Monckton’s deliberate manipulation
Our favorite contrarian, the potty peer Christopher Monckton has been indulging in a little aristocratic artifice again. Not one to be constrained by mere facts or observable reality, he has launched a sally against Andy Revkin for reporting the shocking news that past industry disinformation campaigns were not sincere explorations of the true uncertainties in climate science.
The letter he has written to the NY Times public editor, with its liberal sprinkling of his usual pomposity, has at its heart the following graph:
Among other issues, it is quite amusing that Monckton apparently thinks that;
- trends from January 2002 are relevant to a complaint about a story discussing a 1995 report,
- someone might be fooled by the cherry-picked January 2002 start date,
- no-one would notice that he has just made up the IPCC projection curves
The last is even more amusing because he was caught out making stuff up on a slightly different figure just a few weeks ago.
To see the extent of this chicanery, one needs only plot the actual IPCC projections against the observations. This can be done a number of ways, firstly, plotting the observational data and the models used by IPCC with a common baseline of 1980-1999 temperatures (as done in the 2007 report) (Note that the model output is for the annual mean, monthly variance would be larger):
These show clearly that 2002-2009 is way too short a period for the trends to be meaningful and that Monckton's estimate of what the IPCC projects for the current period is woefully wrong. Not just wrong, fake.
Even if one assumes that the baseline should be the year 2002 making no allowance for internal variability (which makes no sense whatsoever), you would get the following graph:
- still nothing like Monckton showed. Instead, he appears to have derived his 'projections' by drawing a line from 2002 to a selection of real projections in 2100 and ignoring the fact that the actual projections accelerate as time goes on, and thus strongly over-estimating the projected changes that are expected now (see here).
Lest this be thought a mere aberration or a slip of his quill, it turns out he has previously faked the data on projections of CO2 as well. This graph is from a recent presentation of his, compared to the actual projections:
How can this be described except as fake?
Apart from this nonsense, is there anything to Monckton's complaint about Revkin's story? Sadly no. Once one cuts out the paranoid hints about dark conspiracies between "prejudiced campaigners", Al Gore and the New York Times editors, the only point he appear to make is that this passage from the scientific advice somehow redeems the industry lobbyists who ignored it:
The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential for a human impact on climate is based on well-established scientific fact, and should not be denied. While, in theory, human activities have the potential to result in net cooling, a concern about 25 years ago, the current balance between greenhouse gas emissions and the emissions of particulates and particulate-formers is such that essentially all of today’s concern is about net warming. However, as will be discussed below, it is still not possible to accurately predict the magnitude (if any), timing or impact of climate change as a result of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Also, because of the complex, possibly chaotic, nature of the climate system, it may never be possible to accurately predict future climate or to estimate the impact of increased greenhouse gas concentrations.
This is a curious claim, since the passage is pretty much mainstream. For instance, in the IPCC Second Assessment Report (1995) (p528):
Complex systems often allow deterministic predictability of some characteristics … yet do not permit skilful forecasts of other phenomena …
or even more clearly in IPCC TAR (2001):
In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system's future possible states….
Much more central to the point Revkin was making was the deletion of the sections dealing with how weak the standard contrarian arguments were - arguments that GCC publications continued to use for years afterward (and indeed arguments that Monckton is still using) (see this amendment to the original story).
Monckton's ironic piece de resistance though is the fact that he entitled his letter "Deliberate Misrepresentation" - and this is possibly the only true statement in it.
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Climate
2 May 2009 at 2:22 PM
Oh come on now the Arctic sea ice has returned to normal levels and hence AGW must be incorrect, natural variability cannot be that big
Good story, but some of the 2007 Arctic summer peices seem to have been founded on a short termism and hence maybe we all learn a lessen there.
2 May 2009 at 2:30 PM
You’re describing this man’s rantings as “amusing”.
I find them very worrying.
Unfortunately he, Bjørn Lomborg, and others like him practise an erudite obfuscation which sways many intelligent people.
They aren’t amusing — they’re dangerous and usually duplicitous.
2 May 2009 at 2:36 PM
My question is simple — why does he do this? Is he not aware his false statements will be exposed? Is he not aware they are false?
Like I do with the young earth, I try to understand him.
With the young earth people, there is an answer. Their interpretation of the Bible says the earth is young, and since (1) the Bible must be true and (2) their interpretation must be correct, the science must be missing something.
With this guy, I can find no corresponding rationale. But — maybe — I am missing something.
2 May 2009 at 2:41 PM
Looks like I’m not the only one who would need to brush up on the Trig, before I’d even try to plot projections of this type on a graph!
2 May 2009 at 2:59 PM
People concoct tall tales, misinformation or similar ilk for various reasons: they either need attention, even if it is negative, or they hope to derive some (perceived) gain from their actions. Of course, the converse of the latter is that they hope to delay or stop others’ gain or progress (maybe this gives them a sense of increasing their own, um, powerfulness?). Perhaps the latter is a complicated acting out of their own personal lack of worth, or some ancient trauma…somehow, like the vandal who spray paints their graffiti on freshly pristine surfaces, they too hope to leave their mark. It never ceases to amaze me that members of our species can deliberately act in ways that are contrary to survival ‘instincts’; it may be that our ability to cleverly conceptualize isn’t such wonderful thing after all.
Moncton, like Lomborg, obviously has some agenda; the pair are too knowledgeable is some areas not to recognize their own mendacity. In other areas, not so educated. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Like Dyson, maybe it makes you overreach.
2 May 2009 at 3:12 PM
John, the simplest questions are the best — and the hardest.
You must have been leading a very protected life
2 May 2009 at 3:26 PM
Does this argument really need debunking? Or more to the point, why did the NY times public editor decide to print it? Maybe an attack on the NYT’s ‘unbiased reporting’ from an outside source was called for, given the in-depth coverage of the Heartland Institute’s skeptic meeting, along with several other inaccuracies and omissions.
For example, one-sided energy analysis from the coal-electric lobby viewpoint isn’t news or analysis, it is propaganda. “Environmental articles” that warn of the dangers of concentrated solar power while ignoring the far vaster water use and pollution produced by coal and oil fall into the same category.
It is a sad state of affairs… we’ve even got the NYT publishing blogs about how the growth of renewable energy might lead to a disastrous population explosion. Odd theme - does that also apply to life-saving drugs?
Quote:
Ummm… No. For one, simplistic notions like ‘carrying capacity’ rely on stable ecosystem theory, and if climate changes rapidly, that goes out the window. For another, the goal is to replace fossil fuels with renewables, not add renewables on top of fossil fuels, so there won’t be a second mythical “Green Revolution” - note that the increase in food supplies lagged behind the increase in population. Population increases were primarily due to the invention of antibiotics and knowledge of the importance of hygiene and sanitary water and sewage systems. Finally, here is a lump of coal to eat and drink - since the claim was that “energy easily translates into water and food” - so dig in.
If you only read the U.S. press, you’d think that renewable energy is the most environmentally and socially devastating idea we’d ever had - paving over deserts, killing birds in wind turbines, promoting communism, fascism and moral depravity of all sorts, and now, threatening global catastrophe via overpopulation - and did you know that species extinction in the tropics is all due to the expansion of biofuels for export?
If we just stop all renewable energy projects, the world will be saved from environmental catastrophe. What a curious theme…
2 May 2009 at 3:29 PM
Because he’s hoping his FUD attack will impact policy. He doesn’t have to be right, he only needs to be effective in providing those who oppose doing anything ammunition. Remember, a pistol firing a blank doesn’t sound that much different to the untrained ear than a pistol firing the real thing.
2 May 2009 at 3:47 PM
Obfuscators like Monckton infuriate me. One can only hope that they are remembered in history for their treachery to the human species.
“In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
Or, as Wally Broecker once said (I think I’ve got the quote right), the climate system is a capricious beast, and we are pokiing it with sharp sticks.
This leads to a question I’ve been meaning to ask you all at RealClimate for quite a while, but waiting for the right time.
My question relates to a distinction between “type 1″ and “type 2″ climate change.
(In reality, I think that the issue that I’m raising here deserves a post or two of it’s own.Perhaps I haven’t searched thoroughly enough, but I have searched. Forgive me if I’ve missed something.)
I teach multiple courses & workshops at my school (I’m the founder), a small, independent, college-level school offering intro & advanced courses in systems sciences & non-linear dynamics, mostly applied to living systems.
One of the texts that we use is With Speed & Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change by Fred Pearce.
Pearce makes the assertion (that I’ve also seen advanced by other authors) that IPCC models (that is, those upon which it bases its reports along with study reviews)do not adequately represent non-linearities in the climate system, & in particular do not correctly represent the potential for abrupt & rapid phase transitions. That is, they are - in the nomenclature that he uses - type 1 models.
Thus, as bleak as some view the IPCC reports, in a sense they underestimate the urgency of the situation.
Below is a quote from Pearce’s introduction. For me, a person with a solid background in mathematics (MS probability theory) & a PhD in ecology & evolution, who has studied & taught about complex system dynamics for a couple of decades and studied climate change intensely for the last 5 years (using RealClimate, Spencer Weart, Paul Mayewski, James Lovelock & others as information sources), Pearce’s assertion seems accurate.
But I’d like to read opinions about it from RealClimate persons, please. In particular, do you think it is accurate?
And if not, if you indeed take issue with his position, finding it hyperbolic or extremist, then why?
Thanks as always for your informative site, and in advance for your comments on this quote.
__________________
“Nature is fragile, environmentalists often tell us. But the lesson of this book is that is not so. The truth is far more worrying. Nature is strong & packs a serious counterpunch … Global warming will very probably unleash unstoppable planetary forces. And they will not be gradual. The history of our planet’s climate shows that it does not do gradual change. Under pressure, whether from sunspots or orbital wobbles or the depredations of humans, it lurches – virtually overnight. We have spent 400 generations building our current civilization in an era of climatic stability - a long, generally balmy spring that has endured since the last ice age. But this tranquility looks like the exception rather than the rule in nature. And if its end is inevitable one day, we seem to be triggering its imminent and violent collapse. Our world may be blown away in the process.
“The idea for this book came while I sat at a conference, organized by the British government in early 2005, on ‘dangerous climate change’ and how to prevent it. The scientists began by adopting neutral language. They made a distinction between Type I climate change, which is gradual and follows the graphs developed by climate modelers for the [IPCC] and Type II change, which is much more abrupt and results from crossing hidden ‘tipping points’. It is not in the standard models. During discussions, this temperate language gave way. Type II climate change became, in the words of Chris Ripley, director of the British Antarctic survey, the work of climatic ‘monsters’ that are even now being woken (xxvii).”
2 May 2009 at 3:57 PM
It’s a gig.
Lord Christopher Monckton - Global Warming Expert
Lord Christopher Monckton, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute. …
~globalwarmingheartland.com/expert.cfm?expertId=349
2 May 2009 at 4:28 PM
Just remember to forward the RealClimate email to your Congressman. Votes in Congress count. Does the New York Times get a copy of RealClimate?
2 May 2009 at 4:33 PM
With his latest shenanigans in the US, Monkton managed to catch the attention of Private Eye (a satirical current affairs magazine in the UK).
In the latest issue 1235, they noted several things (quite apart from his dodgy science).
One is his reference to himself as “a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom legislature” in a letter to two American senators. He is not of course and never has been. As Private Eye notes: “Since inheriting the title, Christopher has stood at a “by-election” for a hereditary Tory seat in the Lords, following the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton two years ago. He received precisely zero votes.”
The other thing Private Eye notes is his logo, which he is using on his graphs and letters - a portcullis topped with a crown, bearing a striking resemblance to the insignia of the House of Parliament. This is also very dodgy indeed as the official parliamentary guide states very clearly that “the usage of the crowned portcullis was formally authorised by Her Majesty the Queen for the two Houses unambiguously to use the device and thus to regulate its use by the others. The emblem should not be used for purposes to which such authentication is inappropriate, or where there is a risk that its use might wrongly be regarded, or represented as having the authority of the House”.
Monkton’s has been caught out making stuff up many times in the past, his artful tricks are too numerous to list. In addition to the latest example provided by Gavin in the main post, this one is quite entertaining:
Monckton & the case of the missing Curry
It is hard to see anyone still taking this guy seriously…
2 May 2009 at 4:49 PM
“Not even wrong.”
2 May 2009 at 4:53 PM
How do you know he’s lying, and not just wrong and ignorant?
There have been plenty of studies that have passed peer review that have made math mistakes like this.
2 May 2009 at 5:01 PM
You would think he’d know whether or not he’s actually a member of the House of Lords, wouldn’t you.
But maybe you’re right, maybe he just doesn’t *know* he’s not a member of the House of Lords!
2 May 2009 at 5:15 PM
The Lord calls for all believers to send complaints to the editor of NYT. Why not do just that, and forward the complaints about the complaint to the Editor? After all, we can’t let the NYT be left with unbalanced information.
2 May 2009 at 5:34 PM
Igor #12,
“It is hard to see anyone still taking this guy seriously…”
Unfortunately, I´ve seen a bunch of educated people that cling to any denying blog or article, no matter how fragile the claims are.
Willful ignorance, as someone already said.
2 May 2009 at 6:33 PM
Curves for CO2 observations vs IPCC prévisions should be more understandable if colors for different scenarios were chosen different…
[Response: Agreed! But for reference, the ordering is the same as in the key. - gavin]
2 May 2009 at 6:53 PM
Now I see, with a more complete history, that it seems L. Monckton (corrected sp…sorry) has a chronic problem with the truth. This supports the notion that he (and others like him) are the disablers, just like I thought…it’s not just a gig, it’s also a mirror of an internal deficiency of some kind. They take the job as a convenient means to toss the wrench in the machinery. Making something grind to a halt is power. In my 61 years experience, power is more, well, powerful, than behaving nicely with others. I doubt he truly believes everything he espouses.
2 May 2009 at 6:55 PM
didn’t nyt print a correction to Andy’s piece after Monckton complained?
[Response: The correction has nothing to do with what Monckton complained about. Read it again. -gavin]
2 May 2009 at 7:04 PM
But what about these projections from IPPC 2001: Synthesis Report
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/vol4/english/figspm-10a.htm
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/vol4/english/figspm-10b.htm
found on this page
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/vol4/english/015.htm
They certainly look closer to Monckton than your comparison charts.
[Response: No they don’t (How could you tell? The period involved is less than ten years), and the values I plotted are in the linked files. - gavin]
2 May 2009 at 7:15 PM
Consider a traveler heading from Kansas City to Denver. Having been told that Denver is at a higher elevation than KC, he becomes confused when he DESCENDS into a river valley. Convinced that he is headed in the wrong direction, he turns around and is reassured when he finds himself going up! Thus, he ends up back in Kansas City. When a friend asks, “How was Denver?”, he answers that he never made it because he was given incorrect directions.
2 May 2009 at 7:50 PM
Mike N. asks “How do you know he’s lying, and not just wrong and ignorant?”
You’re kind of new to this, aren’t you?
Well, for one thing it is Christopher Monckton, for whom the truth has never been quite good enough. For another, he’s pulled stuff like this for years. It would take serious work to be this stupid–years and years of trying to get it wrong.
As to studies this bad that have passed peer review…hmm, there’s Miskosczi, Gerlich and Tscheuschner, anything published in E&E. What else?
2 May 2009 at 9:04 PM
Mistakes get published. Good papers are those, whether correct or not, that lead to interesting results as other researchers work in the area and understand it better.
In good journals mistakes get noticed, letters get published, and discussed, and corrected, and acknowledged — that’s routine.
E.g. Google “Mears pointing out a sign error in C+S’s dataset”
Sometimes bad publications involve more than simple errors that can be dealt with in the routine way.
Try http://www.sgr.org.uk/climate/StormyTimes_NL28.htm
Blogs claim all sorts of wacko stuff about scientific work being mistaken. If the claim is sound, it gets dealt with. If not it’s usually ignored, or maybe someone eventually writes something publishable about it.
Don’t believe what people on blogs tell you unless they have some publication record in the area or other basis for credibility.
2 May 2009 at 9:51 PM
Thanks for this, trolls on slashdot have been pointing to the icecap site for a couple of months now. Their about page states they do not take money from corporations, However following the money trail for this site leads directly to the “tobacco scientists” over at “Frontiers of Freedom” who get quite a bit of funding from ExxonMobie.
Most people think it’s the oil industry in general that is promoting this FUD but ExxonMobile seems to be the only major oil company standing with the coal industry and their ex-tobacco scientists, could this be because they have heavy investments in coal but it’s easier to scare people by telling them the greenies will take away their SUV’s?
2 May 2009 at 10:01 PM
Ray Ladbury,
“As to studies this bad that have passed peer review…hmm, there’s Miskosczi, Gerlich and Tscheuschner, anything published in E&E. What else?”
Didn’t someone say that they were going to get their physics undergrad students to come up with a rebuttal of Miskolczi (right spelling)? I have not seen it. In fact I have yet to see any published rebuttal in the peer reviewed literature. Could you please direct me to one?
2 May 2009 at 10:20 PM
Monckton aside, the error in the article that Revkin corrected is significant. AGW people claim there is no doubt about “the science.” Critics often agree, and respond with:
Science tells us that CO2 contributes to warming the earth. C02 is increasing. Therefore, the earth MAY warm. We don’t know how much or when.
The argument is all about the nature of the change: negligible or significant? Or perhaps none at all because other factors control?
Thus, for the passage to have been unreported in the article is serious because its inclusion shows that the science was not being ignored. But the scientists working for the group simply had a different point of view on it.
The fact that Exxon or whoever else funded that group sought to spin the science a certain way is totally unremarkable and is no different from the legal and ethical lobbying that goes on every day in our political world. (The illegal and unethical lobbying is another story.) The reason this little passage is important is because it implies that this line was not crossed to the dark side, much as AGW people would like to think.
2 May 2009 at 10:26 PM
Why does he do it? It’s his business as a lobbyist against AGW. It has to be something other than burning fossil fuels. You know, Gore’s Folly. It’s a defense of business as usual, political gamesmanship and the plot of my novel. Resistance to change has a big following.
2 May 2009 at 11:38 PM
The denialists have already won. They kept the US away from Kyoto. And there is no sign that they will ever let up. This reminds me of the tobacco execs sitting in front of congress in 1994 and swearing, “Nicotine is not addictive”. Even though the jig was up, they just kept on denying & lying. Their prime motivation? Short-term financial gain.
So what type of earthly event will it take for mankind to wake up? A full meter more ocean water? Iceless poles? Droughts becoming common where there had not been droughts before? Or will they just keep spinning these events as being natural, and good for the health of earth? (This does no require a response. I’m just getting frustrated.)
Pete
3 May 2009 at 1:58 AM
This is definitely not peer to peer reviewed stuff. You can’t possibly put yourself on par with such a noble person.
3 May 2009 at 3:48 AM
Does anyone have the URL for the Private Eye article mentioned in 12 please? I’ve looked at their site but can’t find anything…
3 May 2009 at 4:14 AM
Well, I’m really not that surprised. I told you about one of his “amendments” here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/on-replication/#comment-112747
I think he is 100 % aware of what he is doing. He is deliberately creating false data and graphs.
3 May 2009 at 6:08 AM
I met Viscount Monckton at a conference on climate change in January organised by IqSquared in London. He told me he would be happy for the slides from his presentation to be published on RealClimate. Might be good for you to check this an take him on more directly. I have his email if you need it.
3 May 2009 at 8:19 AM
As for CO2 concentrations, i find it interesting to note that they stay “on the tracks” of projections, while CO2 emissions seem to recently exceed emissions projections (see Global Carbon Project). Probably too few years to say anything, though.
3 May 2009 at 8:32 AM
I think the NYT is responsible for a more obfuscation of climate science and renewable energy science than Monckton is. Notice that they have been refusing to print any corrections with respect to their claims that atmospheric brown clouds are “mostly due” to smoke from wood fires.
Where’s the correction there? Does the realclimate group support that assertion?
Then, what about the claims by the Electric Power Research Institute on the true price of renewable energy? Why would the NYT print coal-lobby propaganda from a one-sided source without seeking out an alternative viewpoint from the renewable energy industry?
It seems to me that the most likely explanation for the NYT “correction” was that the paper’s editors were worried about creating a legal basis for global-warming lawsuits against fossil fuel interests, as ‘prior knowledge of harm caused’ played a central role in the tobacco lawsuits - and the head of the American Petroleum Institute PR push is Edelman, previously of ’second-hand tobacco smoke is not a problem’ fame.
The general point made when talking about people like Singer and so on is that they recieved major funding from fossil fuel interests - but isn’t that also true of the New York Times, and doesn’t it raise similar questions about the quality of their coverage?
Really, the New York Times has done an atrocious job of covering many important energy and climate stories, and one of their directors is also a director of the Carlyle Group, heavily invested in fossil fuels. The Iraq war was a fossil fuel venture, and had no bigger cheerleader than the NYT’s “unbiased reporting”. I seriously doubt their objectivity on any issue related to fossil fuels, and that’s backed up by a lot of evidence.
It really points to very serious widespread problems in the U.S. academic and journalistic professions - you can’t do research on renewable energy in the U.S. academic system, because of fossil fuel influence, and you can’t get honest coverage of renewable energy initiatives in the U.S. press, also because of undue influence by vested interests - and more often than not these days, those vested interests are in finance, not in industry. It is the financial interests who are co-owners of both media and fossil fuel corporations, after all.
The failure of a country’s academic and media institutions to deal with a serious crisis should not be taken lightly, as it points towards looming governmental and societal failure. There is no better example than the media response to the latest novel influenza hybrid (not so novel, sourced to 1998) - first, it was overhyped (which benefited the drug manufacturers), and then, the level of hype caused people to stop flying on planes and eating pork (which hurt airlines and pork dealers), causing a rapid turn-around by the press. Over the course of the entire episode, commercial interests ruled the coverage, and rational scientific discussion never even made it onto the stage.
What is the difference between an independent press and a propaganda service, and on which side does the U.S. press fall?
James Hansen referred to a “failure of democracy” on the climate response issue - but it is a pretty clear historical rule that successful democracies are impossible without a professional and independent media.
3 May 2009 at 9:20 AM
Great information. But I think the message is diminished by the use of words like: potty peer, paranoid hints and Monckton has been indulging in a little aristocratic artifice again.
My suggestion is to not stoop to their level and keep the dialog at a higher level. Those on the other side want you to crawl into the mud with them. Their goal is to confuse and if you get dirty with them, then they have achieved their goal.
Be above the pettiness!
[Response: Normally I’d agree - but Monckton is a special case. The only appropriate response is ridicule. - gavin]
3 May 2009 at 10:12 AM
“Notice that they have been refusing to print any corrections with respect to their claims that atmospheric brown clouds are “mostly due” to smoke from wood fires.”
What was actually said was:
“The smoke is rising mainly from cooking fires fueled with firewood or dried dung.”
No mention of atmospheric brown clouds here.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/tyler-prize-for-masters-of-air-and-ice/
3 May 2009 at 10:34 AM
Steckis, I believe it was Ray Pierrehumbert who gave the refutation of Miskolczi as an undergraduate assignment. Eli Rabett has pretty well eviscerated it on his blog.
If the fact that it sas published in an obscure Hungarian meteorological journal were not enough to raise your suspicions, his rather “creative” application of the virial theorem ought to peg any reasonable BS detector. His treatment of Kirchoff’s law is pretty well nuts. Anyone who embraces this twaddle cannot reasonably be considered skeptical.
3 May 2009 at 11:23 AM
RE # 26 Richard Steckis Says:
2 May 2009 at 10:01 PM
Well, no legitimate scientist would be inclinded to waste valuable space in a peer-reviewed journal article to reference, let alone rebut, inaccurate statements published elsewhere in a hack journal. Likewise, no legitimate peer-reviewed journal, or its reviewers, would allow valuable (and expensive) space in one of its articles to be devoted to comments on inaccurate statements published elsewhere in a hack journal. When published work is so bad that it has no heuristic value whatsoever, it is best ignored. Rest assured that good science will not be ignored.
3 May 2009 at 11:46 AM
>You’re kind of new to this, aren’t you?
Yeah, I’d never heard of Monckton, and still have no idea who this Singer fellow is that you guys are always ranting about.
3 May 2009 at 1:51 PM
re: #38 MikeN
Try: Naomi Oreskes’ American Denial of Global Warming, whose second half is mostly about the George Marshall Institute, but is relevant to Singer as well.
For a long compendium and analysis of Monckton behavior, try this, as Naomi’s work put her high on Monckton’s Bad List, to the point of outright harassment.
For the denouement of that silliness , see DeSMogBlog.
Read including the full set of comments, including Monckton’s ((I’m on his Bad List, too, among other things, for “interfering in an unlawful manner on the blogosphere” and breaching doctor-patient confidentiality), and the various replies to all that.
3 May 2009 at 1:59 PM
Just remembered where the name connected…(sp. slight difference)…”Mad Monkton”, by Wilkie Collins, about a family curse of madness passed from one generation to the next. Pretty well-known story.
3 May 2009 at 2:53 PM
#12Igor Samoylenko:
“…his reference to himself as “a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom legislature” in a letter to two American senators. He is not of course and never has been. As Private Eye notes: “Since inheriting the title, Christopher has stood at a “by-election” for a hereditary Tory seat in the Lords, following the death of Lord Mowbray and Stourton two years ago. He received precisely zero votes.”
That ought to be repeated every 5 or so posts in this thread, or anywhere one finds Monckton’s science fiction under discussion. He’s psychotic or a liar, we get to choose. If he can’t tell or we can’t trust him to tell us the truth about something so easy to verify, why bother reading a single thing he writes?
We seem to have an atavistic response to impressive titles such as that sported by Mr. Monckton, even when the very minor lord in question is a flaming crackpot. I have to wonder if the NY Times would publish his stuff if he were simply known by his established track record of eccentric causes, which include suggesting the incarceration of anybody testing positive for HIV and espousing the goal of closing down the U.K. government because it is “atheistic and humanistic.”
3 May 2009 at 3:02 PM
Pete W., it’s neither here nor there but just for nit picking clarification: tobacco was never addictive until the pols and FDA (and others that smelled money) chose to dumb down the accepted definition in the 90s. The feds were cajoling tobacco to find a way to get more nicotine in their new low-tar cigs in the 70s. I know it is accepted carte blanche by the chorus, but find a better example of “lying.”
3 May 2009 at 3:10 PM
Maybe the French had it right with that little revolution of theirs. You don’t hear much about looney-bin French nobles now do you? Not advocating violence here - just can’t figure out why you Brits still have nobles. Talk about atavistic!
3 May 2009 at 4:44 PM
Re: nicotine and addiction, this is instructive:
http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDA_notes/NNVol13N3/tearoff.html
3 May 2009 at 5:15 PM
Re: #43 and similar…
There seems to be a general misundersanding among many of those commenting here that the NYT published Monckton’s submission; They did not. More accurately, I’ve been unable to find any evidence that the NYT referred to it at all…
3 May 2009 at 5:24 PM
John Mashey says of the good Viscount: “I’m on his Bad List, too,,,”
Wow, you’re my hero.
3 May 2009 at 6:17 PM
chris said in #31:
“Does anyone have the URL for the Private Eye article mentioned in 12 please? I’ve looked at their site but can’t find anything…”
No, sorry. I don’t think they have it on-line. I have read the article in a hard copy I receive on subscription.
The article I referenced is in the latest issue #1235, 1 May - 14 May 2009, page 7, titled “The Crowned Clown”. It is a short article and I have pretty much reproduced the gist of it in my post above.
Doug Bostrom said in #43:
“I have to wonder if the NY Times would publish his stuff if he were simply known by his established track record of eccentric causes, which include suggesting the incarceration of anybody testing positive for HIV and espousing the goal of closing down the U.K. government because it is “atheistic and humanistic.””
He inherited his tendency for following eccentric causes from his father, it seems. From the same article in the Private Eye: “His [Monckton’s] late father, the second viscount, put himself forward at the 1999 Lords election in which hereditaries chose which of 92 of them should survive the Briarite cull. However, despite an eye-catching manifesto (”All cats to be muzzled outside to stop the agonising torture of mice and small birds”), he didn’t make the cut.”
3 May 2009 at 7:59 PM
on telly the other night, aussie politician Pru Goward made what seemed to me a new point in the ‘debate’ - that climate science - and modelling in particular - are relatively new sciences and hence should be subject to some caution in interpreting their results.
just wondering if anyone else has encountered this argument before. i practically had to restrain myself from jumping up and yelling at the tv, but i had to admit it was a novel and seemingly designed to convey an understanding of the science rather than outright rejection of it.
apologies if this is slightly off topic, wasn’t sure where else to post it
3 May 2009 at 8:31 PM
Hamish (50) — Modeling efforts began with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
in 1896 CE.
Obviously, having computers has been quite a big help; read “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart, first link in Science section of the sidebar here.
If you have a chance to counter such foolishness, that is.
3 May 2009 at 8:45 PM
Peter Williams, except it took the French 3 or 4 revolutions to get it even half right.
3 May 2009 at 10:55 PM
QUOTE:
re: #1 Good story, but some of the 2007 Arctic summer peices seem to have been founded on a short termism and hence maybe we all learn a lessen there.
UNQUOTE
False. Why repeat what the deniers say? There was nothing said about Arctic sea ice that is any different from the points made by Gavin above regarding probabilities.
The sea ice is so reduced in **mass** (thickness), a point that is made, but under-emphasized, that any strong summer melt could lead to a nearly ice free arctic. More to the point, most people seem to forget the comment made by the NSIDC regarding the sea ice was about an ice-free north pole, not an ice free Arctic.
Let’s not reinforce their lies, eh?
Cheers
3 May 2009 at 11:15 PM
[edit - this is not a subject that leads to sensible discussion. Sorry]
4 May 2009 at 12:05 AM
Thanks DBB (51), appreciate the reply and swiftness thereof. I get the impression that journalists are slowly starting to arm themselves with a bit more information about the nature and history of climate change science.
4 May 2009 at 12:51 AM
Ray Ladbury:
“Steckis, I believe it was Ray Pierrehumbert who gave the refutation of Miskolczi as an undergraduate assignment. Eli Rabett has pretty well eviscerated it on his blog.”
But Ray. I have heard nothing more about the undergrad rebuttal. Regardless of what Rabett has eviscerated on his blog, that is not a peer reviewed rebuttal. As for calling the journal that Miskolczi an obscure journal, well it may be obscure in the West but perhaps not in his country. I do not denigrate a scientist for publishing in journals that are more suited to their native tongues. Nor should those journals be denigrated for not being in the mainstream (Read mainstream as Western Dominated Literature). You are being both elitist and dismissive for criticising his choice of journal.
Finally, none of what you have said answers my original question. Why has the work of Miskolczi not been rebutted in the peer reviewed literature so that the rebuttal itself can be exposed to review by peers? I believe that Arthur Smith published a rebuttal to G&T but I see none for Miskolczi.
[Response: Because it is self-evidently rubbish. See Nick Stokes remarks in many forums. It’s like asking for a peer-reviewed rebuttal of a claim that the moon is made of green cheese. - gavin]
4 May 2009 at 1:30 AM
Rod B, and if you would have asked Chou en-Lai, the jury’s still out on that
4 May 2009 at 3:30 AM
Hamish, what’s the difference between getting a piece of paper and putting on it
F=12 N
m=1400g
Then working out on paper what acceleration you get and typing into a computer
F=12;
m=1.4;
print “Acceleration = “, 12/1.4, “m/s”;
then typing “run”.
?
4 May 2009 at 3:34 AM
RodB, #44, so why do you need nicotine patches to give up smoking if it’s not addictive?
Why, before then, did people give up smoking and then take it up again?
Why do you discount what the chemists working for the tobacco firms said (they said that it was addictive and came up with ways to make it MORE addictive).
Marijuana is not addictive even in the sense that nicotine was but it is claimed to be a “gateway drug”. THERE is where you see governments redefine “addictive”. Not in tobacco.
4 May 2009 at 5:26 AM
Further to the Upper House thing, it’s rather unfortunate that the House of Lords official web site, despite repeated public claims by His Lordship to the contrary, does not list Monckton as a member.
Britain may not be the great world power it used to be, but is still does pretty good comedy. His Lordship should take some tips from John Cleese.
4 May 2009 at 8:29 AM
Anyone with any remaining doubts about Monckton (Mike N, for example) might care to read the keynote address he gave to this year’s Heartland conference. See:
http://www.heartland.org/full/24881/Great_Is_Truth_and_Mighty_Above_All_Things.html
4 May 2009 at 8:54 AM
Richard Steckis, You are SO astoundingly naive. Ever hear of journal shopping? That’s when you realize you can’t get your work published in the journal of record for a field, so you look for obscure journals where your work is just a wee bit outside the likely expertise of their readership. It’s pretty much how denialists get anything published at all. E&E is a favorite because by definition everything is outside of its expertise.
Last I saw, there was no peer-reviewed rebuttal to Lyndon LaRouche’s claim that the Queen of England was a drug dealer either.
4 May 2009 at 9:48 AM
Ray.
“Last I saw, there was no peer-reviewed rebuttal to Lyndon LaRouche’s claim that the Queen of England was a drug dealer either.”
You are appealing to ridicule. It demeans you and it contributes nothing.
[Response: Relying on Miskolczi is an appeal to the ridiculous. It too contributes nothing. - gavin]
4 May 2009 at 9:58 AM
i think one reason anybody takes monkton seriously is his really smart-sounding english accent.
4 May 2009 at 11:34 AM
Oh, Monckton again. Sheesh! What’s really upsetting to me is that ROME REPORTS (aired on EWTN - the U.S. Catholic TV channel) interviews him when they want an expert on climate change. You’d expect newspapers and other commercial media heavily funded by oil and oil/caol-based industries to feature Monckton, but church-related media??
To repair the great damage Monckton (and EWTN) are doing to my beloved Catholic Church on the issue of climate change, I want you to know what good Catholics — present and past popes, many bishops, priests, and laypersons — are up to re climate change. See:
http://catholicclimatecovenant.org
http://www.catholicsandclimatechange.org
4 May 2009 at 12:12 PM
For more of the same, try the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson, on renewable energy and fossil fuels:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/26/AR2009042601515.html
On renewables: “Actually, no one involved in this debate really knows what the consequences or costs might be. All are inferred from models of uncertain reliability.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/03/AR2009050301849.html
On fossil fuels: “Almost everyone loves to hate the world’s Exxons, but promoting domestic drilling is simply common sense.”
You know, in the past, articles like that were preceded with a statement: “This is an advertisement”.
If the nation’s leading newspapers have been converted into propaganda and marketing tools, then who needs them? More to the point, why do so many members of the educated public have so much faith in what they read in them?
Robert J. Samuelson can’t even get his statistics right:
The actual numbers are here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html
Coal: 50.0%
Natural gas: 20.1%
Nuclear: 19.4%
Hydroelectric: 7.1%
Wind + solar: 2.4%
Petroleum liquids + coke: 1.6%
That’s for electricity generation. The other big energy sink is transportation, which is difficult to compare directly to energy generation. Here we have petroleum products, 2007:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mttupus1m.htm
U.S. motor fuel consumption (gasoline _ diesel) is 9,286,000 barrels/day (3.39 billion barrels/year).
Here we have biofuels in 2007:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb1003.html
154,416,000 barrels per year for ethanol, 11,691,000 for biodiesel
Total biofuel production thus is about 5% of total motor fuel production in the U.S. at present.
As we have seen, a 5% drop in demand for fossil fuels sends the price down. We could easily double or triple biofuel production in the U.S. with no ill effects on food supply (maybe fewer corn-fed factory farms, which is where 50% of all corn ends up today).
Combine ethanol production with wind and solar power, and add in the plug-in hybrid vehicle with significant electric energy storage capacity, and you have a fossil fuel independent transport system.
It’s very feasible, and in the absence of fossil fuels, that’s how we’ll move goods and people around - unless you prefer to walk or ride a bicycle (or a horse).
4 May 2009 at 12:54 PM
we mock monkton et al, but they are effective. it’s getting worse. THEY are winning the global PR battle. i was going to post this on that “lies, damn lies ans stats” thread, but i guess it “closed”.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/environment/energy_update
4 May 2009 at 2:22 PM
walter crain, La Nina provided excellent cover for the fibbers. La Nina wasn’t forever.
4 May 2009 at 3:21 PM
Ike (66), your 2.4%+ was generated from wood, black liquor, other wood waste, biogenic municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge waste, agriculture byproducts, other biomass, geothermal, solar thermal, photovoltaic energy, and wind. I’m sure wind and solar is a big part but I’m sure not all of it. You shouldn’t say that it is.
4 May 2009 at 3:47 PM
Re #54: It’s your blog, gents, but with all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, given the results of the Rasmussen poll linked above, you appear to be redefining “sensible.”
Without accountability there is no responsibility; without responsibility there is no trust. Without trust there is… chaos.
Cest la vie.
Cheers
4 May 2009 at 4:18 PM
RE #41 the correct link for American Denial of Global Warming is:
http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=13459
4 May 2009 at 5:37 PM
i don’t know what the content of the edited post #54 was, but the link to the rasmussen poll was a link of the public’s opinion, not scientific opinion. it indicates the gulf between public and scientific opinion and highlights the need to educate the public of the scientific consensus.
if only there were some sort of funny, clever way of demonstrating the extent of the scientific consensus…
4 May 2009 at 7:41 PM
Response: Relying on Miskolczi is an appeal to the ridiculous. It too contributes nothing. - gavin
I am not relying on any such thing. But his theories are gaining traction (e.g. http://landshape.org/enm/). Therefore, his work must be addressed professionally and not dismissively (otherwise it will bite you in your backside).
[Response: Your definition of traction seems to be somewhat different to mine. The same points have been made over and again to these people and yet they continue to think this is worthwhile. No peer reviewed comment will change this one iota. Just as there are some who still think Velikovsky had some good points, no doubt some Miskolczi supporters will persist. Anybody sensible has far more important demands on their time. - gavin]
4 May 2009 at 8:58 PM
Richard Steckis, Traction, huh? How many citations if Miskolczi have there been since it’s publication? How many climate models have incorporated its “insights”?
Richard, when somebody publishes something and it lies there like a dog turd on a New York sidewalk, maybe you have to conclude that it wasn’t as golden as you thought.
4 May 2009 at 9:27 PM
Richard Steckis,
Miskolczi’s paper was intentional misrepresentation, much like the Monckton piece, and he used it to confuse many students as well, which is probably a violation of some academic conduct standard.
He believes runaway greenhouse effects violate energy balance considerations (despite happening on Venus), he believes water vapor decreases in a higher CO2 world (which has been proven wrong), he does not understand Kirchoff’s law, and many other things. It is not worth review.
4 May 2009 at 11:10 PM
Wasn’t ‘Lord’ a hereditary honorific? Doesn’t he have any children who might do a coup?
jyyh in jest.
ReCaptcha at dismal
4 May 2009 at 11:19 PM
Ray Ladbury wrote in 74:
But it isn’t just lying there: Miskolczi has a viral video. And who needs technical papers in journals devoted to climatology citing your work — when you have a viral video?
Please see:
http://landshape.org/enm/miskolczis-viral-video/
And I am sure that Miskolczi’s work was warmly received at the Heartland Institute’s conference in 2008. (Incidentally, according to Heartland, the scientific research showing that there is a significant health risk associated with second-hand smoke is junk science.)
4 May 2009 at 11:28 PM
Mark Says (4 May 2009 at 3:34 AM):
“RodB, #44, so why do you need nicotine patches to give up smoking if it’s not addictive?”
Maybe you “need” nicotine patches because they can be manufactured and sold at a profit? However, it’s a fact that lots of people have quit without them, or without any sort of addiction-related treatment. Indeed, though it’s a bit dated, this CDC page http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00017511.htm says that simple “cold turkey” without any external aid is the most effective method.
“Why, before then, did people give up smoking and then take it up again?”
Why does anyone stop a habit or (to them) pleasurable activity, then later take it up again?
5 May 2009 at 12:06 AM
Richard Steckis (73),
You will find a good critique of Miskolczi’s work here:
Why Ferenc M. Miskolczi is Wrong (2008)
by Barton Paul Levenson
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Miskolczi.html
… and more criticism of it here:
GIGO
SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2008
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/06/gigo-eli-has-learned-over-years-that.html
5 May 2009 at 1:20 AM
re: 71 Lynn: thanks for the fix!
5 May 2009 at 2:47 AM
I recently had to deal with Monckton for an hour on BBC Radio 5 Live.
Whilst some of his comments were scientifically laughable and contradictory, he came up with a concept that I had not heard of before.
He claimed that due to the logarithymic response of global warming to increased levels of CO2, all the warming had already happened.
Not having heard of this before, I was unable to refute it.
I have not been able to find any quality refutation on the web. Anyone able to help?
[Response: Typical nonsense. The Viscount is just trying to bamboozle - the forcing from CO2 is logarithmic in concentration and this what is seen in all models and projections, but all it means is that it takes a doubling of CO2 each time to produce the same forcing. i.e. the forcing from 2xCO2 (560ppm) is ~4W/m2, and you need a further doubling (to
13201120ppm) to get to 8 W/m2. It does not mean that CO2 has maxed out or that further increases don’t have an effect. - gavin]5 May 2009 at 4:27 AM
Richard Steckis,
Eli Rabett et al. are going to publish their critique in the same journal that published G&T. But as the man said, it’s self-evidently rubbish. For a review of some reasons why, try here (remove the hyphen first):
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Miskolczi.html
CAPTCHA: throws outer
5 May 2009 at 4:38 AM
Instead of jumping up & down about our dear Lordship, what about some real scientific criticism?
I see your blog roll ignores Dr Roy Spencer’s, this posting deserves close scrutiny.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/05/climate-model-predictions-it%e2%80%99s-time-for-a-reality-check/
[Response: The idea that Spencer is the only person in the world looking at satellite data for data on sensitivity is laughable. And what do you suggest that we criticise? This posting is pure declamation, not science. If he ever posts his mysterious paper for anyone to actually see, then maybe we could have a discussion. His track record does not make us hopeful. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 5:46 AM
Chris you say Miskolci is intentionally misrepresenting and then you say he believes. Either he is lying or he believes what he is saying. Having read some of his comments here at RC I happen to believe that he believes he is right. The arguments over if he is right or not get a little bit over my non scientist head but wasn’t there a study recently showing that water vapor has actually been decreasing with increasing co2. Isn’t the argument that this isn’t actually happening based entirely on our lack of confidence in the data? Any idea when we might have data we can trust?
[Response: In the absence of looking at any data, any random theory can be thought about, but we have many, many sources of data - both of radiative quantities and trends in water vapour - and there is no data that supports the idea that water vapour goes down with warming - none! It goes up when there is a warm El Nino event, it goes down when there is a cool volcanic event, it increases over time if there is a long term warming trend - both near the surface and in the troposphere. Even in the upper troposphere the specific humidity increases (though not quite enough to maintain constant relative humidity). There is a whole section (3.4.2) on this in the IPCC AR4. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 6:28 AM
We here in the UK take our excenric aristocrats like Monckton with a large pinch of salt. They are part of our traditions alongside warm beer, cricket on the village green and shouting loudly to foreigners in English so such foreigners may better understand what we are saying.
Monckton = delightful nut case.
Relax
5 May 2009 at 7:25 AM
2×560 = 1120, not 1320. ITYSBT.
[Response: oops. thanks - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 8:18 AM
Re my comment post #83
“[Response: The idea that Spencer is the only person in the world looking at satellite data for data on sensitivity is laughable”
Where, pray, do I suggest this?
[Response: That’s what he claims in the post you want us to discuss. Did you not even read it? - gavin]
As to some real scientific criticism, how about doing a post on how climate models currently treat clouds, what effects they have and what assumptions are being made and why?
[Response: That’s not a terrible idea. Let me see if I can find a volunteer…. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 9:19 AM
Walter Manny says, “The problem with that, Walter, is that the AGW scientific community has attached itself, rightly or wrongly, to the environmental political movement, which is as famous for its dour, humorless worldview as anything else.”
Walter, I don’t think that is a fair criticism. Rather environmentalists presented themselves as supportive while the political right was villifying climate scientists, actually subpoenaing them before committees led by the likes of Doolittle and Delay (no you can’t make this stuff up!). The science has always been there for both the right and left to embrace. Scientists would have been very receptive to constructive suggestions from the business community on how to address climate threats. The fact that the political right and business interests have been short on ideas and long on criticism says a lot more about the right and the state of American capitalism than it does about the science. Al Gore owes his Oscar and Nobel Prize more to the denialism of the right than to his understanding of the science.
The thing that you and others have to realize is that these threats are real and that they aren’t going away. The only thing going away is your ability to influence the mitigations adopted for the threats.
5 May 2009 at 10:16 AM
> the environmental political movement …
(As if there’s only one)
> famous for its dour, humorless …
http://www.abbeyweb.net/
“Too much proximity to folly tends to make it seem normal …”
“… the beauty and existence of the natural world should be sufficient justification in itself for saving it all. If this argument fails to interest the exploitative and cannot convince the indifferent, then we must appeal to deeper emotions …”
” … A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
“… This is what you shall do: Be loyal to what you love, Be true to the Earth, and Fight your enemies with passion and laughter ….”
5 May 2009 at 10:58 AM
“The problem with that, Walter, is that the AGW scientific community has attached itself, rightly or wrongly, to the environmental”
Citation needed.
5 May 2009 at 11:01 AM
“Maybe you “need” nicotine patches because they can be manufactured and sold at a profit?”
Why then did nicotine patches reduce the readdiction rate?
The chemists working for Philip Morris said that nicotine was addictive. Why do you think they and the medics against PM are wrong and you are uniquely right?
5 May 2009 at 11:32 AM
@87 (gavin):
Dyson was also ranting a bit about GCMs and clouds (& parametrizations generally) at a CATO event last week: https://www.cato.org/events/090430cs.html
I’m resisting the temptation to link to the Abe Simpson news clipping, but only barely.
[Response: Did he actually have anything substantial to say or was it more of the same? - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 11:46 AM
Gavin,
Can you say when the lower 95% limit on your 2002-baselined graph moves definitively above zero?
[Response: 2020. Although it’s within +/-0.03 of zero from 2014 on. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 11:59 AM
Well I just did a least squares fit to monthly global hadcrut3 and it came out looking like Monckton’s graph. As 2002 was a trend peak for hadcrut3 it’s not unreasonable to start there in looking at the down trend, which is what Monckton has done. What’s all the fuss about? The IPCC predictions were modelled a while ago now without such up to date data. I’m sure the models can be updated to retrofit… but will it improve them going forward? I look forward to finding out in a few years.
[Response: The fuss? Maybe in your field of work making up data to put on graphs is ok, but it tends to be frowned on in scientific circles. The criticism is not directed at the data points themselves, but at the cherry picked start date and the made-up ‘IPCC’ projections. But if that’s ok with you, perhaps I should start showing graphs starting in Jan 07 and showing a remarkable increase in temperatures at rates that are over 3 times the mean of the models? - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 12:04 PM
James (78), “…lots of people have quit…” should read tens of millions…
5 May 2009 at 12:12 PM
Re Ray @88: “The thing that you and others have to realize is that these threats are real and that they aren’t going away. The only thing going away is your ability to influence the mitigations adopted for the threats.”
Exactly, Ray. As the saying goes, “decisions get made by those who show up,” and the right has made it their mission to not only not show up, but to prevent the meeting from even convening. Well, the meeting is now under way, and the right is still only trying to disrupt it. F*’em.
5 May 2009 at 12:16 PM
Mark (91, et al), because, as I said, “addiction” has been dumbed down to meet political objectives, and no chemist or scientist in the tobacco realm who abhors his own lynching would say anything but… It’s clearly the only PC thing acceptable.
5 May 2009 at 12:26 PM
Re: Son of Mulder @94: “As 2002 was a trend peak for hadcrut3 it’s not unreasonable to start there in looking at the down trend…”
There’s your first problem right there: you’re not looking at a trend in climate.
Your second is thinking that you know anything about statistical analysis.
“What’s all the fuss about?”
As Gavin said, in science cherry-picking and making sh*t up is frowned upon. I know, kind of antiquated in our age of ‘padded’ resumes, claims of being IPCC ‘expert reviewers’, Nobel prize holders, and members of the House of Lords.
5 May 2009 at 12:31 PM
Gavin
will you hold Al Gore in the same standards you seem to demand of Monckton? in this case how does he, Al Gore, rates on it?
Thank you.
5 May 2009 at 12:35 PM
Certainly the public perception is that of Monckton’s graph. And the scare stories that surrounded the Arctic situation in 2007 and 2008 certainly added to this perception - that is enhanced on many web sites such as this one.
However, it seems to be (based on current evidence and not computer models) that alarming climate change is a myth. Just as it seems to be that this year’s Arctic ice extent will not even worry the BBC (although they are unlikely to report on it if it turns out to be a record-build).
I can’t be alone in finding that we seem to want to worry ourselves. I’ve no doubt that ‘Swine Flu’ will turn out to be a mild one that should never have worried the world. Climate change, despite its initial ‘promise’ of doom seems to have been way-overblown. Looking at the graph of global temperatures for the past 20 years I cannot for the life of me see what worries some people here. With some predictions of a strong link with the PDO comes forecasts of falling temperatures for the next 20 years. The caveat is that these are yet again - guessed, just as alarming warming was. So far that ‘warming’ guess has turned out to be incorrect.
The public have been told that the world will fry, and that is why Monckton’s graph will sit very comfortably in the minds of people. The warming-worriers are to blame for that. Whether or not his graph is factual has become irrelevant. The science of this went out of the window when computer models were brought in. We were no longer saying what is happening, but what we think will happen. As I cannot remember anyone 10 years ago telling me that by 2009 the global temperature would have fallen by 0.03 degrees C (that’s what my calculator says) then I conclude that we are in the realms of appealing to the public’s mind, rather that actuality. And many people reading this are to blame. As Pete Best (the first contributor here) intimates, lessons should have been learned.
RIP science.
[Response: Your argument seems to be that scientists who honestly present their results and have them assessed in reports put out by the National Academies and the IPCC are responsible for Monckton’s making stuff up? Interesting logic. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 12:46 PM
Hi Gavin,
Could you explain why Dr. Roy Spencer is to be ignored? Thanks.
[Response: Ignored? No. But there needs to be substance behind the rant. He has not made public his supposedly devastating-to-the-mainstream paper, and so what are we supposed to comment on? - gavin]
Secondly and most important: How come real climate is not tackling what is posted today on Dr. Pielke web site today? Devastating to you, personally, because your name is in there. — That weblog by William dipucci either is devastating to you and AGW (especially because is backed by Dr. Pielke himself) or is it just lousy science. What is it?
Thanks you
[Response: I wouldn’t like to speculate on why Dr. Pielke publishes what he does. It’s his blog. The paper in question stands on it’s own. I do like the way I was promoted from 14 out 15 authors to third though. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 12:53 PM
@92 (gavin)
I didn’t attend, but it sounded like the usual demonization of parameterization generally without any specific complaints or explanation as to why parameters magically disqualify models from giving useful information from a policy perspective. He seemed particularly focused on clouds, but also named as “fudge factors” (his pet term for parameterizations) “evaporation, condensation, soil effects, & vegetation.”
David Biello [http://tinyurl.com/dl94p7] was covering it via Twitter.
5 May 2009 at 1:04 PM
re 99, Is there any evidence that Gavin doesn’t?
All you’re doing is throwing muck and hoping something sticks. Failing that, falls in his mouth.
Disgusting.
5 May 2009 at 1:12 PM
Thanks Gavin for replies.
However regarding the negative feedback coming out of CERES data it’s devastating stuff. Do you believe it’s bogus, or you just don’t want to comment?
[Response: “devastating” eh? What are you actually referring to? Have you seen this mysterious paper perhaps? Unlike some, I don’t comment on studies that I haven’t read. We’ll just see. - gavin]
I’m pretty sure if it were wacko stuff it would be apparent because he just presented is work … to the NASA CERES team, themselves. you do not need publication to assert such a thing right?
[Response: Is his presentation online? Presenting at a workshop is not the same as publishing a paper - and I’m certain that the NASA CERES team are a polite bunch. - gavin]
Increase in water vapor has to organize itself in some system and if by doing that you have such a negative feedback out of Cirrus forms, it has a big impact on your models. Or not really?
[Response: Not clear what this means. - gavin]
Thanks again for your time.
5 May 2009 at 1:28 PM
44 RodB claims, ” tobacco was never addictive until the pols and FDA (and others that smelled money) chose to dumb down the accepted definition in the 90s.”
riiiighhhhttt. You just pulled a Monckton.
[Response: No more on nicotine - I mean please, can’t we discuss something where there actually is a debate? - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 1:32 PM
Really? A “record-build”? Extent has been below the 1979-2000 average all year, and area is about where it was last year (second lowest minimum on record).
Just because Stephen Goddard, at WUWT, describes this as being a “trend reversal”, doesn’t mean it is.
5 May 2009 at 1:35 PM
As far as comparing land and satellite global temps, just go to www.climate4you.com
Click on the Global temp tab, and go down to the composite global temp data from 1979,to current. This graph includes GISS, UAH, RSS etc. From the graph, I would guess that the temp has stabilized, or trending down.
As far as bashing Monckton, in comparing him and Gore, I find Monckton far more interesting. Even if he, Monckton, didn’t invent the internet.
P.S. One item from the evil, money grubbbing Wall Street Journal. Seems in the April 30th issue, some significant natural gas deposits have been found (not in Washington D.C.) but in deep shale formations. These are primarily in northern LA, and the Appalachian mountains. From the above mentioned graph, we may need it.
5 May 2009 at 1:37 PM
That ‘warming’ “guess” (sic) has been proven out to be incorrect by the last twenty year’s data?
Are you sure?
5 May 2009 at 1:42 PM
that eli rabett is a funny (and clever) bunny.
5 May 2009 at 1:44 PM
Climate sceptics commonly quote “The science is settled” when they want to say it is not. You all know what I mean.
But who, if anyone, actually did say “The science is settled”?
Or in other words, to who can I attribute this quote that goes around and around? Or was it a number of people?
Or is the quote actually an imagination-figment of the coolists?
5 May 2009 at 1:46 PM
> Spencer
http://www.clearsightdesign.com/portfolio/
“… URL: www.DrRoySpencer.com
Description: One of the nation’s foremost climate research scientists, Dr. Spencer’s website is devoted to sharing …”
5 May 2009 at 2:00 PM
Re #101 Olympus Mons, the issue doesn’t exactly sound new. See
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/08/pielke-senior-has-blog.html
One can only wonder why Pielke Sr (!) wanted to have this warmed over. Me having now read at the blog post you referred to, I would recommend Gavin to do something useful instead
5 May 2009 at 2:23 PM
Walter Manny wrote:
“Al Gore owes his Oscar and Nobel Prize more to the denialism of the right than to his understanding of the science.”
From where I sit on the European side of the Atlantic, Al Gore’s Oscar is one of the worst things that could happen. I have seen his film, esentially a documentary, and as a documentary it really is a second level bit of TV. Hollywood should not consider that their endorsment of Gore’s film would go down well anywhere outside America - from here in the UK it actualy makes him look stupid. Next, Tony Blair on quantum? Madoana on evolution? Oscars cheapen and reduce his standing.
And why a Nobel? He did no original science.
[Response: It was the Peace Prize, not a science prize - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 2:33 PM
I’ve watched the video in #77 and looked up the AR4 list of expert reviewers to see that the presenter, Mr Zagoni, really was in there (”part winner of the Nobel Prize” indeed). I trust the good folks here who tell me the theory is pure nonsense. But what’s the story on this guy? And should I worry about the IPCC review process?
[Response: The guy is pushing Miskolczi’s theory, and since anyone can be an IPCC reviewer (it’s an open process), you don’t have to worry. Dumb comments are generally given short shrift. Perhaps someone would like to search through to see what comments he made? - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 2:59 PM
Barry Foster wrote: “However, it seems to be (based on current evidence and not computer models) that alarming climate change is a myth.”
In fact that is the exact opposite of reality, as you would be aware if you knew even the slightest thing about ongoing empirical observations of the effects of anthropogenic global warming.
In fact all — without exception, ALL — the “current evidence” indicates that climate change is far more “alarming” than mainstream scientists thought even just a few years ago.
The rest of your comment is, with all due respect, incoherent rubbish.
5 May 2009 at 3:22 PM
Noise masking the signal.
Noise masking no signal.
5 May 2009 at 3:28 PM
What is it with this “computer models are not science”?
Has a SINGLE ONE of them said why a computer model isn’t science?
5 May 2009 at 3:32 PM
JBob “From the graph, I would guess that the temp has stabilized, or trending down.”
Would you like to supply more than a guess? Statistical significance. You’ve done signal processing so that should be a cakewalk.
PS why are you using weather data when discussing climate data? Weather is ~30 years and in between it depends on what you’ve taken care of.
5 May 2009 at 3:41 PM
Olympus Mons, how can you take seriously someone (Pielke, Sr) who posts this graph (in his most recent post today):
http://climatesci.org/wp-content/uploads/sea-ice.jpg
And then says:
“For example, the global average lower tropospheric temperatures have not increased for at least 7 years, and indeed, show a recent decline.” as though this is of any importance whatsoever, when anyone with eyeballs in their head can see that while trivially true, it’s also happened several other times IN THE GRAPH HE PRESENTS and that despite this, the trend he’s computed (and kindly presented on the same graph) is RELENTLESSLY UP.
5 May 2009 at 3:51 PM
Nicotine & climate (less off-topic than it seems)
While we usually cite:
tobacco companies $=>(fronts&thinktanks) versus medical science
as a parallel to
(FF companies & family foundations) $=> (fronts&thinktanks) versus climate science,
there is at least one more parallel, as seen in silly arguments.
It is silly to think that nicotine addiction is a binary “it is addictive… no it isn’t” effect, and that if you know anhyone who has stopped smoking, it must not be addictive.
That is akin to thinking that global warming requires yearly monotonic temperature increase everywhere on the planet, so that if one can find a place on the planet that got colder … global warming doesn’t exist.
1) Susceptibility to nicotine addiction varies widely by individual, with at least some of this being biochemical differences.
2) Addiction varies in strength. I’ve known people who were intelligent, educated and determined, but spent decades trying to stop. Some people have to go cold turkey and stay away from cigarette smoke, or they restart, others can have an occasional cigarette and stick with that. Some people read the reports and stopped cold (a lot of doctors did after the 1964 report).
One who stopped for health reasons in the 1940s was John Hill, of the big PR firm Hill&Knowlton. Later, he created the strategy of front organization and obfuscation for the tobacco industry: see Allan M. Brandt’s “The Cigarette Century”.
3) If someone *wants* to create addiction, the “best” way to do it is to wire it into the brain during the rapid period of brain development normally associated with teenage years (although of course, the exact timing varies by person).
If people start smoking at 25, they are likely to be able to stop. If they start at 12, and smoke regularly through 19, it’s likely to be much harder. See study:
“Age at initiation of smoking was a significant factor for continuation of smoking. Men who started smoking before 16 years of age had an odds ratio of 2.1 (95% confidence interval: 1.4–3.0) for not quitting smoking compared to those who started at a later age. These findings emphasize the need for prevention program targeted to children below 16 years of age.”
See WHO on youth smoking.
4) Is it possible that cigarette companies didn’t know this? Are they the dumbest marketeers on the planet, or among the smartest?
Cigarette companies of course have known this for decades.
Future tobacco profits depend heavily on addicting children to products that would often cause lingering, miserable deaths, but, only after they’ve bought many cigarettes.
See 6-page 1981 RJReynolds memo on importance of younger adults:
“Younger adults are the only source of replacement smokers . Repeated
government studies (Appendix B) have shown that :
• Less than one-third of smokers (31%) start after age 18 .
• Only 5% of smokers start after age 24 .
Thus, today’s younger adult smoking behavior will largely determine the
trend of Industry volume over the next several decades. If younger adults
turn away from smoking, the Industry must decline,”
They continually discuss the importance of the 18-24-year-old market segment. Of course, the game is given away early:
- 31% of smokers start after 18
- less than 5% start after 24
Does anyone think RJR was under the illusion that the 69% of smokers that didn’t start after 18 started *at* 18″?
RJR of course is the creator of candy-flavored tobacco cigarettes (not candy cigarettes) like Twista Lime.
5 May 2009 at 4:06 PM
Is this not blatantly false? The science begins with the observations of the natural world, if I’m not mistaken. That’s followed by experimentation and/or analysis, right? Only then is that information fed into a climate model, correct?
That Spencer repeats this Red Herring is a good indication of his intent, imo. There is no need to fudge the facts if you are right. The fact is, the only politicization of climate science there is abundant evidence of is from the denialist/Right. G.C. Marshall Institute? Right. Heartland? Right. Global Climate Coalition? Right. Science being muzzled, edited? Bush/Cheney… Right. We even have their own internal documents to prove this.
Can anyone present the same regarding ACC activists?
Momma taught me to watch what people do, not what they say. Spencer is distorting the truth. Let him make all the claims he wants. Let him talk. His actions speak louder than his words.
Cheers
5 May 2009 at 4:07 PM
Thanks for that John, but you did stay off the climate side in the latter half.
You drew the parallels between them in the first half and could easily have stopped there with the information needed in plain view.
I don’t mind but if Gavin gets a bit narked, I can understand why too.
5 May 2009 at 4:10 PM
re #118 the tagging stuffed it up.
Should say “weather is < ~5 years and climate > ~30 years” The bit between the brackets got interpreted as “silly HTML” and was killed horribly.
5 May 2009 at 4:10 PM
Rip Science @ #100 wrote:
“Just as it seems to be that this year’s Arctic ice extent will not even worry the BBC (although they are unlikely to report on it if it turns out to be a record-build). ”
Seems to be a bit of BBC bashing here. Of which there is much, much, much of on the popular right in UK.
But interestingly, and perhaps in respose to the large number of people who say the “debate is still on”, the BBC now adds a qualifier many times when it discusses increases in CO2 or plans to reduce emmisions. So they will now say ” … blah, blah, CO2 - the gas considered to be a contributor to/the cause of/ associated with global warmming, blah, blah and so on”.
Could that Neanderthal Throwback Monkton be starting to win? Perish the thaught!
5 May 2009 at 4:15 PM
Gavin, one current meme I’m seeing about relates to your response to CM in post #114.
There if you say that the IPCC is reviewed and that it isn’t a political report but a report to politicians (and laymen, you can get it yourself, no need to be a politician!) they’ve responded with “You cannot trust a review that is done by cronies all singing from the same hymn sheet”.
(NOTE: this isn’t insulting since they don’t actually name anyone they are calling corrupt. though it sounds like a weasel way of getting out: if anyone complains they say “I didn’t mean YOU”.)
So maybe another myth to bust is the “ince stuous” nature of peer review in the IPCC and its contributing papers.
5 May 2009 at 5:21 PM
Barry Foster said in #100:
So, I presume you were here at RealClimate last year with your calculator telling everyone about the apparent alarming rise of 0.96ºC in the global mean temperature over the period 1993 - 2007 (at the rate of 6.7 ºC/century!)? I presume you were also asking questions about why no one predicted this enormous “jump” in global temperature in 1990s, models underestimating this apparent temperature “trend” etc etc?
See: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/bigrise.jpg?w=490&h=362
And see the full post by Tamino with a few more examples of meaningless “trends” produced by cherry-picking start and end dates:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/what-if/
The post also clearly shows the trend in the global mean temperatures when the data is smoothed to remove unforced variation. Which is clearly UP almost linearly since ~1970s, uninterrupted by the recent “cooling trend”.
5 May 2009 at 6:16 PM
In the webpage discussed above (by Adam Gallon and others), Roy Spencer makes the following statements about Climate Models.
Can someone at least confirm that that is the way Climate Models work or is Spencer wrong in his understanding? As a layman, I come to RealClimate to get such basic information but it can be maddeningly difficult sometimes.
5 May 2009 at 6:25 PM
I also went and glanced at Pielke Sr’s entry today (Realclimate does kink to his blog, after all). He seems to be complaining that the climate models aren’t predicting the weather. He mentions, for example, that they failed to predict the cold winter in the upper Midwest this year. He also mentioned their failure to predict some droughts during the 20th century.
Unlike some others out there, it’s hard to imagine that Pielke Sr doesn’t understand the difference between weather and climate, and that climate models aren’t trying to predict the weather. Go with that where you want.
5 May 2009 at 6:39 PM
Re: #67
While contrarians have been good at confusing the public (which is their primary goal), Rasmussen Reports is a very conservative pollster with dubious methodology on general polling questions.
In a recent WSJ poll:
“Pollsters asked half the respondents: “Let me read you a series of proposals that President Obama has suggested since he was inaugurated. For each one, please tell me whether you approve or disapprove of this proposal.” One of the proposals: “Charging a fee to companies that emit greenhouse gases, which might results in higher utility bills, and using the money to provide tax cuts for middle-income Americans.” ”
Approve: 58%
Disapprove: 35%
“Would you approve or disapprove of a proposal that would require companies to reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming, even if it would mean higher utility bills for consumers to pay the charges?”
Approve: 53%
Disapprove: 40%
Recent ABC News / Wa Post poll:
“On another subject, do you think the federal government should or should not regulate the release of greenhouse gases from sources like power plants, cars and factories in an effort to reduce global warming? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?”
A slim majority–54%–said “Should strongly.” Another 21% said “Should somewhat.” 12% said “Should not strongly,” and 9% said “Should not somewhat.” 4% percent had no opinion. ”
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/18119
5 May 2009 at 6:42 PM
I have to ask: why in the world is Lord Monckton seem by anyone as an authority on this topic? Why should he even be worth addressing? What are his credentials? Now I know that some will respond and ask the same question of Al Gore. The key difference is that Gore is not doing “original research”. He’s reporting on the mainstream scientific view, and other than a few reasonable contentions, he’s done a pretty good job in the process. Monckton is simply making up stuff.
5 May 2009 at 7:44 PM
Maybe we Americans are suckers for his lordly English accent?
I could never understand why people paid attention to William Buckley, either, with his insistence that school segregation was perfectly reasonable given the superiority of the white race, etc. Had to be the sophisticated accent, no?
5 May 2009 at 7:52 PM
re: 123 Mark Thanks for the reminder
Well, this had gotten off onto various side topics, and I waited to see if the moderator would leave nicotine in … but I had to run out for an errand, and I omitted the last paragraphs (for post #120) that wove the threads back together.
===
6. Cigarette advertising has been paralleled by such things as the early 1990s campaign described in the second half of Naoimi Oreskes, You CAN Argue with the Facts, or Clean Coal, 2007, the Clean coal carolers or (for parody clean coal.)
Of course, society does need energy, unlike the tobacco case, but this still has the general form where profits are privatized and costs are socialized, the kind of business that especially needs PR agencies, lobbyists and thinktank fronts. It’s cheaper to pay for this than for R&D, like into actually trying to make CCS work.
7. Just as many people say AGW has been invalidated by {reason of the month, no matter how often debunked}, people (sometimes the same people) say that cigarettes aren’t that bad, although it’s been a long time since the 1964 Surgeon General’s report.
For instance, Frederick Seitz (George C. Marshall Institute) was famous for both.
One may compare Heartland on global warming and Heartland on tobacco.
There are of course, many other intersections, as well as the AGW impact of deforestration for growing & curing tobacco.
8. Conclusion:
1) Suppose someone can manage to ignore the overpowering evidence that cigarettes cause disease, that the only way cigarette companies stay in business is by addicting children, and that tobacco companies have known all this for years.
2) Then, ignoring the evidence for AGW and causing doubt about it is *easy* in all dimensions.
3) In his open letter to Senators Snowe & Rockefeller, the Viscount rejected their comparison of FF tactics to those of tobacco. I think he doth protest too much.
5 May 2009 at 9:03 PM
Thanks John Mashey, that’s a better summary than I’ve seen anywhere. And that 6-pager is devastating. If you read the papers and then read the citing papers, you’ll be brought around to research on research and funding of research and policy, including climate policy.
Put your summaries all somewhere findable, please?
5 May 2009 at 9:41 PM
The response to question 81 asserted, “it takes a doubling of CO2 each time to produce the same forcing. i.e. the forcing from 2xCO2 (560ppm) is ~4W/m2, and you need a further doubling (to 1120ppm) to get to 8 W/m2.”
That isn’t true. If you put two identical color camera filters on a camera to filter a certain type of light - they don’t filter out twice the amount of light. In some parts of the spectrum all of that wavelength is absorbed by CO2. Additional CO2 won’t make a difference at that wavelength . Additional CO2 only absorbs more heat at the wavelengths in which CO2 has limited absorption abilities.
Two red filters on a camera aren’t going to filter out double the amount of blue. A strong red and a strong blue filter on a camera would filter a great majority of the light coming into the camera.
[Response: You appear to think that your metaphor is a better match to the real world than the real world is. Curious. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 10:34 PM
John Mashey (120), your 3rd parallel is logical, but it’s not one that quit, it’s tens of millions.
Addiction has always been degreed, but in the old classic clinical addiction it did not vary widely – as it does today – all part of the dumbing down.
I though the rest of your post was quite good, though not relevant to this off-topic discussion.
5 May 2009 at 10:44 PM
PS, but then you have to go and fall off the cliff in 132, John.
5 May 2009 at 10:58 PM
118 - So you didn’t like the www.climate4you.com
the global composite temp to current, saying that’s weather.
So how about if we filter the 350+ Hadley English temp below, with a 50 year filter, below?
Does that qualify for climate?
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/temp_est_12-GOpNo.gif
Does that last ~50 year wave kind of resemble the climate4you composite plot and the peaking in the early 2000 period? Seems that Temp_est_12 plot does a better job with matching the climate4you composite plot, then the computer models. And it also seems more realistic then Tamino’s projections into the 2000+ era.
There is more then one way, besides statistics to look at problems. It is always a good idea to look at a problem with all available tools, and not be fixated on just one.
5 May 2009 at 11:27 PM
MarkB,
i saw that poll too, and another here earlier in the “lies, damn lies…” post. i took the rasmussen poll to mean it’s getting worse. i didn’t really notice any “push polling” or suggestive questions on the rasmussen one. on the other hand, people don’t always answer a series of poll questions logically/consistently. this all relates to the oreskes study (and what she talked about in john mashey’s great post above) - how poorly-educated we are.
there are plenty of scientists posting and commenting here on realclimate (and tamino’s site) and so by studying the science at my shallow layman level AND by noting the tactics of the deniers i “believe in” the science and the scientific consensus.
but most people out here don’t “follow it” that closely. most of us don’t blog about global warming…. most of us are pretty stupid about science in general and the specific science of global warming. most of us “believe in” global warming on a hot day and curse it’s absence on a cold day… that’s how it’s possible that anywhere from 40-60% of us (depending on the poll, apparently) don’t “believe in” global warming. we’re pathetic…
5 May 2009 at 11:30 PM
Then why are red filters offered in differing intensity of filtering?
(slaps forehead!)
5 May 2009 at 11:31 PM
Hi Gavin,
Here is a link to something informative on spectral absorption.
(The recently launched satellite that crashed over the Arctic was to monitor three different spectral ranges.)
Here is some information on how they planned to monitor the different spectrums.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2029
From NASA
“The three spectral ranges measured by the observatory’s spectrometers are in the near-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, invisible to the human eye. Each provides a critical piece of information. One provides precise information about changes in the amount of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, while the others show just how much of the atmosphere is being measured. ‘We need all three of these measurements to do the job,’ said Crisp.
One spectral range absorbs carbon dioxide relatively weakly, but it measures carbon dioxide the most precisely, especially near Earth’s surface.
[i]The second spectral range absorbs carbon dioxide much more strongly, so much so that almost all of the light in this part of the spectrum is absorbed completely as it traverses the atmosphere. Adding more carbon dioxide produces little additional absorption,[/i] so this wavelength is less useful for showing changes in carbon dioxide amounts. However, it does provide needed information about the pathway the light has taken. It helps determine whether the observatory is looking at light coming up all the way from the surface, or if clouds or aerosols, such as particles of smog or smoke, have gotten in the way and reflected the light back to space before it can be absorbed by carbon dioxide.
The third spectral range shows how much oxygen is present in the light’s pathway, another way to determine how much atmosphere the light has passed through.”
So the truth is somewhere between what you stated and what someone quoted Monckton as saying. My statement was not “a metaphor” - but dealt analogously with light and wavelength absorption. Camera filters better absorb different types of light. A redundant or extra filter will be absorbing from an already decreased amount of radiation. I have even read this on sites that strongly believe in AGW. Additional CO2 has increasingly less effect.
If by the “real world” you were talking about something other than energy absorption please explain. It is my turn to be curious
[Response: The forcing caused by increasing CO2 is an integral affect over many lines, which vary widely in the degree to which they can absorb more IR and are affected by pressure broadening and the like. The sum total of these effects causes the CO2 forcing to be logarithmic at near current concentrations (say 100 to 1000 ppm). This is an empirical result determined from the highest resolution, line by line calculations and has been independently replicated many times (see Collins et al, 2006). Using inappropriate metaphors to prove this can’t be true is just bizarre. - gavin]
5 May 2009 at 11:32 PM
An addendum … anyone who has worked in a color darkroom is
1) knowledgeable and
2) old enough
to be at risk of dying from laughter-induced cardiovascular arrest at your comment.
6 May 2009 at 12:25 AM
Thomas, outgoing infrared isn’t behaving like incoming visible light.
Spencer Weart explains that pretty well in the admittedly difficult section on radiation transfer.
6 May 2009 at 12:31 AM
The old classic chemical definition of addiction led to new products that didn’t qualify as addictive, in fact could cure people of their addictions.
This is one:
http://www.badscience.net/wp-content/uploads/image56.png
http://www.badscience.net/wp-content/uploads/image55.png
http://www.badscience.net/wp-content/uploads/image57.png
6 May 2009 at 1:04 AM
Gavin,
I’m probably being dense, but could you provide a reference to the data you used for those charts? I couldn’t find it in a quick read through AR4 chapter 10.
[Response: They are the 55 model simulations downloadable from PCMDI (you can also try Climate Explorer or Dapper at PMEL for somewhat easier access). - gavin]
6 May 2009 at 1:09 AM
John Mashey Says (5 May 2009 at 15:51):
“Nicotine & climate (less off-topic than it seems)…”
I’ll try to avoid using the N-word, but I have to ask: what’s your point? I dare say that I could, with a bit of effort, construct a similar screed on the health effects of a fast-food diet. Would you then think I could justify a claim that food, or even a particular diet, is addictive rather than a matter of habit, convenience, and culture?
Or to carry things to what I’d think was a ridiculous extreme if I hadn’t seen the words myself, how about the concept of sex addiction? In the light of that, do you care to continue to argue that contemporary culture hasn’t trivialized the idea of addiction to the point that any habit has that label applied to it, freeing its possessor from any responsibility for their own behavior?
6 May 2009 at 1:59 AM
can anyone provide links to papers or websites discussing the impact, if any, of climate change on some of the fundamentals of science - namely, does a trending climate change the basis of (m)any scientific assumptions? i’m struggling to find a pithy way of describing this question, which has thus far hindered my rather modest efforts to research it.
6 May 2009 at 4:28 AM
“If you put two identical color camera filters on a camera to filter a certain type of light - they don’t filter out twice the amount of light.”
Uh, the change from 1 to 2 filters is a doubling. A change from 0 to 1 is infinite.
Hammer time: BREAKDOWN!
6 May 2009 at 4:34 AM
In asnwwer to #130: “I have to ask: why in the world is Lord Monckton seem by anyone as an authority on this topic? ”
He’s considered an authority by those who wish to believe or to have it believed that AGW is false.
For some, if you know about climate and work in it, there are two kinds:
1) Those who say AGW is real. These are in the pay of evil politicians bent on world domination. Or eco fanatics wanting a new stone age. Or wanting to take all the grant money. They don’t know why, they just know one of these is true
2) Those who say AGW is false. They are “doing a Galileo” and are being hounded by those scientists from #1 and being denied put in respectable papers by the AGW conspiracy.
And then there are people who don’t know climate science. There are two types of them:
1) Those who agree with scientists in group 1. They are misled
2) Those who agree with scientists in group 2. They are authoritative sources unbiased by any grant or money reward (though who pays for their speaker circuit..?)
6 May 2009 at 4:42 AM
re 127.
And that shade can act to keep things warm.
A nice blanket will shade you from the sun. And at night keep your warmth in.
The only difference is that during the daytime, you have it high overhead and at night snuggled close to you.
That he only takes one side is why he isn’t ***technically*** lying as in “saying an untruth) if you take JUST his statement about the clouds, he’s lying by omission and that omission is explaining how clouds can also cause warming.]
If you owe me £5 and I owe Fred £5, if I take a fiver off you but don’t pay Fred, can I say “we’re all sorted out”? Well, if you say no, I’ll say “I meant just between you and me!!!”. And then refuse to pay Fred because you accused me “falsely” of lying.
Beware of the half-truth. And call them liars when they use it. Lying by omission is still lying. It gives an additional weasel-way out of the accusation.
One recently is someone saying “Adding CO2 causes insignificant changes in temperature”. I tell him that 40% isn’t insignificant and this is ignored, a repeat of the earlier lie is forthcoming. When I say that he says there is no change in temperature when adding CO2, he says “I never said there was no change”. I reply with “the difference between zero and insignificant is insignificant (by definition)”.
Half truth can be worse than a lie.
6 May 2009 at 4:56 AM
Olympus Mons writes:
1. Al Gore was one of Roger Revelle’s students in the ’60s. He has actually studied some climate science, which Monckton has not.
2. Al Gore doesn’t make stuff up for his presentations. Monckton does.
6 May 2009 at 5:00 AM
Barry Foster writes:
Global warming will cause more droughts in continental interiors, more violent weather along coastlines, the destruction of glaciers which provide fresh water to a billion people in Asia and Latin America, and eventually, the loss of trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure due to sea-level rise. If we lose our agriculture, human civilization will collapse. I find that worrysome, but maybe that’s just me.
Why don’t you try doing a linear regression of the figures against time, inste4ad of “[l]ooking at the graph?”
6 May 2009 at 5:01 AM
re 135.
Are you saying that John faked the Heartland website to show that they both argue that AGW is false and that tobacco being harmful is false?
Otherwise I see no cliff.
PS Are you in Egypt at the moment?
6 May 2009 at 5:03 AM
In #98 Jim Eager said “There’s your first problem right there: you’re not looking at a trend in climate.” Correct I’m looking at a trend in a time-series based on physically measured quantities used to present evidence for climate change. So how is that a problem?
Then he said “Your second is thinking that you know anything about statistical analysis.”
But I do, so how is that a problem?
Then he said “As Gavin said, in science cherry-picking and making sh*t up is frowned upon. I know, kind of antiquated in our age of ‘padded’ resumes, claims of being IPCC ‘expert reviewers’, Nobel prize holders, and members of the House of Lords.”
So searching for potential counter-examples to a multi-disciplined physical theory’s predictions is cherry picking is it? I thought it was the basis of scientific critical analysis.
6 May 2009 at 5:31 AM
Thomas, a picture:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/thumb/2/26/Greenhouse_Effect.png/300px-Greenhouse_Effect.png
Few photons — infrared — go directly from the ground to space.
6 May 2009 at 5:59 AM
134 Thomas Donlon
I sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong, but, I think the problem with your camera filter analogy is that the camera is measuring light transmitted through the two filters whereas in the greenhouse situation, light passing through the “filters” is absorbed, re-emitted at a different frequency and is trapped behind the double filter. So a doubling in CO2 will do little to stop more energy coming in, but will do a lot to stop it getting out.
6 May 2009 at 6:17 AM
Gavin, yes there were a lot of factual errors in my two simple sentences. I want you to know I appreciate not only you pointing that out to me but also the polite manner in which you did so.
6 May 2009 at 6:41 AM
John Mashey said in #132:
The similarities between the manufactured controversy created by the global warming “sceptics” and other recent anti-science campaigns (tobacco, intelligent design, AIDS dissent in South Africa and so on) are striking. There is an excellent article on this by Leah Ceccarelli from the University of Washington:
Manufactroversy - The Art of Creating Controversy Where None Existed:
I think it sums things up very well indeed. It is easier to undermine the established science, create an appearance of controversy where none exists, exaggerate the uncertainties etc etc than to defend the science with all of its inherent complexity. This is why sophists like Monckton can gain traction in some circles. And this is why a clear and well-communicated response from the scientific community is important to counter all the nonsense. It is also clear that this is going to be an on-going battle; the sophists generating a manufactured global warming controversy are not going to disappear any time soon.
6 May 2009 at 6:58 AM
“any dissent by any scientist is then seen as evidence that there’s no consensus, and thus truth must not have been discovered yet.”
Stranger yet is that tired old meme: consensus isn’t science.
Then again, consistency of thought isn’t necessary if you’re trying to tear science down. c.f. the ID crowd.
6 May 2009 at 7:07 AM
Son of Mulder, The problem is that 7 years doth not a climate trend make. The data are simply too noisy to draw any conclusions based on such a short time period.
You claim to know something about stats. The fact that you draw conclusions without taking into consideration the noise characteristics of your data belies your claim.
6 May 2009 at 7:11 AM
Hamish, I’m not sure I understand your question. How would the observation of a trend in climate change science? It is a subject for scientific study, but it calls for the same methods as any other field of study.
6 May 2009 at 7:58 AM
Olympus Mons #99:
Why such a low standard?
6 May 2009 at 8:46 AM
Ray, 159, he doesn’t even calculate the error value in his regression of the line.
Isn’t that kind of a CORE feature of statistics? Statistical significance?
6 May 2009 at 8:56 AM
Ray Ladbury #160 said “The data are simply too noisy to draw any conclusions based on such a short time period.
You claim to know something about stats. The fact that you draw conclusions without taking into consideration the noise characteristics of your data belies your claim.”
It’s your claim that the data are too noisy. Is it the underlying global climate system that is too noisy or the collection method that provides that noise eg the paucity of global data and the process used to construct the numbers?
6 May 2009 at 9:05 AM
Using political methods in arithmetic.
UK politicians have commissioned the Stern report, set targets for future reductions in CO2 and proceeded with plans for more runways, roads and coal fired power stations. Most people would just shrug at these simple sign errors ; isn’t that what you should expect from politicans?
Monckton also has a target and it is designed to short circuit the CO2 problem by reducing the estimates of climate sensitivity. Starting from this goal he has been able to give a whole new meaning to the term “ends justify the means”. These are similar to the methods used by politicians but may be new in arithmetic.
In his more elaborate calculations he has included unstated assumptions, over-simplifed models,arbitrary correction factors and the attachment of more than one meaning (in the same calculation) to some quantitities such as emissivity, forcing and feedback. These rather elaborate pseudo-papers were characterised by having a high conjuring coefficient (cc) . So each new work had to be followed by several alternative forensic examinations with slightly different emphases.
But is there evidence of a downward trend in the cc? This new work discussed by Gavin is mainly a recycling of the trendy ’short trend blunder’ combined with crude misrepresentations. That should make life easier. There also appears to be an upward trend in the credentials claimed on his behalf.
6 May 2009 at 9:20 AM
There is a big difference between the climate & smoking debates.
With smoking, the link be shown clearly via epidemiological evidence, to cancer & bronchitis.
The pro-smoking lobby used the lack of proof from animal experimental data to deny a link betwen lung cancer in humans & smoking.
A classic example of a model (Animal studies)not reflecting reality (Human response).
Another being that the rat model showed no evidence of teratogenicity with Thalidomide. Human tragedy followed.
6 May 2009 at 9:26 AM
Hank (143), those products did qualify as addictive in the old clinical sense — just not initially. (couldn’t make them all out but I assume they are the old elixers like heroin and cocaine.)
6 May 2009 at 9:30 AM
re: 163. As has been pointed out here many, many, many times, the standard period for climate trend statistical analysis is 30 years per the WMO, not any individual scientist. Has been for many decades (ever heard of “30-year normals” in reference to local temperatures?). Any shorter term “cherry picked” analysis is subject to “noise/signal” issues.
6 May 2009 at 10:14 AM
re 163.
There are several levels that can be used to determine noise.
1) Empirically.
Take more averages and when your variability between a polyfit and the RMS error to that fit cause a much smaller reduction, you have removed most of the noise.
Think of bandpass removal of noise (hiss) from LP records: remove the higher frequencies and the noise reduces.
2) Logically
Think of those things that you know are cyclical and pick a time long enough to hold those cycles to a mean.
So an 11 year solar cycle -> 30 years or more. 7 year El Nino cycle -> 30 years, 20 year PDO -> 50 years.
When you remove those cycles you can see the cycles or changes that are not being swamped by those.
And when you subtract that signal from the raw data you can see what effects those cycles have without the trend changes hiding their effects.
Think stellar composition worked by taking out He and H lines from stellar spectra and then seeing what the less abundant constituents are doing to the remaining deviations from the blackbody curve.
And, having worked this out, climatologists from decades ago arrived at 50 years.
Rather appropriately two generations, so reasonably concordant with human longevity. Anything shorter will hit YOU in the shorts. Anything longer will hit your grandchildren in the shorts.
6 May 2009 at 10:22 AM
Son of Mulder, If you are not familiar with the data and the advice of the World Meteorological Organization for drawing conclusions about climate (e.g. >30 years to establish a trend), then perhaps you should devote some time to familiarizing yourself with the data and the science before trying to make definitive statements about whether we’ve turned a corner or not.
6 May 2009 at 10:55 AM
Gavin,
I see the 55 model simulations, thank you. What I am looking for is a reference for converting the output of the simulations to the graph that you showed. Your post says that it was done the same way as AR4. Where in AR4 are you referring to? As an example what does the 95% mean? 95% of the individual annual values from all models, two standard deviations from the mean of the individual values?
Figure 10.29 of AR4 gives an uncertainty range for the various scenarios, would the method used for your figure converge to the same 1.7 to 4.4 value for 2090-2099 for A1B?
[Response: all runs were baselined to 1980-1999 as in AR4. 95% refers to +/-1.96*standard deviations of the anomalies at each year equally weighted. The graphs in AR4 averaged over each model before averaging to get the mean, I didn’t and might not have used exactly the same set of runs. This method gives 1.6 to 3.5 for 2100 under A1B (mean 2.7 deg C), which should correspond roughly to the AOGCM 5-95% line in fig. 10.29. But that goes from ~1.8 to 3.7 eyeballing it, not the values you quote. - gavin]
6 May 2009 at 11:13 AM
Igor Samoylenko (157), a very astute and impressive discourse… There is one minor but overlying difficulty, however. You basically (and I apologize for oversimplifying your words for the sake of brevity) describe processes or a set of procedures followed by the “good” guys and the “bad” guys. All that is well and good. But, you describe the good guys as those who share your well-thought out beliefs and the bad guys as those that don’t.
For example you could take many of Ceccarelli’s paragraphs (but, to be honest, not all) describing how the antagonists act and substitute it almost word for word to describe the protagonists. For example,
could just as easily be describing protagonists. (Which, BTW, would not make them “bad” guys.) I have seen in RC alone protagonist subscription to every one of those points.
It is not easier to undermine established science. It’s not necessarily easy to undermine even established junk science, witches, 2nd hand smoke and marijuana for example. It all depends solely on where the mind of the masses of people happen to fall, and, as discussed in other posts, that is almost impossible to scientifically or logically predict.
6 May 2009 at 11:43 AM
I see that there are many here confusing what HAS happened with what MAY happen if the computer models are correct. I don’t know why some haven’t learned. The fact is that we (those of us unconnected with the fields of science) were led to believe that we would be pretty much warming up a treat by now. But that clearly hasn’t happened. Back in 1998 with the temperature peaking, I must admit that I was more than a little worried. I’m absolutely sure that if someone had informed me that eleven years later there would be no continued rise in temperature then I would have been very relieved. Of course, the temperature has actually fallen slightly. Now, why don’t some of you (the less childish ones here) be honest and admit that you didn’t think that would happen? None of this excuses Monckton or anyone else of a fabricated graph. But you people must understand that computer models are fabrications too. It’s what MAY happen. Given what’s happened in the past 10 years then I’m afraid I’m in no mood to listen to anyone who THINKS that their predictions of future climate is correct. Just two weeks ago the media were intimating to the public that a portion of the world could be wiped out by Swine Flu. At my age I’ve come to realise there are people around who strangely like to predict doom.
6 May 2009 at 11:48 AM
Ray Ladbury. Sorry, and excuse me, but that is tosh. I didn’t see any of the [edit] waiting around for 30 years to pass before saying that the world was heating up as a result of man’s greenhouse emissions. [edit] want to wait 30 years now before admitting that temperatures are not rising alarmingly. How convenient?
[Response: Huh? 30 years ago, Jules Charney concluded that temperatures would rise by the end of the century and they did. And cut out the juvenile name-calling - it will just get deleted. - gavin]
6 May 2009 at 1:02 PM
Hank Roberts Says (6 May 2009 at 0:31):
“The old classic chemical definition of addiction led to new products that didn’t qualify as addictive…”
Which brings up an excellent comparison example: Coca-Cola, which (by urban myth at least) originally contained cocaine. So fast-forward to the present day, when the world market for carbonated soft drinks runs into multiple billions of dollars. The soft drink industry uses marketing techniques similar to those the tobacco industry used, such as making them appear “cool” and introducing them to children at an early age. They’re likewise implicated in health problems, such as tooth decay and obesity. People who form the habit of drinking them do not (at least from casual observation) often abandon the habit…
So, are soft drinks addictive? Why or why not?
6 May 2009 at 1:23 PM
> addictive, just not initially.
Exactly, it’s age-dependent. If people don’t start using the product when they’re very young, they aren’t that likely to get addicted to it. That’s the point of that six-page paper — sell to the young.
6 May 2009 at 2:11 PM
Thanks Gavin,
There are quite a few ranges discussed in AR4, I think the range you are referring to is AOGCMSs 5-95% (normal fit). The figure I quoted was from the last paragraph of page 810, which might correspond to the gray box in figure 10.29. (AOGCM mean plus 60%, minus 40%)
If it isn’t too much trouble could you email me the annual values for the models that you used? I’m curious to see what the range of outcomes are in those models, and how much annual variability there is. I’d appreciate it as it must have been a bit of a chore to extract that.
[Response: I didn’t extract these data, and the people who did requested I not distribute it further until they had finished their paper. Sorry. I recommend Climate Explorer for the analyses you suggest. - gavin]
6 May 2009 at 2:21 PM
Svet — Any cloud iris effect must be very small: interglacial 2 (the Eemian) was about 2 K warmer than now and likely interglacial 4 was even warmer.
I suggest using the search function on this site to locate the FAQs on climate models and earlier threads regarding clouds.
6 May 2009 at 2:21 PM
Why should people “admit to” things they never believed? People in the know knew what “El Niño” meant back in 1998, just as today we know what “La Niña” is.
What you’re really doing is projecting your own ignorance onto others who don’t share it.
Guess which corporation is the only legal importer of coca leaves today?
Of course now, by law, they’re required to remove the cocaine and related alkaloids, but you’re still drinking a coca-flavored product.
No, not physiologically. Nor was Coca-Cola back when it had relatively small amounts of cocaine in it, which entered the bloodstream fairly slowly through digestion.
6 May 2009 at 2:46 PM
Barry, what are you on about? In 1998 the science reports were that this was a highly unusual and unusually hot year.
They were not saying that was going to continue.
The weather is following the trends with their random variability leavened on top.
Try a little scientific rigour in your observations and you won’t appear so foolish.
6 May 2009 at 2:46 PM
The WMO says thirty years is the period to reveal climate trends. That is something I learned, thank you, from a reply to a question of mine, earlier, in a different RC discussion.
However, consider the quandary I find myself in.
I would like it that the CO2 theories of global warming were wrong. For if it was, I would get rid of my footling 1000cc Fiat, and my habit of walking to the shop each day (an hour and twenty minutes) “to save the Earth”. Then I would go out and swap the footling Fait for a BMW – taking advantage of the UK government’s “this year only” recession pump-priming £2000 for scraping a car over ten years old and buying a brand new shiny one. And I would drive to the shop. And impress my neighbour.
So I find myself in a strange situation.
I am torn between wanting the global temperatures to rise (thus preventing Gavin, clearly a nice lad, from ending up with egg on his face) and wanting temperatures to fall which is “good for the planet” (but this would put a big, big smirk on that awful twit Monckton’s face).
I am praying that this year, or next year, or at least the year after that, the global average temperatures will start to rise again. Essentially I am praying for signs of disaster and dramatic evidence of this soon, for at my age, I will probably be well dead before the thirty years of the WMO is up. So, PLEASE, dear Climate God, let the temperature graph rise once more.
So I sit by my computer watching for the latest HadCRU3t (or whatever) temperatures to come in rather like a junkie stockbroker glued to the FTSE 100 Share Price Index.
6 May 2009 at 2:53 PM
I would just like to note that addiction is a complex phenomenon that has both physiological and psychological components, some of which are not well understood. As such it is in contrast to the basic physical mechanism underlying anthropogenic global warming, which is a fairly simple and well-understood mechanism. There are not many useful parallels between them or between respective efforts to address them through laws and regulations.
On the other hand Rod B referred to “junk science” regarding “second-hand smoke”. And I would note that the science demonstrating that exposure second-hand tobacco smoke is dangerous and harmful is very solid, and the claim that it is “junk science” is a deliberate, calculated lie perpetuated by the same deliberate, calculating, industry-paid liars who have lied, for money, about the harm of first-hand smoke and who have lied, for money, about the reality of anthropogenic global warming.
And as with GHG emissions, in the case of second-hand smoke it is most curious that so-called “conservatives” are so concerned with protecting the “right” of some to poison others with impunity.
6 May 2009 at 3:20 PM
@ 172, Barry Foster.
If my tongue in cheek posting, which was written before I read Barry Foster @ 172, gets past the moderator (?) I have to say that I have much sympathy with Barry’s post.
As an environmental activist who started campaigning so long ago that when if one said “Global warming” 98% of the population quite reasonably said “What’s that?” the lack of a continuing rise in global temperatures is hard to handle. Having to now say “It takes thirty years to validate a climate trend rather than the climate noise” so “please wait for the rising trend to become re-apparent” frankly makes me feel a bit stupid.
So, I too, like Barry, would like someone at RC or with similar scientific clout, to say, “Yes, though we consider the science shows warming, nevertheless, the present dip is difficult, as we would have expected a clearer continuing rise”.
Signed: Worried activist, England.
6 May 2009 at 3:22 PM
OK Dhogza. My analogy was bad. I was using the term camera filters and I was thinking of color filters in general. There are kids science kits and old 3d glasses that will filter out all light except blue or red or yellow. Doubling these up will not double the absorption on the lines they already absorbed all the light from. The NASA spacecraft site said (see my comment #140 and or link for a larger context) “The second spectral range absorbs carbon dioxide much more strongly, so much so that almost all of the light in this part of the spectrum is absorbed completely as it traverses the atmosphere. Adding more carbon dioxide produces little additional absorption”.
So there are some wavelengths that reach maximum absorption. Perhaps Gavin acknowledged this when he mentioned the need to consider other factors like “pressure broadening” - and I don’t know what that is. The link he supplied didn’t really focus on CO2 it was about (WMGHG). I haven’t heard of that term before - but it includes a supposed increase in humidity that will accompany warming and this feedback is called “forcing”. I suppose that makes some sense - a cold winter day will have little humidity and a warmer day might be humid as the air can hold more water.
Mark at 147 wrote, “Uh, the change from 1 to 2 filters is a doubling. A change from 0 to 1 is infinite.”
What are you trying to say Mark? When something is 1 it is still 1. If an army has no weapons and someone gives them 1 weapon - the increase in percentage of the number of that weapon might be infinite - but it might not win a war for them. What you are trying to say and how it relates to climate or to what I wrote?
Hank Roberts, I appreciate your chart. Now, I have to understand the effect that additional carbon has on this sequence. Does additional CO2 slow the rate of atmospheric radiative heat loss into space - and hence contribute to warming?
Jaydee I think I understand why you arguing that incoming radiation acts differently from outgoing. The mechanism though that CO2 works on outgoing radiation - is your thinking like that I asked Hank about directly above?
I’d like to stick to science and anyone that wants to bring up science with me - please feel free. - and lets be mature and peaceable.
6 May 2009 at 3:32 PM
Hank, but that is just a silly non sequitur as James kinda points out. It’s along the same lines of proving that marijuana is a gateway drug because almost all cocaine users did pot first. They also did milk first. Marketing to the young to get long term customers is indicative of almost every consumer product out there. (maybe not Depends…) It says nothing about their addictiveness.
6 May 2009 at 3:48 PM
SecularAnimist, you’re correct about the analogy between AGW and addiction. I can’t remember how we made that transition. Though addiction causes are not fully understood as you point out, its manifestations and characteristics were quite well defined as a practical clinical matter – until recently changed by pols and zealots.
Sorry about the 2nd hand smoke example. I forgot for a second how that’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. (Watch this space!) But thanks for helping make my point.
6 May 2009 at 3:53 PM
Thomas says:
“What are you trying to say Mark? When something is 1 it is still 1″
Yes but when it was 0 a 1 is not still 0.
And double 0 is what?
Zero.
Therefore the change of no filter to 1 filter is not the same PROPORTION of change (which is the consequence of the LOGARITHMIC addition of extinction of photons) as 1 filter to 2.
Therefor expecting that changing from no filter to 1 to be the same change as 1 filter to 2 is incorrect.
Double one filter is two filters, but half of one filter is not no filter.
Therefore your “analogy” is incorrect: they are not assuming logarithmic (or geometrical) addition.
Is this maths too complex for you? If so, I can make it even simpler.
6 May 2009 at 3:58 PM
re 182.
Do the maths. Fit a curve of CO2 rises to that graph. Scale that appropriately. Now subtract that modified CO2 curve from the temperature figures (you’ll need to use a log of the CO2 concentration since one is a log-linear relationship).
Then compute the root mean square of temperature from that baseline.
Minimise that RMS value by changing the proportionality constant.
Now, what is that RMS difference?
Is the dip at the end of that graph within 3 times that value from the fitted CO2 graph?
If yes, then that is not a significant deviation from the graph: there is at least a 1% chance that it’s just random and not significant.
And out of 150 years, you’re likely to see 1 or two such years.
This is called a very rough statistical significance analysis to the theory that the log of CO2 concentrations is proportional to the temperature effect from that greenhouse gas.
6 May 2009 at 4:07 PM
Rod B wrote: “… you’re correct about the analogy between AGW and addiction. I can’t remember how we made that transition.”
It started when someone pointed out that some of the same corporate-funded, so-called “conservative” think-tanks and denizens thereof who are nowadays paid to lie about the reality of anthropogenic global warming were in the past paid to lie about the carcinogenicity and addictiveness of tobacco smoke. No analogy there, just simple fact.
6 May 2009 at 4:21 PM
Re: #183 (Theo Hopkins)
You’re mistaken. The present dip is NOT difficult and it’s NOT unexpected, it’s perfectly consistent with random fluctuations superimposed on a steady trend. In fact, it’s the nature of random fluctuations that it’s not just *possible* for apparent dips to happen for no other reason that randomness, it’s actually *inevitable*. Global warming is a trend superimposed on random fluctuations.
If the random fluctuations stopped, and we actually saw nothing but a “clear continuing rise,” THAT would be difficult to explain. The fact is, temperature is changing exactly as it’s expected to in a warming world. The fact that is fluctuates is expected; using those fluctuations to imply that global warming isn’t real, is either ignorance or dishonesty.
6 May 2009 at 4:28 PM
RodB, 185, what point? The only point I could see is that you will not see tobacco as bad. Rather like you won’t see human power generation from fossil fuels bad.
When you have something other than hand-waving about how eeevil the scientists were in redefining “addictive” to include things that were chemically addictive (as in your body needed them to continue to operate normally) maybe you’ll have a point.
6 May 2009 at 4:37 PM
tamino wrote: “The fact is, temperature is changing exactly as it’s expected to in a warming world. The fact that it fluctuates is expected …”
Indeed, intuitively I would expect that during a period of rapid warming and consequent rapid climate change, that there would be more fluctuation than normal.
6 May 2009 at 5:04 PM
> Does additional CO2 slow the rate of atmospheric
> radiative heat loss …. ?
Thomas, do you have time to read the FAQs? Lots of people will answer but none of us is likely to give you the understanding you’ll get from reading where the basic questions were answered well earlier.
Several ways to start:
1) First link under Science, right hand side, is a comprehensive book by Spencer Weart, with links.
2) “Start Here” link at the top of the page.
3) Google Scholar, pasting in your question:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q=Does+additional+CO2+slow+the+rate+of+atmospheric+radiative+heat+loss+into+space+-+and+hence+contribute+to+warming%3F
6 May 2009 at 5:40 PM
Also, just now there is a protracted solar minimum, the likes of which has not occurred since 1913 CE. Despite this, 2008 CE was tenth warmest in the record. What rank was 1913 CE?
Clearly waqrming of the centennial scale continues.
6 May 2009 at 5:41 PM
Tamino @ 189.
Tamino. Thanks for your reply, but please be sympathetic to my problem.
Now, to start with, I fully accept that an increase in CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will – all else being equal – lead to a rise in temperatures.
Secondly, I fully accept that there are industry charlatans out there who will do everything possible to deny AGW for reasons of profit. And there are nutters out there, as well, who genuinely consider AGW (in Europe) a soc ial*list federalist EU scam allied to eco-fascist greenies to get us all to wear knitted yoghurt hair shirts and raise taxes. (In the US you talk of big tobacco: in Europe it was lead in petrol – the “Seven Sisters” disputed the science that lead can fry kids’ brains, questioned the methodology, said lead-free would cost four times as much so bringing industrial collapse. And cars would not be able to go over 70mph. And lead free would burn out your valves and blow your engine).
And I understand the concept of signal and noise.
I also understand that the high temperature in 1998 was due to the occasional El Nino.
However, the trouble is, that if you strip out 1998, the temperatures look more or less level since 1999.
Now it could be that there is an unknown carbon sink. (Though clearly I am only postulating this as unknowns are, of course, unknowns). But there _could_ be.
Nevertheless, how do you show the “man on the Clapham omnibus” (Being UK speak for Ordinary Joe) that there is still a problem?
You talk of random variations, so I guess the question is when Omnibus Man asks is: could it be that these random variations are hiding a downward trend? .
However, again dealing with Omnibus Man, can you imagine what will be going though his mind when I say “Just hang around for thirty years as that’s what the World Metrological Organisation says is trend, not a downward blip”.
What I am asking is: how to answer very ordinary people who ask perfectly reasonable questions like “Ger offit, mate, the graphs are level. S’stopped, ain’t it?” (This being my poor attempt at the Clapham accent of south London). That is, what is my answer? That’s without having to tell the man he may have to wait thirty years for an answer. For what Omnibus Man sees is not what the professional sceptics and the Moncktons are telling him - just that he has vaguely seen some graph somewhere and has independently drawn his own “common sense” conclusions. And he then puts this “common sense” against “what scientists say”.
((Meanwhile I’m taking a very carefull look at HadCRUT3 for the first time))
6 May 2009 at 5:43 PM
re: #182 Theo Hopkins, #172 Barry Foster
Tamino (#189) has done many great posts on this at Open Mind.
Just in case someone simply disbelieves temperature series, and disbelieves NASA GISS, Hadley, etc, I created a humble Excel spreadsheet example @ Dot Earth, post #114.
It has only a few simple, visible parameters for trend and random noise. An Excel user could replicate this from the recipe in 10 minutes, and have a model they’ve created themselves with no magic behind he curtain. Default parameters make yearly noise outweigt yearly trend, which (very) grossly resembles the real world. People can play with the noise parameter to see what it takes to make downturns disappear.
Capital Climate did replicate it, showing one run. Then he animated it, so that it repeatedly generates random runs to produce an ensemble, in FAQ here.
a) Even in a strong bull market, stocks don’t just rise monotonically, with no dips.
b) In going from Spring to Summer, noon temperatures don’t just smoothly increase.
Tamino does much more sophisticated analyses, but
understanding the basic idea is just minimal statistical numeracy; in some places they teach time series analysis to ~18-year-olds, so it can’t be that bad.
6 May 2009 at 6:00 PM
Re 183
Thomas Donlon Says:
6 May 2009 at 3:22 PM
OK Dhogza. My analogy was bad. I was using the term camera filters and I was thinking of color filters in general. There are kids science kits and old 3d glasses that will filter out all light except blue or red or yellow. Doubling these up will not double the absorption on the lines they already absorbed all the light from. The NASA spacecraft site said (see my comment #140 and or link for a larger context) “The second spectral range absorbs carbon dioxide much more strongly, so much so that almost all of the light in this part of the spectrum is absorbed completely as it traverses the atmosphere. Adding more carbon dioxide produces little additional absorption”.
So there are some wavelengths that reach maximum absorption. Perhaps Gavin acknowledged this when he mentioned the need to consider other factors like “pressure broadening” - and I don’t know what that is.
Below is a plot of a portion of the CO2 absorption spectrum, the top plot is for Martian conditions and the lower for Earth conditions, the substantial broadening of the latter is mainly due to pressure.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/Mars-Earth.gif
6 May 2009 at 6:16 PM
Re: 177 David B. Benson
Thank you for the reply. The “FAQ on climate models: Part II” says of clouds
However, I was hoping to get some clarification on Spencer’s statements that
A) “the main reason the models produce so much warming depends upon uncertain assumptions regarding how clouds will respond to warming”
[Response: This is inconsistent. There certainly are uncertainties to cloud modelling, but it there is no reason why uncertainty should favour one sign of feedback over another. It’s important to note that the sign of the feedback is not plugged in as a direct input but is an emergent property of the final solution that takes into account warming, changes in stability, changes in circulation, changes in humidity - all of which are also affected by the change in the clouds. One recent paper that you might find interesting is (submitted) by Trenberth and colleagues where they note that there is a systematic under-estimate in many models cloud cover in the southern ocean region. As the planet warms, these areas generally become more cloudy and since this is low cloud, it makes the overall feedback more negative. However, if they models had more cloud to start with, then the scope for making even more cloud would be limited, and thus one would expect more realistic models to have more positive cloud feedback! Now this is just one component, and there are many complications - but assuming that error and uncertainty imply a larger feedback is just illogical. - gavin]
B) “the warming in the models, however, is now known to be mostly controlled by the low and middle level clouds – the ’sun shade’ clouds”.
If only some of the effort RealClimate puts into addressing Christopher Monckton could be put into addressing Roy Spencer. Spencer suggests that climate models are “mixing up cause and effect” when they deal with clouds. Is this possible or not?
[Response: Models don’t mix anything up - they are mechanistic models that are strictly causal - if a cloud appears it affects radiation and climate, and if climate changes than that can impact clouds. Spencer’s broader point that climate sensitivity is too high because of some analysis of satellite data is also confused. Charney’s estimate of 3 deg C, or Hansen’s estimate from the last ice age all predate substantive satellite analyses and are not affected by anything Spencer is talking about. This is not acknowledged anywhere by Spencer and is one of the reasons why his analysis is likely to be flawed (or at best, incomplete). - gavin]
6 May 2009 at 7:10 PM
Svet (197) — I’m an amateur here and just learning the meteorological aspects. But somehow I expect the modelers understand their models and certainly do not “mix up cause and effect”. Gavin Schmidt has at least two review papers (at least one co-authored) on his publications page. You could try there. Or as Hank Roberts is want to suggest, use your search engine to look for papers which address your (carefully formulated) question.
I’m quite content to just stick with the FAQ for now.
6 May 2009 at 8:08 PM
Svet (197) (also Gavin’s response) — Regarding climate sensitivity I actually know a bit. First of all, there are many different climate sensitivites, depending upon time scale and forcing: transient climate sensitivity (TCS) is about 70 years; Charney’s equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) requires over a millenium to reach equilibrium. More recently it became necessary for me to introduce the solar cycle climate sensitivity, measured over about 5+ years; the work-up is found in the “Climate sensitivity, Shaviv and Tung et al” thread of the globalchange blog, listed in the Other Opinions section of the sidebar. Being a shorter time, the response is only about 60% of ECS; TCS is about 67%.
Spencer, in at least one writing, estimates a climate sensitivity based on intra-seasonal data! Naturally, it is quite small and cannot, IMO, be used to provide any form of estimate for ECS, just an obvious lower bound.
6 May 2009 at 8:09 PM
Ray Ladbury, in your #169 you didn’t answer my question from #163 ie “Is it the underlying global climate system that is too noisy or the collection method that provides that noise eg the paucity of global data and the process used to construct the numbers?”
Between Dan in #167 and Mark in #168 they have respectively suggested 30 years and 50 years to establish a trend? Which if either is reasonable and why?
Mark in #167 suggests a polyfit is required, why not a harmonic analysis as we’re dealing with the resultant of cycles? Also in your Hi-Fi analogy is the ‘hiss’ from the record or the amplifying system? Quite important as I’m trying to establish what is actually meant to be on the record.
If I take the 30 year suggestion or the 50 year suggestion then to determine the trend in the most recent period I’ll get 2 different numbers which will consist of the growth due to anthropogenic effects and noise in the measuring system for which nothing has been done to remove.
I then introduce analysis to split out say warming or cooling effects from anthropogenic/Black carbon aerosols changes since the introduction of the clean air acts etc which I’ve seen suggested could account for 70%+ of recent Arctic temperature increases ie within both the 30 and 50 year timeframes.
When I do this I’ll see something approximating to a residual trend of anthropic CO2 driven warming something between 0.2 and 1.3 deg C per Century depending on whether the overall aerosol effect is 70% or 0%. Is this an unreasonable result? How long to wait before we can tell where reality was in this range?
How long before Monkton will be reporting an uptick similar to his current down tick basing it on a rolling 7 years?
6 May 2009 at 8:49 PM
As with secondhand smoke, primary emissions of CO2 afford a charming pretext for societal intervention , but the quality of the evidence, imposing or conflated, has little to do with the motives of those who choose to publicize it in the hope of imposing societal change. Like the poor, authoritarians are always with us, and their rhetoric of motives generally serves to impoverish, not enrich, scientific discourse.
Jim Hansen’s latest letter is a case in point, but the best way to get Monckton off the subject may be to imply that his poor judgement may prejudice the good and great against his future selection as a cricket Test umpire , although one suspects a strong desire to see England’s pitches dried out by massive radiative forcing is what compels him to generate this guff in the first place.
6 May 2009 at 9:07 PM
#168 – Mark writes:
Think of bandpass removal of noise (hiss) from LP records: remove the higher frequencies and the noise reduces.
And, having worked this out, climatologists from decades ago arrived at 50 years.
Is that an approval of my 50 year filter on the Hadcet data, and recent downward trend?
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/temp_est_12-GOpNo.gif
#189 – I think if we really look at the long term trend over the last 359+ years, it’s only 0.003 deg/year, even if the early temp were readings were off some. But how do you explain the fact that the data from then to now is “clumped” about a linear trend line, in the above figure? If there is some major move from the line, why wouldn’t it continue, instead of now flattening, or going down slightly? It still looks like a ~50 year cycle at work.
These people who took these early readings were pretty smart, and by the mid to end of the 1700’s they were doing work to come up with the laws mass and energy conservation. Even if they were a degree or two off, the linear trend line would not change that much.
6 May 2009 at 10:46 PM
> secondhand smoke
… depleted uranium projectiles; tetraethyl lead; mercury; asbestos; radium paint; closing the Broad Street pump — these public health people and epidemiologists are such busybodies! Why do they hate freedom so much and keep looking for problems to exaggerate?
6 May 2009 at 11:16 PM
Re Son of Mulder @153,
As several others have already pointed out, you are looking at a time series showing natural variation, not a trend in climate, because the length of time plotted is not long enough to distinguish a trend in climate from natural variation. Thus, as has also already been pointed out, you don’t know quite as much about statistical analysis of climate data as you think you do.
The answer to the question you put to Ray @163 is the former:
The underlying global climate system is too noisy to draw any conclusions based on such a short time period.
Might I suggest that you read Robert Grumbine’s posts on how to determine the length of time required to discern a climate trend from natural variability:
How to decide climate trends
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-decide-climate-trends.html
Results on deciding trends
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/01/results-on-deciding-trends.html
6 May 2009 at 11:18 PM
Ray (160) i’ll think some more about it and get back to you
6 May 2009 at 11:45 PM
Sorry guys particularly Mark. When I used the analogy of two red filters I meant two red filters instead of one red filter - whereas it appears some of you thought I meant two red filters as opposed to zero red filters.
I didn’t write down clearly what I was thinking. Starting at one red filter and then adding another red filter has limited affect - except if forcing gets figured in - then the equation has more variables. Mark correctly pointed out that an initial amount of something is an infinite percentage increase compared to further additions. Mark may or may not want to extend that observation to rising CO2 levels.
Phil. Felton I am just opening the link you provided
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/Mars-Earth.gif
I don’t see a particular notation to CO2 absorption lines as you suggested. How do I know this isn’t rather the (WMGHG)(Well Mixed Green House Gasses) spectral transmission? This chart corresponds to WMGHG rather than just CO2 as you stated - correct?
Hank Roberts, I opened up the 22 links on the start here page. That should keep me reading for a while. However, I’ve been told that this people on this website have made up their mind. Now, people at other skeptic websites have made up their minds too. What is the best course of action if I read these links and find problems with them? Should I discuss them with you guys - or should I should just go elsewhere?
Is everyone here very alarmist? There is a spectrum of people in the world. Some scientists seem to think that the earth is going to burn up and spawn 100 foot rises in sea level and produce hyper-hurricanes in the next century - and that it is almost too late to do anything about climate change. Other people see just a little more warming and a rise of maybe a meter or so of sea level - other people fear that we are heading into a mini-iceage due to the present quieting sun.
I also fear that there has been a political stifling of opposition to global warming concerns. This observation that prominent skeptics of AGW are stifled made me suspicious. President Obama and others say the “science is settled” and others think climate science is in its infancy.
Some people think a quieting sun and a new “maunder minimum” will counteract rising temperatures. Views are all over the place.
22 links? I will try to read them all. Is there a particular link or set of links that mostly covers the important information? Is there a particular website that has the most up to date information that best presents the AGW argument without dumbing down or engaging in hyperbole?
I’ve got to weigh through all the arguments on ice sheets and also account for probable volcanic activity known or unknown that underlies the ice sheets. I’ve got to get a good handle on CO2 levels not only from the past 600,000 years but maybe the last 200,000,000 years. Temperature changes - have these taken place in the past - are they driven by CO2 - and or do CO2 levels rise because the oceans warm and then it releases more CO2? - A dangerous forcing scenario?
I guess I’ll work out these questions.
The quest for energy independence often rides parallel to global warming concerns. I have become an AGW skeptic over the last six months or so - but I still want to see these breakthroughs in Solar technology revitalize our energy usage. Futurists see solar benefiting from nano-technology. There is a solar Moore’s law that is driving the price of solar energy lower each year. Some promising breakthroughs are underway in energy storage.
I just hope the country doesn’t get into too big a fight over carbon credits and the like that we miss the ball on incorporating new cheaper nanosolar power into our energy mix - and eventually coal will be too expensive - because solar will be so cheap.
That is my opinion.
7 May 2009 at 12:01 AM
SecularAnimist Says (6 May 2009 at 16:07):
“It started when someone pointed out that some of the same corporate-funded, so-called “conservative” think-tanks and denizens thereof who are nowadays paid to lie about the reality of anthropogenic global warming were in the past paid to lie about the carcinogenicity and addictiveness of tobacco smoke. No analogy there, just simple fact.”
There you have the problem: you have two statements, one - carcinogenicity - demonstrably true, the other the product of a social outlook that redefines the concept of addiction away from any sensible meaning. My point here is that you don’t bolster your argument re the denizens of think tanks by including such a debateable (even by someone as anti-tobacco as I am) assertion. It serves only as a distraction - as I think we’ve amply demonstrated
7 May 2009 at 12:07 AM
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
It’s worth the effort.
Then: http://geodoc.uchicago.edu/
7 May 2009 at 12:30 AM
Hi Svet,
Concerning your comments about clouds:
There are several hypotheses as to how clouds will respond in a warmer climate, many of the more popular ones actually deal with higher clouds. Linden’s IRIS hypothesis asserts that warmer temperatures cause the area coverage of higher clouds in the tropical upper troposphere to decrease. Precipitation efficiency certainly increases with warming - we all agree on that, but so too does the amount of condensed water, and so at the same time the amount of water pumped up into the upper troposphere increases, and the IRIS paper only looks at one side of the picture. Dennis Hartmann and others have forwarded a “FAT hypothesis” which involves a heightening of the high cloud top with minimal temperature change, which would be a positive feedback. We have data showing thinning of lower clouds as it gets warmer which would mean a lower albedo, although there’s probably lots of issues there as well. The jury is still out on this subject, and as others noted, if an IRIS mechanism exists it is probably not very strong…we have paleoclimate data which puts constraints on the overall sensitivity that doesn’t make a strong negative feedback plausible. You do need a positive cloud feedback to get to the mid to higher ranges of the IPCC sensitivity though, and that is the main reason for the +/- 50% uncertainty bounds on the central estimate of 3 C…and as gavin noted, it is +/-, not just - as some skeptics would like you believe.
Roy Spencer has forwarded this idea of an “internal radiative forcing” which essentially (as I understand it) allows clouds to act as a forcing agent, by changing independently of the base climate on long timescales. His alleged “erroneous assumptions” are in assuming the clouds are responding to warming, rather than vice versa, but I agree with gavin that this isn’t the case. It can’t be the case based on how feedbacks are even treated as models, which emerge from the model physics. One can also say “why isn’t the Arctic sea ice just melting on its own which causes a lowering of albedo that causes warming” but we don’t tell ice to melt in the model (or not to melt)… we just don’t see long term trends in an unforced climate. I am partially receptive to the idea that an unforced climate can exhibit trends on climatological timescales (perhaps a positive AO’ish like state takes some ice out of the north which reduces albedo), but the Holocene provides fairly strong evidence that such mechanisms are not very large.
There are lots of “fingerprints” and methods showing a high CO2 signature and probably not much to do with changes in sky albedo (decreases in the diurnal temperature gradient, stratospheric cooling), and I don’t think Roy Spencer will show otherwise.
7 May 2009 at 12:39 AM
Re 206:
Thomas Donlon Says:
6 May 2009 at 11:45 PM
Phil. Felton I am just opening the link you provided
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/Mars-Earth.gif
I don’t see a particular notation to CO2 absorption lines as you suggested. How do I know this isn’t rather the (WMGHG)(Well Mixed Green House Gasses) spectral transmission? This chart corresponds to WMGHG rather than just CO2 as you stated - correct?
No, they are the high resolution spectra of CO2 in N2 at the appropriate concentrations for the two planets at the pressures and temperatures shown (approx surface conditions).
7 May 2009 at 2:47 AM
Donlon says:
“When I used the analogy of two red filters I meant two red filters instead of one red filter - whereas it appears some of you thought I meant two red filters as opposed to zero red filters.”
Well then your analogy doesn’t work.
There’s no doubling at all. Just the change from 1 to 2 filters (the colour of the two filters doesn’t matter, why would it? the effect doesn’t affect any colour that the filter doesn’t filter so an infinite number of filters would not change a thing for the ranges not filtered).
You’re going to have to look at an analogy that displays the same characteristics as “a doubling of the concentration of CO2 produces a constant change in the temperature forcing”.
Your analogy now only has one resulting difference and you can’t call it a constant change in result since you only have one result and you can’t compare one result with itself since that is by definition, a constant. One.
7 May 2009 at 2:51 AM
JBob (202), no it is an ANALOGY. You know what that is, don’t you?
Gives you why such a 50-year summation has an effect that reduces noise.
In climate averaging, that high level noise isn’t removed, but added together and averaged, therefore any randomness or signal that isn’t a long-term trend will average out.
Do you have some sort of problem with statistics?
7 May 2009 at 2:53 AM
Russel Seitz, AGW may be a golden opportunity to the ecologists to take on.
This doesn’t mean it’s false.
[edit]
7 May 2009 at 2:56 AM
the truth is out there.
In 200 he (sorry, Son of Mulder) says “Between Dan in #167 and Mark in #168 they have respectively suggested 30 years and 50 years to establish a trend? Which if either is reasonable and why”
Well, between 30 and 50 years.
At the shorter end you may not be able to ignore the effect of one suprisingly strong El Nino. At the longer end, you may not have enough points in your graph.
Much less than 30 and you are talking weather.
For paleoclimate, 100 year averages are used. There’s plenty of centuries in a million years. And that rate is still enough to get the rise and fall of the Ice ages as a CURVE rather than a discontinuity.
7 May 2009 at 3:04 AM
Theo asks “You talk of random variations, so I guess the question is when Omnibus Man asks is: could it be that these random variations are hiding a downward trend?”
It could, but what is the reason for the downward trend.
It wasn’t enough for AGW to say that CO2 caused warming, the DEMAND was that such a change be seen in the temperature records. When it was seen, the DEMAND was that we see if it stuck around and wasn’t just a blip.
Now you want to say it’s cooling.
Well, the DEMAND should continue, should it not? Just because you think it cooling doesn’t mean it’s not climate.
So let’s start RIGHT at the beginning.
1) What is causing a cooling (hypothesis)
2) Does it explain the degree of cooling (test of hypothisis)
3) Does something else explain it better (counter proposal)
4) Do you have to modify your hypothesis
5) Does the temperature profile show your hypothesis is right (proof)
You haven’t gotten #1 yet.
And #5 will have to remain for at least 20 years. That’s how long it took for people to stop saying “there is no global warming” to “there IS global warming, but we aren’t doing it” to “there IS global warming, we are doing something to it but we aren’t doing that much”.
Given there are still people (like yourself) who claim this global warming isn;t true still, 50 years may be required.
7 May 2009 at 3:30 AM
Theo, Son of Mulder and others who are focussing on the recent “cooling trend” may want to have a look at the paper quoted here: http://mind.ofdan.ca/?p=2332#more-2332
As Dan states: “This isn’t a particularly difficult concept to grasp”
7 May 2009 at 4:51 AM
John Mashey @ 195.
John directs me the site “Open Mind”. (For which I thank him).
Now, forget, please, for a moment the content of that site, but consider its name – “Open Mind”.
For “Open mind” is just the word (or phrase) I have been looking for.
On this site there is a tendency for people who are uncertain about some aspects of global warming, or like me aware that, stripping out 1998 El Nino temps, and seeing _at the moment_ the graph is roughly horizontal, to be lumped in with the sceptics/sceptics and thus seen as lackeys of the Heartland Institute or even worse, supporters of the vile Viscount Monckton. In other words, the word “sceptical” has become poisoned.
So this is my position:
I understand the core idea of CO2 pushed atmospheric warming.
I understand that there can be signal and noise.
I understand that temperature rises will fluctuate. Up a bit, down a bit.
I expect that in due course the temperatures will continue upwards.
Nevertheless, there is a small section of my mind (note a _small_ section) that is labelled “open minded on AGW” alongside the big section that says “AWG is gospel”.
Please note. I will continue to keep my footling little 1000cc Fait car, and “eco-drive” it as well, and not go out and buy the 2,500cc BMW I desire and drive around leaving tyre smoke behind me. My actions speak louder than my words.
But I will, until the temps continue rising, keep a very small section of my mind labelled “Open Minded Section”.
Should I not?
7 May 2009 at 5:23 AM
On albedo.
Sitting here eating my breakfast of toast and marmalade, a question on albedo passes through my mind.
Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?
Does this disprove AGW?
7 May 2009 at 5:32 AM
Re #180 Theo Hopkins
I think that Tamino (and many others) have answered much of your comment already, but I recommend that you look at e.g. some more of Tamino’s writings.
Even if you understand the following already , the same may not apply to all your readers. First it will not be necessary to wait another 30 years to determine whether global warming is continuing . Secondly your phrase
I am torn between wanting the global temperatures to rise….
implies that you have been looking at the recent data in a particular way. For other ways see:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/
and #165 on the following thread
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/full-ipcc-ar4-report-now-available/
[That only refers to statistically significant fits, even if you include insignificant ones, the evidence is not as clear as your remark suggests].
7 May 2009 at 7:59 AM
“Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?”
Because toasting is a chemical reaction, not a mere temperature one.
7 May 2009 at 8:00 AM
“Nevertheless, there is a small section of my mind (note a _small_ section) that is labelled “open minded on AGW” alongside the big section that says “AWG is gospel”.”
So do you have a small side that says “two plus two equals four” and another huge section that says “maths is gospel”?
7 May 2009 at 8:15 AM
Rod B wrote in #171:
I think it is, if one’s aim is to simply create confusion and stir up a controversy in the minds of the general public rather then actually try and contribute to climate science to move it forward. Monckton’s fabricated graphs are all good examples of this.
Theo Hopkins wrote in #194:
El Nino/La Nina cycles alternate as you can clearly see here:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/ts.gif
El Nino in 1998 was strong but we also had strong El Nino’s in 1991, 1987, 1981 etc. So it is not that occasional.
And if you strip out the recent La Nina, you get a lot more warming. So what?
John Mashey wrote in #195:
Indeed. Here is the graph of residuals - differences between each year global mean and the smoothed value (a lowess smooth) using GISS data:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/resid.jpg?w=490&h=361
It is clear from this graph that we are currently below the long-term trend. It is also very clear from the graph that there is nothing unusual or exceptional about it and are unlikely to stay below the trend for long (see the full post at Tamino’s Open Mind). As Tamino pointed out, staying bang on the smooth trend line will be very unusual indeed and hard to explain.
7 May 2009 at 8:25 AM
Re: Theo Hopkins
Keeping an open mind is a good thing.
As I said before, since temperature is a noisy variable it’s not only *possible* to have periods of apparent “levelling off,” it’s actually *inevitable*. Global temperature is changing in exactly the way we expect it to; if such episodes of apparent stalling *didn’t* happen, THEN would we suspect something’s misunderstood.
If I said “Today was not as hot as yesterday, so global warming has stopped” then you’d know I was either fooling myself or trying to fool you. So would Omnibus man; you both know that it’s possible for noise to give a false impression of a trend, and that one day isn’t nearly long enough to be reliable evidence. When the denialists do is play on the (false) belief that a few years, even a decade, *is* long enough — it isn’t. They also regularly show ONLY the time span that makes their claim look good. It’s really no different than characterizing temperature change by this graph (or even this one).
The bottom line is: you’re seeing noise and interpreting it as a possible signal. That’s mistaken. So how do you separate signal from noise? There are statistical tests, but that won’t satisfy “Joe the plumber” (American Omnibus man) it will only confuse him. You need to reduce the noise level in the simplest, most comprehensible way possible. You’ll find one attempt to illustrate this in this post. You may find it useful to copy this graph and/or this graph.
Of course we should keep an open mind about things. But we shouldn’t doubt global warming unless there is some *evidence* for doubt. At present, there’s none. Not even a smidgen. There’s plenty of ways to make it *look* like there’s evidence, but none of them stand up to scrutiny. None.
Open mind: good. Removing brain: bad.
7 May 2009 at 9:08 AM
#219 , #220
(OFF TOPIC)
According to Wikipedia and other sources the process is a Maillard reaction which occurs when sugar is heated in the presence of protein. It follows that your observations (#219) need to be qualified by control of these variables (quantity of sugar etc.). In fact other people obtain the opposite results as in :
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/48/1/White-bread-vs-brown-bread.html
Thus the albedo mechanism is just one of several, just as in the climate example.
7 May 2009 at 9:21 AM
On another topic, I’ve run across a citation to a new paper by one of the “usual suspects,” Craig Loehle. He’s trying to rehabilitate “ocean cooling.” It’s in Energy & Environment (surprise, surprise) and is paywalled; anybody had a go at it yet?
7 May 2009 at 9:26 AM
There are theoretical bottlenecks to hurricane formation that prevent hurricanes from increasing solely due to an increase in temps. Now, we know that clouds can’t completely eliminate fluctuations in temps or else we’d never have the kinds of temperature swings we see in the geological record. But is it possible that clouds could simply dampen the effect in a non-linear way. The forcings due to greenhouse gases are an order of magnitude larger than the forcings from Milankovich cycles, but could cloud formation act as an upper limit for the rate of temperature increase the way that wind shear and a decline in temperature gradients are thought to constrain hurricane formation?
7 May 2009 at 9:32 AM
Theo Hopkins, try as I might, I cannot get the trendline for the period 1997-2008 to come out negative. The only way I come close is to pick 1998 as my starting year and 2008 as the end–and then I get a flat line…a cherry-picked flat line that starts during a big-assed El Nino and ends in a big-assed La Nina…in an extended solar minimum. If such extreme cherrypicking is what is needed to even get a flat trend, shouldn’t that tell you something.
On your breakfast. Uh, did you weigh the two slices of bread? Before and after toasting. Water content? Are you sure your breakfast is the only thing that’s toast?
7 May 2009 at 9:47 AM
re 226, no because you’d have to say why these cloud forcings didn’t occur in the past. There is no evidence that there is so significant a negative feedback from clouds in the historical data and no theory that would mean they would occur now.
You can’t go all “The science is complex and we need proof of warming” then come up with such unsupported tosh.
7 May 2009 at 10:01 AM
James wrote: “… the other the product of a social outlook that redefines the concept of addiction away from any sensible meaning.”
With all due respect you don’t know what you are talking about. Tobacco is one of the most powerfully physiologically addictive substances known to science. It is far more addictive than heroin or cocaine. If “addiction” has “any sensible meaning” then that meaning most certainly includes tobacco. In fact tobacco might well be considered a paradigmatic example of addictiveness. Tobacco addicts are able to function because tobacco is not an intoxicant and its use does not cause acute dysfunction as do alcohol, heroin or cocaine. But tobacco is more addictive than any of those substances and of course it is also highly toxic.
7 May 2009 at 10:42 AM
A bit off topic, but this segment from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (for those not familiar with the Daily Show, it is broadcast in the U.S. on the Comedy Central cable television network) illustrates how a supposedly educated person (a HS physics teacher) can be shockingly ignorant of basic science and math (in this case, probability), and how the media portrays science and alleged scientific controversy (the danger of the Large Hadron Collider). If I were a gambler, I would bet that the HS physics teacher featured in this video is an AGW skeptic.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225921&title=large-hadron-collider
7 May 2009 at 10:46 AM
Gavin’s right that there’s no question about tobacco. Look it up– talking points on addiction from the industry _have_not_changed_.
Copypasting from the script is thoughtless.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/suppl_4/iv27
7 May 2009 at 11:22 AM
And be careful who you trust for information–they do lie to you:
http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/phnu/abstract.00006620-200811000-00009.htm
7 May 2009 at 11:23 AM
While there are clearly a few meteorologists around who are skeptical of AGW, here is one, Bob Ryan, from an NBC affiliate in Washington, D.D., who does a good job of explaining the science behind AGW theory in six-part series of blog entries:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/weather/stories/Bob-Ryan-Global-Change-Series.html
Links to his follow-up entries can be found at the bottom of the page. I’m sure he enlightened a few readers, but obviously not this one who wrote (in response to the final entry):
Hello Mr. Ryan: Please visit this link for an excellent discussion of the current controversies over AGW and Governmental policy by Christopher Monckton …. He makes an extremely logical presentation regarding the last 7 years of “global cooling” …
http://www.nbcwashington.com/weather/stories/Bob-Ryan-on-Global-Warming-Part-6.html
7 May 2009 at 11:42 AM
Thomas Donlon #206:
‘… earth is going to burn up …’?
As temperate and subtropical zones become both warmer and drier, they will become more fire prone. This probably a strong contributing factor in severe fire seasons seen recently in both Australia and California. However as far as I know no-one takes seriously the possibility of soil, rock, or dirt catching on fire (with the obvious exception of coal power).
‘… 100 foot rises in sea level …’
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) contains water equivalent to 7.2 meters or 23.6 feet of Sea Level Rise (SLR). The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) contains about 6 meters or 20 feet SLR. There is a 700,000 year CO2 record derived from ice cores which shows only two previous interglacials in which CO2 levels exceeded 290 ppm. In both cases, CO2 did not exceed 310 ppm. In both of those warm interglacials, sea levels were 4 - 6 meters, or 13 - 20 feet higher. The water may have come from GIS, or WAIS, or some combination thereof. Either way - the difference between 280 ppm CO2 and 310 ppm CO2 results in substantial melting of these ice sheets. Presently, CO2 is at about 386 ppm.
If the warming from 310 ppm CO2 results in 4 - 6 meters (13 - 20 feet) SLR, what sea level rise should be expected from 386 ppm CO2? What about 450 ppm CO2, the level at which most planners expect to stabilize CO2 levels at? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 8 to 12 meters (25 - 40 feet) SLR from prolonged CO2 levels at 450 ppm. Fortunately - most ice sheet experts think the melting time for GIS and WAIS is at least 100s of years, and much more likely 1000s of years. Greenland can’t melt in a day. Serious estimates of how much SLR can be expected by 2100 seem to cluster around 1 - 1.5 meters (3 to 5 feet) , if CO2 emissions continue unabated, and substantially less if CO2 emissions are quickly reduced to zero.
As far as I know, there are no serious climate scientists who expect ‘100 foot rises in sea level’ in the next few centuries. Any sea level rise above about 40 feet requires substantial melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), which is higher in altitude, and more isolated from global weather systems than WAIS. There are indications from paleoclimatology that there was extensive ice in east Antarctica in the distant past when CO2 levels substantially exceeded 450 ppm. Substantial melting of EAIS is unlikely - perhaps even in in worst-case burn-all-the-fossil-fuels scenarios. Keep in mind most of EAIS has a year-round average temperature well below -40 C.
‘… produce hyper-hurricanes in the next century …’
Kerry Emanuel and other scientists have shown hurricanes are roughly speaking, Carnot engines, and therefor, the intensity of a hurricane is strongly affected by the temperature difference between the top (which is usually near the tropopause) and the bottom (which is at the ocean’s surface). Climate models show the oceans will warm, and the tropopause will cool in all likely global warming scenarios. If other hurricane-affecting conditions remain similar, this will result in greater average intensity of hurricanes. However - most scientists seem think this intensity increase will be on the order of a few percent by 2100. I don’t know of any serious hurricane or climate scientist who thinks a few percent stronger hurricane can be called a ‘hyper-hurricane’.
To put this in perspective - the Northwest Pacific region has category 5 hurricanes about 9 times as frequently as the Atlantic, or about 3 category 5 hurricanes each year. This is much larger difference in intensity than is expected to result from global warming. Yet no one calls the hurricanes of the Northwest Pacific ‘hyper-hurricanes’, and nations like the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Japan, and others in the region maintain some degree civilization despite the ferocious storms. (Remember the terrible Atlantic hurricane season of 2005, with its 28 tropical storms, 15 hurricanes, 7 major hurricanes, and 4 category 5s? Well, in the Northwest Pacific, that level of activity is normal, and has been for centuries at least, and probably since the end of the last glaciation.)
Should I go on? Do I need to point out that your remarks are full of strawmen?
7 May 2009 at 12:43 PM
I am delighted that my honest perplexity has got so many posts in reply that recognise that I am perplexed, not a “sceptic”. For which I thank you.
Looking up the more public-friendly pages of the UK’s Met Office/Hadley Centre web site I come across the HadCRUT3 data. I will print out one of their graphs (I can’t “think” on a VDU screen, and detail gets hidden) get a pencil and play with things.
I note that the HadCRUT3 data is being constantly updated.
First question. Is it possible for anyone, using the data of this year to the end of April, to say _at this point in time_ how the global temperature is looking for this year?
Another question. RC posters, the public and the media often look to “signs” of global warming; polar bears morosely marooned on ice floes, catastrophic Katrina, drought in the Sahel, the disappearance of snow from Kilimanjaro. Am I correct to say that I should ignore all of this and _only_ look to the published, if boring, global temperatures, such as HadCRU, etc. Am I right that noting else is really of consequence?
7 May 2009 at 12:55 PM
Theo Hopkins Says (7 May 2009 at 5:23):
“Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?”
Does it really take longer? Have you done the timing needed to acquire a statistically significant data set? How are you measuring “toastedness”: if it’s by color change, there’s a ready explanation for why toasting seems to take longer. Toasting turns the bread brown, and that color change is more apparent against a white background than a brown one.
7 May 2009 at 1:19 PM
Theo Hopkins Says (7 May 2009 at 5:23):
“Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?”
Shouldn’t the albedo for infrared radiation should be near zero for white and brown bread alike? It is my understanding that surface color has no (or so small as to be negligible) bearing on absorption or reflection of IR radiation.
7 May 2009 at 1:21 PM
Re # 237 Correction - should have been:
Shouldn’t the albedo for infrared radiation be near zero for white and brown bread alike?
7 May 2009 at 1:24 PM
SecularAnimist Says (7 May 2009 at 10:01):
“With all due respect you don’t know what you are talking about. Tobacco is one of the most powerfully physiologically addictive substances known to science.”
Now you see what I mean when I say we’ve proved that your claim serves only as a distraction from the real issue?
Rather than prolonging the discussion, let me just ask one simple question: if tobacco is as powerfully addictive as you claim, why is it that many people are able to quit simply by deciding to, with no more than the mental effort needed to change any other habit?
In case you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, perhaps I should add that I’ve been there and done that. Started smoking in early teens (in the days before tobacco advertising was restricted at all), decided to quit my first semester in college, did so without great difficulty - certainly nothing even remotely approching the physiological effects of e.g. narcotics withdrawal.
7 May 2009 at 1:36 PM
Theo,
My recommendation is not to trust your eyeball exclusively. Look at trends and their siginficance. Fit the data to a line and look at the sign of the slope as well as the goodness of fit (e.g. chi-square, R-Square, likelihood)
As to climate in general, it is about trends, not events. That we lose an ice shelf is not news–that we have lost several ice shelves in ~20 years is. That Arctic sea ice has an anomalously low year isn’t news; that it’s been declining steadily throughout the last 30 years is. That Spring came early this year isn’t remarkable, but that the data of last frost has steadily gotten earlier and earlier for 30 years…
7 May 2009 at 1:40 PM
Toast and albedo.
I am of the impression the cut surface of brown bread is coarser than that of white.
Wikipedia tells me that fresh snow has a higher albedo than old snow. Is old snow smoother than new snow. Could this be the reason?
[Response: No. it’s related to the size and shape of the ice crystals. - gavin]
7 May 2009 at 2:28 PM
“why is it that many people are able to quit simply by deciding to, with no more than the mental effort needed to change any other habit?”
James, why is it so very many more cannot quit at all, if it isn’t addictive?
7 May 2009 at 2:34 PM
Any thoughts on the NYT’s article about a town destroyed by global warming? Is this a valid scientific conclusion?
7 May 2009 at 2:40 PM
Re 241 Theo Hopkins
The wavelength of IR radiation is also a factor. Fresh snow has a high albedo for solar IR (wavelength ~ 0.8-2.5 um), but a low albedo (i.e., it absorbs) terrestrial IR (wavelength > 3 um). I would expect the heating element in a toaster to emit shortwave IR, and I would expect this radiation to be strongly absorbed by both white and brown bread. I’m sure one of the physicists in the audience will correct me if I am wrong.
Sorry for continuing an off topic thread.
7 May 2009 at 2:50 PM
Because the response isn’t uniform among all individuals, and this is true for many other addictive drugs, as well.
7 May 2009 at 3:25 PM
> many people are able to quit simply by deciding to
Citation needed for that, or if you’d like to use the one provided, the older you are when you try it, the easier it is not to continue.
See 6-page 1981 RJReynolds memo on importance of younger adults, above.
[Response: Enough - this is the last word on nicotine and addiction. - gavin]
7 May 2009 at 3:36 PM
Phil Fenton:
The absorption spectra for CO2 that you linked to is for the 750-755 cm-1 part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Is this part of the spectrum representative of the entire spectrum or is it anomalous? Is this the only part of the spectrum applicable (or relevant) to infrared heat retention?
7 May 2009 at 3:53 PM
Mark, my point was to Igor that it is not easier to upset established science or even junk science.
I never said tobacco was not “bad.” I said it is not addictive (under the old clinically accepted definition).
7 May 2009 at 4:04 PM
RodB, no it is much easier.
You even managed to undo it by using words in new and interesting* ways
* as in unusual or the old curse “may you live in interesting times” way.
What was the clinical accepted definition, how did it change and why was tobacco not under the old definition?
7 May 2009 at 4:07 PM
The real question for rapidity of toasting is the sugar content of the bread. I’d guess that correlates weakly with white.
FWIW.
So, anyone read that Loehle paper I asked about? (2009, E & E, ocean cooling.) I’d love to know just why it’s a pile of junk. . . presuming, as I do, that it is.
7 May 2009 at 4:14 PM
Theo, 235, please think before you post. To begin with someone may not know how much they do not know. And so answering REALLY DUMB questions isn’t a chore.
But if the petitioner were not to learn how little they know and, like, EDUCATE THEMSELVES and just kept walking into lampposts saying “Why does my face keep hurting???” We’ll give up picking them up and saying “Watch where you’re going” and start taking bets on when they’ll walk off the cliff. A useful real-world test of the random walk.
You see the bar at the top? See the “Start Here” button. Click it. Follow the links. Read, learn and come back enlightened or at least with more relevant questions.
7 May 2009 at 4:19 PM
As the science of toast is now confusing to me, please consider how much more difficult I find the science of climate change. And consider that in both cases I have to bow to the expertise of others as experts, so I am vulnerable to deliberate mis-information from profesional sceptics or just the misinformation of the ill-informed if it comes my way.
(But I do know what is, and why there is, the wurzel in a bender - which probably none of you folks do. Smirk.)
7 May 2009 at 4:27 PM
llewelly, It was hyperbole when I said some scientists think the earth is going to
“burn up”. I did see some previews for TV shows that dealt with a six degree celsius rise in temperature. The preview was very alarming. It might have been a National Geographic program.
I was clearly wrong when I thought some scientists were predicting 100 foot rises in sea level this century. A quick google search showed Al Gore has used the 20 foot sea level rise figure. So I will accept that as a maximum amount offered by some scientists. You are thinking we will probably get a 3-5 foot sea level rise since that is what the majority of scientists are saying.
I did recently see a tv show on hyper hurricanes hitting the East Coast in the past few thousand years - they raised the alarm that maybe we could get even stronger ones soon if CO2 levels keep rising.
Some skeptics like my self have become wearied that every rise in projected temperature is correlated with negative consequences and never positive consequences. More droughts, more storms, more deserts, more flooding, Atlantic current cessations followed by freezing conditions in the Northern hemisphere.
Climate changes will be good for some areas too. What is wrong with a greening Canada, a greening Alaska, Greenland and Siberia?
I think the historical record shows that hurricanes are not more prevalent than they were in the past. Are we getting information from different sources - or does each camp in the discussion decide to ignore certain information? I just read about an ancient huge snake found in South America that would have needed warmer temperatures to survive than what we have now. Some experts were surprised that there still could be a rainforest in such hot conditions.
This link below was rather surprising for me to read on an observed 800 year time dissonance between ancient warming and CO2 levels.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/
I think it is important that we don’t dismiss outright any variables. Sometimes nature surprises us. We know volcanoes in Iceland have caused melting. A Greenland hotspot can too. Let’s think deeply and not jump to conclusions too fast. It is only when we refuse to think and refuse to change (when appropriate to change) that we become dogmatic and overbearing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22246005/
7 May 2009 at 5:02 PM
Thomas Donlon wrote: “What is wrong with a greening Canada, a greening Alaska, Greenland and Siberia?”
For one thing, a “greening” Greenland means the Greenland ice sheet melts, which could raise sea levels disastrously.
And worse, in a “greening” Canada, Alaska and Siberia, the permafrost in the frozen tundra will thaw, releasing huge amounts of methane, which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, causing unstoppable catastrophic warming.
7 May 2009 at 5:13 PM
Mark @ 215
You wrote:
“Given there are still people (like yourself) who claim this global warming isn;t true still, 50 years may be required.”
I never made a claim that global warming isn’t. Check any or all of my posts.
But what I find worrying is that as I am _perplexed_ because of the teperature graph not rising consistently on a year-on-year basis, you have _assumed_ I am a sceptic. I’m not. I am merely “perplexed”.
7 May 2009 at 5:26 PM
Mark Says (7 May 2009 at 14:28):
“James, why is it so very many more cannot quit at all, if it isn’t addictive?”
Why do some people have trouble breaking any habit, even habits that don’t involve ingesting any sort of chemical at all? As for instance (to try to bring the back to something at least remotely related to climate), why do some people become compulsive shoppers? I’ve even seen it referred to as “shopping addiction”?
To return to my original point again, this is why the claim would better be avoided: because you run up against a major philosophical divide. It’s like arguing that AGW is caused by evil capitalism, when discussing the subject with a free market conservative
7 May 2009 at 5:32 PM
Thomas Donlon Says (7 May 2009 at 16:27):
“We know volcanoes in Iceland have caused melting. A Greenland hotspot can too. Let’s think deeply and not jump to conclusions too fast. It is only when we refuse to think and refuse to change (when appropriate to change) that we become dogmatic and overbearing.”
OK, so how about doing some thinking, coupled with a little arithmetic? Figure out just how much volcanic activity it would take to produce observed warming, then explain how that could possibly have gone unnoticed?
7 May 2009 at 5:54 PM
Boreal forest is slowly dying up there … strange, I would think Canada would be greener with its boreal forest than it will be with a broad swath of dead brown trees.
That’s just me, though.
7 May 2009 at 6:08 PM
Donlon said:”I was clearly wrong when I thought some scientists were predicting 100 foot rises in sea level this century. A quick google search showed Al Gore has used the 20 foot sea level rise figure. So I will accept that as a maximum amount offered by some scientists. You are thinking we will probably get a 3-5 foot sea level rise since that is what the majority of scientists are saying.”
Al Gore was not claiming 20 feet this century.
At current rates, sea level will rise about 1 foot in this century. Recent research indicates accelerated glacier melting that could make the rate be much higher in this century, in the range of 3-5 feet total by 2100 that you use.
The 20 foot figure is the total rise from melting all the ice on Greenland.
“I did recently see a tv show on hyper hurricanes hitting the East Coast in the past few thousand years - they raised the alarm that maybe we could get even stronger ones soon if CO2 levels keep rising.”
More category 4 and 5 are what are predicted, and that is plenty enough.
“I think the historical record shows that hurricanes are not more prevalent than they were in the past. Are we getting information from different sources - or does each camp in the discussion decide to ignore certain information?”
Some campers don’t seem to understand the difference between a larger number of severe hurricanes, and more total hurricanes.
“I think it is important that we don’t dismiss outright any variables. Sometimes nature surprises us. We know volcanoes in Iceland have caused melting. A Greenland hotspot can too. Let’s think deeply and not jump to conclusions too fast.”
A deep thinker would ask - how much melting from volcanoes? The answer - not so much (that thought has already been thunk, and stunk).
7 May 2009 at 6:47 PM
Re 247:
Tom Dingaling Says:
7 May 2009 at 3:36 PM
Phil Fenton:
The absorption spectra for CO2 that you linked to is for the 750-755 cm-1 part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Is this part of the spectrum representative of the entire spectrum or is it anomalous? Is this the only part of the spectrum applicable (or relevant) to infrared heat retention?
You asked about broadening, that part of the spectrum shows broadening typical of the rest of the absorption band.
7 May 2009 at 7:20 PM
Barry Foster writes:
Please remove the hyphens and read:
http://www.geoci-ties.com/bpl1960/Ball.html
http://www.geoci-ties.com/bpl1960/Reber.html
7 May 2009 at 7:30 PM
t_p_hamilton,
You are apparently correct about Al Gore and his 20 foot sea level rise. I googled “Al Gore” and the words sea level rise - and the phrase 20 foot appeared in many of the hits. At your prodding I researched it some more and I didn’t find anywhere that Al Gore predicted the rise in this century. Al’s critics on the Google search asserted said that he used the word “soon” in his film when talking about a 20 foot rise of sea level - and that he has again used the phrase but rather in talking about the outcome if we lost Greenland ice - without specifying a time frame.
7 May 2009 at 7:31 PM
Grab yourself a fair coin and start flipping. Perhaps when you notice that you don’t get a precisely alternating heads,tails,heads,tails etc sequence yet after a few hundred flips are extremely close to a 50%-50% distribution you’ll stop feeling perplexed.
7 May 2009 at 7:33 PM
Thomas Donlon asks: “What is wrong with a greening Canada, a greening Alaska, Greenland and Siberia?”
Thomas, ever hear of the Canadian Shield? It is what was left after the glaceirs scraped away all the topsoil and brought it down to Minnesota, Wisconsin, even Kansas. Ever hear of the cos(theta) law–it says the light decreases with latitude as roughly the cosine of the lattitude.
Ever hear of Google? As Hank says, you can look this stuff up for yourself.
7 May 2009 at 7:36 PM
#212 Mark
Yes I know, but I couldn’t resist.
You are assuming that all “noise” is random, and be averaged out. Which is true if it’s ideal “band limited white noise”. Unfortunately not all noise is “white” but can have periods of “non-randomness” due to what ever. For instance if Joe decides to have a week long cook out, across the alley from the NOAA weather station, and if the wind is right, Joe will introduce 2-4 day noise pulse into the system that will not average out. Or if a iron foundry goes up a block away from a NOAA weather station, runs for ten years and goes out of business. Here a ten year pulse is added, and will not be averaged out. So there are many disturbances, or “noise” out there that are not even recognized. You can call in the “central limit theorem” to say that it will average out, and move on, recognizing it’s limitations.
The reason I like to use the Fourier Convolution method is that it give a more precise look if there are any periodic influences on the temp readings we have. Is there something new or just a natural earth cycle? Just using statistics done not seem to give as direct an insight that the Fourier analysis does. By adjusting the “kernel” or filter, I can easily look, or for, single or multiple waves or repeatable occurrences. This method does a better job then more classical signal processing, in that phase delays are reduced.
As far as statistics go, I have no problems with that. I have been through enough 3-sigma performance specs to last a lifetime. However I think that the Fourier method give a more direct insight as to what is going on. As I stated in the earlier post, using the Fourier analysis, showed a peak or slight down trend in current global temps. Tamino’s, use of averages, keep right on going up after 2000. Which analysis is closer to reality?
7 May 2009 at 7:36 PM
Phil. Felton,
You did a good job in researching this stuff for me. I’ll guess you are a scientist that specializes in this stuff.
7 May 2009 at 8:13 PM
Re Thomas Donlon @262, why not look at a transcript of An Inconvenient Truth to see exactly what Gore said?
Here you go:
http://forumpolitics.com/blogs/2007/03/17/an-inconvient-truth-transcript/
“I want to focus on West Antarctica, because it illustrates two factors about land-based ice and sea-based ice. It’s a little of both. It’s propped on tops of islands, but the ocean comes up underneath it. So if the ocean gets warmer, it has an impact on it. If this were to go, sea levels worldwide would go up 20 feet. They’ve measured disturbing changes on the underside of this ice sheet. It’s considered relatively more stable, however, than another big body of ice that is roughly the same size. Greenland
In 1992 they measured this amount of melting in Greenland. 10 years later this is what happened. And here is the melting from 2005. Tony Blair’s scientific advisor has said that because of what is happening in Greenland right now, the map of the world will have to be redrawn. If Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica broke up and melted, this is what would happen to the sea level in Florida.”
I’ve compared this transcript to the DVD sound track and it is accurate.
“If this were to go….”
“If Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica broke up and melted”
Note that no time span what so ever is mentioned or even implied.
Yet there is no shortage on the blogosphere of those asserting that Gore explicitly stated “in this century.”
Why would you have any confidence at all in those who would lie to you about something this easy to check?
7 May 2009 at 8:18 PM
Thomas Donlon (206?) — For the last 50 million years, largely due to the rise of the Himalayas, CO2 has been turned into carbonate, lowering concentrations (on average) with temperatures following. Here are two temperature graphs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png
7 May 2009 at 8:24 PM
re: 255 Theo, perplexed
You saw my mention of tamino in #195.
Did you look at the animation I suggested?
Various people have tried to explain this fundamental idea in various different ways.
Instead of just telling us you’re perplexed, how about addressing the various explanations and saying specifically why you don’t find them convincing. “Perplexity” is not an actionable description for helping people improve their explanations.
7 May 2009 at 10:02 PM
Igor (222), I still think I disagree, but you do have a good point.
7 May 2009 at 10:14 PM
SecularAnimist (229) Holy Toledo! You have no limits. It’s astonishing. This is a waste of time, but I’ll ask anyway. How do you account for the maybe 50+ million people who have stopped smoking the past 40+ years with minimal fuss. Per chance are you jumping into the nicotinic acid neuron connection ditch?? …too??? I’m supposed to believe your assertions on AGW??
7 May 2009 at 10:46 PM
People lie on the intertubes, just like in real life! I’m SHOCKED, I say, SHOCKED!
Now ask yourself why these lies rise so high on Google when you search, rather than what he actually says.
It’s not Google’s fault.
Could it be a concerted RWingnut ploy to discredit his message, just as they did when they said he claimed to “invent the internet” (which he never did), etc?
7 May 2009 at 10:50 PM
Theo,
A more climate-specific reason why we don’t see a steady rise in global temperatures is that other factors besides CO2 are important to temperature. The GHG forcing will dominate over time because it’s the only one being driven in a linear fashion by our ongoing “emissions program.” But variations in albedo (due to a number of different causes, from aerosols to land use changes to sea ice melt) will still continue to affect temperatures, as will changes in solar radiation, and changes in ocean current patterns, etc.
As a recent real-world example, James Hansen’s 2008 climate summary on the GISS site attributes the slightly cooler 2008 temperatures in part to the slightly decreased radiation associated with the prolonged solar minimum. There’s a fairly detailed discussion there of various factors affecting the temps that you may wish to check out.
7 May 2009 at 11:04 PM
Tamino,
Now that you have accepted the past 7 years as a natural deviation from a constantly warming atmosphere, perhaps you could explain what phenomenon causes this? One would assume that whatever natural effects must surely be greater and thus “smoothed” as a result of global warming.
7 May 2009 at 11:28 PM
Ray Ladbury Says (7 May 2009 at 19:33):
“Ever hear of the cos(theta) law–it says the light decreases with latitude as roughly the cosine of the lattitude.”
Also remember that basically the same law applies to surface area, something concealed by the usual Mercator map projection. That means that as the temperate zone moves polewards, there’s significantly less land area in that zone.
8 May 2009 at 2:36 AM
JBon, 265.
Odd that you are all over this for ABSOLUTE accuracy yet when you were using bandpass theory in your earlier graph attempts to “prove” that there is now a cooling and little correlation between temperature and CO2, you were using a bandpass filter of months, not decades and despite repeated attempts to get you to address that this isn’t an ACCURATE way of DOING the analysis (I’m using it as an ANALOGY, not as instruction on how you do it, unlike you), you ignored all requests.
I take it you’re going to go back to your analysis and redo your work based on what you’ve said now… yes?
8 May 2009 at 2:42 AM
Teo 255, you’re using weasel words: “I never made a claim that global warming isn’t. Check any or all of my posts.”
No, you just say “but doesn’t THIS mean that it’s wrong?”.
It’s doing the denialist creed whilst saying “I’m not *saying* it’s wrong, but…”.
Don’t use weasel words. People are smart enough to spot them, it’s just that most people are too polite to tell you off when using them.
8 May 2009 at 2:45 AM
Kevin, 250, I suspect it is more because the white bread is made from more refined flour and the access to the carbohydrates to both combustion and digestion is higher.
The reason why grazing animals have a problem with eating grass isn’t that the carbohydrates are hard to digest or poor but that they’re bound inside the plant walls and they must rely on bacteria to open them up.
We have less problem because we use boiling water to break up the plant and make the vitamins available.
8 May 2009 at 5:36 AM
Thomas Donton writes:
Let me get this straight. You’re blaming the melting of the Greenland ice cap on volcanoes???
8 May 2009 at 5:39 AM
Theo Hopkins writes:
CO2 isn’t the only thing that affects temperature in a given year. Besides the other greenhouse gases, it is also affected by changes in sunlight, cloud cover, surface albedo, aerosols, and the heat exchanges between the atmosphere and ocean. It’s not going to be a smooth curve upward. It never has been.
8 May 2009 at 6:32 AM
re 274 “Now that you have accepted the past 7 years as a natural deviation from a constantly warming atmosphere, perhaps you could explain what phenomenon causes this?”
Natural variation.
Rather like the height of any single human will be ABOUT the 5′8″ average for males, 5′2″ for females (and since there are about equal numbers of each, the average of all humans would be 5′5″) finding someone who is 6′3″ doesn’t mean that human heights are being forced upward.
And why this carp about “what phenomenon causes this”? Uh, maybe a confluence of a thousand phenomena all acting without trend or purpose reinforced each other and made a drift from mean.
8 May 2009 at 7:45 AM
Theo Hopkins,
You’ve no doubt heard that as a long-term investment, stocks pay a significant dividend over most other investments, right? OK, so did you sell your stocks at the bottom of the market because they weren’t rising steadily? Here’s an investment tip: that’s not how you make money.
There’s a story about somebody asking Andrew Carnegie what the market would do. Carnegie replied, “It will fluctuate, my boy. It will fluctuate.” Over time, though, companied do make money and as GM dries up and dies Google takes up the slack. There may be big fluctuations, both up (think tech bubble) and down (housing crash). Likewise, you get big fluctuations in WEATHER that may last several years. Overall, though, if there is a steady forcing like CO2 that keeps pushing upward, the fluctuations keep happening but at a higher mean value. So, the average temperature is significantly higher this decade than last and last decade than the decade before.
8 May 2009 at 8:41 AM
Thanks for replies to my earlier comments. I’ll rephrase my earlier question about noise in the global temperature time series data.
1. What level of noise is generated in the measuring process?
2. What level of noise is there in the actual climate?
I can understand something like the effect of a volcanic eruption or asteroid hit being classed as noise in the climate system.
I can understand gridsquare size, urban heat island effects and human error causing noise in the measuring systems.
What other causes of noise defined are there in each of climate and measuring systems?
Is there noise that is unaccounted for and what’s its level?
Has the overall level of noise in each process increased, decreased or stayed the same on say a 150 year basis?
I assume anthropic climate effects would not be classed as noise in the climate as that’s what we’re trying to establish. Is this a reasonable assumption?
Are historic global temperature time series produced that have had all known noise removed from them? If so where are they published?
What would be a reasonable period in such series to enable a reasonable measurement of trend?
8 May 2009 at 8:58 AM
“1. What level of noise is generated in the measuring process?”
What makes you think there is noise introduced by the measuring process?
“2. What level of noise is there in the actual climate?”
There’s no noise in the climate wrt climate, but there’s weather effects rather than climate effects in the data used.
“I can understand something like the effect of a volcanic eruption or asteroid hit being classed as noise in the climate system”
And how about “an unusually strong El Nino”?
“What would be a reasonable period in such series to enable a reasonable measurement of trend?”
30 to 50 year meaning period. You read any of these posts? That’s been answered about 15 times so far on this thread.
8 May 2009 at 9:19 AM
#282, Ray, Theo is trying to say that AGW should form a continuous rising temperature trend. With proper statistics , applied for a long period, it actually is. Despite variations, El-Nino and La-Nina driven or not, the Arctic has been showing such a feature, in over all Arctic Ocean ice thickness.
Which also varies, but with a more sharper downward trend than temperature. Sea Ice extent is more tricky and depends on many factors, especially dominant wind variations (even ENSO plays a role with it) . Again, every thing varies, wind, sea and air temperatures, cloud extent. even the TSI (slightly), everything. except gravity and the rotation of the earth. So it does not come as a surprise, that there is a variation, but a closer study of climate sensitive metrics, like sea ice thickness confirms a mathematical trend with Global temperature, this should hopefully convince…
8 May 2009 at 9:36 AM
“#282, Ray, Theo is trying to say that AGW should form a continuous rising temperature trend.”
The question I have is: why? Why would everything
If I were to push him off the top of the empire state building he wouldn’t fall down in a proper f=ma trajectory. He’d bounce off the walls for a start. He’d wave his arms about going “AAAAARRRRHHHGGGGG!!!!” which would affect his speed.
As he falls down, the wind whistling past his face will make his cheeks wobble and ripple. His clothes will bell and wave in the stream. Yet those ripples shouldn’t exist if airflow follows the nice curved lines of classical lamellar flow.
Since his cheeks will ripple, can he ignore the ground coming up at him because he can’t be falling since there shouldn’t be any ripples on his cheeks or shirt?
8 May 2009 at 9:54 AM
“#282, Ray, Theo is trying to say that AGW should form a continuous rising temperature trend.”
Stand in the wind with a sheet between your arms. Despite the wind blowing in a straight line, the sheet bells and snaps.
What’s causing that?
Theo is wasting your time.
8 May 2009 at 10:14 AM
#275 –Mark
Easy Mark, my call letters are J. Bob. Now my example about noise is that, while mathematically correct “band limited white noise” should have a zero mean, real “noise”, or “disturbances” may not.
I’m not sure where the “ABSOLUTE accuracy” term came up, as it was not in my last post. My figure below, should have the spectral plot (b) labeled as cycles/year. That would mean I was cutting off freq. above 0.02 cycle/yr (50 yr periods) off to see what the lower freq. were doing. So this ~50 yr cycle showed up. This seemed to replicate what is going on now, and a previous cycle in the 1700’s. And in the future I would like to do more analysis in this.
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/t_est_05-NVRm1.gif
However your comment about using Digital Signal Processing-DSP (of which band pass filtering is a part of) is not a accurate way of doing things, is interesting. Then why do they use it financial trading, such as commodities, bonds, stocks etc.? Very simply, it’s another tool to make a dollar. If it didn’t work, they would not use it. Personally I used it for inertial platforms, used in orbit injection, and instrumentation, where tolerances were below arc-sec/sec., and that goes back to the mid sixties. If it was good enough for DOD an NASA then, it should be good enough now.
So just why do you think it’s not a “ACCURATE” way of doing analysis? There are many books and handbooks out there, authored by smarter people then you or I, who might disagree with you. Cooley and Tukey, who developed the FFT, for starters. Instead of being critical the DSP, look into it, you just might end up liking it. And you will have another tool to analyze the climate.
[Response: It is well known that all frequency-domain filtering techniques must contront the same critical problem, how to deal with the non-unique nature of the inversion back to the time domain near the boundaries of the time series. How have you dealt with this issue in your analysis? There are many papers in the climate literature devoted to precisely this issue. See for example my own article in GRL from last year on this very topic. -mike]
8 May 2009 at 10:31 AM
Son of Mulder:
A variety of factors contribute to noise–volcanic eruptions, ENSO, PDO and other oscillations, fluctuations in total solar irradiance, clouds, etc. and on and on. Many of these noise factors are rather complicated and not completely understood. However, noise, by its nature fluctuates–it goes up and down. Rising CO2 levels, however, provide a monotonic upward forcing about which all these oscillations. Thus you’d expect the current decade to be warmer than the last and the last warmer than the one before that. That is in fact the case. From historical data, we expect a steady forcing like CO2 would take ~30 years to stand out prominently from the noise. It does.
8 May 2009 at 10:37 AM
Wayne Davidson wrote, @285, of me:
“Theo is trying to say that AGW should form a continuous rising temperature trend.”
If there were a continuous rising temperature, then things would be much clearer. I understand, however, that there are fluctuations, so one has to do some statistics to the annual average temperatures. I also understand there is El Niño and La Nina. Nevertheless, the graph, at this moment, is somewhat flat.
But please leave this aside for the moment.
What does increasingly concern me is that to some posters on this discussion that if I show the slightest glimmer of doubt on temperature trends, I am cast as a lackey of the Heartland Institute and/or pig ignorant.
So please consider, with empathy, the mental journey I am on.
Once upon a time I believed in global warming. I was an environmental activist. I was part of what was probably the first large-scale street demo to raise awareness of climate change in London. That’s 20 years ago.
Since then, “sceptics” have turned up. There voice is often quite powerful, so I found I needed to find out more about AGW than just accepting what scientists say as gospel. A “yes it is”/”no it isn’t” argument is of little use. You have to use science. So I started to read things such as RC, which discuss the science as opposed to, say the Met Office site, that just say “This is the science”.
At this point I start to find things are not so clear cut as I had imagined. A good example is the two recent discussions on aerosols. Seeing that aerosols are the main counterbalance to CO2 induced warming, I was most surprised to find that scientists working in the field of aerosols were saying that presently often the science was very poorly understood, there were great holes in the data, and the uncertainties were sometimes so vast that potentially they could nearly counter AGW where it is now. Basically, things are not as clear cut some posters here say, even though everything points upwards on the long term temp graph. I have only just discovered this aerosol stuff: previously I would have expected the aerosol stuff to be as solid as the CO2 stuff – but at the moment, it is not
So there is stuff that makes me wonder. Stuff that perplexes me.
But maybe what is happening is that things are getting polarised so climate scientists are assuming public doubt about any aspect is a “skeptic” attack, when it merely honest questioning.
The other day I was talking AWG with a colleague who shares a hobby. He is a retired professor of marine biology but came into that field from a background of extreme pressure engineering (so he knows about bottom of the sea stuff, including methane clathrates, etc). When I challenged AWG with him on a particular thing he went into a highly unexpected and a fairly aggressive “defence mode” as if I were a fully paid up by Exxon professional skeptic. I have to assume that he has had to deal with so many non-scientists who deny AGW that he did not “listen” to my quite detailed, and very genuine, question.
Please do not confuse genuine enquiry and challenge to the orthodoxy as political denial and “professional skepticism”.
………………
PS. I will choose to write British “sceptic” when I mean genuine doubt and the US spelling “skeptic” when I mean the likes of Heartland. ‘Cause the paid skeptics are mostly American.
8 May 2009 at 10:40 AM
Thanks mike for your better response than I would make to #288.
Signal analysis wasn’t a big part of my degree, though I did do an awful lot of units, signal processing was only a small part of a unit that was really intended for electrical engineers.
8 May 2009 at 12:13 PM
Theo Hopkins Says (8 May 2009 at 10:37):
“What does increasingly concern me is that to some posters on this discussion that if I show the slightest glimmer of doubt on temperature trends, I am cast as a lackey of the Heartland Institute and/or pig ignorant.”
I think this is at least in part due to frustration with a lack of basic understanding of the science of AGW. There seems to be a widespread belief that the logical process of discovery is
1) Scientists observe rising temperatures;
2) Scientists observe rising CO2;
3) Scientists conclude that 2 causes 1.
So of course those who want to call AGW into doubt start by attacking 1. However, that’s almost irrelevant, because the real logical process is
1) Scientists study properties of CO2, and observe that it blocks IR radiation;
2) Scientists observe that CO2 is rising;
3) Scientists predict that 1 and 2 will cause rising temperatures;
4) Examination of temperature records shows good agreement with the predictions.
As for the variation over periods of a decade or so, consider a smaller-scale parallel. Annual temperature variation is caused by Earth’s orbital tilt, no? So we should see a sin wave temperature pattern, rising in summer, falling in winter - and if we don’t look too closely that’s just what we see. But by this model July should have fairly constant temperature, when instead there’s considerable day-to-day and week-to-week variation. (Especially around here, where the rare July snowstorm can be followed a week later by 100 degree highs :-)) Does that mean that there’s something wrong with our model of the seasons?
8 May 2009 at 12:30 PM
In #284 Mark asked “What makes you think there is noise introduced by the measuring process?”
Because if I use a thermometer in my garden to measure average temperature there and extrapolate it to the whole planet I think you’d consider that was unreasonable because it would differ from averaging temperature at every point on the planet. Now the difference between real average T and the results obtained by me in my garden or other measuring authorities would be noise to me in the time series introduced by the measuring method.
Then Mark said “There’s no noise in the climate wrt climate, but there’s weather effects rather than climate effects in the data used”.
Compare that with the list of noise items that are provided by Ray Ladbury in #289.
Mark then asked “And how about “an unusually strong El Nino”?”. I’d say that wasn’t noise but just an observable in the climate system.
I’d consider variations of solar irradiance as suggested by Ray as a noise generator.
As such El Nino may have some noise in it.
8 May 2009 at 1:03 PM
Son of Mulder, since climate consists of longterm trends, and an El Nino lasts on order of a year, you would be incorrect in assigning El Nino to climate. Systematic changes of ENSO over time would qualify. Think trends over time, not events.
8 May 2009 at 3:49 PM
re: #290 Theo
“I also understand there is El Niño and La Nina. Nevertheless, the graph, at this moment, is somewhat flat.”
Theo: if you can say this after all the other posts…
Have you yet looked at the Excel model I suggested? If not, why won’t you do that? If so, can you explain why you still say “the graph is flat” as though it means something?
Let me assume,for a little while yet, that you are truly sincere and perplexed. When you come basically quoting standard anti-science memes long debunked, and seemingly won’t go study anything that would help you learn better, you simulate a denier well, because you seem to apply (classical) skepticism to the real science, and none to the anti-science.
A real skeptic learning a new might well say:
a) The scientific consensus seems to be X
b) But, there seems to be some data that is contradictory, or else I don’t understand. Here’s my list: A, B, C.
For example, at one point, some satellite data seemed to contradict the ground data, and at one point was a perfectly rational concern. (I.e., one or the other, or both, must have been wrong. Turned out to be some of the satellite computations.)
Now, I’ll work down the list, study each one, or see if new data arrives. A real skeptic crosses them off. A denier then says, “ahh, but D”, and when D gets knocked off, “ahh, but E”.
But let me assume you’re sincere:
You need to do two things:
a) Build a coherent basis of knowledge in the real science, to whatever level of detail is adequate.
One 200-page general book might satisfy you, in which case I’d recommend:
David Archer, “The Long Thaw”, 2008.
and if you want a second, that overlaps, but illustrates some other issues (including especially Chapter 18, and the general process by which ideas become hypotheses and maybe real theories, in the presence of imperfect data), get:
William Ruddiman, “Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum”, 2005
Plunging into the blog maelstrom is *not* the way to start, especially if you don’t yet have the background to assess what people are saying. Even at RC, it’s too much like trying to understand a long-running dramatic soap opera by picking a few episodes at random.
b) Learn to recognize disinformation, and have a good place to quickly look up something you don’t understand … and then start asking in blogs.
Read through the list at
Skeptical Science, and every time you see something that perplexes you, go there and see if there’s an entry.
So far, you’d want to look at #9 [1998] and #45 [aerosols].
For more detail, see here at RC.
Until you can at least get to a) and b), you are defenseless against folks like Monckton…
8 May 2009 at 4:41 PM
If I were to push him (That’s me, Theo) off the top of the empire state building he wouldn’t fall down in a proper f=ma trajectory. He’d bounce off the walls for a start. He’d wave his arms about going “AAAAARRRRHHHGGGGG!!!!” which would affect his speed.
No. As I plummeted down, I would shout out at each window, “So far - so good!”. (There is probably some mileage in this attitude for skeptics?)
I’m obviously not putting my points acrosss in the right way. My partner would probably concur. She has one of those fancy PhD things. My skills are painting pictures - arty stuff. I’ll stay out of this discussion until I consult with her. Sleep well.
8 May 2009 at 5:02 PM
The truth is out there and asking:
“Now the difference between real average T and the results obtained by me in my garden or other measuring authorities would be noise to me in the time series introduced by the measuring method.”
No, that would be because your thermometer is not global in size. Therefore you are not measuring the earth’s average temperature with it in your back garden.
“Compare that with the list of noise items that are provided by Ray Ladbury in #289.”
Compare with climate not weather. When you quote someone, do you ever read what you quote first to make sure you don’t look like a dork?
“I’d say that wasn’t noise but just an observable in the climate system.”
But it isn’t a climatological event, it is a weather event.
Hence, noise. It gets in the way of the signal.
Read up on EDGE technology and Frequency-based CDMA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_division_multiple_access
Anything not coded to your access channel is noise.
8 May 2009 at 5:39 PM
Mike – Good question. I took a look at your paper. I believe what you are doing is breaking the time series down in to what we used to call “sectioning”, for large increments of data. Am I reading you right? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I gave my Matlab and toolboxes away long ago, so I have a somewhat simpler system now, EXCEL spreadsheet and VB macro. Hence I had to “barrow” the FFT from Steve Smith over at www.dspguide.com
for my simple analysis.
That being said, the end conditions, or “leakage” was evaluated during checkout of the method. That is a known input, sine waves initially were converted to the freq. domain, and then inverted back to the real domain, and compared to the input. That looked OK to two significant digits, particularly at the end points. Also the 350+ year Hadcet yearly data checked the same way. In this case, the end points were the same to about 2-3 significant digits. So much for the quick & dirty checks.
One of the simplest methods to reduce leakage would go to the monthly Hadcet data rather the yearly average which I used. Then the “distance” from the end points is greater. Another would be to add a “Hamming”, or “Hanning” (2 different windows) window. One method Leif Svalgaard used at WUWT is truncating the end points in specific segments. He used for looking at the spectra plot of solar activity. The last method we used to use was to “pad” the end points. That is extend the interval of interest with added “synthetic” data. One of the simplest was to extend these points is with a linear extension of the data (low noise). In the case of high noise, superimpose a random signal on the linear extension.
However in my case I would increase the data points from yearly to monthly, and see how they compared. Another interesting check would be to go with multi-pole recursive low pass filters, (i.e. Chebyshev) and see how they compare at the end.
Your comments?
8 May 2009 at 7:38 PM
re: #294 Ray
The “weather-vs-climate” binary dichotomy is commonly used, but I’m increasinglyconcerned that it may not be an optimal way to explain it.
Colloquially, few people have a problem attaching the term weather to daily changes, especially local. I think most are fine with multi-decadal average changes being climate changes. ENSOs and other ocean oscillations cause people trouble.
In general, given a continuous range (as in this case, a duration), one must be careful to assign discrete labels in ways that make sense. If you tell someone “weather or climate”, a plausible next question is: “going from 1 day up, at what point does weather suddenly become climate? why there?” Ugh, at that point, the listener may be psychologically anchored into confusion.
I’d rather tell people something like (but simpler):
Things happen on time-scales from a few minutes up, we usually call the shorter ones weather, which is very noisy/unpredictable.
When we get to 5 or 10 year averages taken 20-30 years apart, we can find statistically significant changes in climate.
In between are ocean oscillations (like ENSO, PDO) that last one or more years and can have widespread effects. Colloquially, people might call them climate, but they are more like weather, because the the random jiggles average away over longer durations.
8 May 2009 at 9:08 PM
John Mashey, of course, the real definitions of climate and weather are:
Weather–what it’s doing outside right now
Weather forecast–what we think the weather is going to be from tomorrow to 10 days from now
Then you have seasons and finally climate. Personally, I think climate ought to be defined in terms of a confidence level for the trend–e.g. 30 years gives you about 90% confidence that you can really pick out a sore thumb like greenhouse warming from the noise. A lot of climate would take considerably longer than 30 years. It’s not a definition that the average person would relate to, but it’s precise. Of course, that leaves us with nothing to call weather on all the interim time periods other than noise.
9 May 2009 at 2:37 AM
re 299.
How about “It’s been a really hot summer this year”?
For decades, centuries even millenia, it’s been used.
It also shows how with climate one swallow does not a summer make.
9 May 2009 at 2:37 AM
re 298, why did you use a cutoff of frequencies below less than 1 year? It is still including weather.
Why not use a lowess filter on it and look at the graph?
Or scale the log (CO2) growth and fit it to the best fit of the graph and see how much residual there is and whether they can be explained?
In fact, why did you pick FFT as an analysis at all? You also have not shown what physical process your “analysis” is indicating. As many have said, correlation is not causation. They also miss of causation implies correlation.
Where is your causation that your “analysis” finds?
9 May 2009 at 2:39 AM
Theo, what causes your cheeks to wobble as you fall down?
Does not knowing what each wobble you feel or each flap and snap of your shirt mean you can consider that the ground getting closer isn’t really a problem? That because we cannot explain why your coat snapped just THEN means that we cannot say you will go SPLAT! on the ground?
9 May 2009 at 6:56 AM
Son of Mulder writes:
Try using moving averages. 5-year, 10-year, 20-year, 40-year. See what happens to the curve.
9 May 2009 at 9:29 AM
#301 Mark
The term “mizu no kokoro” is Japanese, meaning “a mind like water”. Calm water like a calm mind reflects reality.
What I was referring to, in my reply to Mike, was using finer time increments of one month, rather then the one year increments, in the Hadcet data, I initially used. This would reduce the “leakage” or discontinuities at the end points. And yes I have checked it out with some simple low-pass filters in the 0.01-0.025 freq. region. However first, I have to put together a program for calculating coefficients for higher order recursive filters. The problem with these filters is that they introduce a phase, or time, delay. This is where Fourier Convolution helps. With the low pass conventional filter, the current time period is cut off. Using a Chebyshev low pass filter, which gives a better cut-off, I have a better comparison between the shapes of the FFT and low pass filters, which I have done on a preliminary basis. Anyone who does not cross check his work with other tools, is generally asking for trouble.
Another point is that Convolution methods, like any good tool works in many diverse areas. Analyzing temperature, stock markets, or surface profiles, in single or 2D (i.e. image), it works the same.
As far as CO2, that is not what I am looking at. This is what I am looking at, “is the temperature on the earth going up, and if so, is this part of a natural cycle, or some other cause not explained?”. To date, for me, with the peaking or slight down trend of a ~50 year cycle, it looks like part of a natural cycle.
9 May 2009 at 11:09 AM
Readers here will be interested to know that Monckton has responded over at Deltoid. 2 excerpts:-
“It would be unwise to rely on “Real” Climate on any scientific matter: Schmidt, the blogger, has a substantial financial vested interest in promoting and exaggerating the “global warming” scare. A refutation of Schmidt’s latest less-than-temperate, less-than-accurate posting will appear shortly at www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org.”
“Can it be, perhaps, that those who - like puir wee Schmidt at NASA, or puir wee Lambert at Deltoid - do not have the technical competence or scientific integrity to address in a balanced and reasoned manner the scientific questions I raise find it easier to argue dishonestly ad hominem than honestly ad rem? Magna est veritas, et praevalet. - Monckton of Brenchley”
The phrase “beggars belief” seems somewhat inadequate, doesn’t it?
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/monckton_caught_making_things.php#comment-1618865
[Response: Ha! Pottier and pottier…. - gavin]
9 May 2009 at 11:14 AM
C’mon, we’re still waiting for you to have a chat with tamino, a professional at analyzing time series, over at open mind.
Why don’t you?
If you’ve actually succeeded in overturning the work of thousands of climate scientists, don’t you want to begin convincing professional statisticians and the like, and to begin writing this up for publication in a major scientific journal?
Fame awaits you …
9 May 2009 at 11:46 AM
#305 Beginning should read: #302 - Mark
#307 - Why? He shows temps increasing, and over the past ~8 years they have been going down, or holding. So which fits the data better? Besides, using even moving averages introduces phase or time delays.
As far as “debating” him, I will if I have time, however spring has FINALLY arrived, and have to much outdoor things to do. Oh, how do you know I’m not a professional? Besides I’m much to humble to overturn the thoughts of all those people, they have to make up their own minds.
9 May 2009 at 11:56 AM
J. Bob Says (9 May 2009 at 9:29):
“As far as CO2, that is not what I am looking at.”
Maybe you should? It seems that you are working backwards: see if there has been an effect, and only then think about the cause. That may be a useful tool for teasing out explanations for past behavior, but for predicting the future, it’s usually more useful to start at the beginning - with known physics - and work forwards.
9 May 2009 at 3:33 PM
It depends on whether your trying to show the wiggles, or the underlying trend. It’s the trend we’re we’re concerned about, not whether the current (or recently ended) La Niña has caused energy within the system to be shuffled around in a way that causes atmospheric temps to flatten, just as the next El Niño will cause warming beyond the underlying trend. We know that we’ll have future La Niña and El Niño (and other) events. We know we’re in a solar minimum. You, and Spencer with his 4th degree polynomial fit, and others doing similar things all have a common goal of making short-term noise appear to “refute” CO2-forced warming. You’ll drop it just as soon as the next El Niño awakens, never to be heard from again, I’m sure. Because the logical conclusion would have to become “oh, now it’s warming 2x as fast a the IPCC projections suggest!” and that would run counter to your agenda … all of a sudden short term “trends” will be too short-term to be useful.
That’s what you said a few weeks ago when you (temporarily) terminated your drive-by “oh, look, I proved it’s natural cycles!” “proof”. “Bye, I’m leaving, too busy, ta-ta!”
You’re an engineer, not a statistician or scientist.
9 May 2009 at 3:46 PM
J. Bob - so you are using a technique that will find cycles in just about any data you throw at it, and you found a cycle? That’s… interesting.
But what is your hypothesis that lead you to assume a cyclical nature to the data? Did you have an a priori reason to suspect a 50-year cycle based on a hypothesis you were testing? Or did you just tweak the parameters until a cycle appeared?
More importantly, what was the null hypothesis you were testing against? “The data is not cyclical” or “The data shows random variability”? This is important, because the first one implies that you already have some reason to suspect that the data is not random.
If you take the second null hypothesis, then you certainly would not start with FFT as your analysis technique. Looking at rolling averages gives you a pretty strong hint that there is a linear trend evident, so simple regression is enough in this case - and that most certainly gives a significant result with which we can reject the null hypothesis that the data shows random variability. We can then show correlation with CO2, because we have a hypothesis that suggests we should see a correlation between the temperature increase and the CO2 increase. And whaddya know - the correlation between temperature and CO2 is significant.
Any other analysis therefore cannot exclude CO2, because we have shown:
a) CO2 has been increasing over the last 150 years
b) The global temperature been increasing over the last 150 years
c) Our knowledge of CO2 says that if a) is happening, there should be a strong correlation between a) and b), which there is
You are assuming that there is an unknown variant driving the temperature record. However, there is a known variant - CO2, so a univariate analysis of the temperature records is just not appropriate. I suppose you could do a multivariate analysis, so that you could try and analyse the variance that is not due to CO2 - but then, that’s not what you are trying to prove, is it?
Oh, and as for temperatures going down in the last 8 years, 2005 and 2007 were both warmer than 1998, so how exactly are temperatures going down?
9 May 2009 at 3:46 PM
Jbob, Just wondering. Do you think you are the only person to get a “Fun with Fourier Transforms” kit for Christmas and apply it to climate data? There are all sorts of peaks in there, but unfortunately there’s a dearth of physics. It’s pretty easy to cherrypick a couple of peaks that have the right frequency and explain a single trend. What do your Fourier transforms tell you about the cooling of the stratosphere or the fact that last frost dates are about 3 weeks earlier than they were a few decades ago?
Also, do you really think you’ve learned all there is to know about statistics from a fricking Six-Sigma class or two?
A good engineer is always looking to add new tools to his toolbox. The shelves for physics and statistics in yours seem pretty spare. But then to a man with only a hammer in his toolbox, everything looks like a nail.
You claim things are cooling–and yet every year this decade has been one of the 10 warmest. Funny definition of cooling.
You don’t go to Open Mind to “debate”. We’ve got enough Master “debaters” there already. Try going there to learn something.
9 May 2009 at 5:36 PM
In # 294 Ray Ladbury said “Son of Mulder, since climate consists of longterm trends, and an El Nino lasts on order of a year, you would be incorrect in assigning El Nino to climate. Systematic changes of ENSO over time would qualify. Think trends over time, not events.”
Please read what I said… “Mark then asked “And how about “an unusually strong El Nino”?”. I’d say that wasn’t noise but just an observable in the climate system.”
I didn’t assign El Nino to climate, I said it was an observable in the climate system. Consider, how can you talk of ENSO unless there are some observables that it creates? eg El Nino, La Nina’.
Then Mark said in #297 ” No, that would be because your thermometer is not global in size. Therefore you are not measuring the earth’s average temperature with it in your back garden.”
Precisely, did you not twig I was using a reductio ad absurdum? Nor are the methods used historically to calculate global average temperature, global in size. They are a patchwork extrapolating readings and knitting together an ‘approximate measure of global average temperature’ which is not identical to the real thing which would be impractical to measure. The difference between real and any attempted measure is noise introduced by the measuring system.
Also in #297 Mark said “When you quote someone, do you ever read what you quote first to make sure you don’t look like a dork?”
I do, you clearly don’t… and I’m much more polite as well.