Who here is a global warming skeptic?

[JohnB]

Hi POL, long time no see.

 

Do you have a cite for those "DEEP Climate Studies"? FFS, to predict (sorry project) human societal and technological development for the next 50,000 years? What did they use? A Ouija board? It is quite possible that 50,000 years from now mankind will be spread over hundreds of planets and "Earth" will be nothing more than a half forgotten legend.

 

This is part of the problem I have with sections of climate science. That these sorts of wild and woolly thinking and absolutely useless "projections" can be even thought of as "science". They are junk pseudoscience. While many, if not most, branches of science use models in one form or another, models have some sort of V & V process, something that climate models sadly lack. To even begin to waste time on a 50,000 year projection the first question has to be "How was the model tested and verified?" The quick answer is that it probably wasn't. Since the spread of projections for the model ensemble used by the IPCC is somewhere between -4 degrees and +10 degrees by 2100 compared to now, how big are the error bars going to be after 50,000 years? The spread would cover every possibility from Earth going down to absolute zero to being hot enough to melt steel. Useless navel gazing and not a sred of "science" about it.

 

However, even it was correct, what exactly is the problem? The next Ice Age is cancelled and New York, London and most European cities won't be covered by a mile of ice? How is this bad news?

 

Yes, we will run out of coal, and reach a peak before then, but I don't see your solution as a good one. As coal becomes rarer it will become more expensive, this will force the change to cheaper forms of energy in a natural process. The idea of changing now (especially using subsidies) is a fools game. Firstly since the industry is strongly subsidised there is no incentive to reduce the price or become more efficient. (Just pulling figures out of the air here.) Why would an industry being paid say 70c/kwh for power (mostly in subsidies) bother trying to reduce costs so that they can sell for 10c/kwh like coal power? You might believe that companies that make a profit will cut their prices by that much (and give up their subsidies to boot) out of the goodness of their hearts, but I don't. Flannereys geothermal outfit has had $90 million from the taxpayers and has yet to produce a single watt. I'm sure he'll be both trotters in the trough for some of Gillards $10 billion for "renewables" as well.

 

Secondly and more importantly changing now locks us into current technologies and this is bad. We might finish up with pissant little windfarms dotting the landscape while the rest of the world moves over to fusion power. Look at the stupidity of the NBN to see how a gov mandated change locks a nation into poor and outmoded technology. You must also realise that 30 years from now the "renewables" industry will be well entrenched and will fight tooth and nail to stop any new forms of power generation that threaten their market share. It is far better to make the change later when coal is getting more expensive and we can choose from the best and most effective technologies available rather than doing it now on the premise and promise that these subsidised technologies will work out.

 

Thirdly. The only way out of the poverty trap for the poorer nations is cheap and abundant power, without that there will be no growth. Those nations can't afford expensive power, their economies simply aren't strong enough. Wind and solar simply don't generate enough power for those nations to develop. How many in the Third World are you willing to condemn to disease, poverty and early deaths? So let them develop and burn all the coal they want. It will run out faster and the change to other forms will come sooner, but those economies will them be strong enough to make the change.

 

What we owe our grandchildren is a civilisation where rolling blackouts are rare and not the norm. Where the idea of throwing a switch and having light isn't the stuff of legend and "Grandfather Tales". We owe them a future where they have more than we do and not less.

 

I did however have some valid questions that Professor Plimer seemed to enjoy answering.

 

You were the interviewer? Cool.

 

BTW, I'm a Brisbanite and Peak Oil Man is a Sydneysider. There are more than a few Aussies here.

 

There is quite a bit of work being done concerning the Sun and its possible effects. For example Empirical analysis of the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change by Nicola Scafetta. Another paper of his is Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications. What is interesting here is the fact that temp changes are cyclic and do match quite well with cycles within the Solar System. The exact mechanism by which the cycles have an effect he doesn't know. The correlation is very strong but correlation does not imply causation, a mechanism must be found. However his P values imply that his "Solar" model will easily outperform the GISS Model E climate model.

 

WorldOfBiochemistry,

Nevertheless, the weather is changing and would change even in the absence of mankind. We are just accelerating the process...

 

Are we? Of the three warming periods since 1850 only the most recent (1970-2000) is believed to be anthropogenic. The rate of temp rise in this most recent period is indistinguishable from the rate of rise of the earler two warming periods. Each period was of 30 years duration with a rate of temp rise of circa .16⁰/decade. Where is the acceleration? The mild warming since 1850 (.7 degrees in 150 years is mild) is left for dead by the wild swings shown in the ice cores.

[Essay]

Speaking of skepticism, I enjoyed this exchange between top-ten denialist, Fred Singer, and top-ten carbon-cycle expert, Prof. Dr. Scott Denning, which is reprised in this news article.

 

http://www.coloradoa...te-science-bunk-

 

"You don't vote in science," Singer said, criticizing peer review.

 

CSU atmospheric science professor Scott Denning interrupted [from the audience], saying he's skeptical and needs a high degree of evidence to believe a claim that runs contrary to common sense.

 

"So, you know, you don't really think humans cause climate change; we think heat causes climate change," he said. "We know that burning fossil fuel produces CO2, we know that CO2 emits heat. Now most people know that heat warms things up."

 

"You hypothesize that something's going to come and get rid of all that heat," he told Gray and Singer, "but you haven't told us what it is that's going to get rid of that heat or why you believe it's going to get rid of all that heat, and I would suggest that people be pretty skeptical of that claim. Why should we believe you?"

 

"Scientists should all be skeptical," Singer said.

Well now, that was a snappy and insightful comeback.

===

 

For comments on the follow up article:

http://www.coloradoa...tics-challenged

 

For comments on the original article:

http://www.coloradoa...te-science-bunk-

===

 

Dr. Denning is currently posting on both; but be sure not to miss the links for "replies" that are follow-ups, or additional comments specific to the post, (at the bottom of some posts) which only display when clicked.

 

...comments such as....

The real point, as I tried in vain to get Fred Singer to address, is that CO2 emits heat (measured), and that heat warms things up (measured). Climate sensitivity is quantitatively shown by the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period, and (especially) the Pleistocene Ice Ages.

 

Consensus? Who cares! Common sense? You bet!

 

-Dr. Denning

 

Without the heat radiated downward from greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, the Earth's surface temperature would plummet by hundreds of degrees every night, just like on the Moon. The Earth's surface receives nearly twice as much heat radiation from atmospheric greenhouse gases as it absorbs from the Sun. This is not a matter of opinion, but can easily be measured by instruments.

 

-Dr. Denning

 

Thank you Dr. Denning, for sharing your skepticism....

 

~

[JohnB]

Hi Essay, thanks for the links.

 

I had seen the first article but found the writing style soporific and never read it to the end or read the comments. Too often there is an article but those involved don't join in the conversation, thanks for pointing me to them.

 

The replies of "Abilitytoreason" would imply to me that he is either Roy Spencer or William Braswell due to the comment

Obviously, knowing the strength of feedbacks in the climate system is critical; this is the subject of most of my research. Here you can read about my latest work on the subject, in which I show that feedbacks previously estimated from satellite observations of natural climate variability have potentially large errors. A confusion between forcing and feedback (loosely speaking, cause and effect) when observing cloud behavior has led to the illusion of a sensitive climate system, when in fact our best satellite observations (when carefully and properly interpreted) suggest an IN-sensitive climate system.

 

AFAIK, these two are the only ones publishing on this particular topic. It doesn't quite sound like Dr Spencer though, the writing style is sometimes quite similar to his blog postings and at other times quite dissimilar.

 

I did enjoy the comment by "DrDadPhD" that "Spencer is out of his field". One of the guys responsible for the UAH Global Temperature seris is "out of his field" talking about global temperatures?

 

It's great to see Dr Denning contributing and continuing the process begun by Dr Curry over at Climate Etc. Any way you look at it, the climate debate is a major thing and will set policies around the world for decades. The more scientists actually involved in the debate the better from my POV, especially since they can answer questions and clarify points as they arise.

[robheus]

As my position is towards the AGW issue I agree with the majority of scientists that this is the case as far as science can tell, and I don't side with those who either think that the science is a complot or a fraud, since none of that has been proven, and why should climate scientists be any different in that respect as other scientists?

 

However: I AM sceptic about the political/economical aspect, that even when AGW shows that human are the prime cause of AGW, the changes necessarily and economically show to be near unsolvable.

The proof of that is the current global financial and economic crisis, which more or less proofs, we can not even control the economy in the short terms, let alone plan for long terms. Short term profits dominate the financial investment markets, and keep us tied up into short term thinking, and wasting of valuable time, while we should be planning for the future. The energy crisis necitates us for planning for the long term future.

Currently though, too little money is being invested in development and deployment of renewable techniques, because they always find short term investment goals which appear to be more profitable, but in doing so, destroy our future and cause the financial crisis and meltdown which we face now.

 

However, we should plan for our future.

 

And for two urgent reasons:

- natural energy deposits are being depleted and the possibiliy of scarcity in immediate or further future already means that countries compete for resources, oil wars are being fought, etc.

- we need to transition from depleting resources to renewable resources, because they are the only sustainable future we can think of.

 

(so, I don think of AGW as a prime reason for this transition to be necessary, but then, since this transition will cause a shift from fossil to renewable, it will of course be part of the solution needed to prevent as far as possible any more AGW.)

 

A lot of renewable opportunities are still underdeveloped, are not anywhere near their theoretical limit of efficiency (except maybe for wind energy) and can become a lot cheaper as currently is the case.

It is thought though that renewables will become competetive, and after that more money flows into the development of renewables, in due time.

However, I am not sure if that is early enough to escape the problem of resource depletion or peak oil scenario and global warming effects.

Since we do know or at least can calculate that some of these techniques will become cheaper in the future, there is reason to think we can speed the development up, for instance by allowing deployment of renewable resources to have some subsidy, and stop subsidizing fossils fuels. Germany did that, and I think they have in the future a better economy, since when the investments are paid off, prices of renewable energy will sink while energy prices keep rising.

We can invest lots of money in this kind of development, take for instance pension funds, they don't need to have a return on investment in a short time, it is sufficient that the pension money that is invested makes a good return when the people retire, so there is room there for long term investments, and other parts of the markets too I suppose.

Edited July 16, 2012 by robheus

[Suxamethonium]

I was reading a post that used this picture (below) to support their argument that CO₂ has no effect on the rate of heating, and that therefore there is no man made global warming effect. I just wanted to point out that whilst the rate may have been the same (and as such may be a natural fluctuation) the mean value over that range has increased dramatically (potentially in correspondence with the increased CO₂). This could potentially explain why the second peak was only marginally higher than the first peak? Either way I found this interesting and thought I would mention it.

 

 

 

 

 

[swansont]

The graph is an example of cherry-picking, because it only looks at sections of the temperature curve, and ignores other known factors which affect temperature, e.g. severe volcanic activity around 1910 depressed temperatures and makes the subsequent rise more dramatic, and pollution effects that cause cooling that were reduced in the 1970s. Also, temperature depends on the CO2 concentration, not the emission levels. The emission levels could be flat if the concentration continued to rise, and we would still see a temperature increase. (That rate would be slowing, though, because the dependence is logarithmic)

[Suxamethonium]

Yeah true, although I was mainly just proposing that should the graph be valid it would probably better indicate that man made CO₂ did effect the mean temperature increase, even if the localised rates (shown) were the same rather than supporting the proposed argument that global warming and unnatural CO₂ emission were not related at all (based on the assumption that other CO₂ sources and sinks remained constant i.e. human CO₂ emissions increase ∝ to CO₂ concentration increase).

Edited July 16, 2012 by Suxamethonium

[JohnB]

Since the warming started in around 1850 how in hell is showing the temp rise from 1850-2010 "Cherry picking"? It's the entire period of interest. Ans if that is "Cherry Picking" what do you call it when people only look at the period 1980-2000?

 

What the graph shows is that the three periods of warming since 1850 have exactly the same slope, .16⁰/decade. Of these three warmings the first is supposed to be totally natural, the second is a mix of both natural and Anthro influence and the third is supposed to be almost entirely anthro. What it also demonstrates is that the simplest answer, that there is a 60 year oscillation around a baseline rise of .5degrees/century provides the closest match to the actual temperature record. IIRC the correlation is around .85. To go the anthro route you have to believe that quite a lot of unrelated things just happened to happen at exactly the right time and with exactly the right influence in a manner of such fine precision as to virtually prove the existence of God.

 

I'd really like someone to explain the magical process by which the three warmings are identical even though the causes vary so much because it ain't in the literature. Is there some magical limiting factor that stops warming from being more than .16 degrees? I doubt it because the long records show that world temps have changed a lot faster than that. So why are the three the same? Co-incidence? Here's a thought. Maybe the anthro influence is much smaller than we thought and most of the rise since 1850 has been natural. There's ascary theory, that mankind is relatively powerless against the forces of nature.

 

and pollution effects that cause cooling that were reduced in the 1970s

 

Of course the same pollutants were climbing sky high out of Asia at the time so I guess only Western pollutants are bad? sulfates are the ones we are concerned about here and are discussed in Section 2.4.4.1 of AR4.

Estimates of global SO2 emissions range from 66.8 to 92.4 TgS yr1 for anthropogenic emissions in the 1990s and from 91.7 to 125.5 TgS yr1 for total emissions. Emissions of SO2 from 25 countries in Europe were reduced from approximately 18 TgS yr1 in 1980 to 4 TgS yr1 in 2002 (Vestreng et al., 2004). In the USA, the emissions were reduced from about 12 to 8 TgS yr1 in the period 1980 to 2000 (EPA, 2003). However, over the same period SO2 emissions have been increasing significantly from Asia, which is estimated to currently emit 17 TgS yr1 (Streets et al., 2003), and from developing countries in other regions (e.g., Lefohn et al., 1999; Van Aardenne et al., 2001; Boucher and Pham, 2002). The most recent study (Stern, 2005) suggests a decrease in global anthropogenic emissions from approximately 73 to 54 TgS yr1 over the period 1980 to 2000, with NH emission falling from 64 to 43 TgS yr1 and SH emissions increasing from 9 to 11 TgS yr1. Smith et al. (2004) suggested a more modest decrease in global emissions, by some 10 TgS yr1 over the same period.

 

Note the wide range of the estimates mentioned, from 66.8 to 92.4 TgS yr-1. So plus or minus about 20% we've got that figure nailed down. We can't get aerosols nailed down to within 20% but we can with "high confidence" say that X% of the .8% change in forcing since 1850 is due to those aerosols. Gotta love post modern science.

 

Many people like to point to the aerosols figures and say "See, we cleaned up the air and the temps went up" but we didn't clean up the air as the IPCC admits. Smith et al 2004 suggest the emissions were reduced from 73 TgS yr-1 by only 10 TgS yr-1 which is around a 15% reduction globally for the period 1980-2000, hardly cleaning up the air. You have to believe in a very finely balanced climate system to think that such a small change in SO2 emissions could have such a large effect. Of course, if you believe the climate system is so extremely finely balanced and fragile you then have to explain how, with all the perurbing factors (including very large meteorite strikes) it hasn't been thrown permanently out of kilter sometine in the last 4 billion years. And so we come back to magic and the "Will of God" keeping the fragile balance of nature, otr some such malarky.

Edited July 16, 2012 by JohnB

[swansont]

Since the warming started in around 1850 how in hell is showing the temp rise from 1850-2010 "Cherry picking"? It's the entire period of interest. Ans if that is "Cherry Picking" what do you call it when people only look at the period 1980-2000?

 

You didn't notice the lavender arrows and the objection to them?

 

 

What the graph shows is that the three periods of warming since 1850 have exactly the same slope, .16⁰/decade.

 

Ah, you did notice them.

 

Of these three warmings the first is supposed to be totally natural, the second is a mix of both natural and Anthro influence and the third is supposed to be almost entirely anthro. What it also demonstrates is that the simplest answer, that there is a 60 year oscillation around a baseline rise of .5degrees/century provides the closest match to the actual temperature record. IIRC the correlation is around .85. To go the anthro route you have to believe that quite a lot of unrelated things just happened to happen at exactly the right time and with exactly the right influence in a manner of such fine precision as to virtually prove the existence of God.

 

I'd really like someone to explain the magical process by which the three warmings are identical even though the causes vary so much because it ain't in the literature. Is there some magical limiting factor that stops warming from being more than .16 degrees? I doubt it because the long records show that world temps have changed a lot faster than that. So why are the three the same? Co-incidence? Here's a thought. Maybe the anthro influence is much smaller than we thought and most of the rise since 1850 has been natural. There's ascary theory, that mankind is relatively powerless against the forces of nature.

 

The magic is in the cherry-picking. Pick the trough and a following peak to show an increase. Pick your exact points to fine-tune the value.

 

Cyclical? Only if you don't have the same period. Why does the first cycle only have a 19-year increase? And the last one, despite the arrow ending when it does, at 40 (and counting)? I can show a polynomial fit if you give me enough terms.

 

I thought the powerless against nature theory took a hit with all the pollution that we had, that finally required the EPA in the US, and also with the CFC levels affecting the ozone. We've shown we can affect nature.

[JohnB]

The magic is in the cherry-picking. Pick the trough and a following peak to show an increase. Pick your exact points to fine-tune the value.

 

I would have to argue that choosing any point except the peak and trough would be cherry picking. If I'm looking at an amplitude I use the peak and trough, not some arbitary point on the curve.

 

Cyclical? Only if you don't have the same period. Why does the first cycle only have a 19-year increase? And the last one, despite the arrow ending when it does, at 40 (and counting)? I can show a polynomial fit if you give me enough terms.

 

Due to the sparsity of instruments in the period 1850-1860 I personally have doubts about that part of the curve. The period of warming could have been longer (and is IIRC in the CRU graphs) but doesn't show properly due to lack of data. I can't agree with the 40 (and counting) as I'm averse to such "creative" accounting. As was pointed out in this article some time ago the slope from 1975-1998 is .166 degrees yet the slope from 1975-2009 is only .161 degrees. The lesser slope over the longer period is due to the hiatus in warming since about 2000. So to say the warming period is "still" going on is misleading to say the least.

 

If you don't think the warming period stopped, then you're pretty much on your own on that. Everyone else from Phil Jones to Kevin Trenberth has said it stopped some time ago. Remember the "travesty" comment? "We can't account for the lack of warming....."

 

And I'll save you the time. Here's the 4th order polynomial from 1979 onward (Sorry it's so big);

 

I thought the powerless against nature theory took a hit with all the pollution that we had, that finally required the EPA in the US, and also with the CFC levels affecting the ozone. We've shown we can affect nature.

 

I don't think the data shows that at all. Between 1980 and 2000 as the above quote from AR4 shows, America reduced its output from 12 to 8 TgS yr-1 a reduction of only 4 Tgs yr-1. During the same period Asia increased from not much (although there seems to be a lack of actual data on this) to 17 Tgs yr-1. Given the massive industrial expansion throughout Asia in the last 30 years the increase in their output more than compensates for the reductions made by the West. The problem is that aerosol amounts are not actually measured but are estimated from fossil fuel consumption. Unless you get right down to who burnt what amount from where along with a decent analysis of each different type of coal etc available, then all you get are very wide estimate marks. This was shown by the IPCC estimate which is pretty much + or - 20%.

 

And the actions of the US are really obvious in the records as well;

 

Yep, I can really see that temperature rise since you cleaned up the air..........Oh, wait......

 

So temps must have soared since you cleaned up the air, the States must have set a lot of new records for warmth recently;

 

Okay, well at least the 2000s must be high on the list of record setters, right? I mean you've just had (or are having) a heatwave;

 

swansont, I just don't see that the data supports a causal relationship concerning the aerosols. By first order logic and "Rule of Thumb" you would expect something but the actual reductions weren't that much at all worldwide, only 15% or so, so it's a long bow to draw to say that this had such a major effect. And it's very obvious that it had no appreciable effect at all in the USA. And I really can't see how the claim could be made that cleaning up the mess in the West could have a global but not local (regional) effect. That would make no sense at all.

 

I've also hit comments recently but haven't been able to find a confirming paper, that human CFCs might not have been as important as we once thought, which puts us back into the "powerless" category. Don't you find it a little odd that people are claiming great effects on the climate system from miniscule changes to a trace gas when we can't even make it rain when we want? We can influence the entire system, apparently to destruction yet cannot influence any weather phenomenon in any way. With the possible exception of a meteor strike we have exactly zero ability to effect any natural disaster in any way, but we can modify the entire system.

[Suxamethonium]

I thought CFC's were primarily involved with ozone destruction (known mechanism?) by radical propagation. This resulted in increased UV transmittance NOT increased temperature. Whilst they are greenhouse gases I was under the impression that they are not nearly as important as CO₂ H₂O and methane?

 

Don't you find it a little odd that people are claiming great effects on the climate system from miniscule changes to a trace gas when we can't even make it rain when we want?

 

And we can make it rain when we want... We have seeded clouds with silver iodide or other salts and had exactly this effect. China did this to stop rain during the 2008 olympics (by making it rain before it got there)....

 

(And I do realise the controversy around the effectiveness of cloud seeding (particularly in regards to solving water issues), however it has been reported to have caused rain before to some extent by various sources which is enough to demonstrate the point even if the 'technology' isn't very practical at the moment).

Edited July 17, 2012 by Suxamethonium

[JohnB]

(And I do realise the controversy around the effectiveness of cloud seeding (particularly in regards to solving water issues), however it has been reported to have caused rain before to some extent by various sources which is enough to demonstrate the point

 

And I can name at least two witches who you never allow to call water in a circle because every time they have done so the area they were in was flooded. We have zero control over the weather and cloud seeding can only work if nature provides all the correct conditions first. A similar situation to the old joke about the scientist that tells God man is now his equal. God suggests he prove it by fashioning life from dirt and so the scientist picks up a handful and starts working. God says "Uh uh. Make your own dirt."

 

This resulted in increased UV transmittance NOT increased temperature. Whilst they are greenhouse gases I was under the impression that they are not nearly as important as CO2 H2O and methane?

 

The importance is not as a GHG. Climate is a very complex system and one part of this complexity is that incoming UV is "converted" at the surface to outgoing IR. So if the UV increases then so does the temperature. This is why arguments about the lack of variability of Solar output are often moot. It's not whether the total solar radiation has changed or not, but whether the composition has changed. If there is a decrease in frequencies that don't change to IR at the surface and an increase in those that do, then even though total output is the same, there will be a warming effect.

 

People who argue that incoming radiation is holding steady at about 1364W/M-2 are only looking at half the story.

 

I do wonder if the composition thing is part of the answer to why we get Ice Ages etc. Clouds and WV are very effective at blocking IR, just note how the temperature drops when a cloud passes in front of the Sun on a hot day. Solar radiation that is more in the IR than UV shining onto a cloudy world won't have a lot reaching the surface and things would get cold pretty quickly. It takes the UV to penetrate the clouds and become IR to keep the planet warm. If it's 5 degrees cooler on a cloudy day and we are only 1 degree above "Little Ice Age" temps it doesn't take a lot of cloud to make life difficult.

[swansont]

Due to the sparsity of instruments in the period 1850-1860 I personally have doubts about that part of the curve. The period of warming could have been longer (and is IIRC in the CRU graphs) but doesn't show properly due to lack of data. I can't agree with the 40 (and counting) as I'm averse to such "creative" accounting. As was pointed out in this article some time ago the slope from 1975-1998 is .166 degrees yet the slope from 1975-2009 is only .161 degrees. The lesser slope over the longer period is due to the hiatus in warming since about 2000. So to say the warming period is "still" going on is misleading to say the least.

 

What hiatus? 11 of the 12 warmest years on record have been since 2000. How is that "misleading"? Over the last 10 years there should have been some very noticeable cooling, if this cyclical hypothesis is correct. It's not there.

 

The fact that the overall slope is .161 rather than .166 shows that there is cherry-picking going on — the start and end points were specifically chosen to give that value. Choosing 1998 as an end point is a dead giveaway, since it was a fluctuation on the high side.

 

If you don't think the warming period stopped, then you're pretty much on your own on that. Everyone else from Phil Jones to Kevin Trenberth has said it stopped some time ago. Remember the "travesty" comment? "We can't account for the lack of warming....."

 

I recall the comments, and how they are quite dishonestly represented out of context. IIRC, that discussion has already taken place. Jones did not say that warming has stopped — he was discussing statistical significance — and Trenberth's comment was on the lack of instrumentation.

 

I don't think the data shows that at all.

 

What data? I was talking about pollution and CFCs. Air and drinking water quality and the ozone layer were all negatively affected by human action, and improved with further human action. We are not powerless to affect nature.

[JohnB]

What hiatus? 11 of the 12 warmest years on record have been since 2000. How is that "misleading"? Over the last 10 years there should have been some very noticeable cooling, if this cyclical hypothesis is correct. It's not there.

 

Compare the period say 1993-2003, it was warming. Since 2003 at least it's done no warming. The temps plateued. To try to run the slope out to 2012 is like taking the last 20,000 years and running the warming out to the present rather than the actual end of the Ice Age. By your argument, we are still "warming" after exiting the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago. And if your all powerful CO2 idea was right there should have been quite noticable warming. It's not there either. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I forgot the magical "aerosols" that let you have any answer you want.

 

You see I'm having trouble keeping up with the stories and how it's supposed to work. The decrease in aerosols led to warming from CO2, but the lack of warming since 2000 odd is due to the increase in aerosols. That was the increase that the IPCC noted as going from 73 to 54 TgS yr–1 between 1980 and 2000. But that's a decrease and should have led to warming since 2000, but it didn't because.........Oh yes, that's right, SO aerosols are actually twice as strong a forcer as we thought and so even though the amount reduces the cooling effect can increase.

 

Have a look at the graph. Any way you want to slice it the temps have been hanging around the .2 anomaly since at least 2003. They haven't gone anywhere even though CO2 has continued to increase.

 

I recall the comments, and how they are quite dishonestly represented out of context. IIRC, that discussion has already taken place. Jones did not say that warming has stopped — he was discussing statistical significance — and Trenberth's comment was on the lack of instrumentation.

 

Not quite, and not dishonest. Trenberths comment was about instrumentation. Since there was a lack of warming, and based on his "Energy Budget" the energy was "missing" (it still is BTW) he complained that there was no instrumentation to show where the missing heat had gone. Of course there is the simple idea that his "budget" is wrong and the missing heat doesn't exist and therefore hasn't gone anywhere. IIRC the latest theory is that the missing heat has passed from the top of the ocean to the 3,000 m level without passing or registering on any ARGO bouy as it went past. Incredibly handy that the models "show" the warming is occurring in the one place that our instruments can't check isn't it? It does make sense though, every other place the models "showed" the heat had gone to our instruments could check and we found the heat hadn't gone there. The abyssal depths were the only place left for it to be hiding.

 

It's like ancient cultures putting their Gods into the sky. They have to be there because if they were "over the mountain" some silly bugger would walk over the hill and have a look.

 

What data? I was talking about pollution and CFCs. Air and drinking water quality and the ozone layer were all negatively affected by human action, and improved with further human action. We are not powerless to affect nature.

 

My apologies, I thought we were talking about global climate, you were just talking about crap in a creek and local air quality.

[swansont]

Compare the period say 1993-2003, it was warming. Since 2003 at least it's done no warming. The temps plateued. To try to run the slope out to 2012 is like taking the last 20,000 years and running the warming out to the present rather than the actual end of the Ice Age. By your argument, we are still "warming" after exiting the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago. And if your all powerful CO2 idea was right there should have been quite noticable warming. It's not there either. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I forgot the magical "aerosols" that let you have any answer you want.

 

You see I'm having trouble keeping up with the stories and how it's supposed to work. The decrease in aerosols led to warming from CO2, but the lack of warming since 2000 odd is due to the increase in aerosols. That was the increase that the IPCC noted as going from 73 to 54 TgS yr–1 between 1980 and 2000. But that's a decrease and should have led to warming since 2000, but it didn't because.........Oh yes, that's right, SO aerosols are actually twice as strong a forcer as we thought and so even though the amount reduces the cooling effect can increase.

 

Have a look at the graph. Any way you want to slice it the temps have been hanging around the .2 anomaly since at least 2003. They haven't gone anywhere even though CO2 has continued to increase.

 

IOW, they haven't dropped, as the cyclical hypothesis demands. Which was my point.

 

Not quite, and not dishonest. Trenberths comment was about instrumentation. Since there was a lack of warming, and based on his "Energy Budget" the energy was "missing" (it still is BTW) he complained that there was no instrumentation to show where the missing heat had gone. Of course there is the simple idea that his "budget" is wrong and the missing heat doesn't exist and therefore hasn't gone anywhere. IIRC the latest theory is that the missing heat has passed from the top of the ocean to the 3,000 m level without passing or registering on any ARGO bouy as it went past. Incredibly handy that the models "show" the warming is occurring in the one place that our instruments can't check isn't it? It does make sense though, every other place the models "showed" the heat had gone to our instruments could check and we found the heat hadn't gone there. The abyssal depths were the only place left for it to be hiding.

 

It's like ancient cultures putting their Gods into the sky. They have to be there because if they were "over the mountain" some silly bugger would walk over the hill and have a look.

 

If his budget is wrong, someone should demonstrate it. But that doesn't change what he was complaining about, and it wasn't that warming had stopped.

[JohnB]

IOW, they haven't dropped, as the cyclical hypothesis demands. Which was my point.

 

And they haven't been going up either, which was my point. The thing I do find interesting is that in a warming world it is generally not the maximums that increase but the minimums. This has the effect of raising the average temps. Which is why the average can be higher than in the past but actual high temp records can be set long ago. I've wondered elsewhere if the same thing doesn't happen to climate in general. The drop in 1880-1910 is much greater than in 1940-1970 (Roughly) so it seems reasonable to wonder if the increase in CO2 isn't effecting the "minimums" of the cycle. If this idea is correct we would expect the downslope of the current "cooling" cycle to be less than the cooling from 1940-1970. And since the cooling from 1940-1970 wasn't much we would expect the current "cooling" to be about nothing., which is what we are seeing.

 

While this would relegate CO2 to a more minor forcing than natural ones, it does very simply explain the observed temp trends since 1850.

 

If his budget is wrong, someone should demonstrate it. But that doesn't change what he was complaining about, and it wasn't that warming had stopped.

 

Actually there are other "budgets" around that use different factors;

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=energy+budget+of+earth&hl=en&rlz=1T4GGHP_en-GBAU479AU480&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NHQHUOKMC8aOiAe67eTuAw&ved=0CEEQ_AUoAQ&biw=1999&bih=887&sei=4nQHUOK2L42TiQfcusT3Aw

 

The main difference between Trenberths budget and others is the very large back radiation from the greenhouse effect. This is sometimes calculated to be even larger than the total incoming Solar radiation and if you look at a few of the diagrams you'll see values from 324w/m-2 through to 340w/m-2. Notice that this difference is 10 times the total estimated increase in energy since 1850.

 

His statement was "We cannot account for the recent lack of warming....." I do not see how "lack of warming" can be construed to mean "continued warming", so yes it was that warming had stopped. (or leveled off, plateaued, whatever you want to call it.)

 

I would like to add, and this is one of the reasons I'm so sceptical about the "certainties" of climate science a comparison of some figures.

 

The entire change in forcing since 1850 is estimated to be 1.6 W/m-2 + or - but it's a change of around .8% in energies. To quote from Trenberths Energy Budget paper;

 

TOA values are known within about ±3% or better, except that the net is (or was) 0.85 ± 0.15 W m−2 (Hansen et al. 2005), and surface fluxes are constrained within 5% except for solar-reflected, LH, and LW, where errors may be as much as 10%.

 

Errors can be plus or minus 10% but we can "with confidence" say what percentage of the .8% increase is attributable to what forcing? The errors are so much larger than the effect as to make this claim rediculous.

 

I mean a cops radar gun is accurate to plus or minus 10% but he can tell you were exceeding the speed limit by .25 MPH? Somebody is joking.

[swansont]

And they haven't been going up either, which was my point. The thing I do find interesting is that in a warming world it is generally not the maximums that increase but the minimums. This has the effect of raising the average temps. Which is why the average can be higher than in the past but actual high temp records can be set long ago. I've wondered elsewhere if the same thing doesn't happen to climate in general. The drop in 1880-1910 is much greater than in 1940-1970 (Roughly) so it seems reasonable to wonder if the increase in CO2 isn't effecting the "minimums" of the cycle. If this idea is correct we would expect the downslope of the current "cooling" cycle to be less than the cooling from 1940-1970. And since the cooling from 1940-1970 wasn't much we would expect the current "cooling" to be about nothing., which is what we are seeing.

 

While this would relegate CO2 to a more minor forcing than natural ones, it does very simply explain the observed temp trends since 1850.

 

So what's causing the overall warming — the increase in minima — over this time? The energy has to come from somewhere.

 

 

Actually there are other "budgets" around that use different factors;

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=energy+budget+of+earth&hl=en&rlz=1T4GGHP_en-GBAU479AU480&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NHQHUOKMC8aOiAe67eTuAw&ved=0CEEQ_AUoAQ&biw=1999&bih=887&sei=4nQHUOK2L42TiQfcusT3Aw

 

The main difference between Trenberths budget and others is the very large back radiation from the greenhouse effect. This is sometimes calculated to be even larger than the total incoming Solar radiation and if you look at a few of the diagrams you'll see values from 324w/m-2 through to 340w/m-2. Notice that this difference is 10 times the total estimated increase in energy since 1850.

 

His statement was "We cannot account for the recent lack of warming....." I do not see how "lack of warming" can be construed to mean "continued warming", so yes it was that warming had stopped. (or leveled off, plateaued, whatever you want to call it.)

 

IIRC the context was that there was missing energy in the budget. Which, from thermodynamics, must cause warming. Temperatures should have gone up even more than they have, which is not the same as saying that temperatures have not gone up at all.

[JohnB]

IIRC the context was that there was missing energy in the budget. Which, from thermodynamics, must cause warming. Temperatures should have gone up even more than they have, which is not the same as saying that temperatures have not gone up at all.

 

Sorry, but no. The full email is;

Hi all

 

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).

 

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)

 

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

 

That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn’t decadal. The PDO is already reversing with the switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time since Sept 2007.see[2]http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_c urrent.ppt

 

"Where the heck is Global Warming?" and going about setting records for cold days is not saying the temps should have gone up more than they did, it's asking why it's so bloody cold. But confusing weather and climate isn't a first for him so it's no surprise. BTW, if you want a great example of cherry picking note how this blogger points out the judicious omissons from Trenberths presentations concerning ACE. In the time of Katrina the increasing ACE was produced by Trenberth as "proof" of his assertions, of course we all know that it is now at historically low levels and strangely enough he doesn't mention it any more, not since about 2007 in fact. Was it Popper or Feynmann who said that all evidence should be presented and not just the bits that support your argument?

 

So what's causing the overall warming — the increase in minima — over this time? The energy has to come from somewhere.

 

You mean where can we find a couple of W/m-2 in forcing increase? Have a look at post #41 in this thread where I tracked down the various reconstructions used by the IPCC. Papers that show an increase in solar forcing larger than the estimated increase in nett forcing since 1850 or earlier would be;

Bauer 2003

Bard et al 2000

Lean 1995

Hoyt and Schattern 1993

 

Collectively these papers and others put the increase in solar forcing since the Maunder at between 3 and 10 W/m-2. How these estimates got "smoothed" into the IPCC figure of .5W/M-2 is beyond understanding since the IPCC itself doesn't say.

 

If however we take the estimates as correct then even after adding in the CO2 forcing the final result (circa 2W/m-2) to account for the warming also demonstrates that the feedbacks in the climate system are nett negative and not positive. This means that rather than the 1.1 degrees for a doubling of CO2 being amplified into 3 or more degrees (It's assumed to happen magically due to water vapour but nobody has demonstrated the effect exists in the lab or the real world, but this increase is required to make the climate models work) we can expect slightly less than 1.1 degrees for a doubling of CO2 as a maximum result of CO2 forcing. Since the effect of CO2 is logarithmic then by now we should expect to see about .7 to .8 of a degree warming. Which is quite oddly exactly what we do see.

 

To put it all together.

 

Solar increases since the Maunder have led to an increase in temps of .5 degrees per century. It owuld have been more but the negative climate feedbacks reduced it to this figure. Superimposed on this is a 60 year cyclic fluctuation which supplies warming and cooling events. The increase in CO2 has however modified the cycle in that the cooling cycles are less and less effective. By retaining heat, the atmosphere can't get as cold as it should. This is shown by the reduction in cooling, 1880-1910 was about -.4 degrees, 1940-1970 was about -.2 degrees and 2000-now is about nothing.

 

The prediction from this is that using 2003 as a starting point (only to avoid 1998 and the rather wild swings the following 4 years) we can expect zero to very, very mild warming up until 2025 or so and then warming again at around .16 degrees per decade through to 2050 or so. This is provided the Sun doesn't do something odd (like go unusually quiet) and since it spends most of its time impersonating a billiard ball I wouldn't write that off either.

[swansont]

Sorry, but no. The full email is;

 

 

"Where the heck is Global Warming?" and going about setting records for cold days is not saying the temps should have gone up more than they did, it's asking why it's so bloody cold. But confusing weather and climate isn't a first for him so it's no surprise. BTW, if you want a great example of cherry picking note how this blogger points out the judicious omissons from Trenberths presentations concerning ACE. In the time of Katrina the increasing ACE was produced by Trenberth as "proof" of his assertions, of course we all know that it is now at historically low levels and strangely enough he doesn't mention it any more, not since about 2007 in fact. Was it Popper or Feynmann who said that all evidence should be presented and not just the bits that support your argument?

 

I don't know the context of the response, so I can't conclude he's confusing weather for climate or commenting on others doing that. But you left out two things: the paper he cites (which is all about energy and tracking it), and the part where he says "Our observing system is inadequate".

 

You mean where can we find a couple of W/m-2 in forcing increase? Have a look at post #41 in this thread where I tracked down the various reconstructions used by the IPCC. Papers that show an increase in solar forcing larger than the estimated increase in nett forcing since 1850 or earlier would be;

Bauer 2003

Bard et al 2000

Lean 1995

Hoyt and Schattern 1993

 

Collectively these papers and others put the increase in solar forcing since the Maunder at between 3 and 10 W/m-2. How these estimates got "smoothed" into the IPCC figure of .5W/M-2 is beyond understanding since the IPCC itself doesn't say.

 

If however we take the estimates as correct then even after adding in the CO2 forcing the final result (circa 2W/m-2) to account for the warming also demonstrates that the feedbacks in the climate system are nett negative and not positive. This means that rather than the 1.1 degrees for a doubling of CO2 being amplified into 3 or more degrees (It's assumed to happen magically due to water vapour but nobody has demonstrated the effect exists in the lab or the real world, but this increase is required to make the climate models work) we can expect slightly less than 1.1 degrees for a doubling of CO2 as a maximum result of CO2 forcing. Since the effect of CO2 is logarithmic then by now we should expect to see about .7 to .8 of a degree warming. Which is quite oddly exactly what we do see.

 

To put it all together.

 

Solar increases since the Maunder have led to an increase in temps of .5 degrees per century. It owuld have been more but the negative climate feedbacks reduced it to this figure. Superimposed on this is a 60 year cyclic fluctuation which supplies warming and cooling events. The increase in CO2 has however modified the cycle in that the cooling cycles are less and less effective. By retaining heat, the atmosphere can't get as cold as it should. This is shown by the reduction in cooling, 1880-1910 was about -.4 degrees, 1940-1970 was about -.2 degrees and 2000-now is about nothing.

 

The prediction from this is that using 2003 as a starting point (only to avoid 1998 and the rather wild swings the following 4 years) we can expect zero to very, very mild warming up until 2025 or so and then warming again at around .16 degrees per decade through to 2050 or so. This is provided the Sun doesn't do something odd (like go unusually quiet) and since it spends most of its time impersonating a billiard ball I wouldn't write that off either.

 

emphasis added —  all that sounds a lot like it's CO2's fault that we're warming. Especially given that the sun's TSI has not been changing for at least 3 decades.

[mememine69]

"Scientific" Consensus Broken Down:

 

26 years of climate change research and millions of studies later we are now left with the major scientific academies all agreeing;"Climate change is real and happening and could possibly be a crisis ofunstoppable warming."

 

Yes "could possibly be". Not one single IPCC report ofcrisis ever mentions the promise of a climate crisis with "certainty","immanency" or "unavoidable" or "impending" etc. It is always with a "maybe".Always!

 

And how could they all have consensus of unstoppable warmingwhen they all have their own special and unique studies on "effects" and almostnever on "causes"?

 

Climate change was the study of the effects in a worst casescenario of the crisis of climate change caused by Humanity, a "crisis" thatcan't be proven or disproved anyways.

 

Wouldn't the millions of people in the global scientificcommunity be acting just a little differently if this really was a real climatecrisis? Nothing could be worse besides a comet hit.

 

 

Climate blame science has done to science what abusive priests did for the church.

Edited August 7, 2012 by mememine69

[iNow]

Not one single IPCC report ofcrisis ever mentions the promise of a climate crisis with "certainty","immanency" or "unavoidable" or "impending" etc. It is always with a "maybe".Always!

Welcome to science. Your problem is your complete failure to understand process and the method of science, not with the report from the IPCC. You may dislike the potential policy impact of the conclusion, but the conclusion is (...wait for it...) almost certainly (tee hee hee) correct.

[akh]

"Scientific" Consensus Broken Down:

 

26 years of climate change research and millions of studies later we are now left with the major scientific academies all agreeing;"Climate change is real and happening and could possibly be a crisis ofunstoppable warming."

 

Yes "could possibly be". Not one single IPCC report ofcrisis ever mentions the promise of a climate crisis with "certainty","immanency" or "unavoidable" or "impending" etc. It is always with a "maybe".Always!

 

And how could they all have consensus of unstoppable warmingwhen they all have their own special and unique studies on "effects" and almostnever on "causes"?

 

Climate change was the study of the effects in a worst casescenario of the crisis of climate change caused by Humanity, a "crisis" thatcan't be proven or disproved anyways.

 

Wouldn't the millions of people in the global scientificcommunity be acting just a little differently if this really was a real climatecrisis? Nothing could be worse besides a comet hit.

 

 

 

Climate blame science has done to science what abusive priests did for the church.

 

Your examples of supposed contradictions is supportive of your ignorance of science. Your lack of understanding of scientific vernacular makes your ignorance of the scientific process highly likely.

Edited August 7, 2012 by akh

[JohnB]

emphasis added all that sounds a lot like it's CO2's fault that we're warming. Especially given that the sun's TSI has not been changing for at least 3 decades.

 

Go search if you want, but I doubt that you will find a post by me arguing that CO2 has no effect, indeed I've argued that any explanation that doesn't include a CO2 effect must be wrong. But having CO2 modify an existing trend is a far cry from saying "it's CO2s fault that we're warming".

 

And if you believe the IPCC, then TSI hasn't changed by more than .5 W/m-2 in the last 150 years. However what is a worry is the content of TSI. Incoming UV is changed to heat at the surface and radiated out. So if there is an increase in UV, even though the TSI stays the same, then there will be more UV converted to IR at the surface and a heating effect will occur. According to Section 2.2 of "UV Radiation in Global Climate Change; Measurements, Modelling and Effects on Ecosystems" there has been an increase in UV by a modest amount, some 10-15% due to ozone loss. This of course means an extra 10-15% UV energy that is converted to IR and helps to heat the planet. The referenced work notes that UV stopped increasing in the "late 1990s" and has been decreasing since which is perhaps coincidentally the same time as the warming stopped, or plateaued. So there is nothing, even in the theory, that suggests that there must be an increase in TSI for there to be warming, TSI can remain unchanged, but warming and cooling can result from changes in the content of the TSI.

 

I must remind people that the entire warming since 1850 is the result of a change in forcings equal to less than .8% of TSI at TOA, so an increase of 10% in UV is actually quite substantial.

 

@ akh and iNow. Cool it guys. It was mememine69s first post, you could at least have said hello.

 

Hi mememin69, welcome to SFN. Don't worry about the detractors. They're just upset that all the prophesised calamities of the cult of the Church of Gaia have failed to materialise. They are also correct however in their comments about terminology. The IPCC etc does couch its comments in a careful way, in fact all scientific papers do, it is only after the alarmists and reporters get hold of things does "might" become "will". The difference is that it will always fall to us sceptics to call out the BS artists from both sides, because the warmers will never call BS on one of their own. Commit wire fraud, Identity theft, whatever you want, and they will give you a free pass. Heck you can even be so monumentally insane as to claim that "Global Warming" is melting glass streetlights and they won't say anything. Truth is a somewhat lesser virtue than defeating the evil deniers.

 

Just remember to keep Popper on the one hand and Feynmann on the other and you'll be fine.

 

Seriously though, they are a good bunch here and the mods are fair. And there are a lot of really, really smart people here on all sorts of topics. Welcome, and have fun. (and if you're like most of us, you'll learn things too)

Edited August 8, 2012 by JohnB

[iNow]

Don't worry about the detractors. They're just upset that all the prophesised calamities of the cult of the Church of Gaia have failed to materialise. <snip> because the warmers will never call BS on one of their own. Commit wire fraud, Identity theft, whatever you want, and they will give you a free pass. Heck you can even be so monumentally insane as to claim that "Global Warming" is melting glass streetlights and they won't say anything. Truth is a somewhat lesser virtue than defeating the evil deniers.

Yeah... because that's a fair representation of me and my position. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a palpable distaste for willful ignorance and spin and misrepresentations of data to fit an ideology or anything remotely reasonable like that. [/sarcasm]

[akh]

 

Hi mememin69, welcome to SFN. Don't worry about the detractors. They're just upset that all the prophesised calamities of the cult of the Church of Gaia have failed to materialise.

 

No, in fact I do not believe in prophecies. I follow no church. I do not engage in making definite predictions of future calamities.

 

 

They are also correct however in their comments about terminology. The IPCC etc does couch its comments in a careful way, in fact all scientific papers do, it is only after the alarmists and reporters get hold of things does "might" become "will".

 

Yes. mememin69, the point is that one needs to be very careful when it comes to the terminology of science. Scientist will rarely, if ever, speak in absolutes. This is why you do not see terms like absolute "certainty" (they will talk about degrees of certainty) or "impending". And this does create a great deal of problems when the scientific community is covered by the general media. Then the media coverage gets into the hands of the general population, and a lot of misconceptions and misinterpretations arise.