#################################
WIth present day understanding of climate, we can model how Richard Lindzen’s assumptions would come out compared the James Hansen’s.
###################################
Lindzen, however, disputed the accuracy of GISTEMP:
“The trouble is that the earlier data suggest that one is starting at what probably was an anomalous minimum near 1880. The entire record would more likely be saying that the rise is 0.1 degree plus or minus 0.3 degree….I would say, and I don’t think I’m going out on a very big limb, that the data as we have it does not support a warming. Whether it contradicts it is a matter of taste”
It turns out that Lindzen’s first statement here was incorrect. According to the slightly longer temperature record of the Hadley Centre, 1880 was closer to a local maximum than a minimum. But more importantly, he is claiming here that the average global surface temperature trend between 1880 and 1989 is approximately 0.1°C. Lindzen proceeds to effectively assert that any greenhouse gas warming signal is swamped out by the noise of natural internal variability.
“I personally feel that the likelihood over the next century of greenhouse warming reaching magnitudes comparable to natural variability seems small”
As we recently discussed, natural variability rarely results in more than 0.2 to 0.3°C warming on decadal timescales, so Lindzen is clearly predicting a very small amount of greenhouse warming over the next century. Using these quotes, I reconstructed what I think are two reasonable approximations of global temperature projections based on Lindzen’s belief of the small warming effects of greenhouse gases. I want to be explicit that these projections are my interpretation of Lindzen’s comments, not Lindzen’s own projections.
###########
As you can see, Hansen’s Scenario B is not far from reality, with a warming trend since 1984 (0.26°C per decade) approximately 30% too high (compared to our average GISTEMP trend of 0.20°C per decade), and the adjusted Scenario B even closer, with a warming trend just 17% higher than observed.
Our reconstructions of Lindzen’s projections, on the other hand, increasingly diverge from reality. His warming trend of approximately 0.01°C to 0.02°C per decade is 90 to 95% too low.
A side by side comparison of Lindzen Vs Hansen. When Hansen’s assumptions are corrected, he comes very close to the present day temperature day record.
#######################
a si
August 6, 2011, 1:27 pmnetdr:
renewable guy:
NetDr:
So far the CAGW hysteria is short on testable results.
By predicting everything they predict nothing. Saying that every weather event is climate is silly.
So inadvertently your name speaks a profound truth.
###################################
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
The skeptic argument…
There’s no empirical evidence
“There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. Note that computer models are just concatenations of calculations you could do on a hand-held calculator, so they are theoretical and cannot be part of any evidence.” (David Evans)
What the science says…
Direct observations find that CO2 is rising sharply due to human activity. Satellite and surface measurements find less energy is escaping to space at CO2 absorption wavelengths. Ocean and surface temperature measurements find the planet continues to accumulate heat. This gives a line of empirical evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.
**********
Recent studies show that the particular isotope of CO2 attributed solely to mankind is also produced naturally. As the oceans warm they hold less CO2. Exciting news !
The RATE OF WARMING is what is significant. Non engineers think it is a Boolean function 1/0 but it isn’t. The “C” in CAGW requires a RATE OF WARMING.
We have never seen that rate even for a short time so far in recorded temperatures.
The 1978 to 1998 run up was only 1.2 ° C per century.
Even the oceans warming has “paused” [stopped] according to the met office.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/ocean-warming
So both the atmosphere and the oceans are longer warming ?
August 6, 2011, 1:39 pmnetdr:
Renewable
The truth shall set you free.
Hansen’s model scenario “B” predicted:
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
1988 = .4 [measured]
2010 = 1.0 predicted
So predicted warming was .6 ° C.
Actual Warming.
1988 = .4 [measured]
2010 = .63
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt
Actual warming [scenario "B"] .23
So predicted / actual = .6 / .23 = 260 % So Predicted warming was 260 % of actual warming and you claim it was close ??????????
I don’t understand the verbal tap dance about 1984. Skeptical science has no respect for truth.
The prediction was made [or shown to congress] in 1988 and the temperature was known at that time. Hansen should have known that the climate is a negative feedback system and a high is always followed by a low to drive toward the “set point”. [Like 1998 high was followed by 1999 and 2000]
Ignorance is no defense when you claim to understand climate well enough to predict 100 years in the future.
Sounds like more humma humma to me.
Skeptical Science is notoriously lousy at math and logic.
A child could do better.
August 6, 2011, 2:03 pmnetdr:
Still no response from
Yeah, Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid in Science:
The sock puppet has been sacked.
August 6, 2011, 2:05 pmrenewable guy:
NetDr:
Did you consider the average trend line from Hansen’s projections.
The five year mean at 2008 was .55
1988 mean was .25
This would suggest about .21C/decade
A trend line would put Hansens average projection at about .8 to .85
this would suggest about .28 to .30/decade.
.28 – .21 = .07
.07/.21 x 100% = 33%
Your denier math and logic is very good.
Not so good for your science math and logic.
I sense cherry picking here.
Hansen guessed high on co2 emissions and climate sensitivty.
August 6, 2011, 2:32 pmLike I said Hansen got the trend right. When you change the values of his model to present day knowledge, the model he used gets even closer to present day temp observations.
renewable guy:
The more data the better. There are biases in the argo data that your link doesn’t discuss. Its starting to work its way through straightening out the data and its meaning.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Cooling-Corrected-Again.html
Upper ocean warming (0-700mtrs) is slower than that observed during the 1990′s, but the oceans are still gaining heat. Indeed, the slow-down is to be expected if recent papers on increased reflective aerosols in the atmsophere are correct.
August 6, 2011, 2:40 pmrenewable guy:
Lindzen vs Hansen. Hansen wins hands down. Lindzen’s point of view does not even come close to matching the temperature record.
August 6, 2011, 2:43 pmTheChuckr:
renewable guy:
The Chuckr:
No GCM has shown skill in predicting long-term climate trends. Pielke Sr. has written numerous papers on this topic as have others or maybe Dessler, Romm, or Schmidt don’t take Pielke Sr. seriously, either
#################
source?
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/category/climate-models/
August 6, 2011, 5:13 pmnetdr:
renewable guy:
NetDr:
Did you consider the average trend line from Hansen’s projections.
The five year mean at 2008 was .55
1988 mean was .25
This would suggest about .21C/decade
*********
My calender says 2011, how about yours ?
Let’s talk about the present or is that “cherry picking” ?
August 6, 2011, 5:33 pmnetdr:
Yeah, Everyone’s Opinion is Equally Valid in Science:
Sock puppet is strangely quiet.
August 6, 2011, 5:35 pmnetdr:
Renewable
Why do you keep trying to prove that Hansen’s model war doing pretty well in 2007 ?
That is cherry picking.
YOU ARE IN DENIAL. Dr Hansen’s model is doing poorly as of 2010 and 2011 will be even worse.
Jan – July = 45 41 57 54 42 50 = .48 average
I can hardly wait for the entire year to be done, Dr Hansen’s model will look far worse than it does now.
August 6, 2011, 5:43 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
renewable guy:
NetDr:
Did you consider the average trend line from Hansen’s projections.
The five year mean at 2008 was .55
1988 mean was .25
This would suggest about .21C/decade
*********
My calender says 2011, how about yours ?
Let’s talk about the present or is that “cherry picking” ?
################################
I can see that its not to your advantage to look at the trend. If I were you I would do the same.
But………………… I’m not you.
As I have said before, its the trend. And if you look at the further projections by Hansen, it flattens out for awhile.
Next year is the El Nino which is predicted to be a record temperature year.
3C is on track by the end of the century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Risks_and_Impacts_of_Global_Warming.png
3 degrees centigrade gets us into the 1 thru 4 category.
From what I have read of the IPCC they are conservative. This will have a higher chance of being stronger than they say.
August 6, 2011, 6:16 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
Renewable
Why do you keep trying to prove that Hansen’s model war doing pretty well in 2007 ?
That is cherry picking.
YOU ARE IN DENIAL. Dr Hansen’s model is doing poorly as of 2010 and 2011 will be even worse.
Jan – July = 45 41 57 54 42 50 = .48 average
I can hardly wait for the entire year to be done, Dr Hansen’s model will look far worse than it does now.
############################
You are actually making my case Net. Its the long term trends that the deniers like to ignor and that is what Hansen defintely has right. It’s really not about the being totally predictive of exact temperatures. I’ve never made that case. It’s your strawman point.
It is your choice to ignor the long term trend.
August 6, 2011, 6:31 pmrenewable guy:
TheChuckr:
renewable guy:
The Chuckr:
No GCM has shown skill in predicting long-term climate trends. Pielke Sr. has written numerous papers on this topic as have others or maybe Dessler, Romm, or Schmidt don’t take Pielke Sr. seriously, either
#################
source?
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/category/climate-models/
########################
Do you know what models do well and what they don’t do well?
August 6, 2011, 6:39 pmrenewable guy:
TheChuckr:
August 6, 2011, 6:43 pmThe science community knows a fraud when they see one. That is why Spencer has been criticized for the model in his paper. Which rang through the echo chamber of the conservative media.
netdr:
renewable
Alarmists think reality is a crutch.
My calendar says 2011 and if that is an uncomfortable fact so be it.
August 6, 2011, 6:56 pmnetdr:
*****Do you know what models do well and what they don’t do well? ********
**********
They don’t predict future warming well at all.
In fact they now call them “projections”. [which policy should not be based upon ?]
They are good for printing out reams of paper to burn on a cold winter night. [Due to global warming ?]
August 6, 2011, 7:01 pmrenewable guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change
Some scientists do disagree with the consensus: see list of scientists opposing global warming consensus. For example Willie Soon and Richard Lindzen[36] say that there is insufficient proof for anthropogenic attribution. Generally this position requires new physical mechanisms to explain the observed warming.[37]
###########################
PDO anyone?
August 6, 2011, 7:16 pmrenewable guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change
Attribution of recent climate change is the effort to scientifically ascertain mechanisms responsible for recent changes observed in the Earth’s climate. The effort has focused on changes observed during the period of instrumental temperature record, when records are most reliable; particularly on the last 50 years, when human activity has grown fastest and observations of the troposphere have become available. The dominant mechanisms (to which recent climate change has been attributed) are the result of human activity. They are:[1]
increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases
global changes to land surface, such as deforestation
increasing atmospheric concentrations of aerosols.
There are also natural mechanisms for variation including climate oscillations, changes in solar activity, variations in the Earth’s orbit, and volcanic activity.
Attribution of recent change to anthropogenic forcing is based on the following facts:
The observed change is not consistent with natural variability.
Known natural forcings would, if anything, be negative over this period.
Known anthropogenic forcings are consistent with the observed response.
The pattern of the observed change is consistent with the anthropogenic forcing.
###############
The scientists have laid out their case for why the earth is warming over mostly the last 50 years.
August 6, 2011, 7:32 pmrenewable guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change
Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have concluded that:
“Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”;[2] It is extremely unlikely (<5%) that the global pattern of warming during the past half century can be explained without external forcing (i.e., it is inconsistent with being the result of internal variability), and very unlikely that it is due to known natural external causes alone. The warming occurred in both the ocean and the atmosphere and took place at a time when natural external forcing factors would likely have produced cooling.[3]
"From new estimates of the combined anthropogenic forcing due to greenhouse gases, aerosols, and land surface changes, it is extremely likely that human activities have exerted a substantial net warming influence on climate since 1750."[1]
"It is virtually certain that anthropogenic aerosols produce a net negative radiative forcing (cooling influence) with a greater magnitude in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere.[1]
##############
The panel defines "very likely," "extremely likely," and "virtually certain" as indicating probabilities greater than 90%, 95%, and 99%, respectively.[1] The IPCC's attribution of recent global warming to human activities is a view shared by most scientists,[4][5]:2 and is also supported by a number of scientific organizations (see scientific opinion on climate change).
August 6, 2011, 7:37 pmrenewable guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change
Estimates of internal variability from climate models, and reconstructions of past temperatures, indicate that the warming is unlikely to be entirely natural.
Climate models forced by natural factors and increased greenhouse gases and aerosols reproduce the observed global temperature changes; those forced by natural factors alone do not.[17]
“Fingerprint” methods indicate that the pattern of change is closer to that expected from greenhouse gas-forced change than from natural change.[18]
The plateau in warming from the 1940s to 1960s can be attributed largely to sulphate aerosol cooling.[19]
August 6, 2011, 7:43 pmnetdr:
Renewable
You keep thinking it is 2007.
The TREND as measured by 5 year averages is:
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
1988 = .25
Predicted 2010 = 1, 1, 0.85, 0.85, 0.85, = .91 average
[I picked the values off the graph, you might disagree slightly.]
Actual 2010 = 0.55 0.58 0.44 0.57 0.63 = .55 average
So predicted = .91-.25 = .66
Actual was .55 – .25 = .3
Ratio = .66/.3 = 220 % double what actually happened
YOU ARE IN DENIAL !
As of 2011 Hansen’s model is worthless.
There was a simulated volcano in the model which depressed temperatures prior to 2010 so the more of those years you pull into your TREND the better he looks. As you can see using 5 year averages doesn’t make the model look any better.
Pretend it is 2007 again!
I can see why you prefer those cherries ! Your TRENDS all stop at 2007 which everyone agrees was when Dr Hansen’s model looked best.
Since then warming has stopped when the model predicted it would increase sharply.
August 6, 2011, 7:46 pmrenewable guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change
Attribution requires demonstrating that a signal is:
unlikely to be due entirely to internal variability;
consistent with the estimated responses to the given combination of anthropogenic and natural forcing
not consistent with alternative, physically plausible explanations of recent climate change that exclude important elements of the given combination of forcings.
Detection does not imply attribution, and is easier to show than attribution. Unequivocal attribution would require controlled experiments with multiple copies of the climate system, which is not possible. Therefore, attribution, as described above, can only be done within some margin of error. For example, the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report says
“it is extremely likely that human activities have exerted a substantial net warming influence on climate since 1750,” where “extremely likely” indicates a probability greater than 95%.[1]
August 6, 2011, 7:47 pmnetdr:
Estimates of internal variability from climate models, and reconstructions of past temperatures, indicate that the warming is unlikely to be entirely natural.
Climate models forced by natural factors and increased greenhouse gases and aerosols reproduce the observed global temperature changes; those forced by natural factors alone do not.[17]
**********
That is the lamest reason to believe in global warming that has ever been advanced.
the models don’t even pretend to include clouds or ocean cycles or aerosols. All of which radiate heat away from earth.
That is like simulating a car without a radiator and predicting it will overheat.
August 6, 2011, 7:53 pmrenewable guy:
NetDr:
Climate is about 30 year trends. Why are you focused on 2010?
Gavin Schmidt better at this than I am. 3rd graph down.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
The trends are probably most useful to think about, and for the period 1984 to 2009 (the 1984 date chosen because that is when these projections started), scenario B has a trend of ((((((0.26+/-0.05 ºC/dec))))))) (95% uncertainties, no correction for auto-correlation). For the GISTEMP and HadCRUT3 data (assuming that the 2009 estimate is ok), the trends are ((((((0.19+/-0.05 ºC/dec)))))) (note that the GISTEMP met-station index has (((((((0.21+/-0.06 ºC/dec)))))). Corrections for auto-correlation would make the uncertainties larger, but as it stands, the difference between the trends is just about significant.
.26 -.21 = .05 .05/.21 x 100% = 24% high
.26 – .19 = .07 .07/.19 x 100% = 37% high
which ever you want to compare to the trends are upward in temperature record and model.
August 6, 2011, 8:55 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
Estimates of internal variability from climate models, and reconstructions of past temperatures, indicate that the warming is unlikely to be entirely natural.
Climate models forced by natural factors and increased greenhouse gases and aerosols reproduce the observed global temperature changes; those forced by natural factors alone do not.[17]
**********
That is the lamest reason to believe in global warming that has ever been advanced.
the models don’t even pretend to include clouds or ocean cycles or aerosols. All of which radiate heat away from earth.
That is like simulating a car without a radiator and predicting it will overheat.
############################
Dr Dessler has confirmed cloud feedback on a short term data as mostly pos feedback.
Care to explain your position?
What do you know that they don’t?
Are the scientists careless and reckless with their studies?
Do all models not simulate clouds?
Ocean cycles aren’t included? Can you show that?
There is also emperical evidence besides models. Disproving models if you are able does not make global warming go away.
Doubting does not explain why we are warming.
August 6, 2011, 9:02 pmrenewable guy:
“it is extremely likely that human activities have exerted a substantial net warming influence on climate since 1750,” where “extremely likely” indicates a probability greater than 95%.[1]
######################
This is the IPCC consensus.Substantial to me is way more than half of temp increase from human influence.
This decade will be warmer than the last decade. Co2 pretty much guarantees that.
August 6, 2011, 9:11 pmrenewable guy:
NetDr
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/007.htm
Figure 4: Simulating the Earth’s temperature variations, and comparing the results to measured changes, can provide insight into the underlying causes of the major changes.
A climate model can be used to simulate the temperature changes that occur both from natural and anthropogenic causes. The simulations represented by the band in
(a) were done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity. Those encompassed by the band in
(b) were done with anthropogenic forcings: greenhouse gases and an estimate of sulphate aerosols, and those encompassed by the band in
(c) were done with both natural and anthropogenic forcings included.
From (b), it can be seen that inclusion of anthropogenic forcings provides a plausible explanation for a substantial part of the observed temperature changes over the past century, but the best match with observations is obtained in
(c) when both natural and anthropogenic factors are included.
These results show that the forcings included are sufficient to explain the observed changes, but do not exclude the possibility that other forcings may also have contributed. The bands of model results presented here are for four runs from the same model. Similar results to those in (b) are obtained with other models with anthropogenic forcing. [Based upon Chapter 12, Figure 12.7]
#######################################
This is all hindcasting.
August 6, 2011, 9:20 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
renewable
Alarmists think reality is a crutch.
My calendar says 2011 and if that is an uncomfortable fact so be it.
######################################
Fill me in Net. What are talking about.
August 6, 2011, 9:22 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
*****Do you know what models do well and what they don’t do well? ********
**********
They don’t predict future warming well at all.
In fact they now call them “projections”. [which policy should not be based upon ?]
They are good for printing out reams of paper to burn on a cold winter night. [Due to global warming ?]
#####################
You might get it some day or you will take denial to your grave. Your choice.
You and the scientists are on different wavelengths. Possibly you should correct them and show them how to do it right.
August 6, 2011, 9:26 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
renewable guy:
NetDr:
Did you consider the average trend line from Hansen’s projections.
The five year mean at 2008 was .55
1988 mean was .25
This would suggest about .21C/decade
*********
My calender says 2011, how about yours ?
Let’s talk about the present or is that “cherry picking” ?
############################
August 6, 2011, 9:35 pmMine says 2011 also. Climate is more than the average temperature of 2010. The purpose wasn’t to know exact temperature at a future date. Its to show trends with human influence on the climate.
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
Two statements of yours:
1. “The five year mean at 2008 was .55 … This would suggest about .21C/decade”
2. “Climate is about 30 year trends.”
If the climate is about 30 year trends (and it is), stop using 5 year trend to say Hansen was not that far off from reality.
What you are trying to do with Hansen is worse than cherry-picking. Cherry-picking is merely taking several ways of looking at the same data and choosing the one most favorable to your point, preferring it to other ways without a good reason, just because. What you are doing is *inventing* an invalid way to look at the data and preferring it to valid ways. That’s so wrong, I don’t know how to call it.
August 6, 2011, 11:02 pmMalcolm:
Sorry, the above should be not 5 year trend, but a non-trend. Renewable takes two 5 year means placed 20 years apart and calls the straight line between these means a trend. His method is highly dependent on the choice of end points and the radius, does not account for middle values, which is why this is not how scientists compute trends.
August 6, 2011, 11:10 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
“If you choose to read the article, there is discussion about the argo float data and the accuracy of short term trends. There is a section called the more data the better.”
Of course, I did read the paper. Yes, there is discussion about the argo float data and the accuracy of short term trends. You seem to imply that this discussion contains something that casts doubt or even invalidates the findings in the paper, but this is not the case. The discussion is this:
[Argo floats] This monthly dataset (Fig. 1) uses only data from the Argo array of profiling floats. Heat content is evaluated down to 900 m depth.
[The accuracy of short term trends] The objective is to estimate the linear trend in heat content. However, there is an obvious one year periodicity in the data (Fig. 1a) as noted by Willis et al. (2008b). Proper assessment of trend needs to take this into account, especially when the data are over a 4.5-year interval.
So what? The first is a simple statement of what the data was. The second is an equally simple statement that the data contains a clear periodical signal and computing a trend should take this into account. The paper did take this into account (look up the word “sinusoidal” in text).
Now, the main result of the paper is this:
The 95% confidence intervals on the trend are from -0.148 x 10^22 to -0.550 x 10^22 J/yr. This result clearly excludes warming as a possible interpretation of this data. Examination of residuals from the model fit shows no evidence of nonlinearities, indicating a constant linear cooling trend.
So, what was that “If you choose to read …” about? The implication that “discussion about the argo float data and the accuracy of short term trends” somehow weakens the paper is wrong.
“The long term trend is still a warming earth.”
Where does this come from? The paper says otherwise.
August 6, 2011, 11:30 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
On von Schuckmann, 2011, from skepticalscience:
“The warming trend observed is slightly smaller than that seen in Von Schuckmann (2009), where the authors measure down to ocean depths of 2000 metres, and found a warming trend of 0.77 ±0.11 watts per square metre. However, it completely refutes a recent (2010) skeptic paper which suggested the oceans were cooling, based on the upper ocean down to 700 metres. Clearly much heat is finding it’s way down into deeper waters. And although small in comparison, the deep ocean is gaining heat too.”
Sorry, no.
So, there are papers that show that the oceans are cooling and papers that show that the oceans are warming, based on the same data. I understand that folks like skepticalscience want to immediately assume their case and label the first kind of papers unscientific, but the proper way to do this is to look into the data and the analysis done to it, and find out exactly why the two kinds of papers come to different results from the same data. That’s how science works.
Now, I might not be a climate scientist, but when I look into von Schuckmann, 2011, I see that they throw away what potentially is quite a bit of original data by using the following procedure: the data points are averaged into boxes, then the values in boxes with less than 10 data points are thrown away and replaced with the spatial mean. The paper notes that replacing the thrown away data with zeros (which seems to make sense, since we are talking about “anomalies”) is wrong because doing this “results in an underestimation of the global trend”. This might be OK, but, I have to say, this does look like something worth exploring further due to the smell of circular logic again (the anomalies are not zero, because zeros are inconsistent with the assumed global trend, and then: the global trend computed from all anomalies, including those that could have been filled with zeros but weren’t, coincides with the assumed global trend). Regardless, if the above procedure of throwing away data and replacing it with approximations is really the reason why the two kinds of papers come to different results as regards ocean heat trends, this absolutely has to be explored further. If the raw data says “cooling”, but the averaged, filtered, backfilled with interpolations data says “warming”, that’s a fundamental conflict. You can’t resolve it by saying that the raw data is wrong.
All in all, the existence of both papers that show that the oceans are cooling and papers that show that the oceans are warming is exactly what I was arguing when I said that there is no definitive research that allows one to ultimately conclude that ‘It’s the thermal lag’. If you beg to differ, Renewable, I am listening.
August 7, 2011, 12:46 amMalcolm:
Finally, this:
“No Malcolm, it was so wrong it couldn’t make it into the quality journals. They don’t publish far right propaganda.”
…is a cop out. We are talking about science. If you want to say that a particular paper is bad science, go ahead and point out the flaws in that paper. Insisting that a paper is bad science because it has been published in a wrong journal is more often than not a sign that you can’t find anything else wrong with it.
August 7, 2011, 12:54 amTheChuckr:
renewable guy:
TheChuckr:
renewable guy:
The Chuckr:
No GCM has shown skill in predicting long-term climate trends. Pielke Sr. has written numerous papers on this topic as have others or maybe Dessler, Romm, or Schmidt don’t take Pielke Sr. seriously, either
#################
source?
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/category/climate-models/
########################
Do you know what models do well and what they don’t do well?
August 6, 2011, 6:39 pm
Temperature trend but not magnitude, not rainfall, not ocean heat content, not sea level rise, and not regional phenomena.
renewable guy:
TheChuckr:
The science community knows a fraud when they see one. That is why Spencer has been criticized for the model in his paper. Which rang through the echo chamber of the conservative media.
August 6, 2011, 6:43 pm
Ad homs, as usual when you cannot challenge the science, and Spencer is not the only scientist who has come to the conclusion that cloud feedbacks are likely negative and there is a large discrepancy between the “satellite observations and IPCC models in their co-variations between radiation and temperature” causing the IPCC models to overestimate global warming (you can look up references yourself).
You also conveniently forget that the CAGW cabal have actively have to prevent publication of articles that disagree with the “consensus” even to the point of trying to remove the editors of magazines that allow such articles to be published. If their science was any good, they wouldn’t have to defend their consensus view by such actions which amount to scientific censorship.
August 7, 2011, 5:26 amnetdr:
Renewable
You are in DENIAL about Dr Hansen’s flawed model.
As I showed above even using 5 year averages to establish the TREND he is wrong by 220 %.
The mumbo jumbo skeptical science engages in is childish drivel. I have pointed out their errors many times and they go [snip].
August 7, 2011, 6:51 amnetdr:
renewable guy:
netdr:
renewable guy:
NetDr:
Did you consider the average trend line from Hansen’s projections.
The five year mean at 2008 was .55
1988 mean was .25
This would suggest about .21C/decade
*********
My calender says 2011, how about yours ?
Let’s talk about the present or is that “cherry picking” ?
############################
Mine says 2011 also. Climate is more than the average temperature of 2010. The purpose wasn’t to know exact temperature at a future date. Its to show trends with human influence on the climate.
**********************************
A 5 year trend is a fair way to establish a trend.
It guards against a particularly hot El Nino year or cold La Nina year from skewing the data.
Since the model was presented to congress in 1988 there are only 23 years of data available to evaluate.
Starting your trend before this date is sloppy thinking.
Skeptical Sciences rational for using 1984 is laughable.
Using 1984 is cherry picking at it’s finest and unfair because the data from 1984,5,6,7 is already known in 1988. [Of course the model matches it ! ] Sloppy thinking sloppy sloppy.
August 7, 2011, 7:07 amnetdr:
A 5 year trend is a fair way to establish a trend
August 7, 2011, 7:15 amS/B
A 5 year average is a fair way to establish a trend.
netdr:
Renewable
Skeptical Science’s humma humma about trends is junk.
The actual trend from 1988 to present is .0152 per year [No crisis in sight is there?]
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1988/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1988/to:2012/trend
#Least squares trend line; slope = 0.0152067 per year
The projected warming was [using 5 year averages.] .032 per year.
[1988 5 year avg [.388] projected 2010 5 year average [.744]
Dr Hansen’s model predicts 200 % of actual warming. That is not skillful despite the attempts of skeptical science to cherry pick and mislead you.
In the future when temperatures are even lower than today 20 years from now the good ship Global Warming will have long since sunk but you will still be in DENIAL.
Al Gore’s rantings at Aspen show that his cause is leaking badly. Damaged by too much skepticism !
August 7, 2011, 8:19 amnetdr:
Renewable
What doesn’t convince anyone not already a believer.
Denning’s Views on Pitfalls to Avoid
An example of “what doesn’t work” in speaking with audiences such as those at the Heartland conference, Denning wrote, “is the condescending argument from authority that presumes that the Earth’s climate is too complicated for ordinary people to understand, so that they have to trust the opinions of experts.”
[As I always said:
.
.
"People who let others think for them because they think they aren't capable of it ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT !
They know their limitations." -- Netdr]
.
“Appeals to ‘overwhelming scientific consensus’ are more likely to confirm the audience’s suspicions of some kind of nefarious conspiracy than to change minds,
[Group think isn't nefarious but it is illogical. -- Netdr]” Denning wrote, and “even the concept of peer review can sound sinister.” [Peer review by like minded individuals isn't peer review at all is it ? - Netdr]
August 7, 2011, 8:54 am.
.
Trust a skeptic to do a good job of finding your errors. Just ask Dr Mann.
netdr:
BTW\
The skeptical science method of analyzing Dr Hansen’s model performance was an amazing example of cherry picking and twisted thinking. If I made a model and evaluated it that way my boss would fire me.
How they thought it was fair to start at 1984 is beyond comprehension.
A fair method is 5 year averages to avoid spikes then evaluate predicted vs actual.
By that method Hansen’s model was an epic fail ! 220 % wrong.
August 7, 2011, 11:29 amrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Sorry, the above should be not 5 year trend, but a non-trend. Renewable takes two 5 year means placed 20 years apart and calls the straight line between these means a trend. His method is highly dependent on the choice of end points and the radius, does not account for middle values, which is why this is not how scientists compute trends.
#########################
I dropped that method and went to one already done by Gavin Schmidt. Taking a five year trend is more intune with the averge temp than a single year.
August 7, 2011, 6:24 pmrenewable guy:
Malcolm:
Finally, this:
“No Malcolm, it was so wrong it couldn’t make it into the quality journals. They don’t publish far right propaganda.”
…is a cop out. We are talking about science. If you want to say that a particular paper is bad science, go ahead and point out the flaws in that paper. Insisting that a paper is bad science because it has been published in a wrong journal is more often than not a sign that you can’t find anything else wrong with it
#########################
http://www.skepticalscience.com/spencers-misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedback.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/just-put-the-model-down-roy.html
I had already read these and I believe I had talked about them earlier on here. If not, you can go look for yourself.
Climate Progress also did some of their own work crticizing Roy’s science. Roy is a well known denier working for right wing think tanks. Its very easy for me to scorn him. He just isn’t really honest. He claims his paper is science but it really a story to bolster denial.
August 7, 2011, 6:32 pmrenewable guy:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Cooling-Corrected-Again.html
Covering ocean depths to 2000 meters is a more thorogh coverage than 700 meters. If you read the skeptical science article, there is a large amount of uncertainty of the argo data because it is so new.
Getting the ocean temperature data down to lower uncertainties is important right now and will take time. It would be unusual for the atmosphere to be heating up and the ocean cooling.
Ocean warming in context
The warming trend observed is slightly smaller than that seen in Von Schuckmann (2009), where the authors measure down to ocean depths of 2000 metres, and found a warming trend of 0.77 ±0.11 watts per square metre. However, it completely refutes a recent (2010) skeptic paper which suggested the oceans were cooling, based on the upper ocean down to 700 metres. Clearly much heat is finding it’s way down into deeper waters. And although small in comparison, the deep ocean is gaining heat too.
Upper ocean warming (0-700mtrs) is slower than that observed during the 1990′s, but the oceans are still gaining heat. Indeed, the slow-down is to be expected if recent papers on increased reflective aerosols in the atmsophere are correct.
Conclusion
August 7, 2011, 6:44 pmThe ARGO network was completed in November 2007, and only since then has the network been able to provide more robust short-term trends. Over the period 2005-2010 the oceans (10-1500 meters down) have warmed 0.55 watts per square meter, but error uncertainty is almost 20%. Uncertainty will reduce as the length of the observational record increases, but Von Schuckmann and Le Traon (2011), caution that this is provided no more systematic errors remain in the network.
renewable guy:
Do you know what models do well and what they don’t do well?
August 6, 2011, 6:39 pm
Temperature trend but not magnitude, not rainfall, not ocean heat content, not sea level rise, and not regional phenomena.
###################################
Can you show me your sources on this?
###################################
renewable guy:
TheChuckr:
The science community knows a fraud when they see one. That is why Spencer has been criticized for the model in his paper. Which rang through the echo chamber of the conservative media.
#############
http://www.skepticalscience.com/just-put-the-model-down-roy.html
#################
August 6, 2011, 6:43 pm
Ad homs, as usual when you cannot challenge the science, and Spencer is not the only scientist who has come to the conclusion that cloud feedbacks are likely negative and there is a large discrepancy between the “satellite observations and IPCC models in their co-variations between radiation and temperature” causing the IPCC models to overestimate global warming (you can look up references yourself).
#############################
I need to know if you are just asserting an opinion or you are basing it on some fact. If you are basing it on Coyote Blog, that would be a poor source of information. This goes to credibility. Many deniers such as yourself don’t like to expose themselves to high levels of crediblity.
#######################
We are following worst case scenario of the IPCC
######################
You also conveniently forget that the CAGW cabal have actively have to prevent publication of articles that disagree with the “consensus” even to the point of trying to remove the editors of magazines that allow such articles to be published. If their science was any good, they wouldn’t have to defend their consensus view by such actions which amount to scientific censorship.
##########################
Could you give an example?
August 7, 2011, 7:04 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
Renewable
You are in DENIAL about Dr Hansen’s flawed model.
As I showed above even using 5 year averages to establish the TREND he is wrong by 220 %.
The mumbo jumbo skeptical science engages in is childish drivel. I have pointed out their errors many times and they go [snip].
##################
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
You have such a narrow focus which is what denialists do.
I’m going with Gavin Schmidt’s analysis.
August 7, 2011, 7:30 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
BTW\
The skeptical science method of analyzing Dr Hansen’s model performance was an amazing example of cherry picking and twisted thinking. If I made a model and evaluated it that way my boss would fire me.
How they thought it was fair to start at 1984 is beyond comprehension.
A fair method is 5 year averages to avoid spikes then evaluate predicted vs actual.
By that method Hansen’s model was an epic fail ! 220 % wrong.
############################################
You have given your opinion but have failed to make your point.
There are other years which have 0% difference. Should Hansen’s model be evaluated by those years also?
August 7, 2011, 7:33 pmrenewable guy:
netdr:
Renewable
What doesn’t convince anyone not already a believer.
Denning’s Views on Pitfalls to Avoid
#############################
So are you a Heartland follower?
The conservative white male syndrome. A lot of people on this site seem to fit that stereotype.
Just keep ignoring what you can’t deal with. It gives you the illusion of confidence.
August 7, 2011, 7:37 pmrenewable guy:
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
If you notice a gray bar across the graph that says “Estimated temperature during Altithermal and Eemian times”
One of Hansens points later on is that we are lifting up higher than the highest temperature of the Holocene (our time) and we will approach the average temperatures of the Eemian. During that time the sea level was several meters higher. WIth society’s present level of carbon use, we can go much higher than this. This graph is part of the argument for policy change.
August 7, 2011, 8:28 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
“Covering ocean depths to 2000 meters is a more thorogh coverage than 700 meters.”
Wait, you are talking about von Schuckmann, 2009, right? I was talking about von Schuckmann, 2011, which did not go down to 2000 meters. Given that we have von Schuckmann, 2011, why bring up von Schuckmann, 2009 at all? I am fine discussing any paper, it just seems that you got caught between them.
Back to the main point, you are right, covering ocean depths to 2000 meters is going to get a more thorough picture than covering to 700 meters, but only provided the analysis method is the same. As I say, von Schuckmann, 2011 throws away data. It is my understanding that Loehle and similar papers do not throw away data. Throwing away data has an effect on how thorough the coverage is, and right now it is not at all clear to me as to which study did a better job at it. If it is clear to you, provide your argument.
“If you read the skeptical science article, there is a large amount of uncertainty of the argo data because it is so new.”
You know, unless you provide some numbers, that’s just hot air. Some CAGW papers proclaim that the Argo data unequivocally shows warming and that the uncertainties are small. I wouldn’t be surprised if some pages at scepticalscience link to these papers. Von Schuckmann says he is afraid of systematic errors which might lurk in the data. Well, I am all for this, let’s explore that area. If there are systematic errors, let’s look at them and discuss what they are. But until we found these errors, that empty talk about the possibility of having them is just a waste of time.
“The warming trend observed is slightly smaller than that seen in Von Schuckmann (2009), where the authors measure down to ocean depths of 2000 metres, and found a warming trend of 0.77 ±0.11 watts per square metre. However, it completely refutes a recent (2010) skeptic paper which suggested the oceans were cooling, based on the upper ocean down to 700 metres. Clearly much heat is finding it’s way down into deeper waters. And although small in comparison, the deep ocean is gaining heat too.”
I am puzzled. I quoted exactly this excerpt from scepticalscience in my yesterday’s post, replying to it, and now you reply back to me by quoting it again? Really?
August 7, 2011, 11:05 pmMalcolm:
Renewable Guy:
On Hansen:
“I dropped that method and went to one already done by Gavin Schmidt.”
OK. I followed the link to the comparison done by Gavin Schmidt that you provided. Gavin compares trends starting with 1984. This is a problem. Hansen’s paper was written in 1988, so, of course, including the period between 1984 and 1988 into comparisons makes Hansen’s predictions look much better than they really are, because the data for that period was already available to Hansen.
We can’t thus use Gavin’s method verbatim, because, as is, it contains a serious flaw. Any other papers?
August 8, 2011, 12:17 amTheChuckr:
Renewable, look up the sources yourself, you know how to use Google, right? I’ll give the link for your last point.
http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/
August 8, 2011, 4:27 amnetdr:
renewable guy:
netdr:
BTW\
The skeptical science method of analyzing Dr Hansen’s model performance was an amazing example of cherry picking and twisted thinking. If I made a model and evaluated it that way my boss would fire me.
How they thought it was fair to start at 1984 is beyond comprehension.
A fair method is 5 year averages to avoid spikes then evaluate predicted vs actual.
By that method Hansen’s model was an epic fail ! 220 % wrong.
############################################
You have given your opinion but have failed to make your point.
There are other years which have 0% difference. Should Hansen’s model be evaluated by those years also?
August 8, 2011, 5:45 am***************
Yes !
Reality is a B**** ! But it is the only reality we have.
netdr:
The Gavin method is flawed beyond use.
It stops in 2009 and starts in 1984.
As has been shown starting in 1984 is blatant cherry picking
Since Hansen’s models contained a simulated volcano the later the comparison is made the worse the model looks.
In 2011 the average so far is .48 which is much lower [.15] than .63 in 2010. So evaluating the model at the end of 2011 will show it has further jumped the shark.
Evaluating a model isn’t rocket science and attempts to make it seem like it is are obvious signs of trickery. Bamboozle the mentally lazy seems to be their MO.
A wise man once wrote:
“People who let others think for them because they think they aren’t capable of it ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT !
They know their limitations.”
August 8, 2011, 6:34 amnetdr:
Re Gavin’s phony “analysis” of Dr Hanson’s model performance.
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/hansenscenarios.png
By starting at 1984 instead of 1988 the model appears to have “predicted” the .3 of warming which occurred between 1984 and 1988 [when it was presented to congress and updated presumably]. So by “predicting the past” the model gets an unwarranted boost.
By ending at 2009 it gets another unwarranted boost because the model predicted fast warming which didn’t happen in 2010 and 2011.
Gavin is good at fooling the fools.
The model will look even worse after 2011 is in the records. [I can hardly wait]
August 8, 2011, 8:28 amnetdr:
Renewable
Gavin is hoping you are too mentally lazy to see that 1/2 of the actual warming took place before the model results were presented to congress. That part of the warming was right because it had been tweaked to be right. So he stats with his thumb on the scale and ends the same way.
Do you wonder why skeptics think he is a habitual liar ?
August 8, 2011, 9:03 amnetdr:
Renewable
The AR4 predictions are even more off base than Dr Hansen’s
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/strandwg/CCSM3_AR4_Experiments.html
Essentially all models predicted .20 ° C by 2010.
[the committed line doesn't count as it is the control]
The actual results.
2000 [5 year avg] = .45
2010 [5 year avg = .55 approx] so actual warming is 1/2 what was predicted. .10]
I am sure the apostle of Global Warming Gavin can waterboard the data until it says what he wants it to.
August 8, 2011, 10:22 amnetdr:
Renewable
The laughable attempt by Gavin to defend Hansen’s model is one of the main reason’s I don’t buy the CAGW nonsense. The “circle the wagons” and defend any pro CAGW scientist even when he is obviously wrong make me suspicious that honest climate science is dead, or only practiced by skeptics.
Steve Schneider’s immortal words expose the moral bankruptness of the CAGW bandwagon.
“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
[There is a longer version which doesn't change a thing. The man is telling people to conceal the truth !]
If contrary evidence exists to CAGW it will never be willingly divulged by those on the CAGW bandwagon.
August 8, 2011, 5:05 pmnetdr:
Renewable
Pretending that somehow predicted rate divided by actual rate is somehow more valid than predicted change over actual change is just obfuscation for the mathematically challenged.
Since rate = change / time
Predicted rate over actual rate is (predicted rate ) / Time divided by (Actual rate )/time the two times obviously cancel out.
The cherry picking is what makes Hansen’s model look better than it actually is.
He starts in 1984 [not 1988] but 1/2 of the actual warming takes place between 1984 and 1988. He ends at 2009 but a whole 1/10 of a degree is predicted for the last year because of the simulated volcano being over.
So he fattens the actual warming and reduces the predicted warming to get a bran damaged answer.
He only fools those who wish to be fooled.
August 9, 2011, 4:29 amMalcolm:
So, Renewable Guy, do you agree that Hansen’s predictions were off by some huge amount, like a factor of 2, and that the comparison method used by Gavin Schmidt was (and is) highly misleading?
Also, any response on ocean heat?
August 9, 2011, 8:44 amnetdr:
Renewable
He lays low, just like sock puppet.[aka In science all opinions are equal]
Out of the mouths of babes comes profound truth accidentally ?
August 9, 2011, 7:15 pmnetdr:
I watched lecture 5 by David Archer about how the no feedback CO2 warming is computed.
I had 2 comments.
How can different people get such different answers. The British Royal society gets .4 ° C while Hansen gets 1.0 ° C ? If the computation is so simple why do they get different answers ?
When comparing Earth to Venus there was no mention of depth of atmosphere. Venus has a much deeper atmosphere than earth and if you were at the same atmospheric pressure as earth’s surface you would measure earth like temperatures.
Surface temperatures on Venus are taken at a level of a super death valley. Of course it’s hot but CO2 didn’t do it.
I don’t claim that CO2 doesn’t cause any warming but mankind has no measurement of how much and without that CAGW is a bad joke.
August 10, 2011, 6:16 amnetdr:
After thinking about it I have another comment.
RE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-5PsoF7Vp0&feature=relmfu
He represents CO2 by a sheet of glass which reflects heat out to space and down to earth, but he never explains how he derives the percentage of energy bounced out into space and the percentage reflected to earth.
If it were an almost perfect pane of glass and 99.9 % of light was bounced back it would take a lot of warming before Radiation out = Radiation in. It would be Venus like.
If the pane of glass were poor and only 1 % were bounced back the warming would be slight. This critical number appears to be pulled out of some random number generator. Or tweaked to match reality.
The pane of glass represents water vapor in the atmosphere and all GHG’s so teasing out CO2′s effect isn’t easy.
August 10, 2011, 6:41 amnetdr:
Malcolm: wrote
So, Renewable Guy, do you agree that Hansen’s predictions were off by some huge amount, like a factor of 2, and that the comparison method used by Gavin Schmidt was (and is) highly misleading?
*********
Any reasonable person would conclude that Gavin’s method is highly misleading. Don’t you agree renewable ?
He is in denial !
August 16, 2011, 6:48 amBillyjack:
Atmospheric models divide the entire earth into a 3 dimensional grid blocks and find numerical solutions to partial differential equations that are created by calculating the relationship and effects of one block to each block around it. This is further complicated by the relationship of the grid blocks that are next to “phase changes” for want of a better term. The gaseous atmosphere block’s relationship that is in contact with the ocean (liquid phase) or land mass (solid phase) or the edge of space (no phase?) is at best poorly understood. Since a minor error affects the entire calculation of the model then if one relationship on energy exchange is in error then the entire model becomes suspect. To date none of the models that laymen (Al Gore) often use to support their conclusion has been able to history match actual results. When the models are taken back to 1900 and actual data is input virtually every model predicts that current temperatures should be 4-6 degrees centigrade higher than we currently experience. The models are then manipulated changing the equations and relationships to force a match that may or may not have scientific reality. In short one model may change the energy from the sun to a lower level in order to reduce temperature in order to get a history match, then use the model with this error to project forward leaving the greenhouse effects of carbon dioxide the same, while it may be more logical to reduce the effect of CO2 to make the model history match. There are a myriad of relationships of this nature that can be adjusted in the models from changing the effect of cloud cover both a heat retention blanket or as a sunlight reflective agent. Minor changes in the equations can have a dramatic effect on the models predictions. In short, one can make these models predict anything the modeler wants and yet still appear to be reasonable, because the models are so complicated and the relationships between cells particularly at the phase transition boundaries are largely unknown. Every numerical simulation projects less heat escaping into space with increases in earth temperature due to carbon dioxide. The temperature increase since 1980(due to increased sunspot activity) clearly shows increases in heat escape into space, although CO2 has increased over this same time period. Every model has built in heat retention in order to overstate the heat retention effect of carbon dioxide in order to predict catastrophic global warming. NASA satellite data released in 2011 confirmed that the rate of escape of long wave radiation (heat) into space has not been reduced by increases in CO2, which was also measured by Lindzen of MIT, the complete opposite of every atmospheric model.
If this isn’t complicated enough, throw in non-linear discontinuous functions such as volcanic eruptions, sunspot cycle variations, deforestation, re-forestation, etc and the models even if reasonably able to predict a linear progression now have no chance of being any thing close to reality.
Nevertheless, these model results are currently being used to scare the world into economic chaos under the presumption that they are reliable predictors of things to come. The people that apparently believe the predictions constantly find data to support their conclusion and ignore anything that doesn’t support their conclusion whether it matches the model or not. Then the model creator as stated previously adjusts the model to fit the data that makes sure to predict catastrophe.
August 22, 2011, 5:27 pmTed Rado:
Billyjack:
I developed models of chemical plant cpmplexes for many years. Some financially catastrophic decisions were made based on empirical models. If a model was based on first principles, was rigorous, had NO fudge factors, and was theoroughly validated by actual plant performance (every process stream flow rate, temperature, and composition MUST match plant data). Then, and ONLY then, was it dependable and usable.
I have great confidence in rigorous models, but absolutely none in models that conrain even ONE fudge factor. It is my understanding that the climate models are full of them. Consider just one variable: aerosols. These can vary in color, particle size, chemical composition, and concentration. Thus they can absorb heat, reflect heat, scatter light of different wave lengths, etc. Further, irregular inputs, such as volcanos, cause huge variations. How in the world can anyone say, with a straight face, that they can write a program that accurately describes the behavior of aerosols and their effect on climate?
Anothen problem, of course, is validation. I could write a program that says every man will become mother 100 years form now. Although that is nonsense, you can’t prove it will not happen. All the people predicting dire things a hundred years from now will be long gone, so they cannot be proven wrong today. Neither can they be provern right, so it makes no sense to mess up the economy based on their models.
August 23, 2011, 1:56 pmnetdr:
I too have written computer models and am amazed by the almost mystical reverence the nontechnical people have for them. A man with a few hundred notebooks and #2 pencils can get the same answers, but it is less impressive to the masses.
Mine could be verified or proven wrong in a day or two while climate models take 20 years or more to find out that they are wrong and when they are supposedly fixed it takes the same amount of time to check out the “fix”. As you said the modeler can safely retire without being proven wrong.
The rate of learning is so slow that climatology is in it’s babyhood. Expecting a baby to predict 89 years in the future is ridiculous.
The AR4 models have predicted .3 ° C warming since 2000 and essentially none has occurred. The error is infinite % . The response is “wait ’till next year” which is what they will say for the next 89 years. Long before that climate alarmism will be a bad memory.
August 23, 2011, 4:30 pmTed Rado:
My main point re the climate models is how do you implement the CO2 reduction that is called for? I have asked the CAGW pushers repeatedly what energy sources can we substitue for fossil fuels? They dodge the question or (re wind and solar) say “the Spaniards are doing it” so it must be right, and thus say that we have a viable alternative.
One must design a complete package, or we will merely create an economic catastrophe. In the absence of such a package, whether or not the climate models are sound is immaterial. We have nowhere to go, except move north if they are correct.
AS a consequence of these considerations, I have lost some of my interst in the discussion of the validity of the climate models. Until there is a viable alternative energy scheme, it doesn’t matter.
August 24, 2011, 7:40 am