Over at The Conversation Andrew Glikson asks Fact check: has global warming paused? citing an old Skeptical Science favorite graph, and that’s the problem; it’s old data. He writes:
As some 90% of the global heat rise is trapped in the oceans (since 1950, more than 20×1022 joules), the ocean heat level reflects global warming more accurately than land and atmosphere warming. The heat content of the ocean has risen since about 2000 by about 4×1022 joules.
…
To summarise, claims that warming has paused over the last 16 years (1997-2012) take no account of ocean heating.
Hmmm, if “…ocean heat level reflects global warming more accurately than land and atmosphere warming…” I wonder what he and the SkS team will have to say about this graph from NOAA Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory (PMEL) using more up to date data from the ARGO buoy system?
Sure looks like a pause to me, especially after steep rises in OHC from 1997-2003. Note the highlighted period in yellow:
From PMEL at http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/
The plot shows the 18-year trend in 0-700 m Ocean Heat Content Anomaly (OHCA) estimated from in situ data according to Lyman et al. 2010. The error bars include uncertainties from baseline climatology, mapping method, sampling, and XBT bias correction.
Historical data are from XBTs, CTDs, moorings, and other sources. Additional displays of the upper OHCA are available in the Plots section.
As Dr. Sheldon Cooper would say: “Bazinga!“
h/t to Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for the PMEL graph.
UPDATE: See the above graph converted to temperature anomaly in this post.
And anything prior to 2003 is simply guesswork. The conflation of data sets and guesswork from the cli-sci people need to be highlighted more, IMHO. They have no idea what the OHC was in 1970.
[snip – sorry, drive by raw data claims from a table in a different depth data set aren’t useful with a visual post, graph it to show your claims and resubmit – Anthony]
Hmmm, I wonder what the second derivative of the AMO looks like?
Simply , here is where the magic ‘missing heat ‘ is so useful.
The ocean has heated , but has its not be found yet it not possible to measure it .
If the models say its so , its true no matter what reality tell us .
The graph of the 0-2000 m OHC — much more relevant than just the 0-700 m level — is, of course, here (Figure #2):
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
[Reply: Wrong graph. — mod.]
For those who can handle the raw data, the trend since 2005 is 240 trillion watts, or 0.47 Wm^-2 across the Earth’s surface:
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month/ohc2000m_levitus_climdash_seasonal.csv
By the way, the ten-year trend for 0-700 m OHC is still a statistically significant 45 terawatts.
REPLY: and each day around 120,000 terawatts of energy from the sun reaches the Earth, so it is a statistical sand grain on a beach in the whole Earthly energy budget – Anthony
@ James Sexton
All too true !
For that matter, Land Surface historical data is simply guesswork as well, since we have no statistically valid or accurate estimates of any type of errors or variability with non-random, unreplicated sampling for the entire historical record.
Garbage In, Garbage out.
But this is more UNFCCC conform “science” so it’s guaranteed in the next IPCC UNFCCC based “climate report”?
Placing a thick yellow line over the top of the graph does not make it flat – it is not flat yet. It may be considered flat for last four years but that’s hardly statistically significant. On longer period It has sure slowed down, but that’s it. Plus you’re comparing apples to oranges because the skeptical science graph is a sum of three factors out of which you only show one. That does not make a good counterargument, I don’t think the graph would change drastically if four more years were added to it.
REPLY: It is a highlighter marker, used to call attention to the area, like I routinely do with text. If I wanted to make a plot trend line, I would have used a plot trend line. – Anthony
The SkepSci graph appears to go through 2008. It goes up from 2003 to 2008. The PMEL data do not. So, either their data source was bad (not ARGO) or their plot of the data was wrong. Either way, it is not just old, it is bad. And in the context of that site, new evidence that it not only is not skeptical, it isn’t even science. Double fail.
Anthony wrote: “REPLY: and each day around 120,000 terawatts of energy from the sun reaches the Earth, so it is a statistical sand grain on a beach in the whole Earthly energy budget – Anthony.”
Unfortunately not, since vast majority of the Sun’s 120,000 trillion watts comes in and then leaves, of course. The 45 trillion watts is what’s sticking around (in just the top 1/5th of the ocean).
REPLY: and again, it isn’t statistically significant in the scheme of things, much like that 0.7C in the atmosphere isn’t statistically significant against daily diurnal variation or seasons. – Anthony
This is the correct chart which takes into account how much 10^22 joules is supposed to be accumulating and the tiny 0.46 W/M2 which is accumulating in the 0-2000 metre ocean.
http://s17.postimage.org/y2qsxky8f/OHC_Missing_Energy_Dec2012.png
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:27 pm
“— much more relevant than just the 0-700 m level — “
How so? IR from CO2 backradiation does not penetrate nearly that far. How are you supposing the heat gets there, when there is no change in the waters above?
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:30 pm
“By the way, the ten-year trend for 0-700 m OHC is still a statistically significant 45 terawatts.”
Claims of statistical significance are always dicey when the underlying correlations are unknown. It is necessary to assume a model, and that assumption drives the outcome. For example, we had a round of comments on another thread in which a disputant claimed that the trend in the global temperature metric from 1970 to 2000 was statistically significant, but the lull since then was not. When a reference was requested, he directed us to a paper which assumed a one-box model for the correlations. When cyclical correlations are so readily evident in the data record, such an assumed model is hogwash.
But, in any case, even if it were statistically significant, it is not climatically so.
Sea surface temperatures are flat since March, 1997 or 15 years and 10 months.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend
So heat presumably got lower down without affecting the surface. Is that correct? And am I to be worried if the deeper ocean went up from 3.0 C to 3.2 C?
My previous post was too polite. I did a quick check (less than 5 minutes using multilayer google) and found another Skeptical Science posting from 2011 showing the correct ocean heat as flat after 2003 in making a different but equally illogical and unsupported argument. See:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/cooling-oceans.htm
They really cannot have it both ways on one website at the same time.
As Wolfgang Pauli said, so bad “its not even wrong”.
Glikson also asserts “At the root of the issue is the non-acceptance by some of the reality of the greenhouse effect”.
Total fail. He is unable to distinguish between not accepting the greenhouse effect and sensible skepticism about its magnitude.
“””””…….Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:30 pm
By the way, the ten-year trend for 0-700 m OHC is still a statistically significant 45 terawatts…..””””””
So which Pope granted special dispensation to state ocean heat content in Watts; or even in terraWatts; or maybe its teraWatts ?
Howcome Joules gets lost in the shuffle here ?
Trenberth in his global energy budget cartoon, insists on using 342 W/m^2 as the value for TSI, instead of the more recently approved, NASA/NOAA value of about 1362 W/m^2.
TSI is a rate of arrival of solar energy on earth, or at least at our mean orbital radius from the sun, and it arrives continuously at that rate.
You cannot simply divide by four, because the earth is rotating. Power density is power density
Stuff happens at 1362 W/m^2 that can NEVER happen at 342 W/m^2.
So if you drop a 20 kiloton bomb on San Francisco; but you only do it once every 25 or 50 years or so, on average it really won’t do very much damage.
Good heavens!!! We have people actually believing we know what the OHC was in 1960?? NEWS FLASH!!! Even the ARGO buoys don’t provide enough proper coverage. What on earth brings people to believe such nonsense?
This ocean heat content thing is a genuine non-issue. Mass of the upper 2 km of oceans is about 6.5×10^20 kg. According to NOAA NODC OCL this layer has accumulated some 20.5×10^22 J of heat in the last 50 years. Specific heat of water is about 4.2 kJ/kgK, so average temperature of the upper 2 km of oceans has increased by a stunning 0.075 K in a half century.
In other words, ocean bulk temperature is utterly flat on multidecadal scale.
(On the other hand, if it goes on like this, in a mere ten million years our oceans will be 15,000 K warmer than they are today, much hotter than the surface of the Sun. Well, no. It would not go on like this for long, see?)
I don’t even believe a warming rate of 1.5 mK/year can be measured. Not even with thousands of buoys, much less with a few ships here and there pulling mechanical bathythermographs on strings.
REPLY: It is a highlighter marker, used to call attention to the area,
______________
That does not make any of my arguments wrong.
REPLY: it doesn’t make them right either, be as upset as you wish – Anthony
The PMEL graph look a lot like the Global temp anomaly graph over the same time period … and not surprising since most of the energy of the oceanic-atmospheric system is contained in the ocean (ie the current standstill in ocean heat content is largely driving the current standstill global atmospheric temp anomaly, as was the rise in atmospheric temps in the 90s)
Understand what’s driving the ocean heat content & where it’s heading you should be able to do the same for the atmosphere.
I recommend reading the post by Glickson (Visiting Fellow, Australian National U).
(1) He runs at length through the usual explanations for the pause — for which he cites no sources (do most climate scientists agree that the low in the solar cycle has had a substantial impact?) — then declares that there has been no “pause” since there has been ocean heating (most of which is in the 700-2000 m layer). What is the time delay for CO2-related heating to warm that layer? The pause is recent phenomenon, hence should it be seen as propagating from the atmosphere into the ocean heat sinks — layer by deeper layer?
(2) He winds up with a bang, attributing this mistaken view about the pause to “non-acceptance of the greenhouse effect”. Again no supporting cites (do the scientists mentioning the pause not accept the GH effect?). No explanation why so many prominent climate scientists (& the head of the IPCC) have acknowledged the pause — or reference to the peer-reviewed literature discussing the pause (eg, causes and significance).
What is his purpose in writing this? It looks quite slipshod for one of his professional training. Any guesses if he’ll receive critical feedback from his peers?
Bart said, “How so? IR from CO2 backradiation does not penetrate nearly that far.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
george e. smith says “So which Pope granted special dispensation to state ocean heat content in Watts; or even in terraWatts; or maybe its teraWatts ?”
A Watt is just a joule per second, and is an appropriate unit for the rate of accumulation of heat.
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:27 pm
Hi Phobos – Are the computer codes that perform the data processing summarized in the graphs available? I’d like to have a look at them. Thanks in advance.
“XBT bias correction” means they assume a “random + constant offset” measurement error model. This model ignores systematic measurement error and is certainly incomplete. Floating buoys have never been field-calibrated. No one knows the magnitude or distribution of the actual errors or the size of the accuracy confidence intervals.
Apart from all that, Graeme Stephens, et al.’s recent paper on the global energy balance puts the net surface budget to be 0.6(+/-)17 W/m^2. Given that uncertainty, how can anyone say that ocean heat content has increased?
Stephens, et al., wrote, “This [17 W/m^2] uncertainty is an order of magnitude larger than the changes to the net surface fluxes associated with increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Fig. 2b). The uncertainty is also approximately an order of magnitude larger than the current estimates of the net surface energy imbalance of 0.6 ±0.4 Wm^−2 inferred from the rise in OHC [ocean heat content].”
As usual, climate stories depend on neglected error for their impact.
Phobos,
as Bere’nyi Pe’ter (Sorry about the apostrophes, not able to copy paste).
0.075K in half a century, is quite remarkably small amount. That looks like a number that could be due to a lot of sources. Maybe we need to measure another 50 years, before even bothering with making a comment about it.
After all, most solution proposed regarding global warming (Yup, stick with the original!) are all draconian government measures, that only a self serving totalitarian could like.
Most interesting. So, while atmospheric CO2 has been steadily increasing by 2ppm/Yr, not only have lower tropospheric temperatures been flat for 17 years, but upper ocean temps have also been relatively flat for 9 or 10 years.
So where’s the heat hiding this time?
Less energy entering the oceans whilst the jets remain more meridional with more global clouds.
Berényi Péter so how much extra energy would 0.075 K put into the atmosphere? Or how would this amount of energy contribute to global warming?
Anthony wrote: “REPLY: and again, it isn’t statistically significant in the scheme of things, much like that 0.7C in the atmosphere isn’t statistically significant against daily diurnal variation or seasons.”
So you think the daily temperature change in your backyard is more significant than the change of an ice age (~7 C)?
REPLY: Every time I read a sentence that starts with So…. I know its going to be a personal slam. Don’t put words in my mouth, Mr. Anonymous Coward. Your claim simply isn’t statistically significant, as other commenters also point out. – Anthony
Frank K. says: “Hi Phobos – Are the computer codes that perform the data processing summarized in the graphs available? I’d like to have a look at them. Thanks in advance.”
The NOAA OHC site gives the source for its graphs. Have you written those authors to ask them?
Once again Bill Illis hits the nail on the head, this time with the first graph that starts at zero (apologies if I missed an earlier one). If you really believe you have found a trend, go ahead and show a truncated graph that best makes your point, but if you want me to believe you, show me the same data nearby with the axis starting at zero.
Minor nit, the name is Glikson, not Glickson.
REPLY: Fixed, thanks. -A
Phobos says about heat accumulation . . .
OK, doing some quick math, perhaps others would like to check:
The top 700 meters of oceans is (rounded off) 2300 feet. At 70% of the earth’s surface, the volume is 1.263 E19 cubic feet (the ‘E’ is exponent – 1.263 x 10 to the 19th . .).
Sea water is about 29 kilograms per cubic foot – so the top 700m of ocean is about
3.6627 E20 kilograms.
It takes 4186 joules to heat 1Kg of water 1 degree C. Therefore the energy needed to warm the top 700 m of ocean 1 degree C is 1.533 E24 Joules.
Since a Watt is a joule/sec, and over 10 years (86400 seconds per day, x 365 days per year, x 10 years) 45 terawatts is 1.419 E22 Joules.
Dividing number of joules added to the ocean over 1o years (1.419E22) by the number of joules required to raise the ocean 1 degree C (1.533 E24) give a whopping 0.01 degrees C that the oceans have warmed.
Wow, that seems too low. Maybe I’m off by a factor of 10 ( . or not . .?) I don’t have time to check now. BUT 0.01 or even 0.1 degree C of temperature increase of JUST THE TOP 700 meters of ocean is awfully small . . .
. . seems to me like Phobos is trying give a false impression by noting how many terawatts the ocean was absorbing over 10 years. . . .
. .oops, didn’t finish the last sentence:
. . seems to me like Phobos is trying give a false impression by noting how many terawatts the ocean was absorbing over 10 years as IF IT WERE REALLY HEATING UP THE OCEAN. . .
I don’t understand. How does the ocean gain 10x the heat conternt accumulated in the air from the greenhouse effect? Especially when between 1960 and 1970 the ocean lost heat that didn’t appear in the atmosphere.
From ’97 to 2003: by warmist models, is this the “correct”, CO2 rate? Or is it a correct+natural rate, so the “actual” trend from ’97 is a split between 2003 and 2013?
A range of Scenarios leads you to the ballpark; observations tell you where the ball is heading. By now we should have at least one of the Scenarios deleted, wouldn’t you think? Unless you admit that the science is not settled, and the outcome, not certain.
It is weird how the warmist can be both definite and vague at the same time. Perhaps like the murder suspect who says he is definite he didn’t do the crime, but is vague about what he was doing during the time.
Anthony wrote: “REPLY: Your claim simply isn’t statistically significant.”
The math is actually pretty simple; the OLS linear trend is positive and statistically different from zero. That’s what a warming trend is.
REPLY: But in the larger scheme of things, still it is statistically insignificant, though I’m sure you’ll find it impossible to let go of that fact. For example total energy flux received by Earth by solar is 1730 petawatts, of which 30% is reflected by Earth’s Albedo, so figure 1038 petawatts of flux incident on Earth’s surface or 1,038,000 terawatts
Compare your retained 240 terawatts to that and you get a value that while it “is” technically greater than zero at 0.00023, it isn’t distinguishable from zero in the larger scheme of things. I’m sorry, your argument just isn’t something to get all that concerned about, unless of course you are a religious zealot where “any” change is not good and “must” be our fault.
See the new post by Willis where he converts to temperature anomaly, it is below the measurement precision (noise level) of the instrumentation. But, you can be afraid of it it you want. We are here for comfort and support of your fears. – Anthony
Martin C,
Thanks for that. You’re right, Phobos is trying mighty hard to give a false impression. I suspect he’s a regular at SkS, and he’s been running back and forth, collecting talking points.
His problem is people like you. Good job.
The more data that becomes available, the more obvious it is that CO2 is a completely insignificant player. There is absolutely no difference between global warming a century ago, when CO2 was much lower, and global warming from 1980 – 1997. Ockham’s Razor says that the simplest explanation is probably the best explanation: global warming is a natural recovery from the Little Ice Age.
Martin C said: “…give a whopping 0.01 degrees C that the oceans have warmed.”
Your number is basically correct for the top 0-700 m (I get 0.014 C in 10 years). The volume is huge, as you note, so the added heat is huge. If all that heat were added to the atmosphere instead, the warming would be roughly 1000 times larger, or 14 C.
We are dealing with large systems here; the ocean is a *huge* heat reservoir. That heat has consequences.
D.B. Stealey says: “Ockham’s Razor says that the simplest explanation is probably the best explanation: global warming is a natural recovery from the Little Ice Age.”
That’s a misunderstanding of basic thermodynamics. Thermodynamic systems don’t “recover” — they aren’t like a spring with a restoring force — temperature changes only if heat is added or subtracted from the system. Given the observed temperature changes, the question is, what is the source of that heat? Changes in solar irradiance don’t seem nearly enough to do so.
REPLY: Gosh, static state thinking. The Earth is a dynamic system, it changes its heat budget over time in response to a multitude of things (which is why we have cold years and warm years globally). It is not a static state system. Change clouds for example, just 2% and you have your answer…and that is just one variable. But please go ahead and try to argue that that Earth’s albedo or any other of its myriad of climatic variables have remained constant since the little ice age, and that couldn’t possibly affect solar insolation at the surface, TOA emission, etc. No for phantom folks like yourself, there’s no other answer but the mighty CO2 control knob, which is a factor, but just one knob in a whole dashboard full. – Anthony
Phobos says:
“That heat has consequences.”
Apparently not.
Phobos says: “Thermodynamic systems don’t “recover” — they aren’t like a spring with a restoring force — temperature changes only if heat is added or subtracted from the system.”
Phobos doesn’t understand. Prof Richard Lindzen explaina:
By the way, the ten-year trend for 0-700 m OHC is still a statistically significant 45 terawatts.
That is about 1/10 the internal heat flow from the Earth. Sure that this is not indicative of increased volcanic activity?
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 3:31 pm
“The NOAA OHC site gives the source for its graphs. Have you written those authors to ask them?”
No I haven’t. But I figured the source code(s) for processing the data should be available via links at the page. Do you work for NOAA? Could you ask them on our behalf? I think it would be very instructive to see the data processing codes. Thanks.
Floating buoys have never been field-calibrated. No one knows the magnitude or distribution of the actual errors or the size of the accuracy confidence intervals.
Nor do we know what biases free floating buoys introduce. Although IMO they introduce a warming bias, because drift will be from cold upwelling areas to warm downwelling areas, which explains the measured warming down to 2000 meters. All Argo has shown is ocean downwelling areas are warmer at depth than other areas of the ocean. Hardly a surprise.
We can say for certain is that the Argo buoys are not measuring the same ocean locations.
Werner Brozec 1.47pm says:
“So heat presumably got lower down without affecting the surface. Is that correct? And am I to be worried if the deeper ocean went up from 3.0 C to 3.2 C?”
Yes you should be worried. 90% or so of the ocean volume is below 3C. Water is at its densest at 4C. So if the ocean warms even by 1C there should be a corresponding drop in Sea Level.
I might be wrong as this flies in the face of what I have read elsewhere but it seems logical to me.
Phobos says: “Given the observed temperature changes, the question is, what is the source of that heat? Changes in solar irradiance don’t seem nearly enough to do so.”
Start here, Phobos: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/
The old “TSI does not vary much” meme will get you laughed out of here.
denniswingo says: “That is about 1/10 the internal heat flow from the Earth.”
No – heat flow from the Earth’s interior is about 47 terawatts
http://www.solid-earth.net/1/5/2010/se-1-5-2010.pdf
and constant over these time scales.
@frank K: NOAA’s OHC site says the results come from Levitus et al. They would be your contact for questions, code, etc.
@Michael Cohen says: TSI does not vary much
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/tsi_data/TSI_TIM_Reconstruction.txt
and certainly not nearly enough to account for the observed changes in heat content.
PB, your comment about ARGO rings true. But then all previous records are much worse, by your own criterion. So the whole lot is worth nothing. So CAGW conclusions based thereon are worth nothing also.
Next time you opine, you might wish to think a couple of chess moves ahead, instead of playing the pathetic IPCC game.
You cannot have it both ways, now that your own data is falsifying your own conclusions.
Must be a tough cognitive dissonance.
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 4:53 pm
I downloaded the paper and no pointers or supplementary information about their code. Again, Phobos, do you work for NOAA? Can you ask on our behalf? Or does having the code available not matter to you? Do you care how the data were processed? Aren’t you curious at all? Just wondering…
@D.B. Stealey, quoting Lindzen: Of course climate changes. It changes when a factor(s) causes it to change. That’s what Lindzen is saying. There is no inherent restoring force drawing climate towards some preferred state — its state is determined by the forcings on it, and the specifics (feedbacks) internal to the system.
Here is the 0-700 metre ocean heat content and the 0-2000 metre ocean heat content (and the implied ocean heat content accumulation between 700-2000 metres).
http://s15.postimage.org/dyz8hdx0r/OHC_700_2000_M_Dec2012.png
As I noted, the ocean is accumulating a small 0.46 W/m2/year while the total net forcing today is 1.78 W/m2/year. Besides that, we should be seeing “Feedbacks” from water vapor and clouds reduction and albedo reduction which should be a further 1.5 W/m2/year. It is almost all missing or is merely being emitted back to space at an increasing rate as the forcing also increases (almost offsetting it entirely) [Now the theory always assumed OLR would increase as forcing increased but no estimate had the numbers at anything like the 72% plus that is occuring.]
There is also a question about the OHC accumulation below 2000 metres. There have been only two estimates done for this. One for a region around Antarctica which found a small 0.05 W/m2 accumulating there below 2000 metres and a new recent study for (most of) the north Atlantic below 2000 metres which found significant cooling. So, we can leave out OHC accumulation below 2000 metres until someone does the whole ocean.
Phobos;
temperature changes only if heat is added or subtracted from the system. Given the observed temperature changes, the question is, what is the source of that heat? Changes in solar irradiance don’t seem nearly enough to do so.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I do so love it when the trolls start talking physics.;
Sorry Phobos, but the doubling of CO2 changes the equilibrium temperature of the system as a whole by precisely zero. What is changes is the temperature profile from surface to top of atmosphere with some parts getting colder and some warmer. But it is not a source of heat, so your point is moot.
As is your point about the amount of energy change in the ocean and trying to translate that into a change in atmospheric temps based on the same amount of energy. Sorry, but you have the concept of a heat sink exactly backwards. Atmospheric temps can only stray so far from those of the ocean for the precise reason you stated. The oceans have 1400 times the mass of the atmosphere, and so where the temps of the oceans go, the atmosphere must follow. The fact that the oceans are such a massive heat sink is the reason WHY the atmosphere’s temperatures are incapable of the kind of fluctuation you propose.
If you wanted to extend your logic, we could calculate the kinetic energy of Mars and theorize what would happen if just 1% of it was transferred to poor little phobos. Why phobos would fly off in a random direction and exist our solar system in just seconds! But poor little phobos had no such worry, and so just orbits Mars thinking it is following some exotic desitny, but in fact it has very little actual choice in where it is going. It is going where ever Mars is going. And Mars is going where ever the Sun is going. And our atmospheric temps will indeed zig zag back and forth, leaving us wondering where they are going. But they are in thermal equilibrium with the oceans and hence they are going where the oceans are going.
Which appears to be nowhere.
Am I getting this right: there are people who believe that the steep rise on the graph from 1996 to 2003 is caused by the back radiation from an above-ocean atmosphere containing high quantities of water vapor and 360 ppm of CO2, going to the back radiation from an atmosphere containing high quantities of water vapor and 380 ppm of CO2 ??
Let me be more quantitive. That would be the square root of f*** all.
There are 3 published papers using the OHC data discussed here that the commenters on this thread should be aware of. All are published in Physics Letters A
———————– #1—————————-
Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts
by Douglass and Knox
Phys Letters A 366 (2012) 1226-1229.
(abstract)
In an earlier study of ocean heat content (OHC) we showed that Earth’s empirically implied radiation imbalance has undergone abrupt changes. Other studies have identified additional such climate shifts since 1950. The shifts can be correlated with features in recently updated OHC data. The implied radiation imbalance may possibly alternate in sign at dates close to the climate shifts. The most recent shifts occurred during 2001–2002 and 2008–2009. The implied radiation imbalance between these dates,in the direction of ocean heat loss, was −0.03 ± 0.06 W/m, with a possible systematic error of[−0.00, +0.09]W/m
——————– end #1. begin #2————————–
Comment on ‘Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts’
by D. Nuccitelli, R. Way, R. Painting, J. Church, J. Cook,
Phys. Lett. A 376 (45) (2012) 3466, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2012.10.010.
Nuccitelli et al. claimed that that the analysis of Douglass/Knox was in error.
——————end #2 begin #3 ———————————————
Reply to “Comment on ‘Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts’ ” by Nuccitelli et al.
by D.H. Douglass ∗, R.S. Knox
Physics Letters A 376 (2012) 3673-3675
(summary)
In sum, we show that the criticism of our results (change of slope in the implied FTOA at the climate shift of 2001–2002) by Nuccitelli et al. is unwarranted because they used different data of less temporal resolution. A more careful analysis of this data shows, in fact, consistency and not conflict with our results.
——————— end #3—————–
David H. Douglass
Dept of Physics and Astronomy
University of Rochester
Rochester Ny
Phobos, did you even bother to look at the link I gave you? Are you missing the point out of carelessness or deliberately being obtuse?, Never mind, I think we know.
davidmhoffer says:
February 25, 2013 at 5:29 pm
Phobos;
“temperature changes only if heat is added or subtracted from the system”
Actually, davidmhoffer, Phobos is quite incorrect here and apparently doesn’t even know the First Law of Thermodynamics…
Since the measuring instruments record temperature and not heat content, why is heat content graphed? Of course we all know why.
Why not report the heat content anomaly of the atmosphere?
Glikson also asserts “At the root of the issue is the non-acceptance by some of the reality of the greenhouse effect”
+++++++++
Greenhouses warm by reducing convection. Not by the glass blocking IR on its way out as is proposed for CO2.
Rather than a warming agent, CO2 is a radiator to space that cools the atmosphere, increasing convection, directly opposite to the process found in real greenhouses.
If CO2 actually heated the surface then we would see the atmosphere warm first, then the surface. This is what all the models predict. However, such an effect has never been observed during a warming period. The surface warms first, then the atmosphere. During a cooling period the surface cools first, then the atmosphere.
1) If you add GHG to the atmosphere, does radiation to space from the GHG increase or decrease the temperature of the atmosphere?
2) Without adding the GHG, how does the atmosphere cool in the absence of radiation to space?
3) If the atmosphere has no GHG and cannot cool except via conduction with the surface, would the atmosphere be warmer with altitude and coolest at the surface?
4) Is this not what we see in the ocean and in that portion of the atmosphere above the GHG layer? Increasing temperature with increasing altitude.
5) is this not also what we see on the Sun? Surface temperatures are much cooler than atmospheric temperatures without GHG.
Phobos,
What is the error model being assumed for this trend, and how is this selection justified given the sampling techniques involved? It seems you need to answer these questions before any claim of statistical significance can be believed.
James Sexton says (February 25, 2013 at 2:02 pm): “NEWS FLASH!!! Even the ARGO buoys don’t provide enough proper coverage.”
Willis discusses ARGO sampling here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/06/where-in-the-world-is-argo/
There are also links to some of his other ARGO articles.
Does anyone else think it’s a heckuva coincidence that ocean “warming” hit a plateau just about when ARGO went on line?
ferdberple says (February 25, 2013 at 5:59 pm): “3) If the atmosphere has no GHG and cannot cool except via conduction with the surface, would the atmosphere be warmer with altitude and coolest at the surface?”
Dr. Spencer discussed the no-GHG situation here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/12/what-if-there-was-no-greenhouse-effect/
Tez says:
February 25, 2013 at 4:45 pm
Yes you should be worried. 90% or so of the ocean volume is below 3C. Water is at its densest at 4C. So if the ocean warms even by 1C there should be a corresponding drop in Sea Level.
That only applies to fresh water, not ocean water. See:
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/density.html&edu=high
“The density of ocean water continuously increases with decreasing temperature until the water freezes.”
So you figure I should now be worried about the rise in sea level due to the warming of 0.2 C and the resulting expansion? As I recall, the rate of sea level rise has been greatly over estimated by some people. Perhaps the oceans are not warming as much as some people think.
“Does anyone else think it’s a heckuva coincidence that ocean “warming” hit a plateau just about when ARGO went on line?”
Sorta just like the land temps plateaued very soon after satellites became accepted as a good way to measure temperature.
very odd coincidence, don’t ya think. 😉
It is relatively simple thermodynamics to understand that the phase shift from peak energy input to peak temperature will be much longer in the 0-2000 data than the 0-700 data. It should be expected that if actual Qin stops changing the deeper data will stop changing after the shallower.
Anthony: Note what the comics at Schleptical Science have done. First they used the pentadal data, which smooths out the sudden rise around 2002/03 and recent flattening. Then they placed the 0-700 meter data on top of the 700-2000 meter data and land heat content, which imposes the trends of those two datasets on the 0-700 meter data and skews the recent flattening of the 0-700 meter trend upwards.
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:27 pm :
What is the data source for previous, prior to 2003, 700-2,000 meter ocean depth?
Bob Tisdale says:
February 25, 2013 at 7:19 pm :
Skeptical Science is worthless anymore as a source of anything credible.
I remember when the first Argo data came out. It showed a cooling trend, until the data was “corrected.”
So if CO2 is thus shown not to correlate with anything in the last decade or so, what correlates with the rising temps since the start of the industrial revolution?
Evan Bedford says:
February 25, 2013 at 8:08 pm
A sarcastic skeptic would say “Only the number of years since 1650 has continually increased at the same average rate as the earth’s temperature since 1650.”
He (or she) would be wrong though, because that such sarcastic comment would be ignoring – just like the CAGW dogmatic religious would ignore it! – the rise in temperatures during the Roman Warm Period, the drop in the Dark Ages and Mayan deaths, the rise into the Medieval Warm period, and the subsequent drop into the Little Ice Age.
The ONLY correct answer is to modestly admit in all due humility ” We don’t know.”
RACookPE1978 says:
February 25, 2013 at 8:14 pm
Evan Bedford says:
February 25, 2013 at 8:08 pm
The ONLY correct answer is to modestly admit in all due humility ” We don’t know.”
___________________________________________________________
Well said ..
… but yet the Climate Cretins still can’t admit it.
If only the research money had been spent on real, as opposed to bogus research, I think we might actually know the answer by now.
D.B. Stealey says:
February 25, 2013 at 3:59 pm . .
THANK for the compliment D.B . . . the way that that ‘martian moon man’ (for those astronomy buffs out there) was going on about all that additional energy, my thought was ‘so what ?’; and it should be easy enough to calculate a temp change . .
Even his comment a little later about the ocean being a *HUGE* heat reservoir is misleading in my opinion, and I take exception to it. Now in terms of ‘joules’ and energy, it may be considered huge; HOWEVER, from a practical (and probably even a thermodynamic standpoint), an increase of ocean water from, say 84F to 84.03F (using his 0.014 C, and roughly converting it to F) in the tropics, or maybe 70 to 70.015 toward the ‘temperate zone’ latitudes, and , say 40 to 40.015 at higher latitudes, it has ZERO MEASURABLE EFFECT on the system – to evaporate any measurable amount of water, or somehow thermodynamically to do any measurable ‘work’ such as affecting ocean currents, relative to the heat energy (the enthalpy) already there.
Gary Hladik, even more interesting to see how Josh Willis of NASA corrected the ocean cooling to ocean warming from the first ARGO paper.http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
Bart says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:47 pm
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:27 pm
“— much more relevant than just the 0-700 m level — “
How so? IR from CO2 backradiation does not penetrate nearly that far. How are you supposing the heat gets there, when there is no change in the waters above?…”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Before one considers how much DWLWIR penetrates the oceans to depth, one has to consider whether any and, if so, how much DWLWIR even reaches the very top surface layer of the ocean.
The optical absorption of LWIR in water is such that 20% of LWIR is fully absorbed within 1 micron, 40% is fully absorbed within 2 microns, and 60% is fully absorbed within 4 microns. About 83% of it is fully absorbed within the first 10 microns. See for example http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/10/06/does-back-radiation-heat-the-ocean-part-one/ This website cites a plot taken from Wiki.
For all practical purposes water is a LWIR block, much like a parasol is a sun block, or a high factor sun cream block is a powerful harmful UV block.
The first question that arises is, given that water is such an effective LWIR block, how does any DWLWIR reach the top surface of the oceans? This question arises because the ocean model referred to in Wiki (and the like) is an example of an ideal ocean, far divorced from the realities of life. The ocean considered is the ocean that is as flat as a mill pond. But in real life, this is not earth’s oceans.
According to a study conducted by Stanford University, the average wind speed over water is Beaufort 4 (see http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html) Of course, averages can be misleading due to variability, and in the Atlantic and South Pacific, the wind speed is greater (see http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/ResourceMap/index-world.html). I have spent approximately some 30 years studying ship’s logs covering trading worldwide, and I can confirm that it is rather rare to see wind conditions of less than force 4 being recorded on ocean voyages, and such a review would suggest an average more like force 5 (on worldwide ocean trading routes).
NOAA gives a description of sea conditions as follows; http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html. It will be noted that at force 3 “crests begin to break, scattered whitecaps” and at force 4 there are “numerous whitecaps”. What does this mean? Well it means that already at force 3 the wind is drawing off the very top surface of the water which can be seen by the naked eye as crest beginning to break. The optical resolution of the human eye is not high, and the fact that the unaided human eye can, from a distance, see white crests means that more than a few microns of water is being ripped off. The human hair is between 17 to 180 microns. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair) perhaps on average approximately 50 microns (consider when standing say 5 metres from a person, how easy is it to see individual strands of hair?). The fact that the human eye can see white crests, which by force 4 are “numerous” in number, suggests that not less than about 50 microns of water is being ripped off the oceans and lies immediately above the oceans, particularly within say ½ metre above the ocean, as wind swept spray and spume.
Accordingly, before any DWLWIR can reach the oceans it has to first find its way through the wind swept spray and spume which lies immediately above the oceans. Given the optical absorption of LWIR in water, for practical purposes if there is even just 6 microns of wind swept spray and spume lying above the oceans at most only about 25% of DWLWIR even gets to reach the top surface of the oceans. If there is more than 6 microns of windswept spray and spume, even less than 25% of DWLWIR could penetrate this barrier. This is an issue which seems to be overlooked by those promoting the AGW meme.
It may well be the case that in force 5 conditions and above, none of the DWLWIR even reaches the very top layer of the oceans because it cannot penetrate the IR block consisting of the wind swept spray and spume that exists immediately above but divorced from the ocean below.
It is only once the DWLWIR has penetrated the spray and spume, that one has to ask how does that residual element (ie., such DWLWIR that is not absorbed by the windswept spray and spume which exists and lies immediately above the top surface of the ocean) heat the deep ocean? ie., the point to which Bart alludes. It is not easy to see by what mechanism DWLWIR can effectively heat the ocean, for a number of reasons:
1. Little if any DWLWIR actually reaches the top surface of the ocean since, for reasons detailed above, in the real world, most of it must surely be fully absorbed by the windswept spray and spume that lies immediately above the ocean (ie., say within ½ metre or so above the ocean).
2. Of the residual DWLWIR that has found its way past the windswept spray and spume some 60% of it is fully absorbed within 4 microns of the top surface of the ocean. But what happens to the DWLWIR so absorbed? Absorption of IR photons is essentially a light speed event, and theoretically (assuming the K&T energy budget is correct) there is so much energy absorbed within the first 4 microns of the top surface of the ocean that there would be copious amounts of evaporation (perhaps so much as to provide approximately 15 metres, or so, of global rainfall). This would arise unless in some way the energy received could be dissipated downwards into the deeper ocean before the top 4 microns are heated to evaporation point by DWLWIR being absorbed in the top 4 micron layer. But how is the energy dissipated downwards? What is the mechanism that dissipates this energy downwards?
3. It is not easy to see by what mechanism the LWIR absorbed in the first 4, or so, microns is dissipated downwards. It would appear that it cannot be conducted downwards since the energy flux is upwards not downwards at the top of the ocean and there is no known mechanism whereby conduction can take place against the direction of energy flux. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_surface_temperature from which it will be seen that the top surface of the ocean is cooler and that the ocean temperature increases from the top 10 microns through to about 5 metres, and only as from a depth of about 5metres onwards does the ocean begin to cool. It follows from this that energy flux is upwards not downwards, so how can any energy absorbed within the first 4 or so microns be conducted downwards?
4. The only other method that I have seen suggested is ocean overturning. However this is a slow mechanical method measured in many hours (about half a day). It is not clear that ocean over turning can effectively wrap and drag down the very top micron layer 9this is a problem in itself) but even if it could, this is slow mechanical process cannot dissipate energy downwards at a speed greater or nearly equal to the speed and rate at which DWLWIR is absorbed in the top 4 micron layer. Given the speed of photonic absorption in the top 4 or so micron layer, the mechanical process involved in ocean over turning cannot dissipate that energy down to depth before the energy absorbed in the top 4, or so, microns would raise the temperature in the first 4, or so, microns of the oceans to a temperature sufficient to drive evaporation form the top microns of the ocean.
I have asked Willis a number of times to explain the process by which energy from DWLWIR absorbed in the top few microns of the oceans can be dissipated downwards to depth before the energy absorbed in those microns heats those microns of water to a temperature driving evaporation. Despite many requests being made of him, he has at no time explained the mechanical process involved. He has not explained how heat can be conducted to depth against the direction of energy flux, nor how ocean overturning can dissipate the energy absorbed in the top microns before that energy would drive evaporation of those very microns of water.
As I see matters there is a significant problem with respect to the behavoir of DWLWIR and its interaction with the oceans which presently is not fully addressed, or even addressed at all, by those that support the AGW meme.
PS. I do not like referencing Wiki, but I consider that on the aspects covered above it is not contentious.
PPS. As noted I have studied ship’s logs for approximately 30 years. Today, ships record ocean temperature by taking the water temperature at the inlet manifold of the engine cooling system. This water is drawn at depth. Depending on the design and configuration of the vessel (to what extent it is laden and how it is being trimmed), an ocean going ship will draw water from a depth of between say 5m and 13m. A depth of 8m to 10m is probably quite typical (if there is such a thing). It will therefore be appreciated that when a ship records water temperature it is measuring water temperature drawn at a depth of say about 8 to 9m, not surface temperature. In practice, there is for the main part relatively little difference between the water temperature at about 8m and surface, but of course, ship’s logs, since they are not recording surface temperature, will understate what the surface temperature of the ocean is.
James Sexton says:
February 25, 2013 at 2:02 pm
////////////////////////////////////////////////
Absolutely. Even if the coverage was increased a thousand fold, we would still not have an accurate assessment of ocean heat content. ARGO is to be welcomed, but its coverage is far too sparse to draw any firm conclusions.
The point applies equally to all data sets being used in climate science. They are not fit for the purpose to which they are being put, the uncertainties are significant and are not sufficiently recognised by those promoting the AGW meme..
Bob, even more interesting; sea level budget including GRACE was used as justification for the corrections to bring OHC more in line. That leads me to believe ARGO is not based purely on empirical data by and of itself. Josh Willis had an epiphany.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page2.php
Martin C says: “Even his comment a little later about the ocean being a *HUGE* heat reservoir is misleading in my opinion, and I take exception to it. Now in terms of ‘joules’ and energy, it may be considered huge; HOWEVER, from a practical (and probably even a thermodynamic standpoint), an increase of ocean water from, say 84F to 84.03F (using his 0.014 C, and roughly converting it to F) in the tropics, or maybe 70 to 70.015 toward the ‘temperate zone’ latitudes, and , say 40 to 40.015 at higher latitudes, it has ZERO MEASURABLE EFFECT on the system.”
Here is an exercise for you. Estimate, to the nearest order of magnitude, the change in average ocean temperature between a glacial and interglacial phase of an ice age. It is closer to:
a) 10 C
b) 1 C
c) 0.1 C?
Re: Berényi Péter at 2:20 pm
To continue with Berenyi’s numbers,
if Mass of the Ocean, upper 2 km = 6.50E+20 kg
Specific heat of water is about = 4200 J/kgK
1 ZetaJoule is 1.00E+21 J
Heat to raise upper 2km Ocean 1 deg K = 2730 ZJ / deg K
Heat to raise 0-700m Ocean 1 deg K = 960 ZJ/K
Fig. 3 Y-Axis Range = 250 ZJ = 0.092 deg K (over 2 km depth)
Last Figure 0-700 m Anomaly = 180 ZJ = 0.188 deg K
Error bar height = 30 – 40 ZJ = 0.03 – 0.04 deg K.
We should also annotate these graphs to show when the Argo units were started to be deployed (mid 1990s?) when there were 1000, when 2000. The year 2007 saw the 3000 unit constellation in place. So frankly, the 0.1 deg K rise from 1993 to 2003 might be no more than inadequate spatial sampling, with error bars not accounting for the undersampling.
Which leads us back to Nyquist sampling as discussed in Decimals of Precision – Trenberth’s missing heat WUWT Jan 26, 2012.
See also:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/argo-data/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/23/an-ocean-of-overconfidence/ –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/06/where-in-the-world-is-argo/ – On spatial sampling of Argo data.
.
I have asked Willis a number of times to explain the process by which energy from DWLWIR absorbed in the top few microns of the oceans can be dissipated downwards to depth before the energy absorbed in those microns heats those microns of water to a temperature driving evaporation.
Strawman argument. Nobody is claiming DWLWIR reaches the deep ocean. To the extent one can separate one packet of energy from another.
The oceans gain energy from visible light penetrating the oceans as much as 100 meters. In order for there to be no ocean warming. This energy gain must be lost at the surface.
Thus the oceans warm or cool due to factors that affect ocean heat loss at the surface, assuming constant solar insolation. One of those factors is DWLWIR, which increases the energy content of the atmosphere just above the surface (higher temps and increased humidity). Thus impeding energy loss from the ocean surface.
still ignoring that the ocean is not 700m depth and the sks graphs goes down to 2000m.
Phobos,
“Here is an exercise for you. Estimate, to the nearest order of magnitude, the change in average ocean temperature between a glacial and interglacial phase of an ice age. It is closer to:”
And you would know the correct answer how? 18O in carbonate shells? Oh wait, I thought that measured meltwater influx.
The reality is we have only the crudest notion what average ocean temperature is today. Guesstimates of glacial/interglacial average atmospheric change range from 4.5 to 10 degrees.
For the measures covered by the yellow line, the first half readings are all below the yellow line and the second half are above it. That’s not ‘flat’. (This isn’t the first time I’ve seen people making that mistake and I don’t expect it will be the last.)
REPLY: and again as answered previously and made clear in the story, it isn’t a trend line (though you want it to be) it is simply a yellow highlight to draw attention to the section of interest, just like I use the same highlight tool on sections of text or tables I post. – Anthony
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 2:34 pm
So, let me see if I have this right. You are saying that the deep ocean is being heated because the upper waters have a layer a few microns thick which absorbs IR backradiation from CO2, and this causes the upper waters to lose heat, apparently extremely, less rapidly than they otherwise would, and this excess heat is somehow being wicked to the depths without increasing the heat content of the upper waters.
Is that what you are saying?
Richard verner
Feb 25 2013 at 9:01PM
I like what you have to describe what happens out in the open ocean. However, if the wind is at force 4, the spray and spume you speak of is in a continuous transit state. It doesn’t matter what 4 micron absorbes the heat, a vast majority of that spray, spume and water surface, will churn within seconds by the wave action and the spray falling into the water. Not knowing more about how deep, waves mixes the surface, I am guessing, the top 5-10 meters, in the open ocean is quite well mixed. It will warm a little on a sunny windy day, it will cool a little on rainy dark days.
I grew up in an area where the tides are very small and the ocean is frequently covered in winter ice, but by late July and August the water is warm down to 4-5 meters, without any wind around. In fact, if it gets windy, then all that nice warm water we would go swimming in would be mixed out.
It cannot be that heating ends at the top 4 microns and everything below doesn’t warm somehow. It is not transferred through convection, currents or wind action. If it was, we’d freeze our butts off, instead of enjoying relatively warm 16-18C water 2-3meters down. With the sun up 18-19 hours a day in summer, the heat must simply be conducted down in such a stable environment. Discounting currents and wave action, some heat will conduct downwards. Not much but some.
The more interesting question is, how much would reach 700 meters down. I’d say nearly none. The layer is permanently stable, measured in geologic time. In other words, temperature changes if any happen due to tectonic changes, not much else.
The ARGO bouys are not tethered (?) so what stops them from “congregating” in the oceans like the pacific garbage patch?
http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/ocean-trash-plaguing-our-sea
Rehardless, we know the data is “adjusted”.
davidq says:
February 26, 2013 at 12:27 am
Richard verner
Feb 25 2013 at 9:01PM
I like what you have to describe what happens out in the open ocean. However, if the wind is at force 4, the spray and spume you speak of is in a continuous transit state. It doesn’t matter what 4 micron absorbes the heat, a vast majority of that spray, spume and water surface, will churn within seconds by the wave action and the spray falling into the water. Not knowing more about how deep, waves mixes the surface, I am guessing, the top 5-10 meters, in the open ocean is quite well mixed. It will warm a little on a sunny windy day, it will cool a little on rainy dark days.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I agree that the spray and spume is in continuous transit and I agree that without knowing more about how deep waves mixes the surface, it is not easy to draw firm conclusions. What I have raised is what I perceive to be an issue on which more research and consideration is required. I consider it to be a factor that is overlooked.
I am sceptical that there is much interaction between windswept spray and spume and the water surface churning. The spray and spume is divorced from the very surface of the ocean; it is stripped off it and is airborne. At this juncture, convectional forces work upwards and away from the top surface ocean layer below, making churning difficult. Further, the airborne windspeed is say 7 to 9 metres per second (say 12 to 19 knots) whereas the speed of the ocean wave is perhaps only a couple of metres a second. The mechanical churning is at a slower rate and it is therefore difficult to see how it can effectively capture the windswept spray and spume and drag it back into the ocean surface below.
I have no definitive answers. I merely suggest that this is an area that needs much consideration of the physical processes involved since it may well be the case that relatively little DWLWIR actually finds its way into the top surface layer of the oceans and if that is indeed the case (even if only 10% of DWLWIR is absorbed in spray and spume and does not penetrate the top surface of the ocean) then reconsideration needs to be given as to whether DWLWIR is keeping the oceans from freezing (as Willis and others would assert), or whether it is solar energy received in the tropical ocean which is preventing the oceans from freezing (the amount of solar energy received in the tropical oceans being capable of raising the tropical oceans to well above 30 degC but this excess energy rather than heating the tropical oceans to a temperature above 30 degC is distributed to the non tropical oceans (thereby warming the non tropical oceans) by way of ocean currents etc.
RACookPE1978 says:
February 25, 2013 at 8:14 pm
The ONLY correct answer is to modestly admit in all due humility ” We don’t know.”
———————————————————–
I agree. To that end, 75% of all Climate funding should be immediately diverted to real world problems, h0w about we start with hunger in the USA? There should not be a man, woman or CHILD that goes to bed hungry. The other 25% can be divied up by people who’ve shown to be, and use the scientific method in their research.
Peter in MD
The deep ocean heat content argument is rather desperate since the models DON’T predict that the deep oceans should warm before everything else. No physical mechanism has been proposed which would concentrate heat down there. Indeed the time frame for ocean processes looks completely wrong for deep ocean warming (if such is occurring) to be caused by CO2. I remind you all that the deep ocean is still warming in response to the end of the last ice age! Not a sign of a system which responds quickly to changes in conditions.
The alarmists are arguing a highly inconsistent position here. If there is no mechanism to channel heat rapidly into the deep ocean then any observed warming down there can have nothing to do with recent changes in atmospheric CO2. On the other hand if such a mechanism did exist then it would pretty much kill any possibility of CO2 induced warming being dangerous. A mechanism of this type would mean that the two degrees of atmospheric warming which we are all supposed to be so concerned about would manifest instead as a 0.0005 degree change in deep ocean temperatures. If we have trouble even measuring it, how can it be a catastrophe.
Yes that tiny amount of ocean warming does involve an impressive amount of heat. If you could somehow take that heat back out of the deep ocean and put it into the atmosphere you would see some significant temperature changes. But the second law of thermodynamics forbids this. It is absolutely impossible for that 0.0005 degree change in deep ocean temperatures to ever convert itself back into a 2 degree rise in atmospheric temperatures for much the same reason that you can’t boil a pot of water on a block of ice. Heat just doesn’t flow in that direction.
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:43 pm
…[the] vast majority of the Sun’s 120,000 trillion watts comes in and then leaves, of course. The 45 trillion watts is what’s sticking around (in just the top 1/5th of the ocean)…
You were writing about the 0-2000 m depth. If the average ocean depth is 4 km then the 45 trillion watts is coming from half of the oceans and not 1/5.
Well, it appears my pleas to Phobos to help us get the source codes for the data he referred to in the first link he posted went unheeded. Given subsequent feeble responses to other simple questions, I think he/she is in over their head now…typical of our CAGW alarmists [sigh]. I’ll stop here…
THe picture I see shows heat increasing. Maybe more slowly, but I see nothing I would call a pause. Be fair, or the site turns into worthless propaganda, easily cut down by the opposing viewpoint.
OK, let me rephrase the question: what best correlates with the rise in temps since the start of the industrial revolution?
****
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:43 pm
****
Nice wordsmithing! Reminds me of CO2 effects measured in nuclear bomb-blasts per unit area.
@frank K: I have no special access to any code. You can pursue it as well as I could.
Phobos’ claim makes my crap detector go off. Now that surface temperatures have been flat for 16 years we are to believe that by some unknown process CO2 greenhouse effect has stopped heating the atmousphere and started to heat the oceans?
It would appear to be good news as there is plenty of potential heat storage in the oceans that by the time CO2 doubles, we’ll have hardly noticed.
Champagne anyone?
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 7:39 am
Well, it was YOUR link. Too bad you don’t want to help out…apparently your not too curious.
Bart says: “You are saying that the deep ocean is being heated because the upper waters have a layer a few microns thick which absorbs IR backradiation from CO2, and this causes the upper waters to lose heat, apparently extremely, less rapidly than they otherwise would, and this excess heat is somehow being wicked to the depths without increasing the heat content of the upper waters.”
wicked = conducted [the average distance between water molecules is much less than a micron.]
The thin surface is much more complex, since it’s exposed to the atmosphere.
Phobos,
Everyone can see that you’re winging it. Run along now, back to Pseudo-skeptical pseudo-science for some new talking points.
Grant says: “Now that surface temperatures have been flat for 16 years we are to believe that by some unknown process CO2 greenhouse effect has stopped heating the atmousphere and started to heat the oceans?”
Not at all. CO2’s effect hasn’t “stopped” (of course). The surface temperature is subject to many factors, especially over short intervals — GHGs, but also ENSOs, solar irradiance, aerosols…. The effect of typical aerosols — that is, air pollution — is a big uncertainty in the equation. Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 attempted to control for solar, ENSOs, and stratospheric aerosols, and found the underlying manmade GHG signal is definitely there. (They weren’t able to control for low-lying aerosols, though, like air pollution over Beijing or Salt Lake City.)
Also, if you actually calculate the 16-year linear trend of the HadCRUT4 data, you’ll find it’s not zero. I get 0.05 C/decade, with a simple uncertainty (viz. no autocorrelation) of 0.02 C/decade.
@frank K.: Providing a link doesn’t mean providing everything behind it — it’s just a link. If you want the code, help yourself by writing to the authors.
Frank K. says:
February 26, 2013 at 5:10 am
“Well, it appears my pleas to Phobos to help us get the source codes for the data he referred to in the first link he posted went unheeded. Given subsequent feeble responses to other simple questions, I think he/she is in over their head now…typical of our CAGW alarmists [sigh]. I’ll stop here…”
Or, you could take the initiative and click on the link labelled “Access Data” at the bottom of the page on the first link he posted… or of course, you are perfectly entitled to just ‘stop here’ 🙂
Evan Bedford says: “OK, let me rephrase the question: what best correlates with the rise in temps since the start of the industrial revolution?”
The Berkeley BEST project answered that question explicitly: “…it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html
Phobos says:
Not at all. CO2′s effect hasn’t “stopped” (of course). The surface temperature is subject to many factors, especially over short intervals — GHGs, but also ENSOs, solar irradiance, aerosols…. The effect of typical aerosols — that is, air pollution — is a big uncertainty in the equation. Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 attempted to control for solar, ENSOs, and stratospheric aerosols, and found the underlying manmade GHG signal is definitely there. (They weren’t able to control for low-lying aerosols, though, like air pollution over Beijing or Salt Lake City.)
Wasn’t the point of your original comment supposed to counter the skeptic claim that temperatures have been flat? That all that extra energy trapped by CO2 is being absorbed by the oceans? Again your argument makes no sense because it was claimed that the hockey stick temperature rise was created by a dramatic increase in CO2 and that the science of the greenhouse effect was settled. Sorry, don’t buy it that somehow something dramatic has changed and that variables now mask what work CO2 is doing.
CO2 has increased quite a bit in the last 15 years, why haven’t surface temperatures followed if the science is settled.
Fact is, we have no idea why, just like we don’t know what the artic ice was like in 1925, or the OHC in 1990.
We don’t even have an idea of what ‘global average temperatures’ were like before 1979.
It’s indeed the point of The Surface Station Project that temperature data bases are flawed and unreliable.
“…ocean heat level reflects global warming more accurately than land and atmosphere warming…”
“…ocean heat level temperature variations are much smaller, and therefore easier to fiddle than land and atmosphere warming…”
There. Fixed that for you…
Grant says: “CO2 has increased quite a bit in the last 15 years, why haven’t surface temperatures followed if the science is settled.”
Again:
* Many factors influence surface temperatures, especially in the short-term.
* Aerosols are a big uncertainty, and certainly not “settled.”
* There are less factors for the ocean, which continues to warm.
* The surface *has* warmed in the last 15 years.
As a final comment. I am, as I think most of the ‘deniers’ that frequent this site are proponents of indefinite, unlimited increases in CO2 in our atmosphere. We simply see no evidence of any crisis and think the risk of doubling CO2 is quite minimal and that we are largely wasting resources to address a problem that doesn’t seem to exist.
If we saw sea level rise accelerating instead of its mostly 100 year unchanged rate
If we saw an an increase in the cyclone and hurricane activity (seems global warming prevents them ) sarc on
Or if we saw evidence of any other disasters,
But all we see are computer models predicting disaster.
None of the promised disasters of a warmer world have started to happen, let alone come to pass.
If those things were happening, we’d all be on board. We have eyes, and the emperor is buck naked and until he puts some clothes on we’ll call him out.
A. Crowe says:
February 26, 2013 at 8:18 am
Um…Sorry, A. Crowe, no data processing sftware there…BIG FAIL on your part for not even looking…
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 8:06 am
“Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 attempted to control for solar, ENSOs, and stratospheric aerosols, and found the underlying manmade GHG signal is definitely there. (They weren’t able to control for low-lying aerosols, though, like air pollution over Beijing or Salt Lake City.)”
Sounds like the theory is on life support if Tamino and Rahmstorff have to subtract arbitrary signals from the temperature average signal to show that it’s still there. Reminds me of…
“Blondlot, Augustin Charpentier, Arsène d’Arsonval and approximately 120 other scientists in 300 published articles[1] claimed to be able to detect N-rays emanating from most substances, including the human body with the peculiar exceptions that they were not emitted by green wood and by some treated metals.[3] Most researchers of the subject at the time used the perceived light of a dim phosphorescent surface as “detectors”, although work in the period clearly showed the change in brightness to be a physiological phenomenon rather than some actual change in the level of illumination.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-rays
DirkH says: “Sounds like the theory is on life support if Tamino and Rahmstorff have to subtract arbitrary signals from the temperature average signal to show that it’s still there.”
The signals aren’t “arbitrary” — they are factors that influence surface temperature. It would be incorrect to exclude known causative factors, right?
No doubt about it – the step up is associated with the super El Nino of 1998. Satellite record shows that global temperature was flat before it as well as after the step warming it initiated which raised global temperature by a third of a degree Celsius in four years. A case can be made that global air temperature is actually determined by the SST. This is very obvious for the ENSO oscillation which responds to local SST values.
If the warmists are acknowledging a ‘pause’ in global warming, how does this fit in with the ‘CO2 increases global warming’ theory. If there is a pause in atmospheric warming then the atmosphere is not warming how simple is that?
The CO2 being pumped in to the atmosphere has not abated, if anything it has increased. There have been no significant volcanic eruptions to cause any cooling and if they are now claiming that CO2 causes the Sea to warm, then why isn’t the atmosphere warming?
Finally, if they are claiming that the reason atmospheric warming has stopped is because of recent ENSO phases, then they must also acknowledge that the warm phase of ENSO can actually increase atmospheric warming.
To me it is looking more like ENSO effects air and sea temperatures more so than CO2..
Anthony wrote:
REPLY: It is a highlighter marker, used to call attention to the area, like I routinely do with text. If I wanted to make a plot trend line, I would have used a plot trend line. – Anthony
Wouldn’t it have been fairer to use a plot trend line?
[Reply: WordPress allows anyone to start their own blog for free. — mod.]
davidq says:
February 26, 2013 at 12:27 am
“It cannot be that heating ends at the top 4 microns and everything below doesn’t warm somehow.”
We are focused specifically on heating induced by IR radiation. Shorter wavelength radiation penetrates farther.
Ian H says:
February 26, 2013 at 4:40 am
“A mechanism of this type would mean that the two degrees of atmospheric warming which we are all supposed to be so concerned about would manifest instead as a 0.0005 degree change in deep ocean temperatures.”
Excellent point.
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 7:54 am
wicked = transported. In analogy to the capillary action of a wick in an oil lamp. You’re not explaining how this heat gets from the surface layer to the depths without leaving any signature in the upper layers.
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 8:06 am
Is there any observation which could falsify the proposition that human generated CO2 is heating the planet for you?
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 9:43 am
“Many factors influence surface temperatures, especially in the short-term.”
But, the same can be said of the preceding warming interval. It was of short duration, and has now retreated.
‘Aerosols are a big uncertainty, and certainly not “settled.”’
The science is supposed to have been “settled”. If you have a variable which can be fudged to cover any preceding era, but provides no predictive value, then you have no useful theory at all.
“There are less factors for the ocean, which continues to warm.”
At depth. This is inconsistent with the hypothesis of CO2 induced GHG warming, in which the forcing occurs at the surface. The temperature gradient is necessarily steepest at the boundary.
“The surface *has* warmed in the last 15 years.”
Insignificantly. Not consistently with the hypothesis of CO2 induced GHG warming.
Bart says: “Is there any observation which could falsify the proposition that human generated CO2 is heating the planet for you?”
If warming stopped (it hasn’t over climatologically significant timescales) or there were other known factors to account for the strong warming that’s being observed (there aren’t)..
The Earth emits infrared radiation. CO2, CH4 etc absorb and reemit infrared radiation. Given that, it’s just a matter of calculating the resulting energy imbalance.
These radiative issues are the part of the picture that is most amenable to calculations using bedrock physics, and they are among the *best* known parts of climate science. The complexities and difficulties lie in other areas: aerosol effects, clouds, and ENSOs and other ocean cycles.
Bart says:
“The surface *has* warmed in the last 15 years.”
Insignificantly. Not consistently with the hypothesis of CO2 induced GHG warming.
——————
Warming over the last 15 years according to GISS is 0.07 C/decade, with an 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade.
According to HadCRUT4, it is 0.04 C/decade, with a 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade.
Here the uncertainties are the simple OLS uncertainties. If you include autocorrelation with, say, an ARMA(1,1) model, the 15-yr trend uncertainty is large, about 0.14 C/decade, which simply shows you that there is enough noise in the system that 15 years is too short of an interval to find meaningful results.
Soon the very warm, El Nino year of 1998 is going to fall out the back of the 15-year window. What interval will be championed then? Can I suggest we simply use climatologically relevant time periods to deduce climatology, instead of periods that include weather (in the oceans)?
Anthony, what’s your evidence the warming has paused? The data you present show the warming continuing.
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 12:46 pm
I’ve been studying diurnal cooling, that has led me to purchasing a low temp (-58F) IR thermometer (Extech 42505). Yesterday it was finally clear out and I was able to measure the zenith. ~6:30 pm 1.5C temp @~50% Rel H, the Zenith was -40.2C.
I’m starting to believe that this is the big error in the models, where a doubling of Co2 would add ~1.1C that this temperature, not the surface temp. Since the zenith temp is from DLR.
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 12:46 pm
“…or there were other known factors to account for the strong warming that’s being observed (there aren’t)..”
It would be more accurate to say “widely accepted” rather than “known”.
“Given that, it’s just a matter of calculating the resulting energy imbalance.”
That is grossly simplified, to the point of being just plain wrong. It would be more accurate if you split the infinitive to say “just a matter of correctly calculating the resulting energy imbalance”. Then, you really should append “…, properly taking into account feedback reactions, which may be positive or negative.” Here are some considerations on these additions, and why they are necessary to produce an accurate statement:
1) To get significant warming from CO2, a positive feedback with water vapor has to be assumed. However, the evidence for such positive feedback is essentially non-existent (don’t give me any links to Dessler or any of the other poorly constructed arguments in support – they’ve already been eviscerated at this site and elsewhere) and, in fact, the balance of evidence suggests overall feedback, including cloud albedo enhancement, is negative.
2) Then, there is the matter of whether the direct local sensitivity of surface temperature to additional CO2 is necessarily positive. We had an enlightening discussion on this in the past week or two here at WUWT when Willis Eisenbach presented his “steel shell” analogy to the GHE. His setup was as follows: You have a planet with an internal nuclear furnace sitting in empty space. Based on the surface area and the rate of heat generation from the core, you can determine the steady state temperature of the surface using the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship. Now, you take a steel shell, or some material which is perfectly heat conducting and absolutely opaque to all radiation, and wrap it around the planet. The shell has some inner and outer radius, and is separated from the surface by a vacuum. It is elementary to calculate that the temperature of the planet’s surface will rise above what it otherwise would have been, and one can calculate it in steady state based on the four quantities: the rate of energy input from the core, the radius of the planet, the inner radius of the shell, and the outer radius of the shell.
Here’s the rub, which I showed in the comments to Willis’ post: if you leave the mean radius of the shell constant, and increase the thickness, the surface temperature goes down. The partial derivative of surface temperature to shell thickness is negative. This comes about because the radiating area toward the planet shrinks, while that to cold space increases.To the degree the analogy holds, the implication is obvious: with all other processes and reactions held constant, additonal CO2 in the atmosphere may actually tend to decrease surface temperatures.
3) This point actually goes beyond the statement, but it is the question of whether humankind is even responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The empirical evidence is actually negative on that score. Here is a plot of the rate of change of CO2 and scaled temperature anomaly with respect to a particular baseline. It is clear from this that the former is equal, to a high degree of fidelity, to the latter. Not only does this show that the arrow of causation is from temperature to CO2 and NOT the reverse, but it says that, to calculate the level of CO2 in the atmosphere at any given time in the last 55 years, all one needs is the starting level and the temperature history. Human inputs are largely superfluous. And, that fact argues that we do not understand the carbon cycle as well as we think, that human inputs are rapidly sequestered, and the level of CO2 is essentially a result of temperatures modulating the rate at which CO2 enters and exits the surface system.
So, in sum:
1) There is no evidence of positive feedback enhancing the GHE of CO2, and this is necessary for the effect to be significant
2) Additonal CO2 does not necessarily enhance the GHE, and may even produce surface cooling
3) Humans have no control over atmospheric CO2 levels in any case
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 1:02 pm
“If you include autocorrelation with, say, an ARMA(1,1) model…”
See my post above. There is no justification whatsoever for using such a model, and the results are meaningless.
I can’t believe you brought up the same one-box model I specifically critiqued.
“Anthony, what’s your evidence the warming has paused? The data you present show the warming continuing.”
It does? Whats the slope look like over the past 10 years (tip- look at the yellow line).
[My message of one minute ago had an apostrophe in “moderator’s” that was incorrect so I have reposted it below]
Wouldn’t it have been fairer to use a plot trend line?
[Reply: WordPress allows anyone to start their own blog for free. — mod.]
With all due respect the moderator’s reply has not answered my question. Normally my comments and questions tend to support postings on this blog but the reply above is the sort of reply that I would expect from the moderators of Real Climate if I questioned the way in which they displayed data. I expected better from Watts Up With That. If everyone started their own blog there would be no debate on climate issues.
From eye-balling the graph I suspect that a plot trend line would show a very slight upward trend. It would probably not be significant but even so a statistician should choose what he or she thinks is the fairest way of displaying data.
[Reply: Anthony explained, so it is a moot point. Maybe he will do it differently in future based on your suggestion. But I suspect that in this instance it will remain as is. — mod.]
The horizontal line here is within error of any given point, but it requires the upper end of the error bars on some points and the lower end on others. Together, those leave it very unlikely to be accurate. This is why having more data can narrow down results. The trend is small, the system is poorly modeled, and the data itself may have systematic errors or unaccounted-for sources of uncertainty so under no conditions would I support basing policy on this trend, but this is the sort of thing we are supposed to shoot down here.
Bottom line, even if the little bit of ocean warming claimed was perfectly accurate, it is still a very long way below what the models predicted, The fact that once again “climate scientist” produce charts without error bars makes them WORTHLESS for public policy.
Phobos, where is the C in your CAGW world of very minor ocean warming without error bars?
Anyone? Anyone at all? (Still trying to find out what mechanism best correlates with the warming since the start of the industrial revolution). (Thanks, Phobos. I already know what Muller and you and myself think; just trying to get some sort of hypothesis from the rest of the folks on here).
Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 8:06 am
Not at all. CO2′s effect hasn’t “stopped” (of course). The surface temperature is subject to many factors, especially over short intervals — GHGs, but also ENSOs, solar irradiance, aerosols…. The effect of typical aerosols — that is, air pollution — is a big uncertainty in the equation.
———————————————————————————————
The problem is, phobos, that the length of “pause” is now approaching the length of the warming that started all this.
Very roughly, warming from 1975 to 1997 = 22 years (too short to be called climate under the AGW 30 year rule incidentally) followed by no warming 1997 to 2013 = 16 years with at least another 4 (to make 20) now predicted by the met Office. Note, I said “approaching the length”, not “reached”. i’ve noticed how you like to mischaracterise things that others post so thought I should make that clear 😉
So if the pause is a “short term effect of other factors” what’s to say that the (almost equally short term) increase in warming wasn’t also a short term effect of other unknown factors? Apart, of course, from the VERY unscientific (not to mention unconscionably arrogant) attitude that “It must be that because we can’t think what else it might be”!
@ Roy feb 26 2:24pm
,
The mod’s reply seems clear enough to be honest. The line isn’t intended to suggest a trend.
In fact, if you look again you’ll see that it’s not even a straight line. It’s a simple “brush stroke”, presumably done with a paint package, in exactly the same way you might swipe a highlighter pen over a printed diagram to highlight an area of interest. If it was intended to show a trend then we could expect (as is customary) a line in the same weight as the graph itself rather than a wiggly yellow felt-tip!
Perhaps he could have made it “more wavy” to make that clearer but he did actually refer to it as “the HIGHLIGHTED PERIOD in yellow”
David says: “The fact that once again “climate scientist” produce charts without error bars makes them WORTHLESS for public policy.”
The charts are presented both with and without error bars; per the note on the main page, the latter are here:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index1.html
Mark Buehner says: “Whats the slope look like over the past 10 years”
This is very easy to calculate; the raw data is here:
0-700 m:
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month/ohc_levitus_climdash_seasonal.csv
0-2000 m:
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month/ohc2000m_levitus_climdash_seasonal.csv
For 0-700 m, the 10-year trend is 44 TW, with an OLS 2-sigma uncertainty of 30 TW.
For 0-2000 m, the trend since the data began in 3/2005 is is 240 TW, with an OLS 2-sigma uncertainty of 50 TW.
Joe says: “Very roughly, warming from 1975 to 1997 = 22 years (too short to be called climate under the AGW 30 year rule incidentally) followed by no warming 1997 to 2013 = 16 years with at least another 4 (to make 20) now predicted by the met Office.”
If you guys keep repeating the same mistakes, I’m going to keep pointing them out.
Surface warming over the last 15 years according to GISS is 0.07 C/decade, with an 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade. According to HadCRUT4, it is 0.04 C/decade, with a 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade.
That’s just the surface. In this period, the lower troposphere has warmed by one dataset (UAH), but not by another (RSS). And the oceans, where more than 90% of the extra heat goes, have warmed over this period in the 0-700 m level. (0-2000 m data is only 8 years old.)
The surface (especially) is influenced by other factors and fluctuations that can temporarily swamp the underlying GHG warming of about 0.15-0.20 C/decade.
Phobos keeps tap-dancing around the inconvenient fact that every alarmist prediction has failed. Every one of them.
The planet is simply not doing as they predicted. In any other field of science, that would require the rejection of their conjecture, hypothesis or theory. Honest scientists test their conjectures against real world observations. If observations contradict their hypothesis, then their hypothesis is falsified.
But the climate alarmist crowd is not honest. Despite being consistently wrong, they hang on to their belief system, proselytizing to skeptics here, who know better: Planet Earth, the ultimate and final Authority, is falsifying the alarmist narrative, which is proving to be pseudo-scientific nonsense.
What would it take for climate alarmists like Phobos to admit that his belief system has been falsified? For many years the alarmist crowd went along with noaa’s conclusion that 17 years would be sufficient to debunk the CO2=CAGW claim. We are at that cutoff, but all we see now is the ratcheting up of endless arguments about why we cannot use that time frame. It’s called moving the goal posts, and they do it all the time.
D.B. Stealey says: “What would it take for climate alarmists like Phobos to admit that his belief system has been falsified?”
As long as the ocean continues to warm as strongly as it is, and ice keeps melting, and each decade keeps being warmer than the past decade, AGW will certainly not be falsified. There is simply no other explanation for these, and the underlying science of the greenhouse effect is robust. (Aerosols, clouds, deep ocean dynamics, not so much.) The question is, without such an explanation, what will it take for your idea (that there is no AGW) to be falsified?
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 9:07 am
As long as the ocean continues to warm as strongly as it is, and ice keeps melting, and each decade keeps being warmer than the past decade, AGW will certainly not be falsified. There is simply no other explanation for these […]
——————————————————————————————————
You see, phobis, you’re using that appeal to arrogance again – what you mean is “there is simply no other explanation THAT WE KNOW OF”. Your stance, by contrast, relies on the implicit assumption that “we know everything”.
In scientific terms that’s a VERY big , VERY arrogant, and VERY basic fail – especially in a scientific discipline that hasn’t even crawled out of daipers to use the potty by itself yet!
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 7:13 am
If you guys keep repeating the same mistakes, I’m going to keep pointing them out.
Surface warming over the last 15 years according to GISS is 0.07 C/decade, with an 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade. According to HadCRUT4, it is 0.04 C/decade, with a 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade.
—————————————————————————————————–
Perhaps you could point out this continued warming-as-usual to the UK Met Office and the head of the IPCC, both of whom seem to have acknowledged the pause that we’re “mistaken” about? Just saying, like 🙂
Phobos – please go educate yourself about the First Law of Thermodynamics and stop bothering us with your politically-motivated CAGW diatribes… Do you work for NOAA or the controversial NASA/GISS? Wouldn’t surprise me…
Phobos says:
“As long as the ocean continues to warm as strongly as it is, and ice keeps melting, and each decade keeps being warmer than the past decade, AGW will certainly not be falsified. There is simply no other explanation for these, and the underlying science of the greenhouse effect is robust. (Aerosols, clouds, deep ocean dynamics, not so much.) The question is, without such an explanation, what will it take for your idea (that there is no AGW) to be falsified?”
May I deconstruct that pseudo-scientific nonsense? Thank you:
First off, the ocean is not ‘warming strongly’, as Envisat and ARGO both show [and before the latest “adjustment”, ARGO showed a clearly declining ocean temperature, and before another “adjustment” Envisat showed this.].
Next, “ice keeps melting”. But that is only in one hemisphere, and recovery has begun. The alarmist prediction was that ‘polar ice’ would decline. Currently, global polar ice has recovered to its long term average.
Next, Phobos dodges the question, saying, “AGW will certainly not be falsified.” Earth to Phobos: your belief system is showing. Answer the question: what would it take to falsify your belief in your CO2=CAGW claim? Specific numbers, please. Or is it a fact that nothing could falsify your belief system?
Next: “There is simply no other explanation for these…” That is the Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy: ‘Since I can’t think of any other cause, then CO2 must be the reason for global warming’. Arguing from ignorance is a hallmark of the alarmist crowd.
We are just beginning to sort out the various climate forcings. Many are still unknown. But the more we learn, the more obvious it becomes that CO2 is, at best, only a minor third-order forcing, which is swamped by second-order and first-order forcings [each higher order being an order of magnitude greater]. “Carbon” is claimed to be the primary reason for global warming. But that is false, as radiative physics makes clear. At current concentrations, additional CO2 is insignificant — as the planet is verifying.
Run along now back to SkS, Phobos. You are getting a thrashing from everyone here when you post your anti-science beliefs. The talking points you raise have been deconstructed here repeatedly in the past, and as you can see you are making no headway bringing them up again.
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 7:13 am
“Surface warming over the last 15 years according to GISS is 0.07 C/decade, with an 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade. According to HadCRUT4, it is 0.04 C/decade, with a 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.04 C/decade.”
Based on an arbitrary statistical model which produces notional results, and even the high end is markedly lower than what would be required for significant warming. It is high time you started entertaining the possibility that the alarm has been, to say the very least, overstated, and plan your retreat to a more defensible position.
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 9:07 am
“As long as the ocean continues to warm as strongly as it is…”
It hasn’t warmed strongly in the upper reaches. There is no pathway for the lower layers to warm from surface forcing without any complementary warming of the upper layers.
“…and ice keeps melting…”
Ice is always melting somewhere, and growing in other places. You are cherry picking your evidence, and leading yourself astray.
“…each decade keeps being warmer than the past decade…”
Even by a negligible amount? This is thoroughly specious. When you are on a plateau, the measurement error alone is enough to continue setting new illusory records.
“There is simply no other explanation for these…”
Argument from ignorance fallacy, as Joe explains. Thus, the leaders of the Church insisted Galileo must be wrong about the Earth moving about the Sun – they just couldn’t think of a way that could happen.
“…the underlying science of the greenhouse effect is robust.”
With large and increasing divergence between projections and reality? This is some definition of the word “robust” of which I was previously unaware.
“Aerosols, clouds, deep ocean dynamics…”
Grasping at straws, and getting bent out of shape over the trees whilst losing sight of the forest.
“The question is, without such an explanation, what will it take for your idea (that there is no AGW) to be falsified?”
That the model projections start agreeing with reality. That it be definitively proved that 1) water vapor feedback is positive and as large as assumed, and there are no countervailing significant feedbacks 2) that the local sensitivity to additional CO2 is, in fact, positive 3) that either the temperature data or the CO2 data are wrong, so that CO2 can indeed force temperature, and that the rise in CO2 concentration of the past century can indeed be laid at the feet of humankind.
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 9:07 am
…
The question is, without such an explanation, what will it take for your idea (that there is no AGW) to be falsified?
———
Phobos,
I’m glad that you asked. I swear to you, I would not be here on WUWT today if somebody presented an AGW theory of temperature and climate with CO2 as the driving variable that proved to be useful in making accurate predictions. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard warnings about accelerating sea level rise, and yet sea level rise remains virtually constant at about 3mm/yr. I look at IPCC AR4 projections that are obviously in disagreement temperature-wise with conditions today, and in fact see that the case presented that most closely matches what has occurred is the ‘Year 2000 Constant concentrations’ case. This is not science.
Perhaps it’s the beginnings of a science. Maybe it will get there someday. Maybe the AGW theory is in fact correct! However, I don’t see how anyone can reasonably hold that it has been validated today. The state of AGW thinking right now, imho, is best described by this quote:
Take quantum physics. I hate the very idea of quantum physics. I don’t like it, it doesn’t make any sense to me, trying to follow the math gives me brain damage, and to put it very bluntly and simply I don’t want it to be true. Tough Noogies For Me, nobody has been able to falsify it. I promise you, you won’t find me on blogs arguing against quantum physics. So, on the day you (or anyone) can present an AGW that’s both useful and accurate in making predictions, I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong.
@D.B. Stealey: If someone asked you what was happening to climate during the Medieval Warm Period, would you base your answer on what happened from 997 A.D. to 1012 A.D.?
Bart says:
“…each decade keeps being warmer than the past decade…”
“Even by a negligible amount? This is thoroughly specious.”
The latest 10-year period is 0.14 C warmer than the previous 10-year period.
–
I realize you’re going to dismiss anything I write (all of which is, of course, just the standard scientific view). I’m wondering why you spend your time on blog comments instead of writing a series of papers that would set everyone straight and end all this debate once and for all?
Evan Bedford says:
February 26, 2013 at 8:29 pm
“Still trying to find out what mechanism best correlates with the warming since the start of the industrial revolution.”
Hot air from scientifically illiterate members of the press corps?
Martin C, in your calculus exercise, why didn’t you simply use energy imbalance of 0.7W/m2, where whole calculation is virtually a one liner? Oh yeah, this one liner gives 0.1C/decade, so it appears you made a mistake after all. You conceded that might happen, but I’m puzzled at why you would be totally unconcerned with order-of-magnitude error. Care to explain?!
“Im wondering why you spend your time on blog comments instead of writing a series of papers that would set everyone straight and end all this debate once and for all?”
Phobos – do you work for NOAA, NASA, or are employed by an agency (or academic institution) that is being funded by the government to work on climate-related research? And why are YOU spending your time on a blog?
And please – educate yourself on basic science like the First Law of Thermodynamics (which you clearly do not understand)…[sigh]
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 10:43 am
The latest 10-year period is 0.14 C warmer than the previous 10-year period.
———————————————————————————–
Oh for crying out loud! Can you REALLY not see the fallacy in that as evidence of continued warming? Or (more insultingly) do you really think that the rest of us can’t?
Here, let me help you.
10 minutes ago I put a kettle onto the gas hob to boil. The water out of the tap was very cold thanks to this global warming we’re having – around 6 degrees C. It took the kettle 5 minutes to reach boiling but I’ve been busy so haven’t turned it off yet and it’s still boiling away happily to itself.
Over those first 5 minutes, the average temperature of the water was 53 degrees C. Over the last 5 minutes the average temperature has been 100 degrees C – a whopping 47 degrees hotter!
That does NOT mean that the water is still heating up!
Phobos says:
“@D.B. Stealey: If someone asked you what was happening to climate during the Medieval Warm Period, would you base your answer on what happened from 997 A.D. to 1012 A.D.?”
Thank you for your strawman response. But my question to you concerned the fact that noaa stated 17 years as decisive. Argue with them if you want to move the goal posts. And when you answer a question with a question, it means you have no good answer.
My question, once again: what would it take for you to admit that your CO2=CAGW conjecture has ben falsified?
• • •
Here is my own falsifiable hypothesis, if you want to have a go at it:
At current and projected concentrations, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere
I have posted that same hypothesis numerous times over the past year. If you can falsify it, you will be the first. So give it your best shot.
Empirical observations show conclusively that CO2 does not have the claimed warming effect. AGW may exist, but there is still no verifiable, measurable scientific evidence of AGW. If there were verifiable measurements of AGW, the hotly debated question of the climate sensitivity number would be answered. As it is, WAGs range from the IPCC’s preposterous 3ºC+, to ≈1ºC, to many at ≤ 0.5ºC, to Dr Miskolczi’s 0.0ºC for 2xCO2.
CO2 probably does have a minor effect. But based on the fact that the only correlation was a temporary, coincidental one between around 1980 and 1997, AGW should be disregarded as inconsequential. You have hung your hat on the wrong rack, and now your comments are backing and filling, trying to explain away why your predictions all failed.
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 10:43 am
“The latest 10-year period is 0.14 C warmer than the previous 10-year period.”
It wasn’t yet at the plateau. This is worse than specious. This is prestidigitation.
“…all of which is, of course, just the standard scientific view…”
Not really. Just standard. The crowd is often quite mad. Don’t be afraid to get separated from the herd. That way lies opportunity.
“I’m wondering why you spend your time on blog comments instead of writing a series of papers that would set everyone straight and end all this debate once and for all?”
It isn’t my job, I don’t get paid for it, and I don’t enjoy it. I just hate seeing others make such a hash of things. And, inter alia, making my life more difficult while closing off opportunities for my heirs. Besides, I am humble (or experienced) enough to know that there are more powerful forces than truth, and I’d hardly get a fair hearing, coming as I do from outside the clique. Maybe my observations will percolate up to someone with influence and make an impression. Best I can do. Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.
D.B. Stealey says: “Thank you for your strawman response.”
It’s not a strawman response — it’s a serious question, Please answer it.
Also, in January 2007, the 15-year trend for the UAH lower troposphere was 0.32 (0.06) C/decade. What were you saying then about the trend? What would you have said to someone who said that, based on that, we’d have a catastrophe by 2100?
“But my question to you concerned the fact that noaa stated 17 years as decisive.”
It’s not what NOAA says, it’s what one paper said (Santer et al) — a paper based on climate models. Are you now saying you consider the results of climate models to be natural law?
Phobos,
I asked first, and repeatedly, and you dodged. Answer my question — specifically, using numbers:
What would it take for you to admit that your CO2=CAGW conjecture has been falsified?
Your credibility is already low, so if you move the goal posts out much farther, it will be shot completely.
When you have answered, I will answer.
I note also that you did not respond to my challenge to you to attempt to falsify my testable hypothesis:
At current and projected concentrations, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
D.B. Stealey says: “What would it take for you to admit that your CO2=CAGW conjecture has been falsified?”
Asked and answered:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1233326
Now, about the MWP and that trend from 2007….
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 3:53 pm
“What would you have said to someone who said that, based on that, we’d have a catastrophe by 2100?”
The situation is not symmetric. Today, there is supposed to be a relentless process driving temperatures higher. CO2 is roughly 30 ppm higher than it was 15 years ago, 35 % of the delta from the pre-industrial era which is supposed to be responsible for the temperature increase of the period roughly 1970-2000. The signal should be much greater than the noise, and yet… nothing. No more rise in temperature. If you do not see that as a significant failure of the hypothesis, then you are in very deep denial.
Bart says: “Today, there is supposed to be a relentless process driving temperatures higher.”
Oh my, if that’s what you think, you really haven’t understood anything.
Phobos,
I asked for specific numbers. You gave none. Vague answers are non-answers; they can mean whatever you want them to mean.
Keep in mind that moving the goal posts very far from 17 years sharply reduces credibility.
Finally, I note your reluctance to try and falsify my testable hypothesis. Smart move on your part.
“…because the surface temperature is a massless two-dimensional global field while heat content involves mass, the use of surface temperature as a monitor of climate change is not accurate for evaluating heat storage changes.“
– Roger Pielke Sr., Physics Today, Nov 2008
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-334.pdf
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 4:23 pm
“Oh my, if that’s what you think, you really haven’t understood anything.”
Riiight. So, sometimes, CO2 is forcing and sometimes, it’s just not in the mood. What a lame response.
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 4:28 pm
But, the oceans are not showing any heating from CO2, either. That’s the whole point of this thread.
If you disagree, if you persist in this absurd idea that surface forcing can cause the lower ocean layers to heat without leaving any trace in the upper waters, then please give us your theory as to how the heat is getting down there. Is it a Star Trek transporter beam operated by the evil oil companies?
D.B. Stealey says: “I asked for specific numbers. You gave none. Vague answers are non-answers; they can mean whatever you want them to mean.”
I don’t have specific numbers. There are still a lot of uncertainties in calculating surface temperatures: aerosols, clouds, ENSOs, deep ocean dynamics.
As I’ve said already, the radiative part of the calculation is among the best known parts of the science (and easiest to calculate). Fundamental physics, proved long ago, shows that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase causes warming. That’s 100% certain. The warming is about 1.2 K of surface warming for a CO2 doubling, and feedbacks (which are known to exist from paleoclimate studies) increase that, but they are difficult to fully incorporate, and equilibrium climate sensitivity is unknown to a factor of about 50% and maybe more. Many lines of evidence support these broad conclusions, but getting more specific is very, very challenging, both theoretically and observationally.
If you’re asking me to say when would I conclude that increases in CO2 won’t cause warming, there is no point at which I would say that. CO2 causes warming. If surface temperatures do not increase over climatologically significant intervals of several decades (15 years reveals nothing about climate due to oceanic weather), there has to be something else going on that is not understood — it won’t be that CO2 is misunderstood. Good bets would be clouds, or low-lying aerosols.
Now you can answer my questions.
The comments section was hilarious! I love watching people scramble to confuse the topic while they pretend they are speaking from a place of scientific authority.
I used to be as die hard of a believer myself, until of course I dug into the raw data. It will be interesting to watch the AGW theory die, it is to bad it will hurt reality based environmental threats.
We have a dynamic moving system with several factors not being fully understood that could more then account for our small shifts in temps. We have feedback loops that are simply not following their marching orders that are mandatory for the temps to even get to the levels we are told to fear. But still the choir is in full force. This generations climate “science” will alter how science is viewed for generations to come.
Bart says: “So, sometimes, CO2 is forcing and sometimes, it’s just not in the mood.”
Again, you either don’t understand or choose to pretend not to. There are other factors besides CO2 that influence surface temperatures, and over a short time period like 15 years they can combine to overwhelm the underlying GHG warming (like now) or combine to exaggerate it (like 2007).
“But, the oceans are not showing any heating from CO2, either. That’s the whole point of this thread.”
But they are. I’ve given the numbers many times now, and no one knows what they are for the bottom half of the ocean.
“If you disagree, if you persist in this absurd idea that surface forcing can cause the lower ocean layers to heat without leaving any trace in the upper waters, then please give us your theory as to how the heat is getting down there.”
Oceans circulation works like a conveyor belt. It may be that heat is being being carried to the North Atlantic and convected downward, or there may be changes in its circulation upwards. There are still many unknowns in this area.
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 5:14 pm
“As I’ve said already, the radiative part of the calculation is among the best known parts of the science (and easiest to calculate). Fundamental physics, proved long ago, shows that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase causes warming. That’s 100% certain.”
It isn’t. I have explained why. It’s presence increases warming relative to its absence, but the partial derivative (incremental warming for incremental increase) is not certain to be positive. It depends on the distribtution of the gas and the state of the system.
“…and feedbacks (which are known to exist from paleoclimate studies) increase that…”
Again, not demonstrable. You can’t diagnose the sign of feedback based on a scatterplot. Phase relationships can tilt the graph in either direction regardless of dc sign. A proper analysis, such as shown here can clearly identify the feedback as negative (180 deg phase at dc).
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 5:25 pm
“There are other factors besides CO2 that influence surface temperatures, and over a short time period like 15 years they can combine to overwhelm the underlying GHG warming (like now) or combine to exaggerate it (like 2007). “
Or, can cause a brief accelerated rise, as happened in the ~1970-2000 era. You are playing with a two-edged sword. If the current lull is not significant, then there is no reason to conclude that the previous run up was not due to “other factors” as well.
But, my point still stands. CO2 is supposed to be a relentless forcing. It does not take time off. And, it is supposed to be getting stronger, not weaker, so it should be even harder to override it now than it was during the previous warming spell.
“Oceans circulation works like a conveyor belt.”
OVER HUNDREDS OF YEARS!!! Where is the warming that is supposed to be occurring right now???
Well, let’s look at these “mythical” other influences that are claimed to have stopped global qwarming in its tracks for 14-15-16-17 years (take your pick) …
No volcanoes to speak of since Pinatubo. They are the cause, nor the excuse.
Western aerosols and particulates had never even been measured in the period when THEY were supposedly cooling the world (1940-1973), but China’s aerosols haven’t been measured either – and they’ve likely been increasing up ONLY up north. Not much circulation between north and south though – what overall reflectivity then? The same.
Actually, China excepted, the world’s air is more clear now than in the past 70-odd years. But temperatures stabilized? Hmmmn.
CO2 rose, but temperatures remain stable. Hmmmn.
Quick somebody think of something else. I’m afraid Phobos needs to look at his namesake, but, then again, they told us that the sun did NOT cause heating during 1973-1997. A very short 24 year period.
Actually, the ONLY 24 year period in the history of the world that both CO2 and temperature rose at the same time.
RACookPE1978 says:
February 27, 2013 at 5:53 pm
“Actually, the ONLY 24 year period in the history of the world that both CO2 and temperature rose at the same time.”
Well, if you believe the ice core data, they were both increasing in the period ~1910-1940, too. But, the increase above the nominal trend was the same in that period as ~1970-2000, about 0.4 deg peak to peak, even though CO2 was dramatically lower.
In fact, it is pretty clear that the temperature record is essentially a trend with an approximately ~60 year cycle superimposed, which hasn’t varied in the last century while CO2 levels have increased inexorably. It’s currently turning down right on schedule. There’s nothing unusual or CO2 related about it.
Phobos says:
“Now you can answer my questions.”
I note that your own ‘answer” was so vague as to be completely meaningless. I repeatedly asked for numbers, and you gave lame excuses. The fact is that you are a True Believer in your alarmist pseudo-science narrative. If you gave specific numbers you would no doubt be proven wrong. There is nothing more upsetting to a religious True Believer than to find out his god doesn’t exist.
So I will answer your question as follows:
In science, measurements are necessary. Without measurements, a conjecture can proceed no farther. It can become neither a hypothesis, nor a theory. It remains an assertion; a conjecture. An opinion. That is not good enough to implement policy.
A logical and persuasive case can be made that CO2 does not have the claimed global warming effect:
The best charts are the longest term charts. Whether or not there is great accuracy in the temperature recording instrument does not matter. It is the long term trend that matters. Because whether or not a centuries-old thermometer is accurate, it certainly will show an accurate trend line over time. Thermometers work, even old ones.
The Central England Thermometer record is a case in point. It clearly shows that the natural recovery since the LIA warmed the planet along the same long term trend line [the decelerating green line] for hundreds of years, without any recent acceleration.
If AGW was a scientific fact, then following the ≈40% rise in CO2 over the past century and a half, we would have observed a decisive acceleration in global temperature. But there has been no such acceleration. Rising temperatures have remained within fairly tight parameters, and they have not broken out above those parameters — as they must, if AGW does what the alarmist crowd had incessantly predicted. But the alarmists were wrong in that prediction, as in every other prediction they made.
Radiative physics is a fact, so how do we explain this glaring discrepancy? Easy: the first few dozen parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere produce most of the warming effect. But at current CO2 levels, there is such a minuscule effect that it is not even measurable. As Willis points out, CO2 is, at best, a minor third order forcing, which is swamped by second order forcings — which are in turn swamped by first order forcings. Each order is about an order of magnitude larger than the previous order. Conclusion: at present concentrations, CO2 — and thus, AGW — are non-events that can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes.
This is not just an opinion; it is backed by the actions of Planet Earth — and Planet Earth is deconstructing your ‘evil carbon’ belief system. Why should anyone listen to you, when the planet is decisively proving you wrong?
Finally, looking at the big picture, we see that all the wild-eyed arm waving is based on a myopic short term, coincidental parallel between CO2 and temperature. But that coincidence is breaking down, and the alarmist crowd is frantically running around [and incessantly thread-bombing], trying to rationalize the failure of another of their predictions.
Phobos seems to be one more mindless troll from the sks stable sent here to mouth inanities and obfuscate. But like all trolls, he ends up having his backside tanned and handed to him on a plate. This a scientific site, Phobos. The beauty of that is the facts are presented and speak for themselves. You on the other hand have presented nothing but arm waving and are being made to look like a fool with every inane post of yours, not that it was a very difficult task.
I find it astonishing that nobody on this learned website seems to know — or to even want to hazard a guess — as to what mechanism (other than those inconvenient greenhouse gases) might have caused the run up in temps since the start of the industrial revolution. The silence is deafening.
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:27 am
I think it remains to be determined, personally I think it’s somehow related to what the Sun is doing and or “Space Weather” and how it effects the Earth.
What I think has been determined is it can’t be from changes to Co2, and up until this pile of rubbish, I’ve never heard Scientists claim that because we can’t think of another cause it has to be X. I don’t have a problem with this being the basis of future research, but using it for policy that has led to people freezing to death, and dying from heat exhaustion is insane.
But it’s pretty easy to get an IR thermometer and when the temp is low enough to remove most of the moisture from the air(near freezing), then when the sky is clear measure the DLR from Co2. I measured the skies temp as -42C when it was ~1.5C outside. I suspect that even if an increase of Co2 increases that temp from -42C to -40.8C, it’s not going to do much of anything to surface temperatures. Especially when water vapor adds 20-30 more degrees of temperature to the sky.
IE water vapor, not Co2 controls surface temperatures, and a change from -42C to -41.8C isn’t by itself going to increase surface evaporation, causing an increase of temperatures. High CS values are fantasy of activists that are doing their own version of geopolitical engineering.
@D.B. Stealey:
You didn’t answer my specific questions. They’re rather simple ones:
1) Would you judge the climate changes of the MWP based solely on what was happening from 997 AD to 1012 AD?
2) What would you have said to someone in January 2007 who pointed out that the 15-year trend of the UAH lower troposphere data was 0.32 C/decade?
MiCro says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:05 am
Actually I think it’s more likely the bulk from the temp swing if from AMO and PDO cycles in ocean temperatures. Which might be influenced by the Sun and or space weather.
D.B. Stealey says: “It is the long term trend that matters.”
Then why have you been spending so much time and effort on the short, 15-year trend??
What would you have said to someone who pointed out, in Jan 2007, that the UAH LT 15-yr trend was a scary looking 0.32 C/decade? I suspect you’re not answering this because you know have said, that’s too short of an interval, let’s wait and see. Right? And if so, why doesn’t that same answer apply now?
The fact is (as Roger Pielke Sr pointed out in the quote above), the surface is subject to relatively large natural variations, and it’s a lousy place to look for the energy imbalance created by GHGs and other climate factors. It’s two-dimensional, so it can’t hold any heat anyway. There are many better places to look: the ocean especially. Also, ice. If those are warming and melting, who wouldn’t believe that the surface is bound to warm also, over the long-term?
D.B. Stealey says: “The Central England Thermometer record is a case in point.”
Why are you basing planetary climate based on what’s happening in one tiny corner of it?
As soon as you do that, you open yourself up to claims about other tiny corners, of which there are no end. You’re not doing planetary climatology, you’re doing very regionalized climatology.
REPLY: Apparently “phobos” hasn’t paid much attention to the lone tree at Yamal, the most “influential tree in the world”. Of course such focus on small data sets is OK when they do it. What a laugh phobos’ argument is. He/she/it is great entertainment. Another Linfield activist, no doubt. Love the name: Phobos (mythology); the Greek god of horror. Though… I think Comus would be a better fake identity for you. – Anthony
MiCro says: “I’ve never heard Scientists claim that because we can’t think of another cause it has to be X.”
And that’s not what they’re saying.
They’re saying
1) the Earth’s surface emits infrared radiation
2) GHGs absorb the upwelling IR, and re-emit it in all directions, some of it downward.
3) This continues until equilibrium is established, which is why the Earth’s surface radiates at 390 W/m2 when the Sun only delivers 240 W/m2.
4) Given this, it’s a matter of using spectroscopic data for the GHGs, quantum mechanics, and thermodynamic properties of the atmosphere to calculate the effect of changing GHG concentrations.
5) Compare measurements to expectations:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
They’re *also* saying, we’ve looked around, and can’t find any other influences that would cause the warming we’re seeing. This reinforces our GHG findings.
MiCro says: “Actually I think it’s more likely the bulk from the temp swing if from AMO and PDO cycles in ocean temperatures.”
Here’s something I’d really like to know the answer to, if anybody knows: what is the change in regional (or global) ocean heat content between a crest and trough of a PDO or AMO cycle?
The PDO and AMO indices aren’t temperatures, but normalized first principal components of regional SSTs. Can they be translated into changes in regional OHCs? If so, what is the change in regional (or global) OHC over half their cycle?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:36 am
MiCro says: “I’ve never heard Scientists claim that because we can’t think of another cause it has to be X.”
It’s exactly what they’re saying, all of the following is just window dressing.
Unfortunately the link is behind a paywall.
But, measure DLR with a IR thermometer on a clear day with temps near 30F, tell me what temp you read.
Then calculate the difference between how much the daily temp goes up, and how much it falls during the night. I have, follow the link in my name, and look at the updated temperatures blog. I don’t care what the radiation/temp trend is doing, it’s not causing a loss of cooling at night. It’s as simple as that.
Phobos says:
“Then why have you been spending so much time and effort on the short, 15-year trend??”
I cover all the bases, both short and long term, as you can see in my reply above. The inescapable conclusion: the climate alarmists’ case is debunked by the ultimate Authority, Planet Earth. That is why Phobos is arm waving in such excruciating consternation: the planet is proving him flat wrong.
Tap dance all you want, Phobos, but the rest of us can see that your runaway global warming narrative has been totally falsified. All of your predictions have failed. There is nothing unprecedented happening, much as you wish for your climate disruption fantasy to occur.
Run along now back to SkS, where they eat up your globaloney nonsense. This is the internet’s Best Science site, and your arguments fail here.
MiCro says: “It’s exactly what they’re saying, all of the following is just window dressing.”
Window dressing??? That IS the core of everything — the basis of the greenhouse effect. Is there some specific part of that science you disagree with? Because all you seem to be doing is throwing it all out because it’s inconvenient.
You can see the relevant figure from Harries et al here:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/321/Harries_Spectrum_2001.pdf
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:27 am
I gave you my guess previously. But, this is a false dilemma. If I go to the hardware store to buy a hammer, and the proprieter tells me “we have no hammers, but we have light bulbs and a tuna fish,” I am not compelled to choose between the light bulb and the tuna fish. Neither one will serve my purpose to drive nails through hard wood. Similarly, I do not have to accept a clearly flawed hypothesis as fact, just because it is the only one you find acceptable.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:04 am
…and subsequent posts. You keep proffering the same shallow platitudes which have already been found wanting. Simply repeating the same discredited arguments over and over is not going to gain you any ground. It is getting monotonous.
Phobos says:
“You can see the relevant figure from Harries et al…”
That’s the problem, the link says the greenhouse effect is “inferred”. But there are no measurements of AGW or the ‘greenhouse effect’, so it is still nothing but a conjecture.
That the best you got? If so, it’s a big FAIL.
@D.B. Stealey:
OK, so you’re not going to address my two specific questions. Your avoidance of them is very telling.
PS: No one is predicting “runaway” global warming. Have you ever heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:05 am
“That IS the core of everything — the basis of the greenhouse effect. Is there some specific part of that science you disagree with?”
Already addressed here. Your viewpoint is superficial and shallow. I wonder if you have ever even studied calculus.
@D.B. Stealey says: “but the rest of us can see that your runaway global warming narrative has been totally falsified.”
Remember this post?
“Sea level may drop in 2010,” posted on January 17, 2011, Guest post by John Kehr
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/17/sea-level-may-drop-in-2010/
Kehr concluded:
“This is yet another serious blow the accuracy of the official IPCC predictions for the coming century. The fact that CO2 levels have been higher in the last 5 years that have the lowest rate of rise than the years with lower CO2 levels is a strong indicator that the claims of CO2 are grossly exaggerated.”
And what happened to sea level? It rebounded from the strong La Nina, just as scientists said it would, and is now back on its trendline:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
This was another instance where someone jumped the gun based on a short-term trend, and used it to conclude the consensus was wrong. Did Kehr ever issue a correction or mea culpa? I haven’t been able to find one….
Phobos,
I have answered your questions in great detail. You just don’t like the answer, or the inescapable conclusion: CO2 doesn’t matter.
I provided a thorough analysis explaining exactly why CO2 has no measurable effect on temperature. As usual, you have no answer to that. Your lame response is based on your religious belief, not on scientific evidence or empirical measurements, because you have none. You have no credible response to the fact that CO2 does not matter.
Face the fact that Planet Earth is falsifying your narrative. Nothing currently observed is unprecedented; it has all happened before, and to a greater degree — and when CO2 was much lower. You are just making up a fake narrative to support your silly belief system. Your anti-science is at best amusing to the rest of us, and your endless thread-bombing is not convincing anyone that you have a leg to stand on.
I’m disappointed, though not surprised, that Phobos has chosen to ignore my (and others’) point about his “the last decade is the Warmest EVA!!!!” claim. It would be interesting to know whether he genuinely belives that has any significance at all in the matter of whether or not it’s still warmingI
If he does then he needs to really go back to basics, if he doesn’t then I’m intrigued as to why he uses an argument he knows to be unsound.
So, Phobos, a really easy (multi choice) question for you:
Do you believe that the fact, taken on its own, that the last decade has been warmer on average than the one before is evidence in any way that warming is still continuing?
(a) Yes
(b) No
(c) I don’t know, but it’s on the list I downloaded of “things to confront sceptics with”
(d) No comment / Plead the fifth
Obviously, the whole point of “pleading the fifth” is to avoid incriminating yourself so, assuming you don’t comment, we’ll let the jury draw their own conclusions :).
Bart says: “Already addressed here.”
Oh, that paragraph. Yes, I can certainly see how that might invalidate over 100 years of scientific reasoning and calculations. /sarc
Perhaps you can construct *some* planet where the partial derivative of global radiative forcing with respect to average CO2 concentration is negative. It certainly isn’t *this* planet at this point in time, as about 8 decades of calculation have shown (and as verified by Harries et al and followup measurements.
You have constructed a completely alternative universe where *every* major finding of climate science is wrong, based on hand-waving arguments you won’t take the risk of publishing. No small feat. You must be a sci-fi writer by profession.
@D.B. Stealey: No, you didn’t my two questions, which were very specific.
The first has a simple “yes” or “no” answer.
I’m guessing your answer to the 2nd question would be, ‘let’s wait and see what happens over a longer interval.’ Am I right?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:05 am
Did you go look at what I’ve done?
I don’t disagree that Co2 will reflect IR, I disagree that the change in Co2 has made more than an insignificant impact to surface temperatures. And night time cooling data, and the skies IR temp agrees with that conclusion.
@Joe. (A). Of course.
As long as the decades keep getting warmer, it’s absurd to say that global warming has stopped.
Temperatures that in the 1980s or 1990s were considered remarkably warm and now viewed as routine and ordinary. The short 15-year trends only appear small because (a) their beginning years includes a large positive fluctuation due to an El Nino, and (b) their ending years includes a large negative fluctuation due to a La Nina.
You are making the classic mistake of confusing weather and climate, except the weather is in the oceans, not the atmosphere.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:08 am
…
PS: No one is predicting “runaway” global warming. Have you ever heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
——–
I don’t know, has Dr. Hansen heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/12/nasa-scientist-warns-of-runawa.html
see paragraph 10, or to go straight to the source,
http://www.columbia/edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes_20081217.pdf
see slide / page 23.
Phobos,
You don’t get to determine how I answer a question. As stated above, I answered your questions in great detail. Your problem is that you don’t like the answer, which proved conclusively that CO2 has no measurable effect.
Now you can return to your endless thread-bombing.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:08 am
…
PS: No one is predicting “runaway” global warming. Have you ever heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
——–
I don’t know, has Dr. Hansen heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/12/nasa-scientist-warns-of-runawa.html
see paragraph 10, or to go straight to the source,
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes_20081217.pdf
see slide / page 23.
MiCro says: “I don’t disagree that Co2 will reflect IR.”
Ugh… CO2 doesn’t “reflect” infrared radiation. It absorbs and re-emits it. There are crucial differences, especially with respect to directionality,
No, I don’t know what you’ve done, and clicking on your name goes to a site of what looks to be science news. If you did something specific, please describe it here.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:34 am
@Joe. (A). Of course.
—————————————————————————————–
Then you are clearly not as scientifically literate as you think you are. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with confusing climate and weather. In fact, it has nothing directly to do with climate – it’s about basic high school maths!
Let me explain:
Say it warmed steadily through the 1990s. The average temperature for that decade will be roughly (start of 1990 temperature + end of 1999 temperature) / 2 .
The one thing that we can say for sure is that average for the 1990s decade will be LESS than the 1999 temperature because that’s how averages work – we’ve added a smaller number to a bigger number then divided by 2 so the resulting average MUST be less than the bigger number.
Now lets say, just for argument, that the temperature stops rising on 31st December 1999 and stays constant for the next 10 years. The average for the 2000s will then be (start of 2000 temperature + end of 2009 temperature)/2.
But, because the warming stopped at midnight on the 31st Dec 1999, “start of 2000 temperature” and “end of 2009 temperature” are both equal to “end of 1999 temperature”. So the average for the 2000s decade will be (end of 1999 temperature + end of 1999 temperature) / 2. That is EQUAL to “end of 1999 temperature”,
So the 2000s decade average (EQUALS 1999 end temp) is higher than the 1990s decade (LESS THAN 1999 end temp) even though the warming had stopped.
In fact, this holds true even if it cools steadilt during the 2000s decade, as long as it doesn’t cool more than it warmed in the previous decade.
So, “the last decade was warmer than the one before” does NOT mean it’s still warming. The ONLY conclusion you can draw from that fact is:
“the last decade didn’t cool as much as the one before warmed”
I’ve laid that out in nice bite-size chunks for you, so hopefully you can see where you (or the people feeding you these lines) have gione wrong?
Ps: Phobos, please accept my genuine apology if the tone in my last post seemed a little irritable. It’s just that I see that “warmest ever” line trotted out so often and the flaw in it is so basic that it gets a little tiresome to say the least!
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:24 am
“Yes, I can certainly see how that might invalidate over 100 years of scientific reasoning and calculations. /sarc”
You don’t get it. The calculations are valid. GHGs generally make the surface warmer than it otherwise would be without them. There is nothing in that statement which requires that the effect be monotonic with volume.
It is easy to show that it isn’t by taking the argument to the extreme limit. If you have CO2 so dense that it is effectively a solid shell in direct contact with the planet, then there is no GHE. Since the function attains its minimum at the boundaries, and it is non-zero in between, it follows that there must be at least one maximum somewhere, and there must be points at which the partial derivative is negative.
I have NOT said that we are in such a condition where the addition of CO2 takes us past the peak of the warming effect to produce incremental cooling. What I have said is the converse, that it is an open question, and it means you are NOT “100% certain” that adding CO2 results in warming.
All of the evidence indicates that there is no appreciable warming due to CO2. Temperature is driving CO2, and not the reverse. Temperatures show no deviation from long term behavior. So, some assumption underlying the current paradigm IS WRONG.
Think! Open your mind. The evidence against your position is compelling, and mounting daily. A year ago, the natural cyclical downturn was not yet readily apparent. Today it is. There can be little doubt that it will continue. This is a very regular natural cycle, and it’s going to be getting noticeably colder in the years ahead. If you are involved in the AGW endeavor in a professional capacity, I highly recommend you pack your parachute, and have an exit strategy prepared. Because those still standing when the music stops are going to be disgraced and discredited, and have a hard go of it.
“You have constructed a completely alternative universe where *every* major finding of climate science is wrong, based on hand-waving arguments you won’t take the risk of publishing. “
Not wrong, per se, but not properly applied. You can’t just take equations and apply them willy-nilly without consideration of the conditions under which they are valid. As I said, your viewpoint is shallow and superficial. You are taking for granted things which are not compulsory according any actual scientific principle.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:57 am
You’re right, I was being sloppy.
I did, I compared today’s temp increase with tonight’s drop. And I’m not going to re-write everything just for you.
I will point you to two pages, The first one explains what I did. I figured out that I lost one decimal place, and remade the graphs, which is the second page.
MiCro says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:05 am
“I think it remains to be determined, personally I think it’s somehow related to what the Sun is doing and or “Space Weather” and how it effects the Earth.”
Then show me a graph with the sun (or space weather or sun spots or whatever) and temps that has any degree of correlation. Show me any sort of mechanism that supposedly correlates. Then compare it to greenhouse gases.
I think Occam’s Razor enters into the discussion at some time. Then, after that, there’s a discussion on risk and insurance. Then, you have to look at your children and grandchildren and decide whether you give a damn.
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 11:27 am
Then, you have to look at your children and grandchildren and decide whether you give a damn.
——————————————————————————————————–
Personally I’d prefer to loook at the old dear down the road who can’t afford to heat her home in the (yet again) below average winter temperatures we’re having because the “green” charges and taxes that we’re paying are inflating our basic fuel and food bills by so much.
Or should the old and poor be taking pride in literally freezing to death today in order to (maybe) stop our grandchildren from (maybe) feeling a bit warm?
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 11:27 am
” Then, you have to look at your children and grandchildren and decide whether you give a damn.”
Yes, I care about them. I do not want to impoverish them by pursuing some fanatical scheme to address a problem which does not exist, and over which we have no control even if it did.
Too bad you care too little about your heirs to recognize your neurosis, and take measures to improve your emotional state of health.
Joe says: “Say it warmed steadily through the 1990s. The average temperature for that decade will be roughly (start of 1990 temperature + end of 1999 temperature) / 2 .”
*IF* it warmed steadily. It rarely does.
For someone admonishing me about high school math, you’re is sorely lacking.
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 11:27 am
I don’t have one.
Nice comeback, think of the children! How about the ones that go to bed in the cold because their parents can’t afford to heat their home, of they have to breathe smoke from wood or dung because they can’t get cheap fossil fuels or electricity?
See, I am a simulation professional, spent over 15 years supporting, creating models for, demoing, giving lessons on about a dozen different simulators. I’ve read the ToO for GCM’s, I know how they had to jack in a high CS value to get temps to respond, that Co2 alone didn’t do it.
And as of yet, there’s no physical measurements that any of it is real, and as more and more research gets done by real scientists, that value (CS) keeps getting smaller and smaller.
Then I went and got a copy of NOAA’s, CRU’s, and BEST’s data. Night time temps drop as much as it goes up during the day, at least to the accuracy of the data.
Lastly, I just got an IR thermometer, as I pointed out above, without water vapor the sky is quite cold, and while it might be warming with increased GHG’s, it’s still plenty cold to cool the surface at night.
Oh, you might want to look into changes in land use too. I don’t know where you live, but if you get frost at night, ever wonder why only grass and cars get frost, but not asphalt or concrete? Mix in some lousy station sitings (which Anthony has done a great job of documenting), and I’m not too worried about my grandchildren, well unless the Sun is shutting down, then it’s going to start getting really cold.
@Bart: You remind me of a friend of mine. She majored in literature, loves it, has read extensively and reads incessantly, and can talk to you all day about Faulkner and Hemingway and Fitzgerald, what they did right and what they did wrong and what they should have done instead.
She’d also love to write “the Great American Novel,” and has started it perhaps a dozen times. But she never gets more than a chapter or two in before other things come up or she starts anew. I try to encourage her to put her work out there, but except for a couple of literary journals no one ever heard of, her work stays in draft form in her notebooks. I’ve never had the heart to tell her what I really think, except in the most general terms: that she’s afraid of putting her work out there because she’s afraid of getting rejected. As long as her work stays with her she can be sure about it’s genius, beauty and veracity. Putting it out for publication would risk rejection and the shattering of all that. It’s much easier for her to pretend she has all the answers in the world she’s constructed for herself.
Phobos says:
“…clicking on your name goes to a site of what looks to be science news.”
Interested in who is responding to you, eh? That’s pretty hypocritical, coming from an anonymous coward.
@MiCro: Yes, it’s fun to do backyard experiments and make some spreadsheets. (I guess that’s what you did — I’m not going to take much time to sort through it and figure it out.)
It’s not science.
Maybe you’ve never been exposed to real science, or done any of it. If you had, you’d know that a few spreadsheets aren’t science, and are no comparison at all the the decades and decades of careful, detailed work done by thousands of science, any more than stick figures compare to Picasso or an accountant is an expert on monetary policy.
You’re just looking for a reason to reject results you, for some reason, don’t like, and these few spreadsheets are your cover.
D.B. Stealey says: “You don’t get to determine how I answer a question.”
Sorry, you are clearly still avoiding them (and of course, I know why).
They are two simple questions, with relatively simple answers.
I think ‘Fat Cheque’ is what Glik was hoping for, not this. Do people know that SkS’s skipper is a cartoonist by trade?.
Mark Bofill says: “I don’t know, has Dr. Hansen heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?”
I am interested in the science, not in personalities. As soon as I see someone write “But so-and-so did it!” I know they don’t have a scientific answer. I get that — most people don’t have the scientific background to really understand climate science, and it’s easier to just spit and fume about James Hansen or Al Gore or Richard Lindzen. But I have absolutely no interest in engaging in debate on that level. Sorry.
Evan Bedford,
I rarely click on a name, but your comment sounded so silly I did in your case.
I found some stale old debunked propaganda showing a supposedly stranded polar bear on an ice floe. Really, you must be an Algore acolyte.
This is a science site. What are you doing here?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 12:20 pm
You’d guess wrong.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 12:06 pm
Joe says: “Say it warmed steadily through the 1990s. The average temperature for that decade will be roughly (start of 1990 temperature + end of 1999 temperature) / 2 .”
*IF* it warmed steadily. It rarely does.
For someone admonishing me about high school math, you’re is sorely lacking.
———————————————————————————————————-
The “warmed steadily” was just to keep it simple – clearly you need that!
If you have a value that increases over time then, regardless of the pattern of increase, the average value will be LESS than the end-value of the linear trend of the increase. If that’s not so then you simply don’t have a positive trend in the first place.
If the trend then changes to zero, starting at the end-value of the increasing trend (which it must start at unless there’s a step change), then the average of the next time period will equal that end value,. It will therefore be GREATER than the average of the time when it was increasing.
The average of the second time period will only become lower than the first if the second period has a DECREASING trend that is greater than the increasing trend over the first period.
So, the ONLY definite conclusion you can draw if a decadal average temperature is higher than the previous decade’s is that the temperature trend hasn’t become negative by more than the initial positive. In other words, from the “warmest ever” statement taken alone, all we know that it isn’t now cooling faster than it warmed during the 90s.
It really isn’t that difficult a concept!
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 12:20 pm
Let me add, why would anyone bother to even converse with you, if that’s all the more you’re willing to invest?
You’ve made up your mind, that’s fine, but why come here?
We don’t need missionaries, people willing to discuss science get a fair shake. Offer me a reason that explains why the data I’ve extracted is wrong, I’m actually looking for that kind of feedback. But what i get are responses like your, you don’t like it, and thousands have spent decades trying to turn lousy data into a trend, so they must be omnipotent. I don’t need that, go find someone else to proselytize to.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 12:13 pm
It’s more equivalently, I’d love to write such lighthearted fare, but after polishing off War and Peace, I am currently engaged in writing a tale involving a great white whale. I have rather more interesting and remunerative applications for my talents.
I have laid out everything for you, and am appealing to your own sense of logic. Work it out for yourself, without abdicating your capacity for thought to others whom you imagine are endowed with greater perspicacity. More than half the time, the guys with the greatest reputations got them because they had the mojo to make others believe, not because their ideas have particular merit.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 12:27 pm
II get that — most people don’t have the scientific background to really understand climate science
——————————————————————————————————
Says the person who can’t understand a very basic, very obvious, fact about averages over time.
Absolutely priceless! 😀
@Joe: Of course I get your “concept.”
All you are saying is, if the short-term surface trend is zero, AGW has stopped.
I’ve responded to this criticism numerous times above: ocean heating, ice melting, sea-level rise, natural fluctuations, ENSOs, too short of an interval, cherry picked start and end points, massless surfaces, etc…. If you don’t get it by now, you aren’t trying or it’s beyond you.
As long as the average temperature of the current decade is significantly greater than the average temperature of the one before it, it’s absurd to claim warming has stopped. Just six years ago the 15-yr trend was 0.32 C/decade. What were you saying then?
@Bart: I have worked it out for myself, as best I can with the time I have. I find the science convincing, and your so-called reasoning superficial. And I have a lot more respect for people who spend their entire careers doing this and writing careful, detailed papers than people who spend all day commenting on all the blogs thinking hand-waving is science and that they’ve disproven absolutely everything.
MiCro says:”Let me add, why would anyone bother to even converse with you, if that’s all the more you’re willing to invest?”
Because you haven’t taken the time to say clearly, without jargon, what it is you’ve done. You just threw up a link to something that is, frankly, not very well written, and said, here, go figure it out for yourself.
My time, like everyone’s, is limited and you haven’t given me a reason to think you’ve done anything important that I should spend it on. Has this work, say, been published anywhere? If the result is so important, surely everyone in the field needs to know about it, right?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:04 am
1) Would you judge the climate changes of the MWP based solely on what was happening from 997 AD to 1012 AD?
So you agree there was a MWP and by extension it was warmer than today. If so why would think the warming of today is in anyway out of the ordinary as it happened in the MWP without being blamed on CO2?
@MiCro: For example, this is from your page:
“The methodology I used was to take the daily maximum temperature, and subtracted the morning low temperature. That provides the energy into the planet, I then took the Max temp, and subtracted tomorrow mornings low temp, which gives me the energy lost overnight.”
This is just nonsense. The planetary energy imbalance is not related to the simple temperature change you calculated. It’s absurd to equate the two.
Did you read Harries et al 2001? They’re trying to determine the global change in energy balance for clear sky conditions. You’ll notice they aren’t doing it by measuring temperatures on the surface a few times a day. Because you can’t.
Look. Like you, I love science and thinking about it. I also like playing with data, graphing it, testing out my little ideas. I suspect that you, like me, think that climate science is endlessly fascinating, especially at this point in time — we’re lucky to be living through this time when so much science is going on and everyone is struggling to find answers and understanding.
But I don’t think my little spreadsheets are science. They aren’t. Science is deep and complicated and requires careful data gathering and analysis. Even the experts have a hard time doing it, and make mistakes, take false steps, and so on. But little by little the field advances and the picture gets a little clearer here, and little less foggy there. It’s a slow process, and there seems no end to the complications one needs to consider. Frankly, the amazing thing is that science can tell us anything about not just climate, but the entire universe or some microscopic piece of it.
I read a lot of scientific papers, and know what it takes to write one. There is just no comparison between them and the spreadsheets I create. Or, I’m sorry to say, yours. I simply can not fathom why amateurs think they can counter the work of thousands, over decades, with a couple of spreadsheets.
mkelly says: “So you agree there was a MWP and by extension it was warmer than today. If so why would think the warming of today is in anyway out of the ordinary as it happened in the MWP without being blamed on CO2?”
No, I didn’t say that. As near as I can tell, there was an MWP in some places on the planet, but the science is still unclear as to whether it was a global phenomenon. (PAGES had an entire newsletter on this about 2 years ago.) And, if it was, what caused it. And, if it was caused by an increase in solar irradiance, that does not explain today’s warming, because there has been essentially no increase in solar irradiance since about 1950. And, if it was some kind of nonlinear fluctuation of the climate system, if that doesn’t make our current situation even worse, because we’d have to worry about the possibility of another one in addition to GHG heating. And, while the MWP did some nice things for Europe, it seems to have caused megadroughts in North America (see: Sand Hills, Nebraska).
So then, how about answering my question about the 997-1012 AD time period?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 1:02 pm
@Joe: Of course I get your “concept.”
All you are saying is, if the short-term surface trend is zero, AGW has stopped.
——————————————————————————————
No, Phobos, that’s not what I’m saying at all.
YOU posted on 27th Feb at 10:43 am:
“The latest 10-year period is 0.14 C warmer than the previous 10-year period.”
as evidence that it is still warming.
When i asked you, at 10:34 AM today, whether you actually believed that the average for the 2000s being higher than the average for the 1990s was evidence of continued warming, you answered categorically “YES” (you even added “of course”)!
Since then I have simply tried to explain to you, using the simplest possible language and examples, why that fact is NOT evidence that it’s continuing to warm. Neither is it evidence that the warming has stopped or reversed. I have NOT suggested it means that in any of my posts.
Others here have suggested that you might work for NOAA or similar. Given that you have categorically stated above that you believe without question something that is easily demonstrated to be invalid, EVEN WHEN PRSENTED WITH THE DEMONSTRATION, I sincerely hope they’re wrong!
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 1:06 pm
“And I have a lot more respect for …”
Respect is not a part of the equation. They’re either right, or they are not. In this case, they are not.
But, I understand. You do not have enough confidence in your own faculties and abilities to make your own conclusions. That’s a shame. But, you’ll learn. I’ve done all I can.
D.B. Stealey says: “That’s the problem, the link says the greenhouse effect is “inferred”.
Here is the definition of “infer”: “Deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.”
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:04 am
2) What would you have said to someone in January 2007 who pointed out that the 15-year trend of the UAH lower troposphere data was 0.32 C/decade?
If I may jump in here, you raise a good point, however there are several things to note with your choice of UAH between 1992 to 2007.
There was a volcanic eruption that affected 1992 and satellites give more extreme values. So you are cherry picking with a volatile data set over a short period. And changing the date by three years from 1995 to 2007 makes a large difference. Using Hadcrut3, the difference between 1992 to 2007 and 1995 to 2007 is a difference from 0.0274 per year to 0.0195 per year.
Now let us compare this to Hadcrut3 from 1997.25 to date versus 2000.25 to date. It is flat both times. So while I agree that 1997.25 is a cherry picked time, there are cancelling affects due to the 1998 El Nino and the La Ninas that followed it. However there was no cancelling effect for the Pinatubo volcano.
See the four slope lines below to see exactly what I am talking about.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1992/to:2007/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/to:2007/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000.25/trend
Furthermore, temperatures follow a 60 year sine wave. The 1992 to 2007 period was on the upswing of the sine wave. And now we are past the flat peak of the sine wave and heading down. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
@Mark Bofill: So I went ahead and looked at the Hansen links you gave about the runaway greenhouse effect. He says (in both):
“In my opinion, if we burn all the coal, there is a good chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect.”
That is a VERY big if. The amount of coal on the planet is estimated to be 98.6e17 g C (Swart and Weaver, Nature Climate Change, 2012). That’s 10,000 gigatonnes of carbon! — we have emitted only 380 GtC so far from burning fossil fuels.
I don’t think anyone has a model that can simulate such an extreme scenario. It seems he’s making an educated guess, which is why he prefaces it with “In my opinion….”
As Hansen writes, the Sun is stronger now than when atmospheric CO2 was 4000 ppm. I’d have to calculate how much.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 1:26 pm
You’re right, I shouldn’t have used energy.
As I said, it’s behind a paywall, I did look at the graphs you sent though.
I’m not really trying to identify an imbalance, I’m trying to get real measurements of DLR, what I’m trying to do is figure out a way to separate the DLR from Co2 vs DLR from water vapor. One should be increasing based on increases of Co2, the other based on the variability of water vapor.
And yet, that exactly what is use to justify a warming problem, an increase in temperature of ~0.8C
What I did is based on the same data, it’s either a valid use of the data or it isn’t. Which is it Phobos? Valid, Yes or No?
But ignoring my poor choice of words, those “simple” spreadsheets are based on 120 million station records and about 224 million temp measurements.
BTW the temperature history all of AGW is based on is from a single temperature measurement a day, and prior to 1930 or so, a few thousand measurements/year. So, my graph has about 100 million more samples than the entire temperature history has, that the global warming trend is based on.
Phobos,
An inference is not measurable scientific evidence. I asked for measurable evidence. So far you are batting zero.
On the bright side, no one else has measurable evidence of AGW, either.
Phobos also speculates:
“As near as I can tell, there was an MWP in some places on the planet, but the science is still unclear as to whether it was a global phenomenon. (PAGES had an entire newsletter on this about 2 years ago.) And, if it was, what caused it. And, if it was caused by an increase in solar irradiance, that does not explain today’s warming, because there has been essentially no increase in solar irradiance since about 1950. And, if it was some kind of nonlinear fluctuation of the climate system, if that doesn’t make our current situation even worse, because we’d have to worry about the possibility of another one in addition to GHG heating.”
Where to start? First off, there is plenty of evidence that the MWP was global in extent.
Rather than wasting your time wondering why the planet is recovering from the LIA [which was also global in extent], you should be wondering what caused the anomalous LIA — one of the coldest episodes of the entire Holocene.
The planet has been warming from that cold period, and CO2 has either
a) little, or
b) nothing
to do with it.
Wake me when you can measure AGW. Then we will have settled the question of the sensitivity number.
Finally, anything would ‘make our current situation worse’. The past 150 years have been a true Goldilocks climate: not too cold, not too hot, but just right. During that time, harmless, beneficial CO2 has been both high and low, and it has not made a bit of difference. During the Holocene it has been unusual to go for 150 years with hardly a fluctuation in temperature. 0.7ºC is nothing compared with other times, when temperatures changed by tens of degrees over decadal time scales — and without changes in CO2.
Werner Brozek says: “There was a volcanic eruption that affected 1992 and satellites give more extreme values. So you are cherry picking with a volatile data set over a short period.”
Werner, thank you for taking on the question. I agree with your answer: that natural factors can have a large influence on the trend in an interval as short as 15 years.
So, if that was true in 2007, why isn’t it true today?
D.B. Stealey says: “An inference is not measurable scientific evidence.”
It’s frustrating when we can’t even agree on the meaning of words.
Here is the definition of inferred, from Google: “Deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.”
Here is the definition of evidence, from Google: “The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.”
Do you agree that Harries et al made measurements?
Do you agree that those measurements are information?
Bart says: “Respect is not a part of the equation.”
Ideally, yes. But human limitations mean one cannot independently reproduce or verify every piece of data and every calculation. Therefore, one must make judgements about how trustworthy the works of others is, and respect — one’s opinion gathered from prior encounters — is certainly part of that.
Phobos says:
“So, if that was true in 2007, why isn’t it true today?”
Listen to a true expert, instead of the pseudo-scientists over at SkS:
See, nothing is static. There are cycles within cycles, sometimes reinforcing each other, sometimes canceling. The planet is not in equilibrium, and there is no need to invoke a magic gas to explain tenths of a degree changes.
No doubt William of Ockham is spinning in his grave: “One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.” CO2 is an extraneous entity, which is not necessary for any explanation of the curent climate.
Finally, as I have repeatedly pointed out: there are no testable, empirical measurements of AGW. None. If there were, the question of the sensitivity number would be answered. But it is not; there is a long running debate over that number, with estimates anywhere from zero to 3+ºC and more. Measure AGW, and you will have the answer.
But I suspect you wouldn’t like the answer, because it would be much too small for your liking. You can’t scare people with a small sensitivity number. It might even be zero.
@MiCro: People have also measured changes in downward longwave radiation:
“Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect,” R. Phillipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
There was also this poster:
“Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate,” W.F.J. Evans, Jan 2006
https://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
Similar work is listed here:
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/papers-on-changes-in-olr-due-to-ghgs/
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 3:21 pm
“But human limitations mean one cannot independently reproduce or verify every piece of data and every calculation.”
As Einstein said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” However difficult you might find it to tease out the truth of an hypothesis, it is not so difficult to prove it wrong through a single contradiction. The links I have given you contradict the hypothesis. Therefore, it is wrong.
D.B. Stealey says: “Finally, as I have repeatedly pointed out: there are no testable, empirical measurements of AGW.”
It is based on a series of inferences, each of which itself is based on the combination of theory and experiment.
This is done all the time in science.
* Can you show me a testable, empirical measurement that shows smoking causes lung cancer?
* What experiment measured the mass of the Higgs boson, when it exists for only 10^-22 seconds?
* Where exactly does one stand in order to measure the mass of the Earth? Of the Andromeda Galaxy?
Phobos,
Typical misdirection. You avoided the logical conclusion:
“…there is a long running debate over that number, with estimates anywhere from zero to 3+ºC and more. Measure AGW, and you will have the answer.”
No one has the climate sensitivity number. No one. It is all speculation. Therefore, there is no empirical, testable measurement of AGW.
QED
D.B. Stealey says:
“The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century.
~ Prof Richard Lindzen, M.I.T.”
Where is the proof that this is happening?
There isn’t any, because no one knows what is happening to the bottom half of the ocean.
On the other hand, we do know what is happening with GHGs, and we know (for clear skies, at least) that the Earth is radiating less at their absorption frequencies, and that downward longwave radiation is increasing, and that average humidity has increaased. That is, that the increase in GHGs is causing warming.
Whatever is going on in the deep ocean doesn’t undo what we know about GHGs.
Phobos says:
“Where is the proof that this is happening?”
Now you’re just saying something to be saying something — and to avoid my logical construct that proves CO2 has no measurable effect.
You cannot empirically, testably measure AGW. If you could, the sensitivity number would be established. It is not. There is a wide range of opinion.
If you would like some estimates of the sensitivity to 2xCO2, just ask, and I’ll educate you.
@D.B. Stealey: My response was *not* misdirection. It says that, like much of science, the result [for climate sensitivity] is based on a series of inferences.
in science, very few things are measured directly — most of them are inferred from a combination of theory and experiment. Heck, most scientists don’t even try to measure something until theory gives them a good idea of what the answer should be.
Do you reject the results for the mass of the proton because no one has placed it on a scale and weighed it? (And by the way, even a mass balance scale relies on inferences.)
P.S. Are you ever going to directly answer my two questions?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 12:27 pm
Mark Bofill says: “I don’t know, has Dr. Hansen heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?”
I am interested in the science, not in personalities. As soon as I see someone write “But so-and-so did it!” I know they don’t have a scientific answer. I get that — most people don’t have the scientific background to really understand climate science, and it’s easier to just spit and fume about James Hansen or Al Gore or Richard Lindzen. But I have absolutely no interest in engaging in debate on that level. Sorry.
———
Phobos,
Considering the relative unimportance of the original point, I’d have probably let this slide if you hadn’t responded at all. But seeing as how I don’t particularly enjoy being dismissed as not having the scientific background to really understand climate science by an anonymous troll with unknown credentials or listening to one suggest that I’m spitting and fuming about personalities, I feel compelled to address the matter. Therefore, allow me to begin by noting that your answer is without factual basis, unsupported, and unresponsive to the point I raised. Regardless of this, it contains interesting content that I’d like to address. In more detail:
Your answer is without factual basis in that I in fact do have the scientific background to understand climate science, and in that I was neither spitting nor fuming about anyone. Under other circumstances I’d be glad to present my credentials, however, I refuse on principle to enter a discussion about my qualifications in a discussion with someone who is not even using their real name. Your answer is unsupported, in that you assert (by implication) that I lack the scientific background to understand climate science without offering any evidence to back up your claim. Further, you offer nothing to support your contention that I was ‘spitting and fuming’ about any personality, as of course I obviously was not. Perhaps most importantly, your answer is unresponsive to the point I raised, as can be demonstrated by reviewing the pertinent portion of the thread.
—
—
I reproduced the relevant sequence here above, because out of courtesy I did not attempt to rub your nose in the obvious in my post by explicitly stating that your statement No one is predicting “runaway” global warming is certainly questionable, if not demonstrably false, by my citing Dr. Hansen. Additionally, whatever supporting point you believed you were making by invoking the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit is reasonably called into question if you accept Dr. Hansen as a competent authority regarding climate change.
This segues conveniently into what I referred to earlier as the interesting content in your post I’d like to address.
The first question I’m interested in is simple enough, and I mean it very sincerely; please construe no sarcasm or devious intent. IS Dr. James Hansen a credible climate scientist and an authority on climate change, or do you consider him a personality like Al. Gore? I ask this honestly because it irritates me no end when people confuse me with the Sky Dragon slayers, for example. Is this a similar case?
Thanks for your attention, and looking forward to your considered response.
P.S. – I am aware of your subsequent post regarding this material. I would not clutter up the discussion by creating a simultaneous branch. If you feel that this subsequent post has relevance to the issues I’ve raised of course feel free to reference it, but I’d prefer that we pick up our discussion here.
I note that your latest post debunks your ‘inference’ claim. There are plenty of inferences of the sensitivity number, based on all kinds of evidence.
Which number is the correct number?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Werner, thank you for taking on the question. I agree with your answer: that natural factors can have a large influence on the trend in an interval as short as 15 years.
So, if that was true in 2007, why isn’t it true today?
It is true today as well! Natural factors do have a large influence on any trend as short as 15 years. It is NOAA that says if natural factors are strong enough to produce a slope of 0 for 15 or more years, then something is wrong with the models that predict catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
D.B. Stealey says: “Now you’re just saying something to be saying something — and to avoid my logical construct that proves CO2 has no measurable effect.”
What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?
Werner Brozek says:
“It is true today as well! Natural factors do have a large influence on any trend as short as 15 years. It is NOAA that says if natural factors are strong enough to produce a slope of 0 for 15 or more years, then something is wrong with the models that predict catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.”
Thank you, finally, for being at least one person to admit this. Others here won’t even tackle the question.
You’re right, of course: typical natural factors such as volcanoes and ENSOs mean 15 years is so short a time period to make meaningful conclusions about climate change.
But, where did NOAA make this claim?
And who said NOAA was the last word in climate science? That their words are holy writ?
Who said ANYBODY was the last word in ANY science?
Werner Brozek says:
“then something is wrong with the models that predict catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.”
What do you mean by “catastrophic?”
After all, that’s a term of human values, not of science. So you’ll need to define it, according to your values (which means others can define it according to their values).
Mark Bofill wrote: “your statement No one is predicting “runaway” global warming is certainly questionable, if not demonstrably false, by my citing Dr. Hansen.”
Hansen isn’t predicting this. He wrote “if we burn all the coal.” *If.* That’s 10,000 GtC, when so far we’ve burned 380 GtC of fossil fuels.
The IPCC predictions are based on economic scenarios. Is there any IPCC scenario in which we burn 10,000 GtC? No, of course not.
Hansen isn’t predicting we’ll burn that much. He’s saying if we did.
By the way, what is your result for the warming expected from emitting 10,000 GtC?
Phobos says:
“What do you mean by ‘catastrophic?'”
‘Catastrophic’ is anything that will derail the climate grant gravy train.
Got it?
See, the whole CO2=CAGW conjecture is overhyped nonsense. If AGW exists, it is a minuscule forcing that can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. It simply doesn’t matter, as the planet is clearly demonstrating.
So who should we believe? The AGW hucksters? Or Planet Earth? Because they cannot both be right.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:04 pm
“Others here won’t even tackle the question.”
Not so. As I stated quite plainly, it is an asymmetrical situation.
If natural variablity was not strong enough to mask the supposed warming signal in the earlier period, why should it be large enough to mask it now?
And, if it is large enough to mask it now, what assurance is there that the earlier warming was due to it?
You can’t have it both ways. Either natural variation is enough to explain both periods, or it is weak enough that the CO2 forcing should still be apparent.
…what assurance is there that the earlier warming was not due to it?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Mark Bofill wrote: “your statement No one is predicting “runaway” global warming is certainly questionable, if not demonstrably false, by my citing Dr. Hansen.”
Hansen isn’t predicting this. He wrote “if we burn all the coal.” *If.* That’s 10,000 GtC, when so far we’ve burned 380 GtC of fossil fuels.
The IPCC predictions are based on economic scenarios. Is there any IPCC scenario in which we burn 10,000 GtC? No, of course not.
Hansen isn’t predicting we’ll burn that much. He’s saying if we did.
By the way, what is your result for the warming expected from emitting 10,000 GtC?
—————
Phobos,
I understood the material presented in your subsequent post. The original point, as I noted, was of small relevance to the discussion to begin with. I have no interest in quibbling about whether or not Hansen is predicting we’ll burn that much, although an argument can certainly be made.
I am far more interested in an answer to the question I posed you, if you’d be so kind as to supply one. I was of the opinion that Dr. Hansen was a respected scientific authority among mainstream climate scientists. However, to choose one possible example of how I could be mistaken, he has gone to jail because of activism several times now; perhaps his activism affects his scientific credibility in your eyes? Or is there some other distinction by which you identify him as a personality similar to Al. Gore?
How much warming will result from burning all of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground? The question of warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is subject to the sum of feedbacks in the system, a question which I do not believe has been answered decisively to date. This is another reason I remain skeptical regarding AGW.
My question is a simple one; a simple – yes, I consider Dr. Hansen a leading authority, or no, he’s a nutcase activist who’s wrong about X Y and Z will do, or anything in between. I’d really like to know.
Thanks in advance.
@DB Stealey:
Again, you are avoiding direct questions.
What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?
(Or is that an inference?)
There are two other questions outstanding, as well. (Don’t think I don’t know why you are avoiding them.)
Phobos,
For someone who runs and hides out from others’ questions, you don’t have the standing to keep asking more. You say, “What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?” Rather than point out how silly that questions really is, let me explain something to you:
As a climate alarmist, the onus is entirely on you. Scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. Ei incumbit probatio, qui dicit, non qui negat; cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit. – The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies; since, by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof. As to the conjecture that CO2 produced by human fossil fuel use is causing “unprecedented” global warming: the onus lies entirely on those who say so. As to the proposition that there has been an alarming spike in global temperatures: the onus lies on those who say so.
Alarmists are always playing these games, trying to shift the burden of proof onto scientific skeptics. Trenberth wants to reverse the burden of proof for the Null Hypothesis and make skeptics; in effect, to make them prove a negative. But the scientific method doesn’t work that way. AGW is your conjecture. YOU have the onus of producing measurable evidence that it exists. Trying to shift the burden is typically dishonest.
And of course, you are failing big time. There is still no empirical, testable measurement of AGW. It is an assertion, that’s all. An opinion. A conjecture, for which you have no verifiable scientific measurements.
Now, if you want to see a real, testable, falsifiable hypothesis, here is mine:
At current and projected concentrations, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
I challenge you to try and falsify it. In the mean time, your own conjecture has been destroyed in this thread.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm
Well, since the thermometer age began, CO2 levels have been steady.
During that time, temperatures have risen, been steady, and lowered.
During the last 80 years of thermometer age, CO2 levels have risen steadily since the mid-1930’s.
Temperatures have dropped, been steady, risen,and been steady.
During the last 40 years of the thermometer era, satellite records confirm that a 30% increase in the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere has resulted in … ZERO increase in worldwide temperatures.
During the last 14 years of the satellite era, NO natural “forcings” have occured: ENSO has NOT gone extremely high (as in 1997-1998), there have been NO substantial changes in TSI, there have been NO substantial volcanoes.
Further, there have been NO credible “natural forcings” over that 14 year period to “cancel” the supposed rising effect of CO2 – that change in temperature that did not happen that you are trying to blame on some sort of natural forcing or natural variation.
YOUR problem is: CO2 increased 30+ percent, no other “forcings” changed, and temperatures did NOT. Therefore, YOUR theory is wrong.
Therefore, a series of actual, scientific, direct measurements since 1850, and proxy measurements since 6000 years ago, confirm that CO2 levels have nothing to do with the earth’s 800-1000 year temperatures cycles, nor do they have anything to do with the earth’s shorter 60 year temperature cycles.
@Mark Bofill:
So, what you’re saying is that you really have no idea if burning 10,000 GtC will cause a runaway greenhouse effect. Yet you criticize those who’ve worked on planetary climates for decades and do have some idea about it.
My question is a simple one; a simple – yes, I consider Dr. Hansen a leading authority, or no, he’s a nutcase activist who’s wrong about X Y and Z will do, or anything in between. I’d really like to know.
James Hansen is a very good scientist of considerable experience, who believes our accelerated burning of fossil fuels in disregard for their environmental impacts will have deleterious effects on the future of life on Earth, and has decided, based on this knowledge, that he should vigorously speak out about, and act on, these dangers.
Okay, I can see you guys are talking about more important things. I was just idly curious about your view and your take on AGW believers on Dr. Hansen, but it’s not of any real importance obviously.
RACookPE1978 says:
“During the last 40 years of the thermometer era, satellite records confirm that a 30% increase in the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere has resulted in … ZERO increase in worldwide temperatures.”
What? You think there has been no increase in satellite-measured temperatures for 40 years?
Nice try, Mr RA Cook. Goodbye.
D.B. Stealey says: “You say, “What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?” Rather than point out how silly that questions really is, let me explain something to you.”
You made this statement, not me.
What measurement shows it?
Either start answering some questions directly, or expect no further replies.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm
“What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?”
These do. The temperature record of the last 100+ years has been composed of a non-accelerating trend, superimposed with a regular, well-behaved, approximately 60 year cycle. While CO2 has increased markedly, temperatures have shown no divergence from pre-existing patterns.
Bart says: “…what assurance is there that the earlier warming was not due to it?
I’ve seen you do this on other sites.
Without data, there is no assurance whatsoever. And no proof whatsoever, either.
By such standards, intelligent minds on the planet Gzilt may be warming our planet by methods we can’t begin to comprehend.
Are they? Your question is in the exact same category.
On the other hand, we know that certain gases create a greenhouse effect. We know that an increase in their abundance should decrease the amount of outgoing longwave radiation, and theoretical calculations give us a good idea of how much. We know that measurements do, in fact, show a decrease in outgoing longwave radiation at GHG absorption frequencies, and that the surface is receiving more infrared radiation, i.e. warming. The best models show that this warming is, on average, now about 0.1-0.2 C/decade, after natural fluctuations. And that’s what’s observed.
But it may all be due to the Gziltians — who knows, right??
Mark Bofill says: “…February 28, 2013 at 6:12 pm…”
And your warming for 10,000 GtC is???
Phobos,
Turn tail and run away then, fine with me. It won’t stop me from pointing out that the absence of any testable, empirical measurements of AGW means that your conjecture has failed. You have the onus of providing such a measurement to support your AGW conjecture. But there are no such measurements, so you are now trying to make the questioning skeptic prove a negative. It doesn’t work like that.
You have no understanding of the scientific method. No wonder your assertions and beliefs are getting thrashed here.
D.B. Stealey says:”It won’t stop me from pointing out that the absence of any testable, empirical measurements of AGW means that your conjecture has failed.”
Harries et al 2001 shows that the Earth’s brightness temperature is decreasing at GHG absorption frequencies:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/321/Harries_Spectrum_2001.pdf
How do you interpret such results in terms of planetary heating?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:24 pm
“I’ve seen you do this on other sites.”
Maybe. I don’t get around a whole lot, though. Is “this” something really terribly awful?
“Without data, there is no assurance whatsoever. And no proof whatsoever, either.”
As D.B. admonished you, the burden of proof is on you. You are the one advocating extraordinary action be taken to avert this putative threat. If you cannot offer anything of substance, then you have no cause for action.
“On the other hand, we know that certain gases create a greenhouse effect.”
Yes. But, we do not know the actual functional form. It’s not something that can be tested in a laboratory. Thus, we do not know local sensitivities.
“We know that an increase in their abundance should decrease the amount of outgoing longwave radiation…”
Intuition may suggest it, but intuition is often a horrible guide. When you work out the math, it just ain’t necessarily so. I gave the example of Willis Eschenbach’s “steel greenhouse” construct, in which it can be proved mathematically that the surface temperature decreases with thickness of the shell.
…and theoretical calculations give us a good idea of how much.”
There is no controlled experiment to provide confirmation of such calculations. Without confirmation, the calculations are conjectural.
Bart says:
“What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?”
These do.”
So your understanding is that surface temperature depends on, and only on, the level of atmospheric CO2?
Phobos says:
“So your understanding is that surface temperature depends on, and only on, the level of atmospheric CO2?”
You have it backward. Atmospheric CO2 depends on temperature.
Look closely at that chart. You will see that ∆T causes ∆CO2, not vice-versa. This happens on time scales from months to hundreds of millennia. Further, there are no comparable charts showing the opposite cause and effect.
When your premise is wrong, your conclusion will necessarily be wrong. The alarmist crowd always assumes that ∆CO2 causes ∆T, but in fact it is the other way around.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:26 pm
Mark Bofill says: “…February 28, 2013 at 6:12 pm…”
And your warming for 10,000 GtC is???
——————————-
Sure Phobos, let’s walk through what can be walked through for laughs and see where it goes. Jump in where I make a mistake, please.
1) 10,000 GtC burns to produce 36,666 Gt CO2.
2) In recent years, we’ve been burning about what, 9, 10 Gts a year, and atmospheric CO2 is increasing by 2 ppm per year. Making the completely unjustified assumption that the CO2 sinks available in the system will behave the same way for 3,666 times as much CO2, and that I can estimate ppm from Gts burned this way and end up in the ballpark, and god only knows what elsee, we’d be looking at 7,333 ppm increase, or about 7,733 ppm total.
400+400=800, +800=1600, +1600=3200, +3200 = 6400, closest ballpark figure. Doubling 4 times.
3) Using the most naive approach, we’d take the climate sensitivity at this point and work out the temperature increase. Completely ignoring the degree of saturation of CO2 absorbtion bands, the sinks of atmospheric CO2 in the system, the sign and magnitude of overall feedback in the system, we could stupidly claim 4*1.2 = 4.8C temperature increase.
Now, I don’t for a second believe the climate system is this simple. See, you seem to be confused about the roles and responsibilities involved here. I’m a S-K-E-P-T-I-C. I don’t have to have a solution to point out that your solution looks wrong. I know Stealey probably went over this with you half a dozen times today, but since you persist in asking for a figure, 4.8C is as good as any other as far as I’m concerned, considering how hopelessly complicated the real system is.
Okay, so spring it on me. What was the point of the exercise?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:45 pm
“So your understanding is that surface temperature depends on, and only on, the level of atmospheric CO2?”
Hardly. It doesn’t appear to have any significant impact from CO2 at all. I think maybe you lost track of the conversation. Take a mulligan and try again.
On this:
Bart says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:24 pm
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm
“What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?”
And, these do. The relationship is
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
where k is a coupling parameter, and To is an equilibrium temperature anomaly. Of necessity, such a relationship is causal from temperature to CO2, for it would be absurd to claim that the rate of change of CO2 is driving temperature, and not the level of CO2 itself.
Bart says: “On the other hand, we know that certain gases create a greenhouse effect.”
“Yes. But, we do not know the actual functional form.”
It’s not a relationship that can be expressed in a simple functional form.
Is it really your belief that a simple function is necessary for all natural laws?
“We know that an increase in their abundance should decrease the amount of outgoing longwave radiation…”
” Intuition may suggest it, but intuition is often a horrible guide. When you work out the math, it just ain’t necessarily so.”
It’s not intuition that suggests it, it’s the detailed mathematical calculation. And, indeed, experiment verifies it — the Earth’s brightness temperature is changing at exactly the frequencies expected.
“There is no controlled experiment to provide confirmation of such calculations.”
Of course, there are no controlled experiments for much of science, especially for complex systems. Yet we know that smoking causes lung cancer, even though we can’t do a controlled experiment on any particular patient. So this criticism is just silly.
D.B. Stealey says: “You have it backward. Atmospheric CO2 depends on temperature.”
And what if independent actors (let’s call them “humans”) are digging up fossil fuels and burning them as fast as they can, emitting CO2 regardless of anything that’s going on with climate.
What then?
I am going to call it a night. Will pick up again tomorrow.
Phobos says:
“And what if… What then?”
If I’ve got you at the ‘what if’ stage, that means you’ve used up your talking points. Now you’re cruising on emotion.
I’m with Bart. See you tomorrow.
Aww.. I missed the party. How about you Phobos, looks like you’ve been at it for at least 5 or 6 hours now, want to pick up tomorrow? I’ve got to work but I can take a couple of breaks so long as my overall hours total up properly.
@D.B. Stealey: If humans are shoveling up carbon and burning it, why does the atmospheric level depend on the surface temperature?
Are the shovelers checking their thermometers first?
D.B. Stealey says:
February 28, 2013 at 12:32 pm
“Evan Bedford,
I rarely click on a name, but your comment sounded so silly I did in your case.
I found some stale old debunked propaganda showing a supposedly stranded polar bear on an ice floe. Really, you must be an Algore acolyte.
This is a science site. What are you doing here?”
I’m asking a simple question. So far, I’ve gotten 3 different answers: 1) I don’t know, 2) it’s the hot air from the MSM, and 3) it’s the sun (but with nothing indicating any sort of correlation).
Can anyone do any better than the greenhouse gas correlation that is the current scientific consensus? So far, it doesn’t look like it.
“Bart says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:24 pm
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm
“What measurement shows that CO2 has no measurable effect?”
These do. The temperature record of the last 100+ years has been composed of a non-accelerating trend, superimposed with a regular, well-behaved, approximately 60 year cycle. While CO2 has increased markedly, temperatures have shown no divergence from pre-existing patterns.”
Most of ’em look like this: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1900/to:2010 Why would you be choosing monthly anomalies?
Evan,
What exactly part of that temp trend is due to Co2?
And how would you explain that trend if on average the temp goes down as much at night as it did the prior day?
One more quick look back…
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:43 pm
“How do you interpret such results in terms of planetary heating?”
This is mostly water vapor and CH4. The central CO2 region barely budged. These were different instruments and a single comparison does not constitute a statistic. More data needed.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 7:11 pm
“It’s not a relationship that can be expressed in a simple functional form.”
You have to be able to calculate the sensitivity. And, you have to know the assumptions which went into that calculation.
“Is it really your belief that a simple function is necessary for all natural laws?”
It doesn’t have to be simple, but you’ve got to have something which you can use to make predictions which can be verified.
“It’s not intuition that suggests it, it’s the detailed mathematical calculation.”
Then, provide it, and all the assumptions which went into it.
“And, indeed, experiment verifies it — the Earth’s brightness temperature is changing at exactly the frequencies expected. “
Changing by how much? How were the parameters governing the relationship fitted? Is the parameterization unique, so that the model has predictive power (not likely)? Are you relying on scanty information such as above?
“Of course, there are no controlled experiments for much of science, especially for complex systems.”
Of course there are. That is how science is verified. If you can’t verify it, it’s just conjecture.
“Yet we know that smoking causes lung cancer, even though we can’t do a controlled experiment on any particular patient.”
Not even remotely similar. Carcinogenesis has been observed in innumerable experiments on laboratory animals and in cell cultures. And, we have millions of premature deaths recorded, some of them near and dear to me.
Evan, don’t expect answers from D.B. Stealey.
He avoids questions, no matter how simple you make them.
In fact, it’s the simple ones that he avoids the most.
Evan Bedford,
CO2 has no measurable effect.
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 7:48 pm
“Can anyone do any better than the greenhouse gas correlation that is the current scientific consensus?”
The question is, can any do worse? Go hammer your nails with your tuna fish (see earlier comment if you are perplexed). We’re busy.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 7:38 pm
@D.B. Stealey: If humans are shoveling up carbon and burning it, why does the atmospheric level depend on the surface temperature?
It is a temperature modulation of continuous flows into and out of the surface system. It is exactly the kind of thing you expect for continuous transport models.
OK, that’s really it for tonight. Good night, all.
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 7:54 pm
Dang it. One more got in.
“Most of ‘em look like this.”
That’s land only.
All right. Nite all.
D.B. Stealey says: “CO2 has no measurable effect.”
To be clear: it is your position that the global average surface temperature is dependent on, and only dependent on, average atmospheric CO2 level?
Do I have that right?
Bart says: “It is a temperature modulation of continuous flows into and out of the surface system. It is exactly the kind of thing you expect for continuous transport models.”
People, did you notice how Bart threw in that term “continuous transport model” to try and snow everyone else into thinking he was oh-so-smart??
We are independent actors digging up fossil fuels and burning them. How, then, does the atmospheric level depend on temperature? It seems to me it depends on how fast we shovel….
MiCro says: “What exactly part of that temp trend is due to Co2?”
The answer requires a little bit of thinking — are you OK with that?
“Global temperature evolution 1979–2010”
Grant Foster1 and Stefan Rahmstorf2
Environ. Res. Lett. 6 (2011) 044022
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf
By the way, you never responded about those papers I showed you that measured changes in downward longwave radiation. How should I interpret your silence?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:13 pm
“We are independent actors digging up fossil fuels and burning them.”
So what? It’s a drop in the bucket of global flows.
The mistake people make is that they do not understand that this is a feedback system. CO2 is well regulated by natural sources and sinks. Feedback naturally attenuates the inputs of small disturbances, which is what our contribution is. That is the magic of feedback. That is why we use it so extensively in electronic and electro-mechanical, hydraulic, chemical, and a host of other systems. The proof is in the plot which I will share again in just a moment.
“How, then, does the atmospheric level depend on temperature?”
I explained it. When you have continuous transport of CO2 into and out of the system, and the differential rate between the two is modulated by temperature, then you get a relationship of the form
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
which is precisely what is seen in the real data here. Sorry if you are uncomfortable with the nomenclature, but is this really so hard to understand?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:26 pm
“The answer requires a little bit of thinking — are you OK with that?”
Bob Tisdale already debunked it, but it requires thinking. Are you OK with that?
“By the way, you never responded about those papers I showed you that measured changes in downward longwave radiation. “
Well, I did.
Guys, there’s really no point in “debating” with Phobos.
If you noticed, earlier in the thread he stated outright that “this decade’s average temperature is higher than last decade’s average temperature” counts as evidence that the climate is still warming. In fact, as far as i can see reading back this morning, that is the ONLY straight answer to a straight question he has given in the entire thread.
When he was shown the falacy in that belief, his first reaction was to try and characterise my point as the obviously wrong “a 15 year pause means no warming”. Since I pointed out his (no doubt completely genuine) misunderstanding of my point, he’s ignored my last post and moved on to other things.
That demonstrates several unequivocable things about our friend Phobos, some of them even by logical inference!
(1) He’s easily suckered into genuinely and openly believing an AGW “talking point” that’s demonstrably wrong with very little thought or effort.
(2) Given (1) it’s extremely unlikely that he actually UNDERSTANDS any of the other “scientific” points he’s discussing. His arguments are simply picked up, flown in and dumped on the page like a child using Wikipedia for their homework. If he was capable of understanding them, he would never have fallen for such a simple fallacy!
(3) When something that he believes is shown, clearly and beyond any doubt, to be a fallacy, he first tries to distort what’s been show and then ignores the matter when that doesn’t work. That’s unscientific in the extreme. The fact he doesn’t recognise his own lack of scientific thinking in this context reinforces the inference at (2)
So why waste bandwidth on him? Apart from the fact it’s fun of course 😉
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:26 pm
This doesn’t answer my question, and the R2 values aren’t very good.
I only got a chance to look at them this morning.
I can only see the Abstract of the first one:
So I’m not sure why they only subtracted 2/3’s. But, even if we assume the 1.8Wm-2 is real, how much of a temp change is that going to make on the zenith temp? So instead of it being -43C, it’ll be -41.8C?
This what I expected to find with my experiments, so let’s assume this is correct. So what?
The second paper was looking for ozone, and the third link was to papers on OLR from satellite measurements.
MiCro says:
March 1, 2013 at 7:05 am
This is what I get when I get distracted by work.
The “So What” is in relationship to the fact that the surface temperature record shows that temperatures go down at night as much as they went up during the day. This hasn’t change since the 50’s.
I have started to look at the rate of change of the daily difference between Rising temp – Falling temp, for both spring-fall as the rate difference goes from rising temps to falling temps, and fall-spring as the rate goes from falling temps to rising temps. And there is a trend in the rate of change, that seems to peak around 1970, and falls both going back into the 50’s as well as till about 2000, where the 10 year running average appears to be changing direction again. So it looks like there’s a ~60-70 year cycle that the rate of change is cycling, which fits the temperature cycle the data shows. Unfortunately the number of station readings before the 50’s is insufficient.
What this leaves is what is causing a 60-70 year cycle in the rate of change in temperature as the ratio of day/night changes with the seasons.
So Evan, when I say I don’t know, this is what i don’t have an answer to, but I do know it’s not Co2.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:12 pm
@Mark Bofill:
So, what you’re saying is that you really have no idea if burning 10,000 GtC will cause a runaway greenhouse effect. Yet you criticize those who’ve worked on planetary climates for decades and do have some idea about it.
—————————–
Sorry Phobos, I think I missed this last night due to cross posting.
You are absolutely correct that I really have no idea if burning 10,000 GtC will cause a runaway greenhouse effect. Whether or not I ‘criticize those who’ve worked on planetary climates for decades’ is beside the point. I’m glad for any and all scientific research that gets done. I’m happy that people are looking at climate. I’m certain scientists have been working very hard for decades, and it’s admirable that they’re working hard on it.
Unfortunately, the fact that they have been working very hard for decades does not excuse them from having their results subject to the same criteria I apply to all scientific results. Working hard on a problem for decades doesn’t mean I blindly accept your claims about the problem. At the end of the day I ask do you have a theory that is useful in making accurate predictions, can I see it please. If the theory can be used to make accurate predictions, I’m inclined to accept it. If not, well, keep working at it then, let me know when and if you sort it out.
Do you see some problem with this?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:04 pm
But, where did NOAA make this claim?
And who said NOAA was the last word in climate science? That their words are holy writ?
Who said ANYBODY was the last word in ANY science?
Here is what was said:
PDF document @NOAA.gov. For anyone else who wants it, the exact quote from pg 23 is:
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
By the way, Santer said something similar to NOAA, but he used 17 years. But this may not be the last word either. Some people would rather move the goal posts than admit their theory is wrong.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 5:06 pm
What do you mean by “catastrophic?”
I did not come up with that word. However James Hansen wrote the following book so the title may give you an idea what he has in mind:
Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
Werner Brozek says:
March 1, 2013 at 8:28 am
[…]
PDF document @NOAA.gov. For anyone else who wants it, the exact quote from pg 23 is:
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
—————————————————————————————————
But Werner, the settled science has moved on since that was said in 2008. In the intervening years they’ve refined the models, which now allow for zero trends of any (as yet undetermined) length without altering the conclusions. That’s not goalpost moving, it’s just taking account of the improved models’ improved ability to take anything inconvenient that nature does and square it neatly with the consensus.
And they’ll ultimately be proved right – one day in the distant future the sun will expand and cook the planet, at which point they’ll be able to say “you see, the warming was just delayed!” 😉
MiCro says:
March 1, 2013 at 7:05 am
“This doesn’t answer my question, and the R2 values aren’t very good.”
And, it has no physical basis. It’s just a simplistic, deceptive, and meaningless curve fitting exercise. In Von Neumann’s words: “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.” Meh.
Phobos says:
“Do I have that right?”
So far, you don’t have anything right.
Evan Bedford says:
“Can anyone do any better than the greenhouse gas correlation that is the current scientific consensus?”
Of course. Wake up and pay attention:
Get up to speed on the Null Hypothesis, and you might begin to understand that there is nothing unusual happening. Natural variability fully explains the current climate.
Bart says: “So what? It’s a drop in the bucket of global flows.”
Nature absorbs as much as she puts in — actually a little more than that. It’s man’s contribution that is causing the atmospheric buildup.
D.B. Stealey says:
Richard Lindzen says: “For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century.”
If the heat were coming from the ocean, the stratosphere would be warming. Instead, it is cooling — as expected if AGW is taking place.
15-yr rates of cooling for lower stratosphere:
UAH: -0.09 (0.04) C/decade
RSS: -0.12 (0.05) C/decade
@Werner: “Catastrophic” is not a scientific term, but one of values. Hence, everyone defines it according to their values.
So how do you define it?
Phobos says:
“It’s man’s contribution that is causing the atmospheric buildup.”
And an unmitigated good thing it is, too. More CO2 is better. There is no downside, either at current or projected concentrations.
Those demonizing “carbon” are hopeless scientific illiterates.
Finally, Phobos is arguing with Prof Lindzen? Really? That is like a retarded child arguing with Albert Einstein.
[Also, I have already defined ‘catastrophic’. Pay attention: catastrophic is when the grant gravy train gets derailed.]
@Mark Bofill: So you have no idea of the consequences of burning 10,000 GtC, yet criticize someone who has done a lot of work on Venus and who says that, in their opinion (not fact — opinion), doing it here would risk a runaway greenhouse effect.
I think that shows your criticism is meaningless.
Joe says: “In the intervening years they’ve refined the models, which now allow for zero trends of any (as yet undetermined) length without altering the conclusions.”
Do you really not understand that a lot of evidence supports the enhanced greenhouse effect, while uncertainties in other factors that influence surface temperatures (aerosols, ENSOs, clouds, deep ocean dynamics, feedbacks) leave ample room for a flat trend over short time intervals?
And that ENSO fluctuations of plus-or-minus 0.2-0.3 C can easily combine with an underlying 0.15-0.2 C/decade GHG warming to give a 15-yr period of zero trend for the surface, like when a large El Nino is in the early part of the interval and a large La Nina is in the latter part of the interval?
Do you not understand these, or are you pretending not to? Because it’s rather simple reasoning….
Phobos says:
“Do you really not understand that a lot of evidence supports the enhanced greenhouse effect…”
Wrong.
There is no testable, empirical measurement that quantifies a ‘greenhouse effect’. If there were, then the question of the climate sensitivity number would be resolved.
D.B. Stealey says:
“There is no testable, empirical measurement that quantifies a ‘greenhouse effect’. If there were, then the question of the climate sensitivity number would be resolved.”
You’re wrong, because climate sensitivity depends on much more than the enchanced greenhouse effect — it depends on feedbacks, which are very difficult to calculate.
The links I’ve given above (Harries et al, and the others) are direct measurements of the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Phobos commented
” You’re wrong, because climate sensitivity depends on much more than the enchanced greenhouse effect — it depends on feedbacks, which are very difficult to calculate.”
Not only difficult to calculate, they don’t show up in the temp record. Very elusive.
Phobos says:
March 2, 2013 at 11:18 am
@Mark Bofill: So you have no idea of the consequences of burning 10,000 GtC, yet criticize someone who has done a lot of work on Venus and who says that, in their opinion (not fact — opinion), doing it here would risk a runaway greenhouse effect.
I think that shows your criticism is meaningless.
————————————
🙂 Phobos I missed you.
In fact, if you review my comments I posted no criticism of Dr. Hansen in this context in this thread, I cited Dr. Hansen to refute your argument that ‘nobody is predicting runaway global warming.’ If anything, it was you who were disregarding the opinion of someone who has done a lot of work on Venus, not me. But who cares about that; it was an irrelevant point when I first raised it. Taking the word ‘runaway’ out of Stealey’s original post and your response to it doesn’t really change the discussion at all. I was making a stupid point.
But I like your trick. If Dr. Hansen states something as fact, it’s OK for me to ask for a verifiable theory, but since it’s his ‘opinion’, what? I need to accept it as if it were scientific fact without the verifiable theory?
I don’t think so.
Phobos – hey, on a much more interesting note. I’ve heard rumor that you’re an SkS regular. Do you know anything about John Cook’s twitterbots, or any other bots he might use? I’ve read about AGW_AI (or was it AI_AGW), but apparently that twitter account has been suspended. Can you point me towards any info about them?
@Mark Bofill: No one is talking about a runaway greenhouse effect as a serious possibility, only as an “if,” because no sane person thinks we will burn 10,000 GtC. (For one thing, it would raise atmospheric CO2 levels to roughly 5,000 ppmv, which begins to become toxic (or at least sedative)).
Humans would stop burning carbon long before that.
P.S. I barely know who John Cook is.
IPCC, 2004: “A ‘runaway greenhouse effect’—analogous to Venus—appears to have virtually no chance of being induced by anthropogenic activities.”
http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session31/inf3.pdf
@Phobos – like I said, it was an irrelevant point when I raised it. I saw you two talking about it when I got back to the thread but didn’t do a very good job checking the comment history before I posted on it.
RE John Cook: Bummer!
Hey, just out of curiosity again, how’d you end up with 5,000 ppmv for burning 10,000 GtC? I did this wrong in my earlier post, but revisiting – if we’re burning about 9 GtC a year now and CO2 is increasing 2 ppmv in the atmosphere, one might think we’d increase by another 2,222 ppmv at 10,000 GtC. I’ve read that by computing our CO2 contribution theoretically instead of taking the observations we see that we’re actually putting out something more like 6 ppmv per year, but the CO2 sinks in the system are absorbing some of that, so what we measure is 6 ppmv. Are you figuring some of the sinks saturating somewhere along the line in your calculation?
BTW – I think you’re overestimating the effects of a half percent CO2 concentration there. A quick google glance at a couple of sources seems to indicate no effect at indefinite exposure times until at least a percent or two.
Excuse me, meant to say, what we measure is 2 ppmv, not 6 ppmv.
Phobos says:
“The links I’ve given above (Harries et al, and the others) are direct measurements of the enhanced greenhouse effect.”
Once more, for the hard of understanding: there are no empirical, testable measurements of the so-called ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’, nor of AGW. None. What is it about none that is so hard to understand?
If there were verifiable measurements, the sensitivity number would then be established. It is not. Prof Richard Lindzen puts climate sensitivity to CO2x2 at <1°C. Dr Craig Idso puts the sensitivity number at 0.37ºC; Dr Miskolzci puts it at 0.00ºC; Dr Spencer puts it at 0.46; Dr Schwartz puts it at ≈1.1ºC; Dr Chylek puts it at 1.4ºC. Prof Lindzen’s estimate is about average among skeptical scientists – the only honest kind of scientist.
One more time for the dense: there is no agreed sensitivity number, therefore any and all claims that AGW has been measured are false.
Phobos says:
March 2, 2013 at 11:25 am
Joe says: “In the intervening years they’ve refined the models, which now allow for zero trends of any (as yet undetermined) length without altering the conclusions.”
Do you really not understand that a lot of evidence supports the enhanced greenhouse effect, while uncertainties in other factors that influence surface temperatures (aerosols, ENSOs, clouds, deep ocean dynamics, feedbacks) leave ample room for a flat trend over short time intervals?
————————————————————————————————————-
Do you really not understand humour comment when you see it? Sheesh!!!
On a more serious note, do you also not understand that it was YOUR side who said, as recently as 2008, that a 15 year pause was ruled out by the models at a 95% confidence level? Or that we have now reached that 15 years and the Met Office are predicting a further 4 to 5 year pause on top?
You see, there has to come a point where your “flat trend over a short time interval” starts to mean something. The last word from the experts was that point was “15 years”. Now that 15 years has arrived, they’re moving the goal posts but haven’t said where too yet. Hence my tongue-in-cheek comment about “zero trends of any (as yet undetermined) length” being consistent with the models
What will they do when (quite likely as things are going) the “pause” becomes longer than the late 20th C warming? Only another 10 years or so to go and they’re already preparing us for 4+ of those. Will you STILL be saying it’s “just a pause” then?
What will they do when (if) the “pause” gets to the magic “30 years for climate”? Will that suddenly be too short to mean anything as well?
Joe commented.
” What will they do when (quite likely as things are going) the “pause” becomes longer than the late 20th C warming?”
Okay, i have a prediction, temps are very near their peak, if not already past it. The ~30 year downward cycle has begun.
If you compare the difference between day time temp increase, amd the following nights drop, on a daily basis throughout the year, and get the slope of this change from spring to fall, and fall to spring. That slope was at a max right about 1974, where it started dropping. The minimum slope bottomed the same time temps peaked, the max slope lasted about 10 years, as of 2010, the min slope was just finishing its 8-9th year.
It is almost an exact 30 year cycle.
Phobos says:
March 2, 2013 at 11:10 am
“Nature absorbs as much as she puts in — actually a little more than that. It’s man’s contribution that is causing the atmospheric buildup.”
Nope, that’s not how it works. That’s not how feedback systems work in general. The proof, for this specific case, is here.
D.B. Stealey says: :Once more, for the hard of understanding: there are no empirical, testable measurements of the so-called ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’,”
Just to entertain you….
1) explain why a decrease in brightness temperature at CO2 and CH4 absorption frequencies is not a sign of an enhanced greenhouse effect
2) explain why an increase in surface downward longwave radiation at CO2 and CH4 emission frequencies is not a sign of an enhanced greenhouse effect
3) explain how you would measure the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Phobos says:
1) explain…
2) explain…
3) explain…
You still don’t understand the Scientific Method. The onus is on you to explain, not on scientific skeptics. You are the one who needs to provide a credible explanation of your CO2=CAGW conjecture. But you have no good explanation. In fact, Planet Earth is falsifying your conjecture. You just can’t admit it.
Phobos says:
…
1) explain why a decrease in brightness temperature at CO2 and CH4 absorption frequencies is not a sign of an enhanced greenhouse effect
2) explain why an increase in surface downward longwave radiation at CO2 and CH4 emission frequencies is not a sign of an enhanced greenhouse effect
3) explain how you would measure the enhanced greenhouse effect.
—————
Definitions:
Phobos says:
…
1) explain why a decrease in brightness temperature at CO2 and CH4 absorption frequencies is not a sign of an enhanced greenhouse effect
2) explain why an increase in surface downward longwave radiation at CO2 and CH4 emission frequencies is not a sign of an enhanced greenhouse effect
3) explain how you would measure the enhanced greenhouse effect.
—————
Definitions:
Answers:
1) & 2) Nobody disputes the basic radiative physics. (see Straw Man above) By definition, the primary measure of the greenhouse effect is increase in average temperature (see Greenhouse Effect above). Showing a decrease in brightness temperature at CO2 and CH4 absorption frequencies is not a sign of an enhanced greenhouse effect, as it does not inevitably follow that a decrease in brightness temperatures at CO2 and CH4 absorption frequencies will correspond to an increase in average temperature. As you well know, any postulated increase in average temperature resulting is subject to numerous other factors, I.E. sub of total feedback
3) Measuring a significant rise in the average temperature (as opposed to the insignificant warming observed over the past 17 years) would be a good place to start (see Greenhouse Effect above).
@DB Stealey: I have explained, and given the references to the papers that prove it.
All you have done is said, no no no, without even being willing to analyze the results or discuss why you think they don’t show an enhanced greenhouse effect. (They do.)
What exactly are you doing here is you don’t want to discuss science?
Mark Bofill says; “1) & 2) Nobody disputes the basic radiative physics. (see Straw Man above) By definition, the primary measure of the greenhouse effect is increase in average temperature (see Greenhouse Effect above).”
There has been a 0.8 C increase in average surface temperature since the pre-Industrial era..
You and DB Stealey insist on analyzing a short interval where other factors have relatively large contributions to the short-term trends.
That’s why the decrease in brightness temperature is the *best* measurement of an enhanced greenhouse effect — it is independent of all the other complicating factors. That’s the kind of measurement scientists strive for — one that is simple and clean, without complicating factors.
That’s why Harries et al 2001 and Philipona et al 2004 are the surest sign that the greenhouse effect has gotten stronger as GHG concentrations have increased.
Phobos,
Are you completely dense? How many times do I have to explain this to you? There are no empirical measurements of AGW. None. No matter how many pal-reviewed papers you trot out.
For the umpteenth time: if we could measure AGW [enhanced globaloney], we would then know the climate sensitivity number. But we do not know the sensitivity number.
Prof Richard Lindzen puts the climate sensitivity to CO2x2 at < 1°C.
Drs Craig Idso, pere & fils, put the sensitivity number at ≈0.37
Dr Ferenc Miskolzci puts it at 0.0ºC
Dr Spencer puts it at 0.46
Dr Schwartz puts it at 1.1
Dr Chylek puts it at 1.4
The UN/IPCC puts it at a preposterous 3º+
With the exception of the IPCC, these are all reputable climatologists. They are recognized, published, peer reviewed authors — and they all disagree widely over what the sensitivity number is. Why? Because there are no empirical measurements of AGW.
If you cannot follow the reasoning and logic here, everyone else can. ALL of these SWAG estimates of sensitivity are simply educated guesses. They are not empirical, testable, falsifiable measurements. Peer reviewed papers are not empirical measurements. Climate models are not measurements. ‘Radiative physics’ is not a measurement.
There are no empirical, testable, falsifiable measurements of AGW.
I have a feeling you still don’t get it.
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 6:32 pm
Er, uhm, ah, … no.
There was essentially NO change in CO2 levels from man’s activity before 1960. (And no other changes either from any known event.) To claim effects “since the Industrial Revolution” is dead false.
Therefore, there could have been NO effect on the earth’s temperature from a change in CO2 levels at ANY time prior to 1961. And, in fact, the “change” would need to be proportional to CO2 levels at ALL periods since 1960 for your “logic” (the CAGW = CO2 level religious fervor) to hold true. During that period since 1960, IF other factors have influenced worldwide temperatures, YOU need to be the one (or your other CAGW theists) to provide such worldwide measurements of aerosols, particulates, SOx, NOx, solar influences, or volcanoes, or clouds, or other matters.
Instead, we MEASURE real-world explicit declines in worldwide temperatures after particular events (extreme volcanic eruptions for example, EL Nino maximums, etc.) and NOT elsewhere. NOT at any other times.
In particular, since 1997-1998 period now 16 years ago, there has been NO increase in temperatures – despite a steadily increasing and very significant measured change in CO2 levels worldwide.
Further, there has been NO EVENTS since 1998 that you describe so blandly and generically as “other factors”. YOU cannot define ANY event nor series of events that have been measured to explain the flat-line of temperatures since 1997. And, likewise, you cannot accept the death of your religion described by that flatline. You have been trying to wave your hands and claim events – or claim underwater eruptions, or claim low-level eruptions – that somehow nobody else has noticed.
But your religion’s icon has been flat-lined for 16 years now.
RACookPE1978,
Phobos seems to have a problem remembering anything. He says:
“You and DB Stealey insist on analyzing a short interval…”
I have been constantly arguing that the longer the data record is, the better. Phobos needs to put out the joint and pay attention. This chart shows conclusively that CO2 has no measurable effect on temperature. And I have dozens of similar charts, all showing the same thing: whether CO2 is low or high, the natural recovery since the LIA is on the same long term trend line, and that trend is not accelerating — despite a ≈40% rise in [harmless, beneficial] CO2.
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 6:32 pm
…
That’s why the decrease in brightness temperature is the *best* measurement of an enhanced greenhouse effect — it is independent of all the other complicating factors. That’s the kind of measurement scientists strive for — one that is simple and clean, without complicating factors.
That’s why Harries et al 2001 and Philipona et al 2004 are the surest sign that the greenhouse effect has gotten stronger as GHG concentrations have increased.
—
All it shows is an increased concentration in the atmosphere of certain gases. It’d be lovely to be able to avoid the complicating factors, but it’s not possible. Until we understand the feedbacks in the system in a much more precise and quantitative way than we do now, we aren’t going to be able to make theories that accurately predict anything useful about climate change.
BTW – yup, don’t dispute that it’s been warming. But warming per se isn’t my acceptance criteria for AGW. See my post in this thread (February 27, 2013 at 10:32 am) for what’s needed to persuade me. Also, understand the argument about the short interval, sorry about the short interval but there’s nothing to be done for that. If there was less horse hockey and political motivation in climate work, less IPCC policy recommendation, climategate, and so on, maybe I’d be more willing to look at older and more questionable data. I’m not. Sticking with results from modern instrumentation.
What makes you think net feedbacks will be positive?
D.B. Stealey says:
March 3, 2013 at 6:45 pm
…
For the umpteenth time: if we could measure AGW [enhanced globaloney], we would then know the climate sensitivity number. But we do not know the sensitivity number.
Prof Richard Lindzen puts the climate sensitivity to CO2x2 at < 1°C.
Drs Craig Idso, pere & fils, put the sensitivity number at ≈0.37
Dr Ferenc Miskolzci puts it at 0.0ºC
Dr Spencer puts it at 0.46
Dr Schwartz puts it at 1.1
Dr Chylek puts it at 1.4
The UN/IPCC puts it at a preposterous 3º+
…
—————–
Yep, this is another way of stating my problem with the 'science'. How is this science if nobody knows this value? This isn't a science yet, this is a bunch of scientists speculating and activists spinning.
Mark Bofill says:
March 3, 2013 at 7:01 pm
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 6:32 pm
…
What makes you think net feedbacks will be positive?
——————————————————————–
He could be an idiot, or just a sh!t scientist like the rest of them.
More likely, he doesn’t actually think that, as he’s a paid liar/climate fraudster.
@DB Stealey: You keep writing about measuring climate sensitivity. I am talking about measuring the enhanced greenhouse effect. They are different things.
Mark Bofill says: “All it shows is an increased concentration in the atmosphere of certain gases.”
No — they show these higher concentrations are reducing the amount of longwave radiation leaving Earth.
Independent measurements show their concentrations are increasing. If there weren’t greenhouse gases, there’s be no dips in OLR at their absorption frequencies. If the greenhouse effect wasn’t increasing, there’d be no change in these dips. But there is.
Phobos said:
” No — they show these higher concentrations are reducing the amount of longwave radiation leaving Earth.”
The problem with this is that it doesn’t preclude an even larger variable (such as water), that compensates for the slight increase from Co2. The combined effect doesn’t change. While temps went up, I’ll repeat yet again, night time cooling didn’t change.
philincalifornia says:
“He could be an idiot, or just a sh!t scientist like the rest of them.
More likely, he doesn’t actually think that, as he’s a paid liar/climate fraudster.”
Do you have anything scientific to say? Or just insults? Insults convince no one, and reflect poorly on the one making them.
@MiCro:
IPCC 4AR WG1:
“From 1950 to 2004, the annual trends in minimum and maximum land-surface air temperature averaged over regions with data were 0.20°C per decade and 0.14°C per decade, respectively, with a trend in diurnal temperature range (DTR) of –0.07°C per decade.”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-2-2.html
@Phobos,
That’s nice, but nothing to do with what I said, or was talking about.
You’d have to go read my work. But you’ve already dismissed it.
Is it a surprise that GISS, CRU, and BEST all get the same answer, when they’re doing the same thing?
RACookPE1978 says: “There was essentially NO change in CO2 levels from man’s activity before 1960.”
No — by 1960 the atmospheric CO2 level was 13% higher than the preindustrial level, with an associated additional radiative forcing of about 0.7 W/m2.
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 6:32 pm
“That’s why the decrease in brightness temperature is the *best* measurement of an enhanced greenhouse effect — it is independent of all the other complicating factors.”
You are hanging your hat on a small number of measurements from different instruments taken decades apart under unlike, uncontrolled conditions. The calibrations alone have enough fudge factors that you can get anything you like out of the farrago. You really don’t understand science.
The best, most up-to-date, and most reliable measurements indicate that temperatures are responsible for the rise of CO2, and not the other way around.
The Harries et al 2001 result has been confirmed by others:
“Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present,” J.A. Griggs et al, Proc SPIE 164, 5543 (2004). http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/5543/1/164_1
“Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006,” Chen et al, (2007) http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf
Are the measurements perfect? Of course not — no measurements ever are. But I don’t see you offering work that counters them. You never do — you just dismiss results you don’t like, while offering no results of your own. Talk about not understanding science.
Bart says: “The best, most up-to-date, and most reliable measurements indicate that temperatures are responsible for the rise of CO2, and not the other way around.”
(Ha ha.) Just to play along, why then are CO2 levels still rising if temperatures have been flat for 15-16 years?
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 8:35 pm
philincalifornia says:
“He could be an idiot, or just a sh!t scientist like the rest of them.
More likely, he doesn’t actually think that, as he’s a paid liar/climate fraudster.”
Do you have anything scientific to say? Or just insults? Insults convince no one, and reflect poorly on the one making them.
—————————————————-
Yeah, unlike your sorry ass, I have real scientific things to say for 16 hours or more a day because, unlike you, I’m a real and practicing scientist.
….. and don’t be so sensitive. Most people who view this site know that “paid climate fraud liar” is a profession. It’s not an insult – you do what you have to do.
Phobos, why did you just accept Martin C’s figures without checking them yourself? I got 0.1C/decade.
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 8:35 pm
philincalifornia says:
“He could be an idiot, or just a sh!t scientist like the rest of them.
More likely, he doesn’t actually think that, as he’s a paid liar/climate fraudster.”
Do you have anything scientific to say? Or just insults? Insults convince no one, and reflect poorly on the one making them.
——————————————————————————————
Phobos, this is not an insult, it’s a genuine question that I believe deserves a genuine answer.
You’ve demonstrated (in fact, stated outright) earlier in this thread that you don’t understand the very simple scientific fact that it is POSSIBLE for “the last decade to be hotter than the previous one” even if warming has, in fact, stopped.
Given that self-confessed level of (mis)understanding of a very simple point, how can you convince us that you actually understand any of the other points you’re trying to make and are not just “flying them in” from some check-list?
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 8:35 pm
philincalifornia says:
“He could be an idiot, or just a sh!t scientist like the rest of them.
More likely, he doesn’t actually think that, as he’s a paid liar/climate fraudster.”
Do you have anything scientific to say? Or just insults? Insults convince no one, and reflect poorly on the one making them.
——————————————————————————————
Phobos, this is not an insult, it’s a genuine question that I believe deserves a genuine answer:
Given that you’ve already shown (in fact, stated outright) that you don’t understand the simple fact that it’s POSSIBLE for “the last decade to be warmer than the previous one” even IF the warming has, in fact, stopped, how can you convince us that you actually understand any of the other (more technical) posts your’e making?
You see, without convincing us of that it inevitably looks as if you’re simply “flying them in” from one of the checklist for talking to skeptics that we all know have been made. There’s nothing wrong with that per se but it does mean there’s not point discussing things with you because you won’t understand what’s being said. It’s a bit like trying to “explain” to a toddler why touching the cooker is a bad idea – they may know the word “hot” but they don’t understand the danger.until they’ve experienced owie for themselves.
MiCro says: “That’s nice, but nothing to do with what I said, or was talking about.
You’d have to go read my work. But you’ve already dismissed it.”
Yes; again, a couple of amateurish spreadsheets are simply no comparison to detailed, peer reviewed, published science.
Bojan Dolinar says: “Phobos, why did you just accept Martin C’s figures without checking them yourself? I got 0.1C/decade.”
I don’t know what figures you’re talking about, or who “Martin C” is. Or what quantity you’re referring to. Any figures I’ve given are either from the literature or calculated from available data.
MiCro says: “Is it a surprise that GISS, CRU, and BEST all get the same answer, when they’re doing the same thing?”
You mean reading thermometers and analyzing their data?
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 10:02 pm
“The Harries et al 2001 result has been confirmed by others:”
Confirmation bias. It has been rife in the community. They know the result they want, so all they have to do is find data, no matter how uncertain or tainted, which confirms their idea, and it becomes part of the liturgy.
“You never do — you just dismiss results you don’t like, while offering no results of your own.”
I have offered a plethora of results. That you do not understand them does not make them null and void.
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 10:17 pm
“(Ha ha.) Just to play along, why then are CO2 levels still rising if temperatures have been flat for 15-16 years?”
Because the relationship is
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
Apparently, you do not know what a derivative is. You are like a teenager with very little knowledge of the world, but strong opinions about it nevertheless.
Mark Bofill says:
Hey, just out of curiosity again, how’d you end up with 5,000 ppmv for burning 10,000 GtC? I did this wrong in my earlier post, but revisiting – if we’re burning about 9 GtC a year now and CO2 is increasing 2 ppmv in the atmosphere, one might think we’d increase by another 2,222 ppmv at 10,000 GtC. I’ve read that by computing our CO2 contribution theoretically instead of taking the observations we see that we’re actually putting out something more like 6 ppmv per year, but the CO2 sinks in the system are absorbing some of that, so what we measure is 6 ppmv. Are you figuring some of the sinks saturating somewhere along the line in your calculation?
—————————
Sorry I didn’t respond sooner; I was thinking about this.
You’re right — I assumed all emissions stay in the atmosphere. If instead that fraction is (say) 0.5, then I find burning 10,000 GtC results in an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels of 2,350 ppmv.
Since 1959 this fraction has averaged 0.45, and has actually (and mysteriously) been decreasing slowly over the decades (“Increase in observed net carbon dioxide uptake by land and oceans during the past 50 years,” A. P. Ballantyne et al, Nature v488, August 2 2012). That is, the land and oceans are taking up a larger fraction of CO2 emissions than they once were, with global carbon uptake doubling in the last 50 years.
For 10,000 GtC though — about 25 times what we’ve burned to-date — I don’t know if anyone has a clue how much would quickly enter the land and oceans. I suspect not.
Bart says:
March 4, 2013 at 8:43 am
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 10:17 pm
I will assay this one more time for your benefit. In the plot shown here, you will note that not only temperatures have been flat for ~15-17 years, but so has the rate of change of CO2. They are in lock step with one another. As I explained before, this is characteristic of a continuous flow model in which the rate differential between input and output flow is modulated by the temperature. It is quite elementary.
You may be assured that, as temperatures decline with the underlying ~60 year cycle for the next couple of decades, the rate of CO2 input to the atmosphere will decelerate. All perfectly natural, and uncoupled from anything humans do or fail to do short of a global thermonuclear war.
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 7:48 pm
…
No — they show these higher concentrations are reducing the amount of longwave radiation leaving Earth.
Independent measurements show their concentrations are increasing. If there weren’t greenhouse gases, there’s be no dips in OLR at their absorption frequencies. If the greenhouse effect wasn’t increasing, there’d be no change in these dips. But there is.
——————–
You never make it past this in your thinking. I keep pointing out that your argument is a straw man, and you keep ignoring me. Listen to me for once. From Philipona et al 2004:
No kidding, really? NOBODY HERE DISPUTES BASIC RADIATIVE PHYSICS. This result doesn’t show anything except that our understanding of radiative physics is correct. That there is a study that shows increased longwave downward radiation due to increased CO2 does not demonstrate that therefore anthropogenic global warming will occur. You keep beating this dead horse as if it’s going to get you someplace. Until you address the feedbacks in the system, you haven’t addressed the behavior of the system, you’re just making noise about one part out of the context of the (extremely) complicated whole.
Why don’t we move on and talk about some other part of the system for a change? There’s a heck of a lot more to this problem than basic radiative physics.
Phobos says:
“No — they show these higher concentrations are reducing the amount of longwave radiation leaving Earth. Independent measurements show their concentrations are increasing.”
Wrong again, Phobos.
Bart says: “Confirmation bias.”
This is typical of your easy and quick answers to any result you don’t like — you find a reason, some reason, any reason, to immediately dismiss it. Instead you have built yourself an alternative planet where you accept all data and results that you do like (even if you have to make them up, like heat coming out of the deep ocean (“why not?”), and reject out-of-hand all results you don’t like, and then try to bluff you way to acceptance by throwing in a few technical words to show you understand what a partial derivative is or some such.
Funny how “confirmation bias” only applies to one side. It’s very easy to recognize and easy to see through, and not scientific in the least. But it’s fun to watch you squirm when even your constructed results display inconsistencies.
I like doing real science, not pretend science.
D.B. Stealey says:
“Wrong again, Phobos.”
Graph source? Methodology? Data source?
Definition of OLR (wavelengths)?
OLR changes at specific GHG absorption frequencies?
Trend statistics? (That graph looks to have a positive slope since about 1980.) Where is the calculation of the trend and its statistical significance?
I do science with numbers, not by eyeballing graphs of unknown origin.
@Phobos
“I do science with numbers, not by eyeballing graphs of unknown origin.”
I’m skeptical of your claim, where do you do science with numbers? Citation please. – Anthony
Mark Bofill says: “That there is a study that shows increased longwave downward radiation due to increased CO2 does not demonstrate that therefore anthropogenic global warming will occur.”
Of course it doesn’t, and I never said it did. Finally you are starting to get it.
There are other anthropogenic factors on climate beside GHG emissions: aerosol emissions, land use changes, ozone destruction, etc. These have to all be considered, and then feedbacks have to be included.
Knowing that the greenhouse effect is increasing and by how much, and including other anthropogenic influences, and doing one’s best to determine feedbacks from paleoclimate and from calculation (climate models) and observations (water vapor, ice/albedo), gives the ability to calculate equilibrium climate sensitivity. At present is still has large uncertainties (~50%),
AND WHAT HAS EVERYONE SO CONCERNED is that the large carbon emissions under a business-as-usual scenario will dominate these other factors over time (especially if air pollution is cleaned up), and the possibility that climate sensitivity might be on the high side of its uncertainty range and not the low side. They therefore believe it is prudent to reduce CO2 emissions to minimize risk.
Bart says:
“I will assay this one more time for your benefit. In the plot shown here, you will note that not only temperatures have been flat for ~15-17 years, but so has the rate of change of CO2. They are in lock step with one another.”
So increasing temperatures cause CO2 production, but flat temperatures cause…CO2 production.
And the carbon content of both the land and ocean is increasing, but atmospheric CO2 is also increasing.
The ocean is warming, yet its acidity is increasing.
The isotopic signature of the extra atmospheric CO2 is different from CO2 from natural sources, yet it’s not caused by burning fossil fuels.
Humans emit over 30 billion tons of CO2 a year from burning fossil fuels, but strangely none of this finds its way into the atmosphere. Or any of the 1400 billion tons they’ve emitted since the Industrial Revolution. Where is it all going?
Sure, this all sounds VERRRRY consistent….
Phobos says:
“Graph source? Methodology? Data source?”
If you can’t find the source of the graph you are incompetent.
Phobos commented
It’s detailed and self published, review it Mr Scientist, tell me what flaws it has.
I’m not looking at temperature trends,but you’d know that if you looked. I’m looking at the rate of cooling over night. What one might look at if you were looking for a loss of cooling.
No you don’t, You read papers. You don’t do science, amateurish or not.
I do my own science. It’s a great way to learn a subject.
If you want to do science, I’ll provide you my code and my data, do some science, stop relying others to tell you what you should think. But you better have a server with Oracle 11g on it and space to load a 40GB dmp file.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 9:17 am
“This is typical of your easy and quick answers to any result you don’t like…”
No, it is typical of studies put out by “the team”. And, you further cherry pick them, as D.B. Stealey shows above @ 9:04 PM.
The presumption that CO2 is driving temperature is falsified by the plots to which I have directed you. You don’t understand it, and you don’t want to. OK. That’s your choice. But, you will see my prognostications confirmed in the not-very-distant future. It will be interesting to see to what lengths you, and your similarly minded brethren, will go to evade reality then.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 9:40 am
Close. You’re getting there.
“So increasing temperatures cause CO2 production, but flat temperatures cause…CO2 production. “
I would say “release” rather than “production”. But, this is what the equation
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
says. This is the equation that the data confirm.
There is a rate at which CO2 is introduced into the surface system. From deep ocean circulation, from mineral reactions, and from biological processes. Conversely, there is a rate at which it is transferred out of the system from deep ocean circulation, from mineral reactions, and from biological processes. These processes are all temperature dependent. When there is a mismatch between the rate at which it comes in and goes out, you get either an accumulation, or a reduction, in the ambient concentration. And, that rate is necessarily an affine function of temperature. These processes are much too powerful for humankind to affect significantly. That is the ineluctable conclusion from the data.
“And the carbon content of both the land and ocean is increasing, but atmospheric CO2 is also increasing. “
I never said the carbon we put into the air disappears. But, it is only a small part of the overall flow.
“The ocean is warming, yet…”
The oceans are not warming.
“The isotopic signature of the extra atmospheric CO2 is different from CO2 from natural sources, yet it’s not caused by burning fossil fuels.”
The isotopic signature is merely consistent with the notion that the added CO2 is from human sources. Consistency is a long way from proof. When a witch doctor performs a rain dance, and it then rains, it is consistent with the claim that his rain dance conjured up the rain, but it is not compelling evidence. Such lines of argument are a throwback to a pre-scientific era.
“Humans emit over 30 billion tons of CO2 a year from burning fossil fuels, but strangely none of this finds its way into the atmosphere.”
It finds its way in, but quickly gets absorbed into the oceans, minerals, and biosphere. You can’t argue with the data. This is what it is telling us.
Anthony says: “I’m skeptical of your claim, where do you do science with numbers?”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1232513
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1232510
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1235454
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1235619
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1236856
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1236867
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1237769
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1237772
D.B. Stealey says: “If you can’t find the source of the graph you are incompetent.”
I’m not incompetent, and I don’t see the data source listed, either on the graph or on the site’s front page. Please provide it (if you know it).
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 9:21 am
I do science with numbers, not by eyeballing graphs of unknown origin.
——————————————————————————————————————
Come on, Phobos, if you want to keep any credibility at all you really need to support that statement somehow.
So far all you’ve demonstrated is an ability to cut and paste talking points. In the one case where something could actually be demonstrated conclusively (and simply) by using numbers you got it absolutely and completely wrong. Since I’ve pointed that out with nice logical explanations you’ve (a) attempted to set up a straw-man about my point and, when that was also demonstrably false, ignored the issue while continuing to claim scientific understanding of far more complex matters!
So far, your statement above looks a lot like someone who can’t write their own name claiming to have written War and Peace!
MiCro says: “It’s detailed and self published, review it Mr Scientist, tell me what flaws it has.”
I already did that and am not wasting any more time on it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1235261
Phobos says:
“I’m not incompetent…”
It says right in the link, “Climate4You.com graph”. Sorry you couldn’t find it.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 11:55 am
That’s all you got? That was your waste of time?
All you did was complain of my use of Energy instead of temperature, which I agreed with.
Maybe, just maybe you might look at the difference between daily temp increases and the following night time drop, or is that too much work for you.
Of course anyone with a brain who see that there’s no loss of night time cooling would have to come to the conclusion Co2 could not possibly be the cause of the rise in temp, that would make you have to wonder about what your whole religion says wouldn’t it.
It’s far easier to call it amateurish, and ignore it.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 9:30 am
————————-
It’s nice that scientists are doing their best to determine feedback. As I’ve noted before, I’m certain scientists are working very hard on this, and I think that’s commendable. Unfortunately, in the world I work in, doing one’s best and five bucks buys a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It doesn’t mean you’ve got a result worth looking at.
I assume (and I hope I’m wrong, frankly) that your 50% uncertainty figure refers to the IPCC TAR’s notion of 3C sensitivity, with a range from 1.5 to 4.5? As I expect you know, AR4 gave us 2.0 to 4.5 degrees with 3.0C most likely. However, the IPCC treatment of uncertainty based on an author’s expert opinion is categorically unacceptable. In my field (engineering), certainty is not quantified by opinion, no matter how expert, but by statistical analysis on test results. I would be laughed out of the building if I made an argument in my professional capacity for accepting such subjective assessment as rigorous and acceptable, and rightly so. I can only assume that the IPCC indulges in this disgraceful charade in order to plunder the confidence the public normally extends to scientific certainty by pretending quantatative numerical certainty. At any rate, if you have some source for a climate sensitivity figure that provides an objective mathematical treatment of uncertainty, I’d be pleased to review it. As far as I’m concerned, nobody has shown that the total sum of the feedbacks is even positive.
🙂 If you want to argue policy instead of science, I’d be glad to wipe the floor with you Phobos. There is uncertainty on the scientific question of climate change, but the stupidity of policies intended to mitigate via CO2 reduction rather than adapt is much easier to demonstrate.
@Phobos
“I do science with numbers, not by eyeballing graphs of unknown origin.”
When you do radiative heat transfer equations with CO2 what emissivity do you use for 500 R at 1 atm?
MiCro says:
March 4, 2013 at 10:55 am
Phobos commented
Yes; again, a couple of amateurish spreadsheets are simply no comparison to detailed, peer reviewed, published science.
—————————-
Uhm, are you really arguing this? Tell me, is the truth scrawled on the back of a napkin less valuable than a polished powerpoint deck that contains a bunch of errors? Does the validity of science depend on who’s performing it? This is a stupid argument Phobos. The quality of the presentation or the credentials of the researcher have got nothing to do with the validity of the content, obviously.
BTW – I do no original science. Maybe another way to put this is, I conduct no scientific research. I’m an engineer; I apply scientific results and principles in a methodical way to obtain reliable, consistent results over predictable boundaries and to within required degrees of confidence.
D.B. Stealey says: “It says right in the link, “Climate4You.com graph”. Sorry you couldn’t find it.”
I want access to the raw data, to understand its meaning and use it to calculate trends.
Clearly you don’t have it or know where it is, and just bought some graph off some Web site. Typical.
@Mark Bofill: I figured you were an engineer — you have that ‘I work with numbers and know them better than scientists do!’ attitude.
In climate science (which is not an experimental science), uncertainties of climate sensitivity come from the range seen in ensembles of model runs. You can read all about it lots of places, such as:
Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?
Gerard H. Roe and Marcia B. Baker
Science 318, 629 (2007).
Uncertainty in predictions of the climate response to rising levels of greenhouse gases
D. A. Stainforth et al
Nature v433 (27 January 2005) 403
Climate Sensitivity Estimated from Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum
Andreas Schmittner, et al.
Science 334, 1385 (2011);
Bart says:
“dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
Apparently, you do not know what a derivative is.”
That’s the thing with the epsilon, right?
This fails in several ways, besides what those I outlined above. During the surface temperature haitus 1945-1975, dCO2/dt was positive and statistically different from zero.
The big problem with thinking that temperature change is causing the increase in CO2 (among many) is that the ice ages show a CO2 increase of about 100 ppmv for a warming of about 10 K:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg
But modern warming of 0.8 K is supposed to cause an increase in atmospheric CO2 of about 120 ppmv.
These two rates are wildly inconsistent.
Phobos says:
March 3, 2013 at 8:48 pm
BTW, I’m also not calculating DTR.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 11:31 am
Anthony says: “I’m skeptical of your claim, where do you do science with numbers?”
[lots of links back to cut & paste]
——————————————————————————————————————
But that’s not doing science, Phobos. That’s a child going to Wikipedia for their homework and hoping the teacher doesn’t notice that they haven’t actually learnt anything. If you’d ever actually done any further education, you’d know that approach would fail any first degree at any even slightly reputable university because it does nothinhg at all to show understanding of the subject – anyone can cut & paste!
“Doing science” involves UNDERSTANDING what you’re talking about, not just repating things that you’ve been told are relevent. You’ve still shown no sign at all of being capable of doing that, and we’re all still waiting……
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 1:51 pm
@Mark Bofill: I figured you were an engineer — you have that ‘I work with numbers and know them better than scientists do!’ attitude.
In climate science (which is not an experimental science), uncertainties of climate sensitivity come from the range seen in ensembles of model runs. You can read all about it lots of places, such as:
Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?
Gerard H. Roe and Marcia B. Baker
Science 318, 629 (2007).
Uncertainty in predictions of the climate response to rising levels of greenhouse gases
D. A. Stainforth et al
Nature v433 (27 January 2005) 403
Climate Sensitivity Estimated from Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum
Andreas Schmittner, et al.
Science 334, 1385 (2011);
——————————————-
Thanks for the references, I’ll look at them if they aren’t pay walled.
As far as my attitude goes, well, what can I tell you. I don’t think I know numbers better than the scientists do. I do know that my job demands of me that I absolutely never pretend to be certain of anything I know hasn’t been properly verified and validated. I’d get fired for that, the systems I work on would misbehave with possible catastrophic results, etc., and as a result, I have a very hard time taking the IPCC’s methodology seriously. It’s what I do for a living. ~shrug~
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 1:51 pm
@Mark Bofill: I figured you were an engineer — you have that ‘I work with numbers and know them better than scientists do!’ attitude.
——————————————————————————————————–
You reall do like demonstrating your complete lack of understanding across a whole range of matters, don’t you?
That is not at all an engineer’s view that yoou’ve posted, it’s just another cut & paste cliche.
In engineering, an engineer has to know the numbers are right, or else the bridge falls down or the car explodes.
In science, the scientist has to know the numbers are right or else the hypothesis fails to conform to nature and, potentially, his reputation sinks with it.
In climate science (which is not “a science” of any sort but a mish-mash of scientific disciplines thrown together) the Team Climate Astrologer really doesn’t care if the numbers show nothing like the natural world because they just keep extending the timescale. A bit like those end-of-the-world cults who keep saying “well, we were wrong about the exact date this time but it’s definitely soon, just you wait and see…..”
In the army there was a well-known phrase when out on a run: “Just over the next hill”. Everyone KNEW it was bull and that the end was no-where in sight, but it gave you something to keep going for. That’s how the AGW industry works – it’s always “just over the next hill” and it always will be.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 1:51 pm
“I figured you were an engineer — you have that ‘I work with numbers and know them better than scientists do!’ attitude.”
Engineers are scientists seeking practical application of their knowledge. Scientists are guys who never left the nest, and few of them actually end up doing anything significant. Those who cannot do, teach.
One of my favorite Dilbert strips has Dilbert arguing with “Dan the Illogical Scientist.”
Dan: That system will never work. I should know, because I’m a scientist, and scientists have done many wondrous things.”
Dilbert: But, those were other scientists. Not you.
Dan: Apparently, you do not understand science.
The number one variable in predicting how a pilot will fare in combat is hours logged flying. Not the plane with the highest climb rate or maneuverability, but the guy manning the stick. So it goes with scientific disciplines. And, the guys who get all the stick time are the engineers, not the “scientists”.
I certainly know more about “numbers” than 99.9% of self-styled “scientists”. I took graduate mathematics courses in pursuit of my PhD, including group theory, functional analysis, partial differential equations, and advanced topology and differential geometry. I made a perfect score on the GRE. My papers in my field, involving rather intricate mathematics, have been published in major peer-reviewed journals with global reach.
So, avoid making an ass of yourself, and do not assume you know everything about your interlocutors.
“In climate science (which is not an experimental science), uncertainties of climate sensitivity come from the range seen in ensembles of model runs.”
GIGO. If the models do not represent reality, then the model runs under different scenarios produce spurious statistics. The models have performed so poorly that there is little doubt that they have fundamental problems with reality.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 2:20 pm
“This fails in several ways, besides what those I outlined above.”
You have not outlined any way in which it fails above.
“During the surface temperature haitus 1945-1975, dCO2/dt was positive and statistically different from zero.”
And, so was the temperature. We only have reliable CO2 measurements going back to 1958, but clearly the plot shows dCO2/dt tracking the temperature in the timeframe 1958-1975.
“These two rates are wildly inconsistent.”
1) The derived measurements from the ice ages are uncertain and unable to be verified. If the case were otherwise, then there would be no use for the stations monitoring CO2 in the modern era.
2) The relationship is not guaranteed to be static in time – the affine parameters are subject to change. We only know the relationship for certain in the modern era, and it holds very well for that time. When doing science, you should rely on your best and most up-to-date measurements, which require a minimum of justification and have been carefully validated in a closed loop fashion.
3) This is an integral relationship, so you cannot do a linear comparison as you are. You would understand this if you had studied calculus.
I see that Phobos still hasn’t answered mkelly’s comment of March 4, 2013 at 12:46 pm. No doubt Phobos is scrambling to find someone to provide him with an answer he can post, since more than arithmetic is involved.
Next, after hand-holding Phobos and showing him where the chart came from, he says:
“I want access to the raw data, to understand its meaning and use it to calculate trends.”
Dr Humlum runs Climate4You.com. He is extremely knowledgeable, he answers emails, and Phobos can ask him any questions he wants.
But Phobos doesn’t want information. He wants to endlessly move the goal posts. That chart refuted the assertion Phobos made, so now he’s trying to find a way to wiggle out of it, that’s all.
Despite his thread-bombing, Phobos is convincing no one. He is getting soundly thrashed in these comments. Almost every assertion he makes is shown to be wrong, off topic, or attempting to re-frame the discussion. That typically happens when climate alarmists try to hold up their end of the argument. They don’t have science on their side, so they work the strawmen.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 1:51 pm
…
In climate science (which is not an experimental science), uncertainties of climate sensitivity come from the range seen in ensembles of model runs. You can read all about it lots of places, such as: (emphasis added)
…
————
I’m sorry, I got distracted by the engineering discussion and missed this important point in what you said. The models. The models are “the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench, and a pain in the ass” to quote Bruce Willis. Let’s talk about this for a minute.
First off, let me say that I have nothing but the deepest respect and sympathy for those brave souls trying to improve climate models. I’m no expert in computer modeling, but I know enough to know it can be dang hard to get a model right even when you completely and deterministically understand everything about the system. Even then, I’ll bet getting everything right is tough. Verification and validation are a tall order, even with simple systems; with climate modeling verification and validation looks essentially impossible. I don’t like it when people disrespect modelers, because it isn’t deserved; those guys aren’t idiots, quite the opposite. It’s just that they’re trying to do something thats darn near impossible.
But again, that’s the rub. Brilliant a job as they may do, hard as they may be working, they’re trying to do a job that’s darn near impossible. Because when modeling the climate, we don’t understand what’s going on deterministically. Even if we did, the system is far too immense to slog through stepwise in a deterministic way. Worst of all, as you correctly point out, climate science isn’t an experimental science; you can’t go out and run experiments in the real world easily to help you understand how to model, since this is the reason for turning to modeling in the first place. What I’m summarizing here is pretty obvious and I don’t think there’s much controversy or news in anything I’m saying. Yet we’re left with inadequate models which demonstrate little or no skill at … much of anything.
In a sense I think this is the Gordian Knot of climate science. Until a way is found to slice through this problem, I don’t see the science going anywhere. Core questions are unanswerable and suspected answers remain a matter of faith. Faster computers, better parameterization of clouds? Bah – I don’t buy it. Incremental advances might shove the problems back one step but they aren’t going to be solved that way. The field needs a breakthrough advance to get past this, something for climate science or modeling similar to what calculus was to mechanical physics. Unfortunately, breakthroughs don’t come for the asking.
@Mark Bofill
” I’m no expert in computer modeling, but I know enough to know it can be dang hard to get a model right even when you completely and deterministically understand everything about the system. Even then, I’ll bet getting everything right is tough.”
Ironically, I am, over 15 years supporting and developing models for electronics simulators. It was this that in part led me into studying climatology and gcm’s. CS is just modelers bias.
MiCro says:
March 4, 2013 at 6:19 pm
@Mark Bofill
” I’m no expert in computer modeling, but I know enough to know it can be dang hard to get a model right even when you completely and deterministically understand everything about the system. Even then, I’ll bet getting everything right is tough.”
Ironically, I am, over 15 years supporting and developing models for electronics simulators. It was this that in part led me into studying climatology and gcm’s. CS is just modelers bias.
————–
Wow! 🙂 That’s tres cool. Any glaring errors in what I said? I started looking at the source for one climate model once (forget which one, but it was a publicly available download) but didn’t have the free time to really get my teeth into it before my attention wandered a couple of weeks later. I’ve worked with some guys who’ve done software modeling of various systems, although no climate modelers.
@Mark Bofill,
” Wow! 🙂 That’s tres cool. Any glaring errors in what I said?”
No, thats a fair summary.
@Phobos,
It is a worth while exercise, but they aren’t ready to be used for policy. I wouldn’t care about any of this except for that reason.
Btw, I am published, got a library of congress number and everything, I’ll link a copy tomorrow, and explain how you have something it influenced.
Bart says:”I took graduate mathematics courses in pursuit of my PhD, including group theory, functional analysis, partial differential equations, and advanced topology and differential geometry.”
Yadda yadda — so what? Every one I know took all those classes along with me. So you’re smart — everyone I know is smart. What matters is what you do with it, and you apparently spend all day flitting around from one blog to another trying to show how smart you are. That doesn’t cut it with smart people, because they are only impressed by your knowledge and ideas and can sense B.S. immediately, and your ideas are ridiculous. That you think you’re so much smarter than everyone else, and insist on showing it, just makes them even more ridiculous.
Like I said, it’s too bad all your genius is wasted on inane blog comments. That keeps you from having to actually prove anything. You know that, even though you won’t admit it here.
Mark Bofill says: “In a sense I think this is the Gordian Knot of climate science. Until a way is found to slice through this problem, I don’t see the science going anywhere.”
And your better way to do this is what?
You don’t have one. Computer models are the only known way to estimate future climate. They’re just numerical solutions to the underlying PDEs that describe the physics, so deterministic in that sense. They have their successes and their uncertainties, and scientists have spent an enormous amount of time on developing them and verifying them. This is a good introduction to it all:
IPCC 4AR WG1: Chapter 8: Climate Models and their Evaluation
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8.html
Everyone — everyone — knows models could be a lot better. And lots of people are working on that. But they’re the only game in town, and the answer is sufficiently important that any guidance is worthwhile. NOT KNOWING the future isn’t any better — just waiting to see what happens could spell real trouble, and by then it could be too late.
So I don’t see the point of your complaints.
@DB Stealey: Your chart doesn’t prove *anything*. There’s no indication of what “OLR” in it even means, what wavelengths, how the numbers were obtained, by what instruments, what are the error bars, how was the data processed — nothing.
Thinking such a Web site chart proves anything just paints you as novice. Getting annoyed when someone asks you for the data to a chart you’re promoting paints you as unserious.
MiCro says:
March 4, 2013 at 6:19 pm
@Mark Bofill
” I’m no expert in computer modeling, but I know enough to know it can be dang hard to get a model right even when you completely and deterministically understand everything about the system. Even then, I’ll bet getting everything right is tough.”
You’d win that bet. It’s especially hard when the code cannot be validated in a closed loop, where a real world action is taken, and the real world reaction of the system is observed and compared to the output of the computer program. These guys learned that lesson the hard way.
Phobos says:
“Computer models are the only known way to estimate future climate.”
And every one of them has been wrong. No GCM predicted the current 17 year warming hiatus. Not one of them. They all predicted ever higher temperatures.
When you’re wrong 100% of the time; when both your premise and your conclusions are wrong, your models need to be chucked. Climate models are wrong. Deal with it, instead of constantly trying to tweak them to match reality. That has not worked.
As far as the chart I posted, Dr Humlum has forgotten more than a noob like you ever learned. At least I posted verifiable corroboration; you only posted your baseless opinion.
I get it. You don’t like that the chart showed your OLR assertion was wrong. But when you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And you were wrong. So you don’t like the chart, deal with it.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Yadda, yadda, indeed. So, basically, you don’t understand the argument, you have nothing to counter it, and so now you’re reduced to the backup plan of heckling. Meh.
Bart says:
“During the surface temperature haitus 1945-1975, dCO2/dt was positive and statistically different from zero.”
“And, so was the temperature. We only have reliable CO2 measurements going back to 1958, but clearly the plot shows dCO2/dt tracking the temperature in the timeframe 1958-1975.”
Sorry, no.
From 3/1959 – 2/1974, the OLS trend for GISS was 0.03 +/- 0.04 C/decade — statistically flat.
Over the same period, the trend in the 12-month change of atmospheric CO2 was 0.05 +/- 0.01 ppm/yr, a statistically significant increase.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 6:52 pm
“But they’re the only game in town, and the answer is sufficiently important that any guidance is worthwhile.”
In the first place, it isn’t the only game in town. And, who says you have to attend a game on that basis anyway?
“NOT KNOWING the future isn’t any better — just waiting to see what happens could spell real trouble, and by then it could be too late.”
But, you admit you don’t know the future, so this isn’t one of the options anyway. And, really, we could do without the melodrama.
Bart says:
“1) The derived measurements from the ice ages are uncertain and unable to be verified. If the case were otherwise, then there would be no use for the stations monitoring CO2 in the modern era.”
False — they are known from ice cores, and known well — the uncertainties are quite small.
“2) The relationship is not guaranteed to be static in time – the affine parameters are subject to change.”
Sure, like if the laws of physics are chemistry suddenly underwent a complete transition between then and now? Maybe electrons were 10 times lighter then, or Plancks’ constant half what it is now?
This is what you always do when you ideas are shown to have barnside-sized holes — we can’t guarantee this, we don’t know that, this might have been different then, aliens from the planet Gzilt might have been piping heat into the deep ocean from orbiting spaceships. (You can’t prove it didn’t happen!)
Pretend science on a pretend planet.
Bart says:
“We only have reliable CO2 measurements going back to 1958, but clearly the plot shows dCO2/dt tracking the temperature in the timeframe 1958-1975.”
Phobos’ response: “Sorry, no.”
Sorry, yes. CO2 tracks temperature. Look at the chart. It is plain as day.
The wheels are coming off Phobos’ belief system. He has made a string of verifiably inaccurate statements like this.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 7:02 pm
“Over the same period, the trend in the 12-month change of atmospheric CO2 was 0.05 +/- 0.01 ppm/yr, a statistically significant increase.”
We’re not talking about the trend. We’re talking about the trend in the rate of change, the trend of the trend, if you like. You really don’t understand the argument at all, do you?
I gave you the link. Look at it. Your argument has zero merit.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 7:09 pm
“False — they are known from ice cores, and known well — the uncertainties are quite small.”
False. There are no means of independent verification. See comment above.
“Sure, like if the laws of physics are chemistry suddenly underwent a complete transition between then and now?”
No, nothing like that at all. More like, a plant which had been linearized about a current operating condition is now in a different physical state.
“This is what you always do when you ideas are shown to have barnside-sized holes …”
It may appear that way to the untutored. But, the use of linearized system representations has a long and well-established pedigree. The relationship holds in the modern era. More cannot be said with the information we have. But, more importantly, it doesn’t need to be. The relationship holds, and it contradicts your ideas about how the system works.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 7:48 am
MiCro says:
March 4, 2013 at 7:21 pm
Back in 78-79 I worked at a LCD display manufacturer, learned how they are made, and worked.
The end of 79 I went to work at Harris Semiconductors in their Failure analyst group. Shortly after I got there I was talking about my background, and mentioned the LCD experience, the guy I was talking to told me they had tried to replicate some failure analysis techniques with LC’s, but were unsuccessful. I went and talked to the group manager, he sent me off to see if I could get it to work. I did, it was pretty cool, you could sit and watch certain types of circuits work through a microscope. Early 81 after the 1981 IEEE Rel Physics proceeding were published, I was looking at articles on LC techniques, told my boss that we were doing as good of work, he told me to write a paper. I wrote “A New Liquid Crystal for Field-Effect Viewing of 5V Vcc CMOS Logic Families” with some assistance from my boss with editing, and the corporate chemist who did a chapter on how LC’s worked.
In early 82, after my paper was selected, I got a letter requesting a preliminary copy, which I provided. It seems the guy was starting a company to build large thin film transistor LC displays. I’m not sure how successful he or his company was (I don’t remember either name), but I’m writing this reply on a TFT-LCD display.
I’m not sure how many copies the IEEE has sold, but I know they’ve never sent me a check.
I’m about ready to hang this thread up. Phobos, despite his pretensions, doesn’t even understand basic calculus. He’s so far off base, his arguments aren’t even wrong. It is rather pointless to continue. I’ll peek back later just to see if he has anything new.
Phobos says:
March 4, 2013 at 6:52 pm
…
And your better way to do this is what?
You don’t have one. Computer models are the only known way to estimate future climate. They’re just numerical solutions to the underlying PDEs that describe the physics, so deterministic in that sense. They have their successes and their uncertainties, and scientists have spent an enormous amount of time on developing them and verifying them.
…
Everyone — everyone — knows models could be a lot better. And lots of people are working on that. But they’re the only game in town, and the answer is sufficiently important that any guidance is worthwhile. NOT KNOWING the future isn’t any better — just waiting to see what happens could spell real trouble, and by then it could be too late.
So I don’t see the point of your complaints.
——-
I’ve been listening to your arguments, and I’ve started to believe the problem we’ve got (the difference between our positions) is more philosophical than scientific. At the end of the day we agree on quite a bit of the science and the state of it; what’s fairly certain and where the unknowns are. Your position isn’t much different than mine, yet you reach radically different conclusions faced with the same facts.
Phobos, I wish I could think of a better example than the one I’m going to use, because it’s important to me that you know I’m not mocking you or your intelligence. I just can’t think of a better way to explain this. But imagine for a minute that you and I were born contemporaries in Ancient Mesopotamia 5000 years ago. Perhaps the corresponding challenge of our lives would have been the unpredictable flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Note that we are not unlettered savages; our math can approximate the area of a circle, we understand astronomy well enough to grasp solstices and predict eclipses, we have a rudimentary knowledge of medicine. Still, unbeknownst to us, predicting the flooding of the rivers is scientifically beyond us, and the flooding of the rivers spells real trouble. If you followed the advice you’re giving me now, you’d argue that the word of the priests is better than nothing, that they’re the only game in town, and if we don’t listen it could be too late. You’d be dead wrong.
I doubt you’ll agree with this analogy. Let me try a different approach. The so called ‘precautionary principle’ is a load of garbage, here’s why. While we can always frame the decisions we face as binary decisions, do X or not do X, burn fossil fuels or not burn fossil fuels, etc., the consequences are never that simple. Perhaps if we wait it’ll be too late? Perhaps if we act now we’ll screw everything up. The burning of fossil fuels is one heck of a huge boon to humankind. The energy it produces saves lives, improves lives, and makes possible many things that would otherwise be out of reach. The cost in human suffering, misery, and death to driving people off of using fossil fuels is not to be underestimated or taken lightly. And when have we as a species ever been able to predict and avoid unintended consequences? Perhaps the increase in atmospheric CO2 will prove not merely neutral, but critically important in increasing plant harvest yields and in improving plant utilization of scarce water resources; this could be a big factor in keeping the world fed. Who knows?
Aside from our certainty about the value of fossil fuels as a cheap energy source, everything I said above of course is purely speculative and unproven. Of course. The threat of C/AGW is similarly speculative and unproven. My point is merely that the benefits of the precautionary principle are an illusion; when we don’t know what’s going to happen, we don’t know what’s going to happen, good or bad, there’s no way to evaluate it.
Finally, let me try putting it this way. Taking any action, particularly one that holds a cost of life or death for massive numbers of people, is a horrific responsibility. It’s untenable, irresponsible, to do so without certainty. If you end up doing irreparable harm, there’s no grace in saying ‘well, I didn’t think it’d worked that way’. That’s not good enough. It’s perfectly OK to take no action when there’s no certainty to justify that action – again, as an engineer, it’s my responsibility to advise the decision makers when we lack certainty.
I’ve enjoyed this discussion, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.
Mark Bofill says:
March 4, 2013 at 7:41 pm
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere”>Primum non nocere.
Epic! JP
Bart says: “We’re not talking about the trend. We’re talking about the trend in the rate of change, the trend of the trend, if you like.”
My number is the trend of the trend: the rate of change of the 12-month change in CO2 levels.
The CO2-follows-temperature argument has many huge flaws, not least of which is that humans are emitting 30 Gt CO2/yr, about twice what is accumulating in the atmosphere. Where exactly do you think all that carbon is going?
You may know about measure theory and fibre bundles, but you are clearly lacking an intuitive feel for the physical sciences, and what ideas obviously make no sense and why. The CO2-is-following-temperature canard is in this last category.
@MiCro: That’s great if you’ve had career successes you’re proud of. I’m not saying you’re not a good person or not an expert in your field. I’m saying your idea about climate is wrong.
As you probably know, science and techie people tend to argue hard, But at the end of the seminar they usually go out and have a beer together without hard feelings.
MiCro says: “It is a worth while exercise, but they aren’t ready to be used for policy.”
Then what is?
It’s starting to look like climate models have reached a point where returns are diminishing. Not only are they giving the same results as the earlier generation of models (S = 3 C, +/- 50%), but incorporating more and more physics, chemistry and biology in them is not necessariily going to reduce the uncertainties. See
Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?
Gerard H. Roe and Marcia B. Baker
Science 318, 629 (2007).
which lays out the mathematics of why this is so, and the essay “Call Off the Quest” by Allen and Frame in the same issue, pg 582.
Not only that, but a 4-dimensional model has (approximately) a grid size halving-time of 4D, where D is the doubling time from Moore’s Law (about 18-24 months). That’s *before* you add any new physics.
So models may not be getting much better, except over decades or if a paradigm shift like quantum computing becomes available. We may only know S to 50% — or, put another way (Matthews et al, Nature v459, 11 June 2009 p829), that warming is proportional to total emissions with a proportionality constant of 1.5 C/TtC, +/- about 1/3rd.
GIven all this, what to do? We will have to make some decisions in the face of significant uncertainties. Many people think we should error on the side of caution — that risking more than 2-3 C of warming is very dangerous. (After all, an ice age had a temperature difference of only about 8 C.) Others think (hope?) climate sensitivity is on the small side.
But there is a lot of fossil fuel to burn if we want to — a couple dozen times more than we’ve burned so far. How to decide if we should or not?
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 12:02 pm
@MiCro: Again, what does “accurately” mean? How accurate are models supposed to be?
(Did you read Roe and Baker yet?)
Tell you what, you read my work, and I’ll read this. I got to pg 2 before I found the estimate for CS to be centered on ~3C, recent research has shown it’s likely under 2C.
Do you also know CS was added to make the Model generate increasing temps to match measurements? And that for years GCM’s failed even that.
But I’ll finish reading it, you read mine, the first page and the updated temps.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 8:14 am
It’s going into the oceans based on Henry’s law on the absorption of Co2 into cold water. Polar waters absorb Co2, transports it into the cold deep water by the ocean conveyor system. Melted arctic ice sheets exposes even more water, increasing uptake. Cold deep ocean waters will hold 3,000-4,000 times the entire carbon cycle of Co2 of 700-750 GT Co2.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 8:18 am
That’s what you keep saying, yet you fail, repeatedly to give a specific example.
All I’m doing is mining the same data used to show warming, looking at night time cooling. Doing it in a way that no one else seems to have done. So, explain how simple math on NCDC data isn’t showing what it does. If the data isn’t high enough quality it raises doubt on the trends extracted from it. In fact, if you look at the number of samples available, and how it’s used, their trend prior to about the 1950’s is junk, but that’s another topic.
I have an extensive practical background in simulators, I’ve read Hansen’s GCM papers, I understand what they’ve done, and it’s really no different than what I’ve done with analog simulators in the past. And what I’ve done I had to prove was correct to engineers who could and would go into a lab and actually measure a real circuit. My simulation experience is grounded in reality. I’ve built hundreds of models, I know modeling, I also know how it’s easy to code your model on how you think something works, and it not really be how it actually works, that’s modeler bias.
I also have downloaded the NCDC data set and examined the actual station measurements the trends are made from.
Now, you keep telling me I’m wrong, back it up. And not with a bunch of papers that don’t address what I’m actually doing, like the Harris paper.
D.B. Stealey says:
“Sorry, yes. CO2 tracks temperature. Look at the chart. It is plain as day.”
Would you please explain to me what is being plotted there — especially for CO2?
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 8:36 am
At this point nothing is.
I see simulators having some level of fidelity, GCM’s will be ready when they can accurately model macro area climate response. Right now nothing is. The only reason temps are even close is that they spatially average them over the whole planet, in smaller areas, they can be off 20-30C. With that lack of fidelity, they have no predictive value.
It’s the same sort of thing with extracting a trend from surface measurements, when you look at historical data, and how they linearize non-linear data spatially, and how bad siting is, that data is crap. So we have crap data being compared to crap simulator results, with morons betting Trillions of dollars and millions of lives on it. It’s shear stupidity driven by activists.
For now, we should be building nuclear power stations as fast as we can, and investing in fusion, as well as building a spacefaring civilization. All of these things will relieve the need to burn fossil fuels, and make us better stewards for our planet, without putting a stake in the heart of a 21st century society.
There are lots of people working on solar, and wind, it will get better, and there are places it is probably a good solution. We should keep an eye on the planet, work to solve the cloud problem in GCM’s, moores law isn’t done yet, faster computers will become available for less money.
Basically don’t force up the price of oil, and keep society moving forward until we know more.
I grew up in the 60’s, I heard all of the horror stories about pollution, but we did act enough to turn it around. We can be vigilante yet not revert to a 19th century human/animal powered world.
@MiCro: I have already expressed what is wrong with your work. This, for example, is a ridiculous supposition:
“The methodology I used was to take the daily maximum temperature, and subtracted the morning low temperature. That provides the energy into the planet, I then took the Max temp, and subtracted tomorrow mornings low temp, which gives me the energy lost overnight.”
Energy flows all over the place, and the planetary energy balance can’t be summarized with the simple variables you’ve selected.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 8:14 am
“My number is the trend of the trend: the rate of change of the 12-month change in CO2 levels.”
Well, then, your analysis is fatuous. I’ve given you the plot. The correlation is so stark you can see it immediately with your naked eye.
“The CO2-follows-temperature argument has many huge flaws, not least of which is that humans are emitting 30 Gt CO2/yr, about twice what is accumulating in the atmosphere. Where exactly do you think all that carbon is going?”
You haven’t shown a one. Just because something looks like a big number to you does not mean it is in relative terms. And, everything in the universe is relative. Without a reference against which to compare, measurements are meaningless. You are making an appeal to incredulity; you just cannot conceive that what looks large to you cannot have a large impact. This is a classic logical fallacy.
“You may know about measure theory and fibre bundles, but you are clearly lacking an intuitive feel for the physical sciences, and what ideas obviously make no sense and why.”
That is rich.
“The CO2-is-following-temperature canard is in this last category.”
All you have to do is look at the plot, and understand physical systems and mathematics well enough to comprehend what it compels.
I think we’re done. Your mind is closed. Watch and see what happens.
@Mark Bofill:
Of course fossil fuels have been a boon to human societies.
They are also warming the planet.
It’s not priests who say this, it’s science. Atmospheric CO2 causes warming, and 200 years of increasingly better science has found that warming to be 3 C +/- 50% for a doubling of CO2 (at current CO2 levels)
And what are we seeing? Warming!
Perhaps the increase in atmospheric CO2 will prove not merely neutral, but critically important in increasing plant harvest yields and in improving plant utilization of scarce water resources; this could be a big factor in keeping the world fed. Who knows?
People who study the issue know. They’re finding that CO2 fertilizes plants, but higher temperatures and precipitation changes stress them. There are many studies about this.
But people aren’t plants — there are many more factors to consider than what’s best for plants.
I haven’t said a word about the Precautionary Principle. I’ve said that causing an average global warming of 2-3 C (at least) is a big deal on this planet for our civilization. It’s about 1/3rd the change of an ice age, with opposite sign. It will be a whole new planet that presents enormous challenges to the status quo, and since we’re doing nothing at all about curtailing carbon pollution, it’s by no means sure the warming will stop at 2-3 C.
You seem to prefer to gamble and hope that the changes aren’t that bad, or (“who knows?”) hope they are good. That is not a responsible way to run one’s life, a family, a society, or a civilization. We are altering the planet and saying to the next several millenia: your problem, you figure it out, we only care about cheap gas.
MiCro says: “GCM’s will be ready when they can accurately model macro area climate response.”
What does “accurately” mean?
(You didn’t read Roe and Baker, did you?)
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 9:35 am
And yet they use those same readings used to base AGW on.
I already agreed that the use of energy was a poor choice of words.
But the fact that day time temperature increases are matched by nightly temperature drop is a fact based on the same data used to create the proof of AGW. Either the data isn’t any good, or what I did is as valid as the warming trend it shows, and as I pointed out, I think what I did is more valid, because their monkeying with the data doesn’t change the Min-Max difference.
I feel it’s far more likely that measurements taken within about 24 hours will have much better correlation than those taken from large temporal and spatial station measurements.
The fact that temperature records show no loss of nightly cooling is a deal breaker for AGW. I guess you have to believe what I did is somehow wrong, but you haven’t provided any reason why it’s wrong.
It’s difficult when you’re presented facts that disrupt your world view.
Phobos commented
I did go look at the abstract, but it’s a statical approach to model validation, which isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Evaluation of the GISS GCM ModelE Though I’m not sure it will come up, I’ve had trouble the last two times I tried.
But let me quote the results.
ModelE is the latest GISS model. This fails the fidelity test.
Sea surface error
US Precipitation.
Phobos says:
“Would you please explain to me what is being plotted there — especially for CO2?”
What is being plotted is the cause and effect relationship between temperature and CO2: ∆T causes ∆CO2. There is no measurable evidence that changes in CO2 affect temperature. Thus, your AGW conjecture fails, based on empirical logic.
But I don’t suppose that logic enters into your belief system, which is obviously based on emotion. Religious belief is like that.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 9:49 am
…
———
Forget about the ‘priest vrs science’ distinction, that’s got nothing to do with the point I was trying to illustrate.
We agree about the ‘front end’ of the system, in that we agree that we are increasing atmospheric CO2 by burning fossil fuels. We agree regarding the radiative physics, that in and of itself and leaving all additional complications out we’d see about 1.2C upward shift of equilibrium for a doubling of CO2. We agree that there is more to the story than just the radiative physics, that there are feed backs that must be quantitatively understood. We agree that climate sensitivity is not tightly constrained, and our estimates of it rest largely on computer models. I think we agree that those models are inadequate, but that they represent our best effort.
So in what way can you honestly state that Atmospheric CO2 causes warming, and that climate sensitivity has been found to be 1.5-4.5C with a probable value of 3.0C? We agree that climate sensitivity depends on models that are inadequate, so what is your basis for stating this? That the models are the best we can do doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference Phobos, come on. Don’t chant at me about what the science of the past 200 years says. I’m not allowed that excuse; if I accept something as factually demonstrated it means I need to be able to walk somebody else through it and show them why it’s factually demonstrated. Depending on models that show no skill is as unreasonable as throwing the bones on the banks of the Tigris to predict flooding; it isn’t a valid argument. Explain this to me in terms I could use to explain it to somebody else who depends on the accuracy of my judgement.
If your argument about climate change depends on models which show no skill, your case rests on an invalid foundation, and you are speculating. It’s that simple. You can try to turn it around anyway you like, you can try to pretend that people are gambling by not accepting you speculation as fact. I already explained why this reasoning is invalid in my prior post. All that remains is that you want to massively change the status quo based on speculation. This is gambling Phobos, and it is irresponsible. Further, you do not appear to appreciate what ‘cheap gas’ means in terms of human life, which makes it all the more irresponsible. This dismissal does you no credit. You ought to give some thought to what the costs of electricity and transportation means at almost every level in peoples lives before you go crusading to disrupt that based on results from climate models that show no skill.
@MiCro: Again, what does “accurately” mean? How accurate are models supposed to be?
(Did you read Roe and Baker yet?)
@D.B. Stealey: Again, please explain what is being plotted in the graph you referenced, especially the CO2 part in red. What is the definition of that variable? It’s not the atmospheric CO2 level, so what is it?
@DB Stealey: I’d also like to know exactly what is on the green line. It doesn’t appear to be the HadCRUT3v annual mean, which for 2012 was 0.41 C:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT3v-gl.dat
But that last point on the green line on your graph is something like 0.09…. 0.09 what? What variable is being plotted here?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.26/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
If you’re going to offer data, you need to be able to explain what it is.
Phobos,
You are a real site pest, with your constant inane comments — like a kid always asking, “But why?” after every explanation. If you can’t figure out the Wood For Trees data base, I’m not surprised. You are just not that sharp — a hallmark of the climate alarmist cult.
WFT has an explanation of its methodology, if you would only take the time to learn.
@Mark Bofill: OK, good, so we agree on a lot, as your first paragraph states.
But: So in what way can you honestly state that Atmospheric CO2 causes warming, and that climate sensitivity has been found to be 1.5-4.5C with a probable value of 3.0C? We agree that climate sensitivity depends on models that are inadequate, so what is your basis for stating this?
I don’t agree that models are “inadequate,” only that they have uncertainties larger than are desired. Models have a lot of successes — even Manabe’s back in the 1960s reproduced global water vapor flow. Models predict Arctic amplification, they predict stratosphere cooling, they predict higher warming over land than the ocean, rise in the height of the tropospause, the magnitude of the warming to date, and much more, all detailed in the IPCC 4AR WG1 link I gave you earlier. See the figure on this page:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
They predict S is about 3 K, which is also what paleoclimate studies show.
Given how much more fossil fuel we seem ready to burn, does it make much difference if S = 2C or S=4C? Either one is a big problem, and models are plenty “adequate” to show this.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 12:19 pm
…
Given how much more fossil fuel we seem ready to burn, does it make much difference if S = 2C or S=4C? Either one is a big problem, and models are plenty “adequate” to show this.
————-
Naaoo. I don’t care if ’30 Helen’s agree’ that sensitivity is 2 to 4C. I don’t care that Phobos tells me the models are plenty adequate to show this. I’d never take this to my boss. The models show no skill in most areas. I’m running right now, but Pielke Sr. posted good and plenty on this subject while he was still posting, we can pick up with his objections if you’d like and go from there.
MiCro says:
“I got to pg 2 before I found the estimate for CS to be centered on ~3C, recent research has shown it’s likely under 2C.”
Come on — this is just one model, and the work hasn’t even been peer reviewed or published yet. It’s science by press release. It’s within the uncertainty bounds of many other calculations of S, but by no means definitive.
In any case, Roe and Baker’s finding does not depend on the value of S — their work is about the uncertainty in S. They explain why more computing power will not bring a lower uncertainty: incorporating more and more physics, chemistry and biology to make improve realism introduces new uncertainties, and they all add up to produce the final uncertainty.
That’s why Myles Allen and David Frame wrote:
“An upper bound on the climate sensitivity has become the holy grail of climate research. As Roe and Baker point out, it is inherently hard to find. It promises lasting fame and happiness to the finder, but it may not exist and turns out not to be very useful if you do find it. Time to call off the quest.”
Mark Bofill wrote: “I’d never take this to my boss.”
You’re doing engineering, which is far, far easier than doing climate science. Calculating climate is the most difficult calculation science has ever undertaken. You expect it to be perfect when there are good reasons that that is impossible.
“The models show no skill in most areas.”
You are ignoring the evidence. I listed above the areas where they show skill, and gave a link to their evaluation showing skill:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
You haven’t answered the question of how much “skill” you expect, and why.
@DB Stealey:
By now it’s abundantly clear that, as before, you don’t even understand what data you are presenting. You don’t even know what the variables are.
Throwing up graphs simply because you think they look good, without understanding them, makes it impossible to take you seriously.
Phobos says:
“By now it’s abundantly clear that, as before, you don’t even understand what data you are presenting.” &etc.
Coming from a doofus who couldn’t even figure out the provenance of a chart when the name was right in the chart, I’m not too worried about your amateur opinion.
And anyone who writes, “You’re doing engineering, which is far, far easier than doing climate science” is displaying profound ignorance of the real world. There is a big difference between climatologists and engineers models: engineers models work, while climatologists models fail.
OK, D.B. Stealey, I figured out what this graph is.
Basically it tortures the data mercilessly to where it looks like something you want it to say. Surely someone else made this link and you just saved it, right?
For the monthly CO2 data from Mauna Loa, it replaces each month’s point with the average of the 12 points nearest it — an annual smoothing.
It then takes that data and finds the noise from *another* smoothing, this one 5 years long.
It does the same thing with just one of the temperature datasets, and shrinks the CO2 data so it looks to be on the same scale.
So basically what is found is that over 5-year chunks of time, a little more CO2 is present when the temperature is warm, and a little less when it is cold.
No one at all would find this surprising: it’s the warm Coke can effect. When the oceans warm up they give off a little more CO2. When they cool down they give off less CO2. Completely expected, and seen with El Ninos and La Ninas every time they happen.
But the shrinking of the CO2 data after its extreme smoothing tears out the unceasing increase in CO2 levels year after year. *That* is what needs to be explained, and ocean surface warming and cooling doesn’t do it at all. You just have to run the numbers, converting CO2 ppmv into gigatons of CO2.
What you’ll find is that the ocean is transferring small extra amounts of CO2 depending on SSTs, but there is a huge amount being added from some other source. That source is, of course, man. Do you really think burning 11 billion tons of carbon a year isn’t going to show up somewhere? Do you think it just disappears into (literally) thin air?
So, even if you don’t understand your graph, now I do. And, as I was sure about, it doesn’t show anything like what you claim. As, I’ve learned, is typical with your graphs.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:45 pm
“Time to call off the quest.”
Perhaps there is a reason they’d rather keep it hazy.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:50 pm
“You’re doing engineering, which is far, far easier than doing climate science.”
Oh, ya. Making something which actually works in the real world is far easier than imagining how you want things to be, and writing a computer code which reinforces your bias. Sure thing.
“Calculating climate is the most difficult calculation science has ever undertaken.”
You hear that, you big phony numerical relativity wonks? Phobos has spoken.
“You expect it to be perfect when there are good reasons that that is impossible.”
Just as it is impossible to find your keys under the lamppost when you dropped them in the alley.
“I listed above the areas where they show skill, and gave a link to their evaluation showing skill.”
FTA: “Despite such uncertainties, however, models are unanimous in their prediction of substantial climate warming under greenhouse gas increases…”
Hmmm…
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:53 pm
“Throwing up graphs simply because you think they look good, without understanding them, makes it impossible to take you seriously.”
Ditto. But, not to DB.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 3:24 pm
Shorter version: “I can’t heear you! Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!”
Phobos says:
“…I figured out what this graph is.”
Just so I have this straight, when you attacked me for the graph before, you had not figured it out yet. But now you think you have. Is that about it? In other words, upthread you were winging it, not really understanding the chart. Your criticism was based on not understanding.
The only point of the chart is to show the cause and effect between CO2 and temperature. The graph clearly shows that changes in temperature cause changes in CO2. However, there are no comparable graphs that show temperature caused by changes in CO2. That means one of two things:
1. CO2 has no effect on temperature, or
2. Any effect from CO2 is so small that it is not even measurable
Either of these conclusions destroys your AGW argument. But I am sure you will continue your incessant thread-bombing, because you are mentally fixated on your unalterable belief that AGW — if it even exists — is a big problem. Your True Belief must be defended, even though the ultimate Authority — Planet Earth — is falsifying it. This describes you:
By confusing cause and effect, your basic premise is wrong. Therefore, your conclusion is necessarily wrong. But of course, you will never admit it.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:50 pm
…
—-
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 8:14 am
You may know about measure theory and fibre bundles, but you are clearly lacking an intuitive feel for the physical sciences
—————————————————————————————————
Says the guy who believes (by his own outright admission) that “the past decade was warmer on average than the one before” must mean that it’s STILL warming. A belief which shows absolutely NO feel, intuitive or otherwise, for science of any sort.
Sorry if I seem to be harping on about this, Phobos, but it’s stuch an incredibly childish error in thinking that you really do need to address it before any credence can be given to anything else you say.
Of course, you’ll keep ignoring me but by raising it again when appropriate, it at least means that any casual on-looker popping into this thread will be able to see just how flawed your understanding of physical reality is. If that means they take the rest of your cut & pastes with a big pinch of salt, then it’s worth doing.
You COULD always prove me wrong by demonstrating that you actually understand what you’re posting rather than just copying it from the crib sheet?
I’m beginning to wonder if Phobos is just another robot programmed by John Cook of Skeptical Science…or maybe a liberal arts major.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 3:24 pm
“But the shrinking of the CO2 data after its extreme smoothing tears out the unceasing increase in CO2 levels year after year. *That* is what needs to be explained, and ocean surface warming and cooling doesn’t do it at all.”
You don’t really understand DB’s plot. It is simply a high pass filtered version of CO2 and temperature.It shows that CO2 generally lags temperature by 1/4 wavelength in a given cycle, which is consistent with the equation, confirmed by this plot, which I have attempted to get your fuzzy little brain to comprehend:
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
The plot, and the resulting equation, do explain the increase in CO2. It is modulation of the rate of change of CO2 by temperature anomaly with respect to a particular baseline. The “k” factor is the differential flow rate in ppmv per unit of time per degC temperature anomaly.
“When the oceans warm up they give off a little more CO2. When they cool down they give off less CO2.”
And, when they are continuously being warmed, they give off a continuous stream of CO2, which accumulates in the atmosphere. Under your supposition, if this created a signficant temperature change, it would comprise a positive feedback loop, which at the very least would make the dynamics highly erratic, if not outright unstable.
“Do you really think burning 11 billion tons of carbon a year isn’t going to show up somewhere?”
It is only 11 nano-exa-tons. Anything with nano in front of it is tiny, QED. Of course that is specious, but it is about the level of your hang-up over the relative size of this quantity. It’s not really large at all.
“So, even if you don’t understand your graph, now I do.”
You really, really, really do not.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:50 pm
…
————-
Yeah. I guess you’re right. It’s a good thing we’ve got scientific prodigies like Phil Jones involved in the work:
I tell you truly Phobos, this left me speechless with awe the first time I read it. Utterly and absolutely speechless.
For starters, we can break out some broad categories:
1 – verification against observations:
You act as if there’s something mysterious in what I’m asking. I expect models that accurately model what they’re supposed to be modeling, what else? They don’t appear to be accurately modeling temperature trends, for instance, see Lucia’s recent treatment:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/individual-model-tests-since-2001/
Or the discussion here on WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/
Model results do not appear to be matching the reality of temperature trends. If they fail to model observed temperature trends I see no reason to accept estimates of climate sensitivity based on said models.
2 – DEFICIENCIES WITH RESPECT TO MODEL TREATMENT OF CLOUDS:
First, on the significance of clouds, from http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html :
Bart says:
“FTA: “Despite such uncertainties, however, models are unanimous in their prediction of substantial climate warming under greenhouse gas increases…”
Hmmm…”
Some people still don’t understand that concept of a function of more than one variable:
“Global temperature evolution 1979–2010”
Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf
Environmental Research Letters Volume 6 Number 4 (2011)
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022
Abstract:
We analyze five prominent time series of global temperature (over land and ocean) for their common time interval since 1979: three surface temperature records (from NASA/GISS, NOAA/NCDC and HadCRU) and two lower-troposphere (LT) temperature records based on satellite microwave sensors (from RSS and UAH). All five series show consistent global warming trends ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr−1. When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.
@Phobos
” All five series show consistent global warming”
Of course they do, the late 70’s was the low point in temps since the 30’s. Just because the instrumentation record is poor, does not mean there isn’t a lot of historical records discussing record heat and drought in the 30’s and again in the 50’s . Talk about cherry picking.
D.B. Stealey says:
“The only point of the chart is to show the cause and effect between CO2 and temperature. The graph clearly shows that changes in temperature cause changes in CO2.”
You don’t even understand your own graph. It simply shows that the oceans absorb less CO2 when they’re warmer, and more when they’re colder, and that neither flux is enough to explain the large atmospheric increase.
You still haven’t told us where you think all the carbon we’re burning is going if not into the atmosphere and oceans. It is being carted away by spaceships?
That’s odd, my calendar says 6 March, not 1 April.
Mark Bofill says: “Therefore, climate science is stuck with a substantially more difficult burden of theoretical proof in my book.”
It’s the *world* that is stuck with this problem, including you and your children.
Model results of S = 3 C +/- 50% are already accurate enough to realize that the planet is going someplace we’ve never been before. Because we’ve only produced 1400 Gt CO2, and have 2800 Gt CO2 more available to us — in fact, a lot of companies are *counting* on us burning that fuel — their stock prices depend on it. The viability of their companies depend on it. And after that there is more than 30,000 Gt CO2 if we really want to.
We don’t have the luxury of waiting around 50 or 100 years to see if model projections (they don’t do predictions) come true. By then it will be another 1-3 C warmer, with many changes irreversible unless someone can figure out how to economically suck CO2 out of the air.
Decisions will have to be made with imperfect knowledge. Refusing to do so, as you’re doing, is simply irresponsible. Would you not stop smoking because your doctor couldn’t tell you exactly what year you’ll die or exactly what diseases you’ll get?
Mark Bofill writes:
“Certainly I think it’s necessary for a model used to derive estimates of CS to accurately model atmospheric temperatures over time.”
What do you mean by “accurately?”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
Joe says:
“Says the guy who believes (by his own outright admission) that “the past decade was warmer on average than the one before” must mean that it’s STILL warming.”
Yes, it is still warming over climatologically relevant time frames.
You still think 10 years means something to climatology. It does not. Would you judge the climate of the Medieval Warm Period based solely on what was happened from 1002-1012 A.D.?
For the surface, the 10-year (120 month) moving average has been warmer than that of the previous 10 years for several decades now. (At the moment this gap is 0.14 C.) As long as that is true, suggestions that warming has stopped rely on an unscientific definition of “climate.”
Bart says: “And, when they are continuously being warmed, they give off a continuous stream of CO2, which accumulates in the atmosphere.”
Here again is your lack of physics intuition: the acidity of the ocean is INCREASING, not decreasing. It contains MORE CO2, not less. It’s not giving off CO2, it’s gaining CO2.
This idea is so silly it’s hard to imagine even a mathematician taking it seriously. Cartoon science for a cartoon planet.
Phobos,
I don’t expect you to understand, you’re not capable of it. But for the sake of other readers:
Of the [harmless, beneficial] CO2 being produced, around half is being added to the atmosphere, and the rest is growing the biosphere.
CO2 is not just airborne fertilizer, it is the essential building block of starches, sugars, chlorophyl and cellulose. When you grow a plant in a pot, the soil does not need to be replenished, because the plant is not using the soil to build plant matter. It is using the CO2 in the air. That’s all. That one molecule in 2,500 is what grows everything on the planet, either directly or indirectly. We are made of carbon. Plants return the favor by stripping the oxygen molecule from CO2 and adding it to the atmosphere.
The biosphere is currently starved of CO2. We are right at the bottom of the geological concentration. We need more CO2, not less.
If CO2 levels doubled from here, it would be entirely beneficial. My boy was stationed on the USS Helena, a nuclear attack sub. They were allowed up to 5,000 ppm continuous CO2 exposure — a concentration found in many high rise office buildings. The Navy considers 5,000 ppm harmless, and they know. Higher concentrations are permitted with time limits. Not because 10,000 or 15,000 ppm is harmful, but because of concerns over crew alertness.
The current tiny 395 ppmv in the atmosphere is completely harmless, and very beneficial; life could not exist without CO2. It amazes me that the bogus “carbon” scare frightens so many people.
Phobos seems to believe that the oceans explain all the absorption and emission of CO2. That is why he doesn’t really understand the graph. Here is another graph showing that on a time scale of hundreds of millennia, changes in global temperature cause changes in CO2.
Phobos is desperately looking for a way to falsify those cause-and-effect charts, but as usual he fails: it is a scientific fact that ∆temperature causes ∆CO2 — and there is no empirical evidence that shows otherwise. As stated above, AGW is a failed conjecture, because if it exists, it is too small to measure.
The entire AGW scam is built on something that Nobel prize winner [when that really meant something] Irving Langmuir called “Pathological Science”. If something is too small to measure, such as N-rays, the only sensible course of action is to assume that it doesn’t exist. If AGW exists, produce testable measurements. That is what it will take to convince most skeptics.
Finally, Phobos trots out the old canard of ocean “acidification”. That has been so thoroughly debunked here that I won’t bother with that nonsense. Phobos can enlighten himself by doing an archive search for “CO2”. There are several articles that show there has been no “acidification”, and they are based on real world, empirical measurements — not on grant-trolling models.
Bart says: “It is only 11 nano-exa-tons. Anything with nano in front of it is tiny, QED.”
Actually it’s 11 peta-microtons. Anything with a peta in front of it is huge, QED.
“The annual global ocean uptake [of anthropogenic CO2] is estimated at ∼1.4 to 2.5 Pg C/yr.”
— “Detecting anthropogenic carbon dioxide uptake and ocean acidification in the North Atlantic Ocean,” N. R. Bates et al, Biogeosciences, 9, 2509–2522, 2012
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/2509/2012/bg-9-2509-2012.pdf
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Mark Bofill says: “Therefore, climate science is stuck with a substantially more difficult burden of theoretical proof in my book.”
It’s the *world* that is stuck with this problem, including you and your children.
Model results of S = 3 C +/- 50% are already accurate enough to realize that the planet is going someplace we’ve never been before. Because we’ve only produced 1400 Gt CO2, and have 2800 Gt CO2 more available to us — in fact, a lot of companies are *counting* on us burning that fuel — their stock prices depend on it. The viability of their companies depend on it. And after that there is more than 30,000 Gt CO2 if we really want to.
We don’t have the luxury of waiting around 50 or 100 years to see if model projections (they don’t do predictions) come true. By then it will be another 1-3 C warmer, with many changes irreversible unless someone can figure out how to economically suck CO2 out of the air.
Decisions will have to be made with imperfect knowledge. Refusing to do so, as you’re doing, is simply irresponsible. Would you not stop smoking because your doctor couldn’t tell you exactly what year you’ll die or exactly what diseases you’ll get?
——————
Phobos my friend. You seem to forget – you don’t get to simply assume that you’re right and then explain away that we don’t have time to verify it. You haven’t shown that you’ve got a leg to stand on. So far, you’ve given us an argument that depends on models which do not handle important feedbacks such as clouds and ocean dynamics well. NASA confirms this for us here ( http://climate.nasa.gov/uncertainties ) . You can link all you want to that sad little section of AR4 WG1 ( http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html ), it doesn’t excuse the fact that the models are way off in their temperature trend predictions.
So, for the second or third time now – you are speculating, not performing science. We can speculate on all sorts of things. We can speculate that a person might die of a heart attack, or might find a pot of gold if he walks due north, or might be eaten by a bear if he walks due south, or run over by a car if he crosses central, or meet the love of his life if he goes to Starbucks. We can speculate ad infinitum about anything we like. It is irresponsible to disrupt the proven benefits of fossil fuels to human life and human well being based on pure speculation. I don’t know why you can’t grasp this concept, but we can go over it as many more times as you need.
Phobos, again, to make this as plain as possible.
You say:
NASA disagrees:
If NASA explains that cloud feedback could reverse warming, obviously they don’t agree with the uncertainty constraints you’re providing. Is this reasonable? OF COURSE it’s reasonable; nobody knows how to bound cloud feedbacks because nobody understands them very well, because the darn models can’t handle them. QED.
The certainty you imagine on this 3C +/- 50% has no basis in fact. Give it up.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 6:45 pm
“Some people still don’t understand…”
We understand perfectly. It is a massive flail. It is you who are running a deficit in understanding.
A word of advice: if you want to be taken seriously at this site, do not reference hacks like Foster and Rahmstorf. We’ve already seen you reach into this particular bag, and dismissed the results. Bob Tisdale thoroughly debunked this paper and it is just a meaningless exercise in curve fitting. For more, see previous comments up-thread. And, don’t bring it up again.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 6:49 pm
“You don’t even understand your own graph.”
No, you do not, as I explained at length. If all you can do is repeat previously discredited arguments, what is the point of hanging around?
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 6:59 pm
“It’s the *world* that is stuck with this problem, including you and your children.”
“Melodrama’s so much fun,
Black and white for everyone to see,
Woe-oh-oh.”
– Billy Joel, Zanzibar
If you’re going to talk science, then talk science. If you are going to emote, there are other websites better suited for your maunderings.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 7:07 pm
“For the surface, the 10-year (120 month) moving average has been warmer than blah, blah, blah.”
Really, you do need to get new material. And, you’ll strain your arms with all this flailing.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 7:12 pm
“Here again is your lack of physics intuition: the acidity of the ocean is INCREASING, not decreasing. It contains MORE CO2, not less. It’s not giving off CO2, it’s gaining CO2.”
Non-sequitur. The oceans are not homogeneous. Upwelling waters can be richer in CO2 than downwelling waters, and the surplus would then accumulate both in the surface oceans and the atmosphere.
The excess CO2 is such a small fraction of overall flows, it can actually be coming from anywhere, or from multiple sources, or it can simply reflect a contraction of sinks, or all of the above. This is a continuous flow problem, and failing to take that into account is not unlike the mistake people who reject the greenhouse effect make when they maintain that a cooler object cannot heat a warmer one. There is a continuous input and output of heat, just as there is a continuous input and output of carbon. Anything which increases the flow in, or impedes the flow out, will cause a buildup of the transported item. And, the CO2 flows are so enormous that human inputs are insignificant.
All the sources and sinks for CO2 are temperature dependent, in that temperature modulates the rates at which it flows in, and flows out. And, this plot shows that, that dynamic is what is responsible for increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere in the last 55 years.
You really cannot get past it with word games. If dCO2/dt = k*(T – To), and the data says it does, then you are wrong about the source of the rise in CO2.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 7:28 pm
‘“The annual global ocean uptake [of anthropogenic CO2] is estimated at ∼1.4 to 2.5 Pg C/yr.”’
Keyword: estimated. And, if the estimates are based on faulty science, then you again have GIGO.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 7:12 pm
the acidity of the ocean is INCREASING, not decreasing.
————————————————————————————————————–
Ok, Phobos, here’s your chance to redeem yourself a little. It’s a really easy one for you.
I’m not going to argue with the point I THINK you’re making there, but please explain why that statement you made is SCIENTIFICALLY wrong.
So, Anthony: any answer on what your evidence is for a pause?
You highlighted a region in the graph in which all the years on the left half are below your highlight line, and all the years on the right are above it. In other words, eyeballing suggests a positive trend. Other commentators (phobos on Feb 25, for instance) suggest the trend is indeed significantly above zero. That’s remarkable: in this data set, even if you pick the start date specifically to minimize the trend, you still can’t get it to include zero trend inside the error bars.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:02 am
So, Anthony: any answer on what your evidence is for a pause?
You highlighted a region in the graph in which all the years on the left half are below your highlight line, and all the years on the right are above it. In other words, eyeballing suggests a positive trend.
——————————————————————————————————–
Your eyballs must have a different calibration to mine.
Ignoring for a minute that a flat trend CAN be fitted within the error bars from 2003 to present (note that the yellow line is NOT an attempt to do this), if anything the measurements from 2003 onward suggest an approximate sine wave superimposed on an approximately flat trend.
Given that Nature absolutely loves sine waves, and only climate scientists love straight lines, expect it to drop over the next year or two 😉
Joe says:
March 6, 2013 at 4:13 am
“…please explain why that statement you made is SCIENTIFICALLY wrong.”
I’ll help out. The oceans are getting less alkaline, not more acidic. But, it’s just a talking point. It does not compel the proffered conclusion, as I explained above.
This is a symptom of what passes for science among those with an agenda. Find something you want to be true, then assemble facts which are consistent with the hypothesis, and proclaim it to be scientifically indisputable. But, A) mere consistency is not proof and B) this methodology tends to confirmation bias, as valid data which do not conform to the hypothesis are dismissed out of hand.
Joe says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:34 am
He is late to the game. The argument is a quibble. Whether it is significantly above zero or not (and, it isn’t), the slope is so small that, were it to continue, it would be inconsequential.
But, it is very apparent that what we are dealing with is mostly the effect of a cyclical component with an approximately 60 year period. This is revealed in stark relief in this plot of the detrended temperatures. From the plot, it is apparent that the major components of the temperature series are a very slow trend, which could be a segment of a slower cycle, superimposed with a cyclical phenomenon with a period of approximately 60 years. It is, at last, now readily apparent that the downturn of the cycle occurred right on schedule at or around 2005. There is no evidence of any significant divergence of the pre-existing pattern, of trend + ~60 year cycle, due to markedly increasing levels of CO2.
Bart says:
March 6, 2013 at 9:43 am
Joe says:
March 6, 2013 at 4:13 am
“…please explain why that statement you made is SCIENTIFICALLY wrong.”
I’ll help out. The oceans are getting less alkaline, not more acidic. But, it’s just a talking point. It does not compel the proffered conclusion, as I explained above.
—————————————————————————————————————-
But will he be able to explain (in his own words, showing his working) what the difference is?
Given that the phrase ocean “acidification” can only have been coined for its emotive impact, I do wonder why they didn’t choose “ocean neutralisation”. Technically more defensible and (imho) far more scary to be having the worlds’ oceans completely neutralised than just having them get a little vinegary to go with the salt and fishes 😀
The positive trend is statistically significant; that means you *cannot* fit a flat trend within the 95% error bars.
If you mean you can find a line that goes through all the error bars and is flat, you can’t (see 2009 versus 2005), but that isn’t actually relevant. The more data you have, the less uncertainty you have about the underlying trend — but also, the more likely it is that the trend line doesn’t actually go through all the 95% confidence intervals. In fact, with 20 data points you expect one of them to be significantly off trend; at just 10 points like here, it’s not particularly surprising.
I’m not sure where you see support for a sine wave. I’d be thrilled to see it; I like my cold snowy winters.
“The oceans are getting less alkaline, not more acidic”
Similarly, the arctic is getting less cold, not more warm.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:16 am
I answered your questions in my comment to Joe’s comment to your comment above.
“The positive trend is statistically significant; that means you *cannot* fit a flat trend within the 95% error bars.”
And, by the way… We have covered this previously on this thread. You cannot calculate reliable “error bars” without a good model of the statistical properties of the error source.
It is very apparent that there is a ~60 year, at-least-quasi-cyclical process plus a trend within the data. If you include the correlations for a model of such processes, not only does the last ~17 years not have a statistically significant anomalous trend, but the past century does not.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 11:16 am
“Similarly, the arctic is getting less cold, not more warm.”
But, “warm” and “cold” are relative terms. “Alkaline” and “acid” are not.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 11:16 am
“The oceans are getting less alkaline, not more acidic”
Similarly, the arctic is getting less cold, not more warm.
———————————————————————————————
That’s not a valid analogy.
Acids and bases have entirely different reactive properties because of the dissociated ions they contain. Making something “less basic” doesn’t give it the reactive properties of an acid.
Claiming that “less basic = more acidic” is like saying that “ice at -5 degrees is more liquid than ice at -10 degrees” just because it’s getting closer to melting. If you can’t see the falacy in that, try diving into a swimming pool at -5 degrees.
@DB Stealey: Of course CO2 is beneficial to life. No one is saying it isn’t, and this objection is a ridiculous canard.
But CO2 is also a strong greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere and acidifies the ocean. Plants suffer heat stress when it gets too warm, and can suffer when precipitation patterns change. There is evidence that global crop yields have already reached the point where heat stress is undoing CO2’s fertilizer effect:
Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming
David B Lobell and Christopher B Field
Environ. Res. Lett. 2 (2007) 014002
Abstract: “…For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002….”
Bart says: “The oceans are getting less alkaline, not more acidic.”
Wrong. All chemical compounds have an acidity, and the ocean’s acidity has increased 30% since the Industrial Revolution.
REPLY: “All chemical compounds have an acidity…”
Congratulations! You win the “Stupid Comment of the Week” award.
Apparently, the “ph” in Phobos doesn’t have anything to do with understanding what pH actually means. Note where seawater is, pH is ~8 or basic.
Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14.
Source: Jacobson, M. Z. (2005). “Studying ocean acidification with conservative, stable numerical schemes for nonequilibrium air-ocean exchange and ocean equilibrium chemistry”. Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres 110: D07302. Bibcode 2005JGRD..11007302J. doi:10.1029/2004JD005220
No matter how you slice it, it is still above 8.0, and well above 7.0 and NOT ACIDIC.
Sorry, you lose.
– Anthony
Bart says: “The excess CO2 is such a small fraction of overall flows,”
In fact it is not. You seem to think the appropriate scale of atmospheric CO2 is “exatonnes”; in fact, it is gigatonnes.
There was about 580 GtC in the atmosphere before the Industrial Revolution; today there is about 820 GtC, with an additional 125 GtC having gone into the oceans.
Carbon content is increasing both in the atmosphere and the total ocean. Of course it is, because we have been emitting CO2 for 150 years. That carbon has to go somewhere.
You can’t even be truthful on the signs of the changes, let alone their magnitudes.
Bart says: “It is very apparent that there is a ~60 year, at-least-quasi-cyclical process plus a trend within the data. If you include the correlations for a model of such processes, not only does the last ~17 years not have a statistically significant anomalous trend, but the past century does not.”
I don’t believe this for a second. There are 60-yr natural ocean cycles, but they certainly do not explain 20th century warming. And, as usual, you provide no data or calculating suggesting it. (Always a sign of pretend science.)
Joe says; “Ignoring for a minute that a flat trend CAN be fitted within the error bars from 2003 to present (note that the yellow line is NOT an attempt to do this),”
Wrong — Tamino showed this very clearly: the best linear fit is not flat.
Maybe nonbest fits are, but why would anyone use a nonbest fit?
Phobos, I meant this computation:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/#comment-1232623
MiCro says: “Just because the instrumentation record is poor, does not mean there isn’t a lot of historical records discussing record heat and drought in the 30′s and again in the 50′s.”
In the US, not globally. There is no doubt that the globe is, on average, warmer than it was in the 1930s or 1950s. Not coincidentally, there is significantly less ice and a higher sea level, macroindicators that are unmistakable, just what you’d expect for a warming planet.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:43 pm
“Wrong. All chemical compounds have an acidity…”
See Joe’s comment above.
PS: Oh, and Anthony’s award to you.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:51 pm
“In fact it is not.”
In fact, even your side estimates human inputs as roughly 3% of global flows. The difference is, they think it accumulates continuously in the oceans and atmosphere. The data show it does not.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:53 pm
“And, as usual, you provide no data or calculating suggesting it.”
I didn’t??? I believe I did. Maybe you should follow the links I provide. You might learn something.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:55 pm
“Wrong — Tamino showed this very clearly: the best linear fit is not flat.”
Wrong. It’s a garbage analysis. It shows nothing but the efficacy of curve fitting with a sufficiently rich functional basis. It’s a massive flail, and a fairy tale, with no basis in reality.
@Mark Bofill: I prefer to look at actual science, not just a Web page, especially ones that aren’t up on the latest research.
Trenberth and Fasullo (Science, Nov 2012) presented an observational test of the cloud feedback based on satellite measurements of relative humidity in cloud-free subtropical regions. This relativity humidity is strongly correlated with global cloud cover. They found that only models with relatively high climate sensitivities (~4°C for a doubling of CO2) replicate the observed seasonal changes in relative humidity, suggesting the overall cloud feedback is positive.
And as Jeff Tollefson wrote in Nature last year:
“Early results from the new models suggest that the addition of the more complex clouds and aerosols to simulations could help to provide an explanation. NCAR’s new atmospheric model produced more warming and sea-ice loss than the previous iteration, and the culprit seems to be clouds — a result that caught researchers by surprise.“ (Nature,News, May 2012)
It would be grossly irresponsible, in the face of expected greenhouse warming and recent work on clouds, to hope that maybe, just maybe, clouds will somehow reverse global warming. Uncertainty is not a reason for inaction.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:00 pm
MiCro says: “Just because the instrumentation record is poor, does not mean there isn’t a lot of historical records discussing record heat and drought in the 30′s and again in the 50′s.”
The SH (>-66.5 -23Lat to < 23Lat) were slightly cooler, but if you think they were well sampled, you'd be wrong.
There are lots of historical records that that have much of the Arctic open in the 30’s due to melting. And the entire sea level increase from the 80’s could be accounted by a .6C increase on the first 300M of ocean.
But besides the point, there’s nothing but circumstancial evidence it’s caused by Co2, and if it was Co2, there would be a loss of nightly cooling, which is not present in the temperature record.
Explain how Co2 is warming the planet, if it’s not reducing how much it cools at night.
@Bojan: Martin C is indeed off by a factor of 10. This is from the abstract to Levitus et al GRL 2012:
“The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0-2000 m layer increased by 24.0±1.9 x 10^22 J (±2S.E.) corresponding to a rate of 0.39 W m^-2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.09º C. This warming corresponds to a rate of 0.27 W m^-2 per unit area of earth’s surface.”
My post chopped out the trend in the tropics:
(greater than -23Lat to less than 23Lat) is mostly flat, with a slight increase.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Explain how Co2 is warming the planet, if it’s not reducing how much it cools at night.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Great. At the same time temperatures are declining, their studies say they should be increasing even more.
At some point, you are going to have to realize that their “studies” are merely vehicles to promote their point of view, which is increasingly diverging from reality.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm
@Mark Bofill: I prefer to look at actual science, not just a Web page, especially ones that aren’t up on the latest research.
Trenberth and Fasullo (Science, Nov 2012) presented an observational test of the cloud feedback based on satellite measurements of relative humidity in cloud-free subtropical regions. This relativity humidity is strongly correlated with global cloud cover. They found that only models with relatively high climate sensitivities (~4°C for a doubling of CO2) replicate the observed seasonal changes in relative humidity, suggesting the overall cloud feedback is positive.
And as Jeff Tollefson wrote in Nature last year:
“Early results from the new models suggest that the addition of the more complex clouds and aerosols to simulations could help to provide an explanation. NCAR’s new atmospheric model produced more warming and sea-ice loss than the previous iteration, and the culprit seems to be clouds — a result that caught researchers by surprise.“ (Nature,News, May 2012)
It would be grossly irresponsible, in the face of expected greenhouse warming and recent work on clouds, to hope that maybe, just maybe, clouds will somehow reverse global warming. Uncertainty is not a reason for inaction.
———————
‘You are indeed brave sir knight but the fight is mine.’
1) For every source you site that says we understand the system, I can site a source that says otherwise:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/another-ipcc-ar5-reviewer-speaks-out-no-trend-in-global-water-vapor/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/new-paper-on-global-water-vapor-puts-climate-modelers-in-a-bind/
This does not mean I’m right and you’re wrong. This does indeed mean that we can’t assume confidence in the models results for climate sensitivity; lack of confidence in this 3.0 + / – 50% means we are speculating, speculation != science, Q.E.D.
2) I’ve worked on systems where the consequences of an error are severe for most of my career. I assure you, uncertainty is absolutely a reason for inaction. Responsible human beings do NOT put lives and fortunes at risk because someone decided to speculate. I hope you never fly in an aircraft where the fire detection & suppression system was designed by somebody who looks at life the way you do.
I am not hoping that clouds will reverse global warming. AGW has not been demonstrated in the first place because models don’t handle clouds properly, among other reasons. You have failed to make your case.
Now, go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
You’re missing some data. Argo includes data from 700m to 2,000m. I understand it might be inconvenient for you to include that.
“But, “warm” and “cold” are relative terms. “Alkaline” and “acid” are not.”
What the…? The pH of a solution is the concentration of protons; you take the base-10 log and multiply by some constants to make water be pH 7. This is high school physics! OK, when you get to college they teach you actually it’s a tiny bit more complicated and actually it’s the hydrogen ion activation. Alkaline and acid are, very precisely, relative terms.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 2:01 pm
“Alkaline and acid are, very precisely, relative terms.”
No. Acids in general are H+ donors and Bases are H+ acceptors.
James says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:41 pm
We’ve been through this up-thread. It does not matter if the lower layers are heating up. For it to be due to CO2 forcing at the surface, the upper layers would have to show heating, too.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Joe says; “Ignoring for a minute that a flat trend CAN be fitted within the error bars from 2003 to present (note that the yellow line is NOT an attempt to do this),”
Wrong — Tamino showed this very clearly: the best linear fit is not flat.
Maybe nonbest fits are, but why would anyone use a nonbest fit?
———————————————————————————————-
What exactly was the point in countering the bit that I SPECIFICALLY said I was “ignoring” in the point of my post?
Even then, you didn’t do it effectvely – where did i say anything about “best fit”? I was simply stating that “a” linear trend can be fitted, but that was irrelevant to my point so I was ignoring it.
Incidentally, Numerosis, if you require a trend to remain inside the error bars of every single data point then I’m afraid you’ve just completely screwed the AGW meme because the supposed warming trend doesn’t even come close to managing that!
Phobos –
I cite NASA’s climate page to demonstrate that there is good reason to doubt our understanding of climate sensitivity, and you dismiss it as ‘a Website’ and site a research paper instead which in no way addresses the issue of uncertainty that I’ve raised. I site credible sources that show models handle clouds poorly, and that clouds are important feedbacks, and that it’s possible that the magnitude of cloud feedback could swamp all other feedbacks, and you ignore it, offering no refutation. You assert that the models are ‘good enough’ but provide no methodical analysis to support your assertion. I can’t force you to acknowledge the reality that you haven’t made your case, and if you want to bleed all over me like the Black Knight from Monty Python, there isn’t much I can do except ride on, but it doesn’t change the facts.
But I could talk a bit more about uncertainty and action. For example, are you certain that there is no undetected asteroid on a collision course with Earth right now? Are you certain that a new epidemic that might be 100 times worse than Spanish flu isn’t about to break out tomorrow? Are you sure that if you walk across the parking lot to your car you aren’t going to be mugged, or run over, or struck by lightning? Are you certain that your house isn’t going to catch on fire an hour from now? OF COURSE NOT. Any and all of these things could happen. An arbitrarily large number of possibilities could happen. We do not assume that catastrophe is imminent without good cause even though we can speculate that it may be and we are unable to conclusively disprove it. Why? Because we aren’t gods. We have finite resources which are not to be squandered frivolously, lest we render ourselves unprepared to deal with anything else. Where no reason exists to justify action, action isn’t justified.
But even if this were incorrect, dismantling our fossil fuel infrastructure would STILL be completely futile. How do you propose to stop China, or India, or anybody else in the world from proceeding full smokestack ahead? How effective was Kyoto, how many nations were interested in another go? All that this would accomplish is needless death and suffering. And don’t kid yourself, people would die due to higher energy and gas prices. When poor people can’t afford heating in winter, people die. when the cost of everything goes up because everything requires electricity and transportation, and electricity and transportation suddenly costs more, necessary goods and services become more expensive and proportionally harder for people to obtain, and people die.
To summarize: AGW has not been demonstrated. We are unjustified in taking drastic action in curbing fossil fuel use since AGW has not been demonstrated. Even if demonstrated, reducing fossil fuel use can’t be implemented, since there is neither worldwide mechanism nor will to enforce compliance. Taking action on AGW by curbing fossil fuel use when it has not been demonstrated means needless death and suffering for absolutely no benefit, including no benefit for avoiding AGW, since we have no mechanism to accomplish curbing fossil fuel use worldwide.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 2:01 pm
“But, “warm” and “cold” are relative terms. “Alkaline” and “acid” are not.”
What the…? The pH of a solution is the concentration of protons; you take the base-10 log and multiply by some constants to make water be pH 7. This is high school physics! OK, when you get to college they teach you actually it’s a tiny bit more complicated and actually it’s the hydrogen ion activation. Alkaline and acid are, very precisely, relative terms.
—————————————————————————————————
Big fail.
The fact they are on the same scale does NOT mean they’re “relative” in effect any more than, as I suggested above, ice is “relatively less liquid” than water.
Water and ice are the same thing, with temperatures at different points on the same scale, but with entirely different properties. Acids and alkalis are at different points on the same scale but have radically different properties as a result.
In very simple terms (accurate enough between about pH1 and pH7 – way outside the range we’re interested in) acids have a surplus of H+ ions, whereas aqueous bases have a surplus of OH- ions. That means that they have completely different reactive properties.
NEXT, you don’t do anything and “multiply by some constants to make water pH7”
Pure water will self-ionise into H3O+ and OH- ions. H3O+ ions are entirely analogous to H+ because they are simply a water molecule (H2O) associated with an additional H+ ion. At a standard 25 deg C both ions (H+ and OH-) will have a molarity of 1 x 10-7 M. The logarithm of their molarity is therefore -7.
The p in pH means, by definition, the negative of the logarithm of molarity and the H means H+ ions. pH is therefore the negative of the logarithm of the molarity of H+ ions in the substance concerned. Since the H+ ions in pure water have a molarity of -7, the pH of pure water is -(-7), or just plain old 7. Didn’t have to do anything and didn’t have to multiply by anything – it just works out that way.
FINALLY, I think you’ll find that discussions of acidity and bacisity would have been high school Chemistry, not Physics.
Then again, seeing as climate science seems intent on re-writing the rule book on everything from the scientific method to statistical analysis, I don’t suppose the (traditionally rather important) distinction in that last point will matter to you.
It’s both sad and frustrating to see that people still do not understand what “acidification” actually means.
I’ve discussed this so many times that I’m simply going to link to the most recent attempt to educate someone. And if my words don’t sink in, Skeptical Science has a detailed explanation of the real, actual science of ocean acidification.
Phobos says:
“Of course CO2 is beneficial to life. No one is saying it isn’t, and this objection is a ridiculous canard.”
You obviously don’t know what ‘canard’ means. Look it up.
And:
“CO2 is also a strong greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere and acidifies the ocean. Plants suffer heat stress when it gets too warm, and can suffer when precipitation patterns change. There is evidence that global crop yields have already reached the point where heat stress is undoing CO2′s fertilizer effect…”
1. CO2 is at best a very weak GHG at current concentrations. And oceans are not acidifying.
2. Plants are not suffering “heat stress” due to a 0.8ºC temperature fluctuation over 150 years. Get a grip.
3. Precipitation patterns constantly change, naturally. Nothing unusual or unprecedented is occurring.
4. Global crop yields continue to rise.
As usual, Phobos is wrong about everything.
MiCro says: “There are lots of historical records that that have much of the Arctic open in the 30′s due to melting.”
Really? Show some data.
Here is some data. It shows nothing like what you claim for the 1930s:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_untersteiner.html
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/images/ice_extent.gif
MiCro says:”Explain how Co2 is warming the planet, if it’s not reducing how much it cools at night.”
It is reducing how much it cools at night:
Global warming: Evidence for asymmetric diurnal temperature change
Thomas R. Karl et al, Geophysical Research Letters
Volume 18, Issue 12, pages 2253–2256, December1991
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91GL02900/abstract
From the abstract: “…most of the warming which has occurred in these regions over the past four decades can be attributed to an increase of mean minimum (mostly nighttime) temperatures.”
Really, you people don’t know the literature at all. These are obvious questions that have occurred to many people before you, who have done real studies to answer them.
@Phobos,
” It is reducing how much it cools at night:
From the abstract: “…most of the warming which has occurred in these regions over the past four decades can be attributed to an increase of mean minimum (mostly nighttime) temperatures.””
Not when you compare cooling to how much the temp goes up the prior day.
What the paper behind the paywall is detecting is land use changes, ie UHIE.
Did you go look at my work yet?
Mark Bofill writes: “lack of confidence in this 3.0 + / – 50% means we are speculating, speculation != science.”
It’s not speculation, it’s science, and science includes uncertainties. Observations of paleoclimates too put climate sensitivity at this level.
Besides, climate sensitivity is a lousy indicator of future changes, not only because no one knows the future path of GHG emissions, but mostly because it doesn’t completely include carbon sensitivity — changes in natural carbon sinks, and the effects of feedbacks between climate change and carbon uptake. A much better measure is the carbon-climate feedback function (CCR), which finds 1.5 C of greenhouse gas induced warming for every trillion tons of carbon emitted. (Matthews et al, Nature 11 June 2009). The 5 and 95% percentile limits are 1.0 and 2.1 C/TtC.
This result is found from both models, and from observations (which do include changes in clouds) over the last century, as Matthews et al show.
Given that we’re now emitting over 11 GtC/yr, we can expect between 0.11-0.23 C/decade of GHG induced warming — more if emissions increase, as they almost certainly will.
Both data and theory show that CCR definitely isn’t zero. Hoping it is — i.e. that uncertainties will go for you and not break even (let along go against you) — is gambling with the future well-being of civilization.
Joe: I clearly need to retake high school chemistry; you’re right I have forgotten some details (the constants I remembered must have been to convert to molarity from some other measure of concentration).
Still, you and Anthony seem to be arguing there’s a phase change at 10^-7 mol. This I certainly don’t remember — quite the opposite. There’s still protons (or H3O+) floating around in lye, which is why we can measure its pH. Similarly, the syndrome when your blood pH gets low is known as “acidosis”, not “slightlylessbasicosis”.
Bernard J. says:
March 6, 2013 at 6:20 pm
I read your first link. Interesting. I do not traffic with the other site, just as I do not traffic with hookers, con men, and thugs, or other persons with stunted intellects and morals. Could you, perhaps, give us a condensed version?
Bart says: “No. Acids in general are H+ donors and Bases are H+ acceptors.”
When CO2 dissolves in ocean water, the hydrogen ion (proton) concentration of the water increases. It’s pH decreases.
The higher concentration of hydrogen ions have effects on the chemical reactions and rates of biological processes.
The biology and chemistry don’t care whether you label the ocean an base or an acid; they only know about the chemicals in their environment, and react accordingly. The higher concentration of H+ ions changes the chemistry.
There isn’t some magic threshold at pH=7 where things happen that didn’t happen before. They are already happening; the changes are in the rates, due to changes in concentrations.
Yet again, this is all very standard, very well known stuff; the basics aren’t disputed in the least in the scientific world.
DB Stealey writes: “4. Global crop yields continue to rise.”
No one disputes that, least of all the paper I cited. At least read the abstract…. The finding was, “For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year,as of 2002.”
Yet again, realize that the world does not consist of a single variable. Many factors influence global crop yield, not least of which is how many acres are planted or what agricultural technologies are used.
The Lobell and FIeld finding is that, due to warming, the yield for these three major crops is lower than what it would be without the warming.
Is that really so hard for you to understand? .
Phobos says:
“The Lobell and FIeld finding…”
What they ‘found’ was another way to angle for some of that globaloney grant money.
I am astonished that anyone would be so credulous as to believe that a tiny 0.8º change in temperature, over a century and a half, has any measurable effect on plant life. Global temperatures are always naturally changing. The plants cope.
In addition, GHG global warming primarily takes place in winter, and at the higher latitudes, and at night. It does not raise high temps higher.
That self-serving paper is totally bogus, using weasel words like “we estimate”. Well, I estimate increased grant income for those pseudo-scientists. Whatever Phobos has been smoking, he should share it. It must be really strong stuff.
Bart says: March 6, 2013 at 2:35 pm
“We’ve been through this up-thread. It does not matter if the lower layers are heating up. For it to be due to CO2 forcing at the surface, the upper layers would have to show heating, too.”
Spontaneous heating of the middle ocean layers. How interesting. Please share your insight into this magical new science you’ve discovered.
btw: the upper layers have warmed (not that they needed to, ever crack a whip?); the yellow line is cowardly deceptive.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:22 pm
“Given that we’re now emitting over 11 GtC/yr, we can expect between 0.11-0.23 C/decade of GHG induced warming — more if emissions increase, as they almost certainly will.”
How much longer does this have to not occur before you admit you are wrong?
James says:
March 6, 2013 at 9:14 pm
“Please share your insight into this magical new science you’ve discovered.”
Oh, do please share yours into how the heat was teleported to the depths without leaving a trace along the path from the source. Was it a Star Trek transporter beam operated by EBO (Evil Big Oil)?
It turns out that there have been a couple of studies of deep ocean heat content changes. They, too, find warming:
Warming of Global Abyssal and Deep Southern Ocean Waters between the 1990s and 2000s: Contributions to Global Heat and Sea Level Rise Budgets, S Purkey and G Johnson, J Climate v23 (Dec 2010)
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JCLI3682.1
discussed in:
Deep ocean heat
Ari Jokimäki, September 20, 2010
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/deep-ocean-heat/
Deep ocean heat content changes estimated from observation and reanalysis product and their influence on sea level change, S Kouketsu et al, Journal of Geophysical Research, 116, C03012 (2011)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JC006464/abstract
Bart says: “How much longer does this have to not occur before you admit you are wrong?”
How much longer until you realize warming depends on more than one variable?
You did study functions of more than one variable, right?
GISS 15-yr trends:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/giss_15.jpg
Note: 1993-1995
MiCro says: “Not when you compare cooling to how much the temp goes up the prior day.
What the paper behind the paywall is detecting is land use changes, ie UHIE.”
Now you’re moving the goalposts — earlier you said there was no reduction in how much it cools at night.
If you actually read the paper, you’d see that they wrote on the very first page:
“An important aspect of any surface-based land analysis
of temperature change relates to the potential impact of
growing urban heat islands. In this analysis the data used
for the USA (excluding the extremes) have been adjusted
for urban heat island biases using the procedures described
by Karl et al. [1988]. The station network we use in the
USSR is a rural network (no station in a city with population
of 10,000 or more). The PRC network consists of several
stations in and near large cities, but many of the stations
were also used by Jones et al. [1986] as described in Jones
et al. [ 1985]. In previous work [Jones et al., 1990; Wang et
al., 1990], we have compared the data in the PRC used by
Jones et al. [1986] in the eastern half of the PRC (the region
which contains the most urbanized stations) to various
networks comprised of only rural or urban stations. These
analyses indicate that urban heat island biases derived from
long-term stations in this portion of the globe are relatively
small (-0.1øC) over the time period we address in the PRC.
“It should also be noted that detailed station histories
have been compiled for each of the stations we use. There
is no evidence to suggest that either observational practices
or instruments may have introduced systematic
inhomogeneities in the data we analyze.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91GL02900/abstract
@Phobos,
” Now you’re moving the goalposts — earlier you said there was no reduction in how much it cools at night.”
No I’m not moving the goal posts, and you’d know that if you went past the first paragraph, and looked at the data and procedures I used. But you would have to make an intelligent reply then that you can’t explain but cut and pasting of others.
There is no loss of night time cooling, not since 1950.
MiCro says: “Did you go look at my work yet?”
Yes — I already told you, it makes ridiculous assumptions about relationships between temperatures and energy balances.
@Phobos
Actually like I said, probably shouldn’t have used energy. But let’s talk about the energy.
The other night the sky was clear, with no winds. @9:00pm it was ~25F, and the temp dropped ~.9F/hour till ~7:00am to 16F, when the Sun came up.
For the temperature to drop, every square meter had to radiate ~120-125 watts, in those 10 hours 4.8 MJoules/m2 were lost through all that Co2. That’s not a ridiculous assumption about energy and temp, that’s science.
Temperature alone doesn’t tell you how much energy is in the system, but it can tell you how much radiates away.
D.B. Stealey says: “What they ‘found’ was another way to angle for some of that globaloney grant money.”
So since you can’t argue with the result, you dismiss them for other reasons.
There will always be some reason you’ll invent.
I think you’re dismissing results you find inconvenient for monetary reasons — you’re trying to protect your pocket book, afraid you will be made to pay for your carbon pollution.
I am astonished that anyone would be so credulous as to believe that a tiny 0.8º change in temperature, over a century and a half, has any measurable effect on plant life. Global temperatures are always naturally changing. The plants cope.
There is copious evidence in shifts already among plants of latitude, altitudes, and flowering and blossoming times. There is also copious evidence that the PETM, similar to the warming to come,if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, led to extinctions in a significant fraction of plant and animal species.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 9:39 pm
“It turns out that there have been a couple of studies of deep ocean heat content changes. They, too, find warming:”
And, you think this is because of warming of the surface over the last 30-odd years?
Maybe you and James can form a tag team of comedy here. This should be fun.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 9:40 pm
You didn’t answer my question. How much longer does this have to not occur before you admit you are wrong?
Phobos says:
“you’re trying to protect your pocket book, afraid you will be made to pay for your carbon pollution.”
‘Carbon’ is not pollution any more than oxygen is pollution, and only a clueless dimwit would believe otherwise.
Bart says:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:24/plot/gistemp/from:1959/scale:0.2/offset:0.075
Again, you have only obtained this plot by smoothing the heck out of the CO2 data, cherry picking the smoothing period.
Try this instead:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:36/plot/gistemp/from:1959/scale:0.2/offset:0.075
Not nearly as nice, is it?
You still haven’t told us where the 11 GtC/yr humans are emitting is going, given that the atmosphere, oceans, and land are all gaining carbon.
D.B. Stealey says: “Carbon’ is not pollution any more than oxygen is pollution.”
Of course it is. The definition of a pollutant is a substance that, at certain levels in certain places, is harmful and undesirable.
By the way, the Supreme Court has ruled that CO2 is a pollutant. Are they all dimwits too?
Bart says: “You didn’t answer my question. How much longer does this have to not occur before you admit you are wrong?”
Wrong about what — that more than one variable determines surface temperature? That’s not wrong at all.
It *is* warming. The 15-yr trends for the surface are (with 2 sigma uncertainties)
GISS: 0.07 +/- 0.04 C/decade (stat sign = 99.9%)
HadCRUT4: 0.04 +/- 0.04 C/decade (stat sign = 95%)
Both are statistically positive at the 95% level or better. And this is with the anthropogenic influence of aerosols providing some cooling.
Phobos says:
D.B. Stealey says: “Carbon’ is not pollution any more than oxygen is pollution.”
Phobos asserts: “Of course it is. The definition of a pollutant is a substance that, at certain levels in certain places, is harmful and undesirable.”
What a clueless dope. By his own definition, water = pollution.
We’re done here. Arguing with dopes like Phobos, who is totally ignorant of basic science, is a wasted time sink. Where do the alarmist crowd get people like Phobos, anyway?
Bernard J. says:
March 6, 2013 at 6:20 pm
It’s both sad and frustrating to see that people still do not understand what “acidification” actually means.
———————————————————————————————————–
Sorry, Bernard, seeing as we’re all happy doing science here 9allegedly) I assumed that my “at a standard 25 deg C” was enough to acknowledge the effect of temperature on neutrality. It was, after all, a blog comment not a dissertation.
If you followed the thread of the argument, you’d also see that I wasn’t questioning the point that Phobos was obviously trying to make (the possible effect of changes in pH on some organsism). What I was pointing out was the inaccuracy and impropriety of using emotively hysterical terms like “increasing acidity” (increasing in caps mind you!) when claiming to be discussing science.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:25 pm
Joe: I clearly need to retake high school chemistry; you’re right I have forgotten some details (the constants I remembered must have been to convert to molarity from some other measure of concentration).
Still, you and Anthony seem to be arguing there’s a phase change at 10^-7 mol. This I certainly don’t remember — quite the opposite. There’s still protons (or H3O+) floating around in lye, which is why we can measure its pH. Similarly, the syndrome when your blood pH gets low is known as “acidosis”, not “slightlylessbasicosis”.
—————————————————————————————————————–
No worries, numerbosis, it’s not like it’s something many people worry about from day to day after they leave school 😉
I’m not arguing for a phase change as such but acids and bases do have different reactive properties and that change in properties happens either side of neutrality.
Acidosis in the case of blood is perfectly reasonable seeing as blood is acid to begin with. It’s the intentionally emotive language I have problems with. “Acidification” is borderline because it’s meaning is generally understood and accepted the scientific community now, but stretching that even further to “more acidic”, with the implication that it’s turning from vinegar to battery acid, is blatant scaresmanship and deserves challenging.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:42 pm
Yikes! You know nothing about filtering theory, do you? Oh, my, but that is comedic.
“You still haven’t told us where the 11 GtC/yr humans are emitting is going, given that the atmosphere, oceans, and land are all gaining carbon.”
Of course it is going into the atmosphere, oceans, and land, where it is being sequestered permanently, or at least for a very long time, by biological and mineral processes, and otherwise transported out of the surface system. But, it is only a small part of the flows, and the sinks do not discriminate on the basis of whether it is “natural” or “anthropogenic”.
You really cannot get past it with word games. If dCO2/dt = k*(T – To), and the data say it does, then you are wrong about the source of the rise in CO2.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:53 pm
“Both are statistically positive at the 95% level or better.”
Again with the bogus statistics bluster. We’ve been over, and over this.
“And this is with the anthropogenic influence of aerosols providing some cooling.”
Pure handwaving rationalization of a failed hypothesis. As I have shown, there is no divergence from pre-existing patterns in the temperature record.
The ~60 year cycle will continue its downward progression for perhaps 20-30 more years. So, if you think you are going to be vindicated in anything like the near term, you are going to be sorely disappointed.
Joe: “Acidosis in the case of blood is perfectly reasonable seeing as blood is acid to begin with.”
No, it’s not. Blood pH is 7.35-7.45. Any fall in pH is correctly described as acidosis, just as any decrease in ocean pH is acidification. It’s not emotive. It’s standard scientific terminology. /Shrug
If you followed the various threads linked in my comments above, and if you paid attention to other comments from people who actually understand chemistry, you’d understand that it’s not impropriety or hysterical emotion to refer to “increasing acidity”. In the Lowry-Brønsted context it simply refers to an increase in concentration of hydronium (H3+ ions.
An acid is simply a solution where the concentration of H3O+ is greater than the concentration of OH-. Conversely, a base is just a solution where the concentration of H3O+ is less than the concentration of OH-.
I will repeat – acidification is the process of increasing the concentration of H3O+), no matter the solution’s starting concentration with respect to ‘neutrality’. As acidity increases basicity decreases and conversely, as basicity increases acidity decreases. Acidification/acidity and bascification/basicity are qualitative descriptors: they are not quantitative descriptors which only differentially kick in with respect to a specific pH value.
If you are still struggling with the concept, consider acidity-basicity expressed as the ratio of hydronium to hydroxide ions – that is H3O+:OH-. When the ratio increases, acidification is occurring, when the ratio decreases, bascification is occurring. This is true regardless of whether the starting ratio is 0.5, 1.0, or 1.5.
Get it yet?
If not, consider this. Using your logic a man who weights 200 kilograms and loses 50 is not becoming lighter, he is merely becoming less heavy, because 150 kilograms is still heavier than most.
In truth though he is becoming lighter, whether or not he was light to begin and end with.
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 4:04 pm
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 9:50 pm
So, who’s making ridiculous assumptions about the relationship between temperature and energy?
It just goes to show Mr Scientist can read some papers, yet not actually understand a thing.
Mark Bofill writes: “lack of confidence in this 3.0 + / – 50% means we are speculating, speculation != science.”
It’s not speculation, it’s science, and science includes uncertainties. Observations of paleoclimates too put climate sensitivity at this level.
Besides, climate sensitivity is a lousy indicator of future changes, not only because no one knows the future path of GHG emissions, but mostly because it doesn’t completely include carbon sensitivity — changes in natural carbon sinks, and the effects of feedbacks between climate change and carbon uptake. A much better measure is the carbon-climate feedback function (CCR), which finds 1.5 C of greenhouse gas induced warming for every trillion tons of carbon emitted. (Matthews et al, Nature 11 June 2009). The 5 and 95% percentile limits are 1.0 and 2.1 C/TtC.
This result is found from both models, and from observations (which do include changes in clouds) over the last century, as Matthews et al show.
Given that we’re now emitting over 11 GtC/yr, we can expect between 0.11-0.23 C/decade of GHG induced warming — more if emissions increase, as they almost certainly will.
Both data and theory show that CCR definitely isn’t zero. Hoping it is — i.e. that uncertainties will go for you and not break even (let along go against you) — is gambling with the future well-being of civilization.
——————
‘Look you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left!’
Whoa there. Wasn’t it just yesterday that you were telling me that we’d got certainty that a doubling of CO2 leads to a new equilibrium with temperatures increases to +1.5C to +4.5C with +3.0C as a most likely value? Assuming a pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 level of 270 ppmv, we’re on track to double that by around 2083. (70 years * 2 ppmv/yr = 140 ppmv, + our current 400 = 540 ppmv). But today you’re telling me that we’ve got certainty that burning at our current rate we’re going to see .011 TtC * 70 years * 1.5 C = +1.16C by 2083, with a range of 0.77C to 1.62C This is substantially different than the figures you were certain of only just yesterday, and not consistent by any stretch with the ‘most probable value’ of 3.0C you offered. You DO understand what the word ‘certainty’ means, right? What are you going to tell me you’re certain of tomorrow? Next week? I hate to keep harping on this but you never seem to take the point in; you’ve got a serious methodology problem here. Can you imagine what your reaction would be if some shmuck made drastic decisions that substantially impacted your life based on ‘certainty’ that changed on a day to day basis?
And we’re not even examining the question about what impacts (if any) could be expected for a mere 1.1C increase.
Phobos, you should reevaluate your view on engineering. I don’t know, maybe you need to rethink the meaning of personal responsibility. You are being suckered by people telling you what you’ve decided you want to hear and are apparently making no effort to verify the claims. You are not a ‘babe in the woods’ and I don’t care how much you’re enjoying the ride, what you are doing by promoting this crap is reckless and irresponsible. Heck, you aren’t even sanity checking your own position, when what you’re telling me we’re certain of changes from day to day.
Now go forth and sin no more, you darn fool.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:01 pm
MiCro says: “There are lots of historical records that that have much of the Arctic open in the 30′s due to melting.”
Historical Arctic Maps
Bernard J. says:
March 7, 2013 at 5:52 am
“An acid is simply a solution where the concentration of H3O+ is greater than the concentration of OH-.”
I’m not a chemistry buff, but I cannot see how these things can co-exist in a well mixed solution. I would think they would necessarily react to reduce one another, until only one species survived or the solution became neutral.
Beyond any of this, however, it is blowing smoke to assert that “acidification of the oceans” is not an emotive phrase designed to elicit fear in the target audience.
MiCro,
Phobos never read your work, or he would have posted a detailed critique.
And thanks for your reminder of the historical Arctic ice maps. They prove beyond any doubt that the current situation is not unprecedented.
“I’m not a chemistry buff, but I cannot see how these things can co-exist in a well mixed solution.”
Looks like this thread has expired, but it’s been living on borrowed time anyway and I doubt many will mourn. In any case, to expand on this statement, I can imagine that H3O+ and OH- molecules are continually being created and destroyed in a virtual sense, and the balance is disturbed when a measurement is taken. But, the bottom line is that alkalines are proton receptors, and acids are proton donors, and it appears to me that there is a clear and fundamental line of demarcation at which a solution switches from one to the other.
Therein lies the problem.
Then it’s time to learn about Chemical equilibrium.
Or, in the context of this discussion, the dissociation of water.
.
No.
Again, read the above links. And more. And then some more after that.
Bernard J. says:
March 8, 2013 at 6:25 am
I think you are quibbling. Perhaps the pH measurement does not provide a definite line of demarcation, but that is a matter of convention. The balance of concentration still does provide a clear line. And, ocean waters are nowhere near that line.
As I stated before: ‘Beyond any of this, however, it is blowing smoke to assert that “acidification of the oceans” is not an emotive phrase designed to elicit fear in the target audience.’
If you disagree, then tell my why you prefer the term “acidification” over “reduction of alkalinity”. Is it mere brevity, or are you, in fact, inclined to play on lay-persons fears of anything with the word “acid” in it?
Let me put this in simple terms, as nothing else seems to be working:
1) Hydronium ions (H3+ are the Lowry-Brønsted ‘acid’ moiety in the context of ocean pH.
2) H3+ ions are present even in basic sea water.
3) The concentration of H3+ ions in sea water is increasing. This increase is occurring as a direct consequence of the increase in atmospheric CO2 resulting from human emissions, and which dissolves into sea water and forms carbonic acid.
4) This increase in the concentration of acid H3+ ions in sea water, a process referred to by chemists, physicists and biologists as acidification (see, pH and neutrality don’t even need to be mentioned…) has a direct impact on carbonate solubility in sea water, which in turn directly impacts on the ability of calcifers (organisms that depost calcium shells) to successfully form their calcium cabonate support/defence structures.
5) If humans persist in increasing in the concentration of acid H3+ ions in sea water for more than a couple more decades, there will be profound ecological consequences. Humans will not escape the impacts of these consequences.
Bernard J. says:
March 9, 2013 at 1:00 am
“2) H3+ ions are present even in basic sea water.”
So what? It’s not going to make it eat through your hand, because there are plenty of OH- around to keep them busy.
“4) …a process referred to by chemists, physicists and biologists as acidification…”
Or as neutralization. Why not use that term?
“…which in turn directly impacts on the ability of calcifers…”
But, by how much? Agenda driven studies notwithstanding, what is the real effect of a pH drop from 8.25 to 8.14 over more than 200 years? This is the problem with agenda driven science – after too many false alarms, nobody believes you. Ever read the fable of The Boy Who Cried “Wolf!”? A responsible scientist must be very cautious about issuing categorical proclamations without conclusive evidence to back it up.
“5) If humans persist in increasing in the concentration of acid H3+ ions in sea water…”
Are we increasing it? Possibly, but I have my doubts, as we aren’t increasing it in the atmosphere. I know this to be true. I have laid out the evidence above. And, you are straying into my bailiwick if and when you assert otherwise. Yes, I am more competent in the science of feedback systems than climate scientists in general, and no, I am not a crackpot, though crackpots are a dime a dozen on both sides of this tendentious issue. The evidence is quite clear, and feedback systems do not behave according to common intuition. And, that is why these simplistic scenarios do not work out as most, who are not familiar with the dynamics of feedback systems, expect.
“Neutralization” does not describe the process as accurately as acidification. You are scrambling for a euphemistic fig leaf to avoid the fact that the concentration of acid H3+ in sea water is increasing, as a direct consequence of human carbon dioxide emissions.
Lowry-Brønsted neutrality is simply a descriptor of concentrations of hydronium and of hydroxide where each chemical species occurs in solution at the same concentration, that is, where the ratio H3+:OH- is 1. The concentration (and thus the solution’s pH) of these species at neutrality is highly variable, contingent on many physiochemical parameters, and for this reason alone “neutralization” is an ambiguous term.
Further, the significance of an increase in the concentration of H3+ is directly reflected in aragonite saturation, which is critical for calcifer carbonate deposition.
Neutrality is an inconstant point on the pH scale. In a complex buffer system with multiple chemcial species neutrality is even more tenuous a concept, because of the manner in which buffers maintain equilibria. However, when the concentration of an acid moiety increases, semantics won’t change the fact. This increase is acidification, and no amount of playing with words and with arbitrary definitions changes the fact of the increase in acid concentation.
You can deny the phenomenon, but it doesn’t change the chemistry. The laws of nature are stubborn like that.
1) Humans are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is a trivially obvious fact.
2) A significant portion of the CO2 emitted by humans dissolves in the oceans, where it reacts with water to form carbonic acid. These too are trivially obvious facts.
3) This formation of carbonic acid includes the formation of hydronium (H3+) ions. This is a painfully, trivially obvious fact.
4) By deductive logic your prevarication about admitting that humans are the cause of the increase in hydroniumin sea water is shown to be unfounded. By your own admission you are not up on chemistry, so it is unsurprising that you are having difficulty understanding that humans are causing this increase in sea water hydronium concentration.
The discussion is not about the increase of H3+ in the atmosphere. This is a classic straw man argument – a logical fallacy.
As noted above, humans are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which increases the amount of CO2 in the oceans, which increases the amount of carbonic acid in the oceans, which represents an increase in the amount of H3+ in the oceans. Your diversion of the amount of H3+ in the atmosphere is completely irrelevant, totally spurious, and avoids the painful (for you, apparently) fact that humans are increasing the concentration of acid moiety in the oceans.
Bernard J. says:
March 9, 2013 at 7:12 pm
“You are scrambling for a euphemistic fig leaf …”
Sorry, no, it is you who are scrambling for an emotional plea.
“1) Humans are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is a trivially obvious fact.”
You are wrong. I have demonstrated it. Clearly, it is outside of your ken.
“2) A significant portion of the CO2 emitted by humans dissolves in the oceans, where it reacts with water to form carbonic acid. These too are trivially obvious facts.”
In other words, you assume it without giving it much thought.
“By your own admission you are not up on chemistry, so it is unsurprising that you are having difficulty understanding that humans are causing this increase in sea water hydronium concentration.”
What a stupid statement. It is not at all difficult for the untutored, such as yourself, to jump to a post hoc ergo propter hoc conclusion.
It is not about chemistry. It is about feedback. Feedback is a topic which requires many years of study to properly master. Your perspective is superficial, glib, and trivial.
There’s no emotion involved. You obviously do not understand the basics of scientific process, let alone of the specific, relevant chemistry.
Empirical data say that the oceans are acidifying. Centuries of inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry give us an extremely good understanding of the processes involved. If you disagree with any of the numbered processes that I listed at my post of March 9, 2013 at 7:12 pm, you have but to explicitly contradict them, with necessary detail, and with appropriate reference to primary literature.
Knock yourself out.
What? Seriously? You think that you’ve “demonstrated” that humans aren’t increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?
If so, you’re deluded.
No, in other words (and ones more accurate than yours) I’ve learned this in my time doing undergraduate, Masters and PhD degrees, and also during more than two decades of professional science.
In the matter of ocean acidifcation I assume nothing. Rather, I study, I learn, I understand and I apply my knowledge.
Which seems to be somewhat more than you do, given your own volunteered admission that you don’t even have a grasp of chemistry.
As I said, I am both tutored and professionally experienced in chemistry – amongst other sciences. Of course you wouldn’t understand that, as you do not know me.
And if my “conclusion” is incorrect, I would point out once again you have but to demonstrate scientifically why this is so.
Oh, and for the record the ætiology of the occurence of ocean acidification in its contemporary maniestation is not a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Again, if you actually understood the science and the empirical evidence on which it is based, you’d be aware of the supportable chain of causality between human emissions of carbon dioxide and the acidification of sea water.
Bernard J. says:
March 11, 2013 at 5:46 am
“What? Seriously? You think that you’ve “demonstrated” that humans aren’t increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?”
It is right up above you. It is fairly basic, but whether you have the maths for it or not is something I do not know. I will give you a synopsis.
As I have shown, the rate of change of CO2 in the atmosphere, since reliable measurements began to be taken 55 years ago, is essentially an affine function of temperature:
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
where k is a coupling constant in ppmv per unit of time per degree of temperature, T is temperature, and To is an equilibrium temperature. This relationship integrates, as it must, into the observed CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This equation should be considered simply a first order Taylor expansion of what is likely a much more complicated function of temperature, so the parameters k and To likely should be varied depending on the state of the system to provide the best local representation over a given time interval. However, since 1958, they have apparently been remarkably stable.
The equation establishes that CO2 is driven by temperatures, and not the reverse, for it would be absurd to claim that temperatures depend on the rate of change of CO2, and not its absolute level. The relationship accounts for almost all of the observed CO2 in the atmosphere. The remarkable thing about the fit is that, when you choose the value of k to fit the variations, you also get a good fit to the overall trend. That fit leaves no room for significant anthropogenic forcing. Why? Because the rate of change of anthropogenic input is also a trend, which integrates into a quadratic factor, but the quadratic term which comes from integrating the temperature already fits the curvature of the absolute integrated concentration, and adding to it would cause it to be too large. We could deweight the temperature driven component, but that would cause a mismatch with the variational components.
The ineluctable conclusion is that the carbon cycle is not well understood, that human inputs are rapidly sequestered, and have little effect on the overall concentration.
The differential equation relationship above is to be expected in a continuous flow problem in which CO2 is constantly entering and exiting the surface system, and the differential rate at which it does so is dependent on temperature.
“No, in other words (and ones more accurate than yours) I’ve learned this in my time doing undergraduate, Masters and PhD degrees, and also during more than two decades of professional science.”
Big deal. I’ve got all that, too. I’ve built (well, I designed, others built them to my design) complex mechanisms which actually work in rather harsh environments.
“Which seems to be somewhat more than you do, given your own volunteered admission that you don’t even have a grasp of chemistry.”
I have a grasp, but it is moldy, as I haven’t studied it since my undergraduate days more than two decades ago. You, on the other hand, apparently have no familiarity with my specialty, which is feedback systems.
“Again, if you actually understood the science and the empirical evidence on which it is based, you’d be aware of the supportable chain of causality between human emissions of carbon dioxide and the acidification of sea water.”
To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A shallow understanding of processes leads one to assume a simplistic model in which an action takes place, and there is no reaction which modifies it as time progresses.
“Don’t hide your light under a bushel – explain to us where science has it wrong. Publish, and let the world be amazed.”
There is no point. Perhaps you are familiar with Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? We have not yet reached the stage of the paradigm shift, and until we do, nothing new is going to get past the gatekeepers. But, that day is coming soon, as temperatures obstinately refuse to cooperate with the prognostications of the very simplistic, and quite simply very wrong, expections of the current reigning paradigm.
Mod – my apologies, but one of the links did not come out. Could you replace the above with the below? Thanks.
Bernard J. says:
March 11, 2013 at 5:46 am
“What? Seriously? You think that you’ve “demonstrated” that humans aren’t increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?”
It is right up above you. It is fairly basic, but whether you have the maths for it or not is something I do not know. I will give you a synopsis.
As I have shown, the rate of change of CO2 in the atmosphere, since reliable measurements began to be taken 55 years ago, is essentially an affine function of temperature:
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
where k is a coupling constant in ppmv per unit of time per degree of temperature, T is temperature, and To is an equilibrium temperature. This relationship integrates, as it must, into the observed CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This equation should be considered simply a first order Taylor expansion of what is likely a much more complicated function of temperature, so the parameters k and To likely should be varied depending on the state of the system to provide the best local representation over a given time interval. However, since 1958, they have apparently been remarkably stable.
The equation establishes that CO2 is driven by temperatures, and not the reverse, for it would be absurd to claim that temperatures depend on the rate of change of CO2, and not its absolute level. The relationship accounts for almost all of the observed CO2 in the atmosphere. The remarkable thing about the fit is that, when you choose the value of k to fit the variations, you also get a good fit to the overall trend. That fit leaves no room for significant anthropogenic forcing. Why? Because the rate of change of anthropogenic input is also a trend, which integrates into a quadratic factor, but the quadratic term which comes from integrating the temperature already fits the curvature of the absolute integrated concentration, and adding to it would cause it to be too large. We could deweight the temperature driven component, but that would cause a mismatch with the variational components.
The ineluctable conclusion is that the carbon cycle is not well understood, that human inputs are rapidly sequestered, and have little effect on the overall concentration.
The differential equation relationship above is to be expected in a continuous flow problem in which CO2 is constantly entering and exiting the surface system, and the differential rate at which it does so is dependent on temperature.
“No, in other words (and ones more accurate than yours) I’ve learned this in my time doing undergraduate, Masters and PhD degrees, and also during more than two decades of professional science.”
Big deal. I’ve got all that, too. I’ve built (well, I designed, others built them to my design) complex mechanisms which actually work in rather harsh environments.
“Which seems to be somewhat more than you do, given your own volunteered admission that you don’t even have a grasp of chemistry.”
I have a grasp, but it is moldy, as I haven’t studied it since my undergraduate days more than two decades ago. You, on the other hand, apparently have no familiarity with my specialty, which is feedback systems.
“Again, if you actually understood the science and the empirical evidence on which it is based, you’d be aware of the supportable chain of causality between human emissions of carbon dioxide and the acidification of sea water.”
To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A shallow understanding of processes leads one to assume a simplistic model in which an action takes place, and there is no reaction which modifies it as time progresses.
“Don’t hide your light under a bushel – explain to us where science has it wrong. Publish, and let the world be amazed.”
There is no point. Perhaps you are familiar with Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? We have not yet reached the stage of the paradigm shift, and until we do, nothing new is going to get past the gatekeepers. But, that day is coming soon, as temperatures obstinately refuse to cooperate with the prognostications of the very simplistic, and quite simply very wrong, expectations of the current reigning paradigm.
Oh, please, put the conspiracy theories away. If your ‘equation’ holds water it can be published, even without peer-review (publishing houses such as Energy and Environment are happy to by-pass that process), and be up there for everyone to see.
It’s an Open Access world now, and you don’t even have to pay to be seen. There’s no excuse not to put the entire body of your extraordinary proof into the public domain, so that all can see either the strength of your argument, or its weakness. For heaven’s sake, if you don’t publish someone else might, and whisk your Nobel away from you.
Why not test it now?
Bernard J. says:
March 12, 2013 at 7:10 am
Who said anything about a conspiracy? It is “normal” science. I guess you don’t know much about Kuhn, either.
It will all come about in good time, and I am busy with more interesting and remunerative projects.
Besides, they hardly give Nobels for such straightforward observations using well established tools. What they need is an inverse Nobel for the boobs who led us up the current path.
I am making two specific predictions for the future and, as you watch them unfold, you will come to realize the truth of what I have told you.
1) The rate of change of CO2 will continue to track temperatures, as it has for the last 55 years. There is already a marked deceleration in precise step with flattened temperatures in the last ~17 years.
2) As temperatures continue to decline with the ~60 year cycle which has been in evidence for more than a century, and which has not deviated a smidgeon while CO2 in the atmosphere has increased markedly, the divergence between human generation of CO2 and atmospheric concentration will become even more pronounced. This will, no doubt, be greeted by head scratching and epicyclic conjecturing among those who have failed to appreciate the actual dynamics of atmospheric CO2.
Watch what happens.
BTW, on the outside chance that anyone else is following the discussion and wishes to investigate further, please feel free to take my observations and use them in any way you desire and even call them your own. My interest lies in other fields of research, and I wish for no notoriety in this one.