(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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.”
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” !
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-3-20.html
One more figure on water vapor.
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.
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?
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.
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 ?
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.
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?:)
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.
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?
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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 ?
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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?
You are a doubter but really have no good explanation for why the earth really keeps warming.
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.
Renewable Guy:
It’s the thermal lag of the oceans. — Prove it.
Renewable Guy:
97% of peer reviewed climatologists agree humans are the cause of this change in climate. — Dammit. Prove it.
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.
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 !
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
Renewable
Somehow 97% just isn’t good enough for you.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
97% of peer reviewed climatologists agree humans are the cause of this change in climate. — Dammit. Prove it.
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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.
Malcolm:
Renewable Guy:
It’s the thermal lag of the oceans. — Prove it.
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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.”
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).
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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.
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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You are going to have to show me your source on that one. The IPCC notoriously underestimates projections.
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.
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
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Same source.
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?
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You are going to have to show me your source on that one. The IPCC notoriously underestimates projections
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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
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.
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.