The Crikey Daily Mail’s hallowed Comments, Corrections, Clarifications and C*ck ups section is always jammed with heated arguments over climate science. In particular, there’s one regular commentator who manages to poke at this particular sore so effectively as to enrage and engage readers in a never ending tit for tat that, quite frankly, drives our production editor insane (we’re looking at you, Tamas Calderwood.)
So in the interests of creating a bit of breathing space in the email, and sharing the (not always informed) debate with Rooted readers, we’d like to present the CLIMATE CHANGE CAGE MATCH — a fight to the death.
There’s a robust discussion taking place on the Wilkins Ice Shelf (or what’s left of it) elsewhere on the blog, but the following debate will take place around the general consensus on climate change (yes, there are still a few out and proud sceptics who love to thrash it out and who are we to stop people from making fun of them?)
Picking up where we left off, here’s Tamas Calderwood from yesterday:
Stephen Morris (yesterday, comments) says that CO2 has recently increased to the “unprecedented” concentration of almost 0.0004 of our atmosphere and says this increase “almost exactly corresponds with the large temperature increases over the last 50-100 years”. First, CO2 has been more than 10x current levels in the past.
Second, what large temperature increases is he talking about? Once again, we’ve had zero warming in the past 10 years, less than 0.4C in the past thirty years and around 0.7C in the past hundred. The data are available to anyone with access to Google and the ability to type “temperature data”.
Ding ding ding! Play nice kids…
2,321 Comments
0.4 degrees in the past 30 years is a lot to many biological processes. That temperature growth is almost certain to continue at the same if not greater rate.
As always climate change is actually a more important concept than global warming. Average temperatures can stay the same but more extreme summers and winters can cause havoc. You need to look at rainfall patterns, the maximum temperatures, the strength of storms, etc….
Re Ken Lambert comments of April 8th,
One reason we cannot rely on one proxy for temperature over the last 10 thousand years, is that different proxies measure temperature in different regions (forest versus corals etc).
Thus a variation of 2.8 degrees in one region is not representative of global variation. Hence we must consider all proxies to determine a realistic or “best estimate” of global temperature. The best estimate indicates that temperature was relatively stable over the last 8-10 thousand years.
The concentration of greenhouse gases is more stable than temperature hence can be determined with less noise.
My last sentance should read,
“The concentration of greenhouse gases is more globally consitant than temperature hence can be determined with less noise.”
There is a general misunderstanding of the significance of mean global CO2 levels and temprature rise, as follows:
1. A mean T rise of 1 degrees C means up to 4 or 5 times T rise in certain parts of the Arctic circle and Antarctica (look at NASA/GISS temprature charts).
2. Spring temprature rises of this magnitude lead to rapid melting of sea ice and ice shelves.
3. This melting is a self-enforcing mechanism, i.e. due to the high albedo/reflectivity of ice and the infrared-absorption properties of water, once ice starts to melt exposed water absorb solar radiation, re-melt more ice, etc. resulting in fast feedbacks
4. The warming water release CO2, which results in further atmospheric warming.
5. Which is precisely the explanation for the abrupt nature of ice age terminations, within a few decades to a few years (Steffensen et al. 2008; Kobashi et al., 2008).
6. Whereas the glacial terminations were triggered by maxima orbital forcings induced by the Milankovic cycle (eccentricity, precession, axial tilt), the current warming has been triggered by the industrial emission of over 300 GtC.
7. The synergy of abrupt shifts in the state of the atmosphere/ocean system has been underestimated.
8. The polar ice is on the way out from about 400 ppm CO2 (or 450 ppm CO2-equivalent [including metghane] upward
9. Currently CO2 is at 387 ppm and CO2-equivalent near 440 ppm.
The polar ice sheets constitute the “thermostats” of the Earth. Once they are gone, the planet returns to its pre-34 million years-ago (Eocene) greenhouse state.
The “powers to be” are still not listening to climate science, assuming the atmosphere can be manipulated by analogy to the economy (not that they were too successful in this department).
Unfortunately they can not argue with the chemistry and physics of the atmosphere
Andrew Glikson
8-4-2009
I can’t make up my mind……Is the correct anagram for Tamas Calderwood……Warmed Data Cools……or Cool Drama Wasted
Over in Wongan Hills WA it’s a case of what climate change, drought etc…
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=146&ContentID=134933#
All seems a bit pagan doesn’t it?
There are plenty of farming folk on the east coast who might be able to use the hay for fodder let alone the organic farmers and growers who could use it for mulch.
There are three other issues…
1) burning crosses are the symbol of the KKK
2) a fair amount of carbon and pollutants will be released to the atmosphere
3) pyromaniacs may be inspired by the example
Tamas Calderwood -> Cools Warmed Data
An apt anagram indeed
G’day Crikey – this is great! I look forward to the ongoing blog debate but I hope we can keep some of it in the comments section too.
Anyway, my first point is in response to Harold Thornton. He says that when CO2 was orders of magnitude higher it was an “utterly different world hundreds of millions of years in the past when Antarctica was a tropical paradise”. Well, yes Harold but you have heard of plate tectonics? Hundreds of millions of years ago Antarctica wasn’t on the south pole. Since it’s drifted there it’s built up a massive ice sheet and become a little less balmy. Give it a coupla hundred million years and it’ll be all warm and tropical again. CO2 not required.
I also want to respond to Andrew Glikson’s point: 6. He says “Whereas the glacial terminations were triggered by maxima orbital forcings induced by the Milankovic cycle (eccentricity, precession, axial tilt), the current warming has been triggered by the industrial emission of over 300 GtC.”
Andrew, this is simply an assertion without any supporting evidence. What evidence do you have that recent (and very mild) warming results from industrial CO2 emissions and not other natural factors?
In any case, I’m on holiday for two weeks so my postings will be a bit light. I know, I know… thank god…
Regards,
Tamas Calderwood
Andrew Glikson – as smart as a pine bark beetle!
The Pine Bark Beetle Collective does not appreciate your sharing your insights with other humans in case they take any notice at all of what you are sayiing. The beetles currently chewing their way through tens of millions of hectares of virgin conifer forests in North America know perfectly well that temperature changes are not uniform across the globe.
“this is simply an assertion without any supporting evidence”
Irony eh!, I like it.
Tamas Calderwood,
In so far as you wish to acquiant yourself with the peer-reviewed climate science literature, I will be happy to send you recent key papers by leading US, German and Australian researchers in the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, based on both current observations and study of the evolution of the atmosphere during the glacial-interglacial cycles, including my own publications.
If so, let me know which E-mail address to send it to.
Regarding greenhouse Earth conditions, such existed prior to 34 million years ago (end Eocene) whe CO2 levels were higher than 500 ppm, and as high as 2000 – 3000 ppm during much of the Cretaceous, as is well documented by multi-proxy studies, in particular the following papers:
Zachos, J, 2001, Science 292, p686;
Burner, RA,2004, Oxford University Press, New York;
Royer, DL et al, 2001, Science 22;
Royer, DL et al, 2007, Nature 446, p530;
Hansen, J, et al, 2007, Phil TransA 365, p1925;
Gingerich, PD, 2006, Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21, p246;
Berner, RA, 2006, Geochimica et Cosmochiica Acta 70, p5653;
Berner,RA, and Beerling, DJ, 2007, PalaeographyPalaeoclimate Palaeoecology 244, 368;
Berner, RA, et al, 2007, Science 316, p557;
Beerling, DJ, and Berner, RA, 2005, PNAS 102, p1302
Dowsett, HJ, et al, 1999, US Geological SurveyOpen-file Report 99–535;
Dowsett, HJ, et al, 2005, Paleocean 20, p2014;
Dowsett, HJ, et al, 1994, Glob Planet Change 9, p169
Petit, JR, et al, 1999, Nature 399, p429;
EPICA, 2004, Nature 429, p623;
Siegenthaler, U, et al,
2005, Science 310, p1313;
Solanki, SK, 2002,
Science 310, p1313; Broecker, WS, 2000 Earth-Science Reviews 51, p137
Kobashi, T, et al, 2008, Earth Planet Sci Lett 268, p397
Steffensen, JP, et al, 2008, Science Express, 19.6.2008
Siddall, M, et al, 2003, Nature 423, p853
Braun, H, et al, 2005, Nature 438, p10
Rahmstorf, S, 2004, Abrupt climate change, Weather catastrophes and climate change, essays collected by Munich Re Group
Andrew Glikson,
I am happy to read any papers you have to send my way. Sophie Black at Crikey has my hotmail address and I am happy for her to pass it to you (I’d prefer not to post it in a public forum)
I must point out that sending me papers doesn’t make your case on point 6 (above). You must state the evidence that industrial CO2 emissions have caused recent (mild) warming. There is no evidence that they have and computer model predictions don’t count ( and don’t work anyway)
For the benefit of all readers, please explain in simple terms how CO2 is the major factor in recent climate activity. Please explain how ALL other natural factors have no explanatory power in recent observations.
So far there has been no blood in the death cage, which given the real issues is encouraging.
I’ve been adding to the discussion in the previous thread to this, explaining why I am offended by ‘spin’ in these issues and where I fear the focus gets lost in the general media.
Quote.
I’m not participating in this truly important discussion to argue against anthropogenic climate forcing, which I firmly believe is proven and serious. Rather I’m concerned that the real science is prostituted in some quarters by those who want to engineer the message to serve an agenda, which may not actually deliver the focus on the core issues of greenhouse gas reductions which deserves to dominate our attention.
The general debate about climate change in these times is too much like a circus and not enough about real action. The lunatic fringe of climate change denial isn’t worth pursuing. But the reasoned, closely argued and empirically validated pursuit of research and action is of critical importance to us all.
Unquote.
I don’t think there are any lunatics in our room. Some who may be mistaken, or focussed on interesting yet immaterial matters, perhaps.
Outside the Palmer Peninsula some of the response times to warming in Antarctica may be so slow that they could be included in the next glacial….if we haven’t stuffed the atmosphere so badly that there is no next glacial. But the impact of excessive liberation of fossilised carbon on us, and much more pertinently, our children and grandchildren, needs significant response now.
I don’t think interpreting the Wilkins break up exclusively as a global warming event is helpful. Great headlines and fascinating images, for sure, but in recent years a string of warnings about greenhouse gas enhancement, has not lead to effective action. Thus I think framing everything in terms of AGW (without excluding the fact that there must real consequences from it) is counter productive.
We should be aware too that the grand scale geological history of climate events has never included the synthetic halons and other atmospheric inventions of our times that have never previously been present in the atmosphere.
In time we may know more precisely just how the destruction of ozone, a natural greenhouse gas in the upper atmosphere, has influenced these events, and what other unintended damage has been done to the planet.
These things have to be found and the sources shut down.
A fascinating article in new scientist about 6 months ago discussed extinction events. It hypothesised that most if not all of our past extinction events were due to asteroid or meteor impacts. But what was interesting about it was that some large impacts caused extinction events and other ever larger ones did not. New scientist identified the carbon released by the impact as the trigger for the extinction event.
We are currently going through a large extinction event. This one is caused by human activity and is fueled by carbon. The cause of the carbon released into the atmosphere appears to be major difference. The time to release the carbon into the atmosphere is a little different but that appears to be all. The longer term consequences of it though are undeniable. It increases atmospheric reflectivity to heat and warms the planet. It melts ice caps and causes ocean currents to alter and in some cases stagnating oceans. The effects upon storms are pretty easy to speculate upon. It is not a path that any sane person or race would choose for themselves and it shows the plain insanity of the greedy who continue to peddle this long slow and miserable death to our progeny. Tamas Calderwood and Ben Sandilands be ashamed.
Twobob,
Perhaps you should learn to read, or would you rather rattle around in side show alley while Garrett and the government pretend to be onside and continue to expand coal while neglecting solar and geothermal and algal fuel alternatives.
Ben your total lack of argument about my post and you personal attack upon my abilities are pathetic. Your argument trying to disconnect global warming and the cleaving of an ice shelf is equally so.
I am no supporter of the current governments policy and attitude towards dealing with carbon pollution and your linking of my previous post to the government attitudes borders upon delusional. Get a grip buddy, just because your paranoid does not mean that we aren’t out to get you.
twobob – all the points you made are (typically) simply assertions without any evidence (name some of the species wiped out by this ‘extinction event’; which ocean currents are being altered?). I’m not ashamed for pointing out some of the apocalyptic rubbish that’s put up in the climate debate.
Ben Sandilands – I think you make some very interesting points and I’ve enjoyed your articles on this topic. However, I disagree that “anthropogenic climate forcing… is proven and serious”.
Again – look at the temperature data. How is the 0.7C of warming over the past 100 years serious? How is the current 10 year plateau in temperatures serious? Or the ~0.4C rise in the past 30 years? I submit that it’s not serious.
Also, the idea that CO2 drives climate is largely an artifact of computer model predictions. There is no empirical evidence that CO2 drives climate. I therefore don’t think it is proven.
Much of the debate on the underlying science is driven by an appeal to authority rather than an actual argument. “The IPCC says, The Scientists Say!”. That sort of thing. I can name many, many eminent scientists that reject the AGW hypothesis and they make very convincing arguments in doing so.
Twobob,
I agreed with most of your post. Just not the bit linking me to Tamas or putting words into my mouth. I don’t agree with Tamas’s general views, and I don’t think his comments about the pre industrial history of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere is relevant to the anthropogenic issues by definition. However he is adored at Crikey for daring to pick a fight and not playing dirty.
I suspect atmospheric scientists might quibble just a bit with your comment that it is the CO2 that makes the polar ice caps melt, in that it is the elevated greenhouse gas effect (and some others) which is caused primarily by excess CO2 and that in turn retains heat in the lower atmosphere and raises sea temperatues and so forth, but we all know that, so why get fussed about your cutting to chase. It is carbon dioxide. Copious, unprecedented quantities of fossilised carbon dioxide, and I think it is also critical to include the consequences of that gas becoming sufficiently concentrated in the marine environment to disrupt the food chain that needs to be kept in sight as well. I’m a strong supporter of James Hansen for his occasional outbursts in the media over the heavy industrial release of fossilized carbon too.
Good idea, this cage match. It means we can get some deeper conversation going and not irritate the others. Since we are all here I would like to ask Tamas about his background (education and professional) as well as what he would consider evidence of anthropogenic global warming. He has often stated that the AGW position is unfalsifiable and yet has never stated what evidence would be required to change his view.
For the record, I am a senior lecturer in chemical engineering at the University of Western Australia (obviously my views are my own and do not represent in any way the official views of UWA) with research experienced in biofuels and life cycle analysis. I also wrote the green paper on energy for the Institution of Chemical Engineers. I am not employed by anyone in the “AGW industry”.
cheers
Matt
Tamas Calderwood is just displaying his ignorance yet again when he claims that the Antarctic is cold because of tectonic plate drift. The Antarctic became frigid 30 million years ago because the ocean currents changed, and the warmer currents no longer reached the Antarctic. Continental drift has only resulted in it moving a little further south; it certainly wasn’t in a temperate zone before.
Thomas who cools Warmed Data,
The extinction events that I referred to are known as eras, there have been at least 7 of them and the species that were wiped out are much too numerous to list. Each time one ended so did between 70 and 95 % of all the living species at that time. The evidence for them is in the fossilised deposits of the last several hundred million years. The article that I referred to was in New Scientist, I did not make it up. Its a hypothesis which is a big word I know but you might like to look it up on wikipedia. It appears that the sudden massive infusion of co2 into the atmosphere warmed the climate each time and caused these extinction events. I cannot prove that but based upon the evidence this is the best explanation that scientists have. You are welcome to propose your own hypothesis and submit it to new scientist and I encourage you to do it (I am sure that the workers there need a good laugh).
Ben I also agree with much that you say but I fear that your are presenting overcomplicated arguments. To put it plainly and simply I disagree with your contention that the ice shelf cleaving off the antarctic is not related to global warming. When you conduct such difficult arguments about what you agree is a peripheral matter you are not being helpful. Did they not teach you to use short sentences and easy words in your journalism school? In my humble opinion your assisting the foe by complicating the argument. As George Orwell put it you can defend the indefensible by confounding the argument so that most people could not be bothered to understand what your arguing about.
Gee twobob – your Orwell quote is a little ironic given the, ahh, ‘clarity’ of your own arguments.
May I remind you that you said “We are currently going through a large extinction event”. Nothing about past events – ‘currently’. I asked you to name some of the species that have been wiped out.
Care to try again?
Twobob,
The problem for me is that if we have mechanisms and observations that explain the behaviour of ice shelves up until Wilkins why should we suddenly ascribe them to global warming? That is not to say for a moment that global warming is not or will not affect Antarctica. But announcing that there is abruptly this discontinuity between the mechanics of ice shelving before and after a ministerial press release is rather like investing Peter Garrett with scientific as well as administrative authority.
Tamas, your plate tectonics knowledge is clearly a bit rusty and indeed irrelevant. Antarctica was covered by forests, in pretty much its current location, until separation from South America allowed the formation of a circumpolar current preventing warmer water reaching the continent. The point I was making, and that you elide, is that when CO2 levels were ten times higher than now we had a different world, unrecognisable from the one inhabited by human beings since their appearance and most unlikely to be congenial to anything like the current population of the planet.
Your points about whether we should worry about a 0.7 degree rise over the last century, and your nonsense about the ‘plateau’ of the last ten years are cheap debating ploys designed to appeal to the majority of readers who understand little about statistics but can be exploded with a moment’s thought. 1998 is generally accepted to have been the hottest year on record, on account of its extreme el nino event (although NASA claims 2004 to have been hotter, but let’s just accept 1998). However seven of the ten hottest years on record have been in the years since 1998. The statistical trend line continues uninterrupted, up. And of course if you look at any plot of temperature data against time, or indeed almost any statistical time series – eg share values, employment, infant mortality – you would see outliers caused by specific events. If you are interested in understanding overall trends, you plot trend lines. A trend line doesn’t have to be a linear progression, each year’s data sitting neatly along the curve. Golly, I learnt that in year 12 maths, and I didn’t even do very well at it.
And that’s what climate is, Tamas, overall trends not specific events. Would you say Brisbane has a warmer climate than, say, Hobart? On any particular day, it might well be warmer in Hobart than in Brisbane – I know, having had that bizarre experience myself. I’d suggest to you that it might nonetheless be unwise to waste your baggage allowance on your Tassie holiday by filling your cases with beach towels, flippers and snorkels. You could luck it out, but the chances of it happening are slim, and if it happened, that would be unusual weather, not a change in climate. So give us a break and stop banging on about 1998 like it was a killer point. If 2010 is hotter still than 1998, or colder, it won’t mean much.
On the general point about whether 0.7 degrees is something to worry about, again you need to look at trends and where they are going, and how that 0.7 degrees impacts on different parts of the globe. The people who spend their time studying such things tell me it’s something to be very worried about, so pardon me if I pay more attention to them than to you, especially since you’ve shown you either don’t know or don’t care about how time series data are to be interpreted. (I know argument from authority is a logical fallacy, but just as when I get sick I go to a medical doctor and not an astrologer for diagnosis, I’ll go along with the PhDs in climate and atmospheric science here.) However, on basic principles, an overall rise of 0.7 degrees in any ecosystem means fewer nights of frost in winter and more intense heat waves in summer. This will clearly impact on plant species requiring frost to fruit for example, and will likely lead to greater evaporation and generate more dangerous fire days. And we aren’t just sitting on 0.7 degrees of warming, since the trend is ever more steeply up.
“Also, the idea that CO2 drives climate is largely an artifact of computer model predictions. There is no empirical evidence that CO2 drives climate. I therefore don’t think it is proven.” The idea that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas has been known for over a century and can be demonstrated in a secondary school science laboratory. Since this proven fact suggests that CO2 levels in the atmosphere will have an effect on temperatures, inquiring minds in the scientific community have been trying to discover if, how and by how much it does. Intensive study of paleoclimate data has suggested a strong correlation between observed climate changes and CO2 levels. Empirical evidence of the sort you appear to demand, however, will only be available after the fact. Given that this appears likely to depopulate the world and lead to the extinction of a goodly proportion of extant species, perhaps it’s an experiment that wouldn’t make it past the ethics committee.
Of course, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas, and CO2 levels are not the only climate forcing agent: reflectivity of sea ice as opposed to dark water is clearly another. That’s what all those scientists are frantically trying to do: understand what parts all the different factors have to play.
Last, what is to be done? On the one hand, let’s just pretend that it turns out CO2 levels can rise indefinitely without any adverse impact on the environment of this planet. What will the human race have lost by investing in energy efficiency and renewable sources for electricity? The sublime beauty of the smoke stack, perhaps? The supreme architectural achievement of the petrol retail franchise? Seriously, the economists tell us the economic downside of changing our energy consumption habits and generation practices is negligible – so what really are you worried about? On the other hand, let’s take it just for the sake of argument that all those scientists have it right and you have it wrong, and that business as usual in the energy department really will cause catastrophe. Why risk it?
Postscriptum: please give my blood pressure a break, Tamas, and do stop a) demanding others produce lists of sources and then b) ignoring them when they do. The IPCC reports and Garnaut are extensively annotated with sources and they really do appear to represent a scientific consensus. “I can name many, many eminent scientists that reject the AGW hypothesis and they make very convincing arguments in doing so”. How many is many, many, Tamas? I do hope you’re not referring to the discredited ’17000 scientists’ Oregon petition…
For elucidation of the questions debated in this blog send me a message (geospec@iinet.net.au) for the following up-to-date research and review papers, which I can send you, which should enable the discussion of the issues on the basis of evidence.
1. “Milestones in the history of the atmosphere with reference to climate change” (Glikson, A.Y., 2008, Australian Journal of Earth Science, 55, 125-139.
(a comprehensive review of climate state forcings through time)
2. “Climate change and trace gases” Hansen et al., 2007. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 365A, 1925 – 1954. (documents and explains the role of greenhouse gases in regulating the energy level (temrpature) of the Earth’s atmosphere)
3. “Target CO2: Where should humanity aim?” Hansen et al., 2008. The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2008, 2, 217-231 (The latest synthesis of the role of CO2, methane, solar, aerosols, alnd clearing and other forcings on current and early atmosphere states).
4. An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics. James C. Zachos et al. 2008, NATURE|Vol 451|17 January 2008|doi:10.1038/nature06588 (documents the sharp transition from greenhouse Earth state to the glacial/interglacial cycles 34 Ma ago)
5. CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate. Royer et al., 2008 GSA Today; v. 14; no. 3 (documents the evolution of CO2 through geological time in relation to greenhouse and glacial climates).
6. Asteroid/comet impact clusters, flood basalts and mass extinctions: Significance of isotopic age overlaps. Andrew Glikson, 2005. Earth Planetary Science Letters, 236 (2005) 933– 937.
Most of these papers can also be retrieved on Google entering the title.
An added note:
People either accept the scientific method, based on direct observations and measured parameters, and interpreted in view of natural laws, physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, or they do not. If they do, they may as well consult the studies by scientists who spend many years investigating these processes. If they do not agree with the science, they ought to introduce cogent reasons, backed by evidence, preferably publishing their arguments in the scientific literature. Should anyone be able to refute the large bodies of evidence documented by major scientific organizations (NASA/GISS, Hadley-Met, Potsdam Oceanographic, CSIRO, BOM) published in thousands of peer reviewed articles, as summarized by the IPCC AR4 2007, this will be a major contribution.
And a major relief to all of us.
Until that stage is reached, scientifically unfounded arguments can only obfuscate the issue, delaying effective mitigation of accelerating climate change.
A second note regarding the role of CO2 and methane: Experimental and direct observational data indicate the unstable gas molecules (H2O, CO2, CH4, O3, etc.) translate radiative energy to kinetic energy, i.e. either abosrb infrared (which results in enhanced intra-molecular vibration) or emit infrared (which results in radiative heat). Thus the thick greenhouse atmosphere on Venus results in high surface tempratures, the near-absence of atmosphere on Mars results in freezing conditions, and variations in CO2 through Earth history resulted in shifts in the Earth’s climate between Greenhouse states and galcial states, as described in details in the above papers.
A note regarding the break up of the Wilkins ice shelf:
For a comprehensive view of developments in the cryosphere, including the Arctic Sea, Greenland, West Antarctica and East Antarctica, go to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) website: http://nsidc.org/ , and to NASA’s page http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/IPY/multimedia/ipyimg_20080327.htm
Seen in the context of advanced melting and shelf collapse of large parts of the cryosphere, the size and shouthern location of Wilkins ice shelf increase concern regarding the future of the polar ice sheets, where mean temeprature rises reached + 3 to 4 degrees C in several regions, with implications for climate changes at lower latitutes.
Andrew,
Reading your short list of references reminds me of a thought shared not so long ago with some of my ANU friends over good wine and food in the Brindabellas. This century could involve dealing with a predicted asteriod or comet impact as well as anthropogenic climate change. If so, lets hope it is 1. A robust 30 year prediction and, 2. Something less than 700/800 metres along its main axis.
Andrew – you say that people “either accept the scientific method… or they do not”. I assume you are asserting that anyone who rejects the AGW hypothesis also rejects the scientific method. If so, then that’s garbage.
Science, among other things, is about skepticism. The group-think that is involved with the climate change debate is what strikes me most. Dissent is ridiculed and skeptics are often attacked personally rather than having their arguments addressed. I know that many think the AGW hypothesis is settled, but I am not one of them and my skepticism doesn’t mean I reject the scientific method.
I must also point out that you have not responded to my request for evidence showing why CO2 is the primary climate factor. You have not stated why all natural factors have no explanatory power in recent warming. Nor have you explained why the recent warming is a crisis given its very modest levels.
I’ll read the papers you send me but I don’t understand why you can’t answer those simple questions.
Ben, The right sized asteroid might save us the trouble of doing a lot of geo-engineering to cool the planet. (Right size being that which creates sufficient aerosol clouds, rather than wipe us out).
Andrew, are you aware of a recommended C02 target resulting from the March Copenhagen Congress? I haven’t read the original source yet, but have heard their most current science demands a cut of 60% by 2020.
Tamas, Is that your real name? Hotmail address and all
Mark,
I won’t bank on that. Any such roll of the cosmic dice might also deliver us the ‘nuclear winter’, I can’t remember if it was a 60s or 70s concept, but it was a convincing thesis that helped persuade the USSR and US that a thermonuclear war would not have a winner.
Yes Mark, Tamas is my real name.
I agree with Ben about the asteroid. Similarly, the right sized bullet might just remove a skin cancer, but who’d want to try?
You mentioned the Copenhagen conference and a cut of 60% in CO2 emissions by 2020. How are you going to replace 60% of the electricity supply in 11 years?
It’s not just the scientific debate that goes wanting with this issue. It’s also the completely unrealistic ‘solutions’ that are offered up.
That’s a steep target. However I suspect that nothing will prove as powerful in driving change as the geopolitical dimensions. Russia only has to play with the natural gas tap one of twice in a cold European winter, or the supply of oil from ‘unfriendly’ sources only has to come under sustained pressure from reduced output and availability and higher prices, and the impetus to seriously invest in alternative energy sources (as well as conserve them with more rigour) will become unstoppable. Designer octanes, grown from algal sources is one technology. There may even be some progress in acceptable carbon capture in fossil fuel usage, although, personally, I don’t see any real hope of this. Both nothing forces innovation more than having to go without something taken for granted. Including food, in places severely affected by changes in the climate, without or without assistance from unsustainable agricultural practices and misuse or abuse of the land. Anthropogenic climate change plus bad farming is a very bad combination.
One thing even the conservative think tanks of the US recognise is that scarcity of food and energy resources will create global economic and political instability on an unprecedented scale, even as they fail to connect the dots and include industrial forcing of climate change in their analyses.
Tamas,
We can discuss details based on the papers I sent you, which include analysis of the effect of CO2 on climate both at present (Hansen et al. 2007 and 2008) and through Earth history.
In the meantime, in response to your query regarding natural vs anthropogenic climate forcings, look at Figure SPM-2 of the IPCC-AR4-2007, which shows that since 1750 the solar effect amounted to +0.12 Watt/m2 while the anthropogenic effects totals + 1.6 Watt/m2 (which includes both emissions and land clearing). Local to regional effects of volcanic events are another factor.
Skepticism is inherent in the scientific method as scientists have to examine any datasets or theories from all points of view, which they routinely do if they wish to remain in the field. The self-appointed term “skeptics” by those who deny climate change purports as if they are the “real scientists”, but if they are, why do they rarely if ever publish in the peer reviewed scientific literature? Do they claim a “conspiracy” on the part of journal editors and reviewes?
Nothing would delight me more than if I could see evidence which negates either global warming or an anthropogenic origin of global warming. By contrast, in my experience, the so-called climate change “skeptics” make a piror assumption, namely, either there is no global warming, or such is not of anthropogenic origin, then they continue to look for faults in the science. They have about 10 standard arguments, each of which has been long-refuted by direct evidence, which I can detail in a later message.
Regarding the language used by climate scientists and by “skeptics”, it is essential to refrain from any personal references. in my experience while most scientists make scientific points (while also aware of the known connections between some “skeptics” and the fossil fuel industry), some “skeptics” never cease to use personal ad-hominem or conspiracy theories, including proliferation of terms such as “warmists”, “alarmists”, “chicken little”, “scaremongers”, “ecofascists” etc., as if it is not the ethical duty of scientists to warn society against dangers, for example in the case of the ozone layer, epidemics, or tobacco smoking.
I prefer to stick to the science and will be happy to discuss questions related to the chemistry and physics of climate change.
Ben,
The frequency of impacts by small objects, such as the D~50 metres 1908 Tunguska comet, has been estimated as one in 200 to 1000 years, although their effects is mainly on regional scale. The frequency of larger bodies on the scale of D~500 metres is estimated as about one in 100,000 years, D~1 km as one in about 5 million years, and D~10 km as one in 50 – 100 million years. However, the distribution of impacts with time is highly variable, and there is a clear tendency for impacts to occur as clusters.
For the best reference look at the GSC/UNB impact database (http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/)
While “sapiens” can hardly be held responsible for such events, had a large asteroid been heading this way, one wonders what kind of “economic” objections people come up with regarding the expenses required for mitigation (for example evacuation of large areas etc.) ?
Mark,
In reply to your question, Hansen’s address in Copenhagen maintains 350 ppm is the maximum “safe” limit (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2009/Copenhagen_20090311.pdf).
As elaborated in his 2008 paper “Target CO2: what should humanity aim for?” (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf)
Some people argue that, unless CO2 is restored to natural levels, not above 300 ppm, ice melt/warm water and carbon cycle feedback effects will continue to push atmospheric concentations upward. Trouble is, the anthropogenic greenhouse “experiment” is without precedence, as the rates of CO2 and temprature rise are two and one orders of magnitude faster than the mean rates of the last glacial termination, respectively.
Previous greenhouse events include the mid-Pliocene (400 pp, CO2, 2-3 degrees C, 25+/- metre sea level rise) though apparently no major methane release (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008EO490001.shtml ) and the Paleoce-Eocene thermmal maximum (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/full/nature06588.html) – the latter resulting in release of some 2000 GtC as methane, with tempeature rise of 4-5 degrees C.
Added comment regarding risk magntidue assessment of the various threats:
(A) Dangnerous climate change is a reality manifested around the world through severe droughts. fires, hurricanes and floods. The timing of major sea level rises and tipping points can not be defined with accuracy.
(B) With some 32,000 N-missiles, the probability of a nuclear exchange, by accident or design, is a function of time and of political and economic stresses. As time goes on the risk is increased, particularly where population growth and food shortages associated with climate change increase tensions, not least in view of the “horizontal” proliferation and the decay (decrease in safety) of Eastern nuclear arsenals.
(C) The probability of a small comet impact is 1 in 200 – 1000 years and effects would be on a regional scale..
(D) The probabilities of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunami are very high on regional scale in specific parts of the world.
Ben,Yes, I don’t like our chance of getting lucking on the “right” asteroid collision. But If Hansen is correct re. 350ppm and albedo feedbacks then we may be forced to poison our sky ourselves. Not a nice thought.
Andrew,
I believe you have spoken of (or published?) a paper showing that when CO2 concentrations were last 450 ppm there were no mammals larger than a mouse. Is my memory accurate on this? If so, were there any mechanisms found that would make it difficult for large mammals to exist in this atmosphere?
Andrew,
Although parallel to the issues in this thread, I’ve reported on the NEO issues, other areas of interest in astronomy, and tsunami risks for a very long time, and have been an amateur astronomer (including eclipse chaser) for more than 60 years. Hence my recent interest in the quiet sun, which I regard needless to say as totally external to the pressing concerns of AGW related matters.
The spread of humanity has exposed it to increased risk of entanglement with the consequences of tsunami and Tunguska type events, even if we assume the frequency of such incidents is constant.
When I first started writing about what was then termed industrially or chemically forced climate changes the issues were the controversy over ozone destruction by synthetic halons and soon after, a more popular realisation of the link between rising levels of atmospheric carbon and the greenhouse blanket effect as it was popularly termed.
The disapproval of stake holders in the chemical industry, and scepticism from the industrial establishment of the 80s was intense. Even a long and detailed report on the acidification of the southern ocean in the AFR six years ago produced howls of outrage from coal and conservative thinkers. It was entertaining to be labelled a stooge of the greens and the scientific outcasts preaching climate change doom. How times change.
My own view about reporting is that reporters should not see their role as part of the communications solution for these issues, but just as reporters. All that counts in my own ‘old school’ view of journalism, is the engagement of the public mind with issues, and a sensitivity to issue capture and the potential for political abuse of such situations.
One of the issues which stalks climate change is not the science, but some negative consequences, unintended or otherwise, of social or ideological engineering for the claimed purpose of dealing with its perils.
We may not, as a species, pursue research or innovation to deal with these matters if the ‘science is settled’ and all that is necessary is to shut down or severely restrict economic activity.
This risks the creation of a state apparatus that derives its power from a mandate to head off climate change by collectivising and regimenting society. Such power structures would actually be threatened by further improvements in energy technology.
A society that decided for example, that the only way to deal with the threat was to insist on clean coal technology, or current forms of nuclear power generation, could behave to protect its investment in these positions through the suppression of advances in solar, algal or other pathways to new energy processes, even such seemingly fanciful processes as controlled nuclear fusion which one day will become reality. Come to think of it, Australia is doing that now in relation to coal, and Peter Garrett, Penny Wong and PM Rudd are exploiting the populist tendencies in climate change issues to perfection to protect the fossil fuel establishment.
To use another analogy, America continues to erode its own constitution by using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to invest in increasing levels of surveillance, data mining, and police powers. Anti-terrorism, and security based restrictions, have lead to the US lurching sharply toward the practices of police states, raising bureacracies like the TSA that will prove very difficult to undo.
So when we see a minister declare that an ice sheet has ‘irrefutably’ collapsed due to global warming, the question should have been, ‘Minister, if this is so, how can you tolerate the continued expansion of coal mining and thermal power generation in Australia. How many ice shelves will it take before you act…..and so forth’.
Before much longer, such questioning will result in reporters being dragged from the room.
Hi Ben,
I will respond to your message in the near future.
In so far as you are interested in my recent papers on asteroid impact s, including a relevant pdf file dealing with impact risks, send me a message on geospec@iinet.net.au and I can then send this material to you.
Andrew – you say that “the rates of CO2 and temperature rise are two and one orders of magnitude faster than the mean rates of the last glacial termination, respectively”.
I don’t accept that statement. I submit that recent temperature increases are within normal levels of variability. When I look at the data I just don’t see the rapid increases that the AGW hypothesis predicts.
There is also the question of the temperature decrease that was recorded from the 1940′s to the 1970′s. Why would the temperature fall when CO2 production was rapidly increasing?
This is a fundamental question. The AGW theory predicts rapid increases in temperature that are simply not occurring.
Surely this must raise questions about the AGW hypothesis. If observations don’t match the theory then the theory is falsified.
Tamas, you seem to have a lot of issues with climatology insofar as it predicts AGW. So I’m going to start by linking to a synopsis that I posted here previously. It describes the big picture that I have gleaned from the scientific literature:
1. The planet has spent the last few million years oscillating between glacials and interglacials, with the initial impetus coming from Milankovitch cycles but the majority of the cooling or warming arising from greenhouse-gas feedbacks.
2. The long-range effect of burning all the fossil fuels will be to send us back to an earlier state in which there were no polar icecaps at all and the oceans were 80 meters higher. That is a process which would take centuries to play out to completion, but we are taking the first steps right now with the thawing of the Arctic.
You have problems with the reliability of climate models, postwar global cooling, the temperature plateau of the past decade, and the attribution of historical warming to industrial CO2. To deal with these in turn:
(1) – The sharpest estimates for the quantitative warming effect of the various greenhouse gases come from paleoclimate data plus some quite simple curve-fitting, and the fit is very good.
(2) and (3) – The postwar global cooling is attributed to aerosols from industrialization. They declined after the introduction of clean-air regulation. One may expect that they are up again in this decade thanks to industrialization in the BRICs. Coal-burning itself produces aerosols as well as CO2, and all those Chinese power stations should contribute to short-term global cooling as well as long-term global warming.
(4) – As with (1), you can fit the historical temperature data to the historical emissions data quite well, but because there is considerable uncertainty about the exact magnitude of the aerosol-induced cooling, it may be hard to prove that there isn’t some further unknown factor at work, hidden within the aerosol uncertainties. I know there are papers specifically addressing the attribution issue for historical warming but I have not looked them up.
For the curve-fitting I mentioned, see these lecture notes by James Hansen (2 Mb PDF), slide 7c for the paleo data, slide 12 for the historical data. The latter slide cites a 2005 Science paper as its source. I’m not sure where slide 7 first appeared but this paper may provide background.
This is all an approximation to the truth. I have questions of my own still unanswered, e.g. why did ice-age coolings and warmings stop when they did, rather than continuing all the way to snowball Earth or venusian Earth? I suspect it would have to do with the geography of the ice sheets – the growth or retreat of the ice sheets, with its alteration of surface albedo, is one of the feedbacks driving the movement between glacial and interglacial states, and the latitudinal distribution of land would constrain how much growth or retreat can be induced by a greenhouse forcing of a particular magnitude. But that’s just a guess and it might also have to do with the capacity of the greenhouse-gas reservoirs (e.g. CO2 comes out of solution as the ocean heats up). One day I also ought to have a closer look at the work of the astro-climate people, because they calculate lower values of the greenhouse gas forcings on all timescales; I’d like to somehow combine their analysis with Hansen et al’s paleo analysis and see what results.
Another aspect which I have found important to understand is that we do not pass immediately to the new temperature implied by a particular forcing, because of ocean thermal inertia. The ocean is a very large heat sink and it takes decades for it to reach the new equilibrium. The ocean is also responsibly for a lot of the intradecadal variation in the year-to-year temperature record, via the El Nino cycle.
It would be interesting to go into all of this in true detail and nail it down. But unlike Andrew Glikson, I’m not a climatologist and don’t do this full-time. So you should treat my synopsis with some caution. Nonetheless, I am satisfied from my own study that the science is being developed with integrity and that the conclusions are robust. I’d also like to say that James Hansen, who everyone cites in discussions like these and who is increasingly up there with Al Gore in the skeptics’ demonology, has impressed me more and more as a clear thinker and communicator, and even as possessed of some genius, in that his policy suggestions are just as logical and lucid as his scientific exposition. All he has done – but it has been enough to make him a hated figure for many – is to take the responsible course of action, given what he knows.
Having said all that, I feel compelled to add the further consideration which undermines it all as a guide to action.
What is implied is that all the economic sectors which contribute to the problem need to become carbon-neutral, worldwide, and then we need a further period of CO2 drawdown. I’m sure we can do this, and it need not be bad for business, given the enormous numbers of solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear reactors, electric motors, etc., that would have to be produced worldwide.
I hint at the real problem here. Basically, it’s nanotechnology. There appears to be no law of nature preventing the construction of molecular mechanisms which can capture CO2 from the air, like a plant, but then use it to produce structures of solid carbon; and if these mechanisms replicate, they can draw down atmospheric carbon at an exponentially growing rate. It is high technology, compared to where we are now, but in my view it’s not that far away; in fact, I think it is so close in time that even the most vigorous move towards carbon-neutrality in the present, through a major infrastructure substitution program, would hardly begin to affect the planet’s temperature trajectory (and hence, would hardly begin to affect the impact on human welfare arising from global warming), before the nano option arrived. Insofar as the move to carbon neutrality is costly, this in turn implies that we should just focus on adaptation, and perhaps some short-term cooling through aerosol geoengineering if we think that, at least, will make a reasonable difference to the planet’s well-being, and otherwise just wait for air-capture nanotechnology to arrive. That’s the first subversive consequence for climate policy, coming from the approaching nano revolution.
I will also observe in passing that if nanotechnology can economically turn air-captured carbon back into hydrocarbons, you could actually have a carbon-neutral fossil-fuel society that lasts indefinitely! – with the no-longer-fossil fuels being reconstituted from the air, in quantities equal to those being consumed elsewhere.
But from a nano-centric perspective, these are but incidental phenomena, almost to be expected. Advanced nanotechnology provides incredible control over the structure of matter; biology’s capacity to synthesize an extraordinary range of structures from a simple molecular blueprint, broadened to encompass nonbiological materials as well. The science-fictional implications have blown the minds of many people, when they haven’t shut down in denial out of self-defense. But among all the glittery and scary futures, there is one overwhelming fact, and that is that one of the simplest uses of advanced nanotechnology is to destroy the world. The replicating carbon-eaters I mentioned above are likely to be made out of diamond-like substances that simply cannot be metabolized by DNA-based biology. Once made and released they will multiply and multiply, eating the atmosphere until they smother the earth; and that’s the end.
In other words, there is a rival futurology to that which sees our future as a choice between climate disaster and clean-energy revolution, and unfortunately I think the nano future trumps the sustainability future. We have to deal with the nano challenge if we can. There is no particular reason why you could not have the clean-energy revolution while somehow gearing up for the nano future (and that could mean trying to prevent it from happening at all, given the extinction risk involved), but the expectation that advanced nanotechnology is not that far away – I’ll say less than thirty years, and probably much less – does weaken, perhaps fatally, the incentive to make the big effort involved in producing a sustainability transition.
This is the dilemma I think about all the time, and unfortunately I’m not on top of it at all. All I can do is keep talking about it in the hope of making incremental progress.
Mitchell,
You have touched on the nanotechnology equivalent of the cane toad calamity. I have only ever heard this discussed at about the fourth good bottle of aged red around the camp fire stage of discussion, which means I have never heard it so lucidly put either.
There has been quite a bit of oblique discussion about the need to actually ‘go after’ the excess carbon, something some of the proponents of designer octanes or algal fuels have mentioned as a possibility arising from their own view of how the problem of fossil carbon releasing fuel in concerned. I understand there are some existing oceanic and atmospheric micro-organisms might be capable of being modified for a similar purpose but I haven’t seen any closely argued peer reviewed papers about this in the accessible scientific media either. Andrew may know of some however. Sure, the idea sounds incredibly fanciful, but so did a lot of things we now take for granted sound similarly fanciful only 30 or 40 years ago.
Hi Mark,
In reply to your query regarding mammals
Small, mostly burrowing, mammals appeared in the Mesozoic. Larger mammals appear after the 65 Ma K-T extinction (when dinosaurs were no longer a danger) and after 55 Ma (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum) (see paper by Zachos et al., 2008), incuding horses (55 – 45 Ma ago). Mostly mammals flourished following the late Eocene 34 Ma, when CO2 levels declined below 450 ppm the ice sheets began to form.
See the mammalian family tree diagram from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_mammals
http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Lists/Cladograms/360Mammalia.html
Some notes regarding Mesozoic mammals
Small, nocturnal insectivores in recent finds, mainly in China, show that some mammaliforms and true mammals were larger and had a variety of lifestyles.
Castorocauda, which lived in the middle Jurassic about 164 million years, was about 42.5 cm (16.7 in) long, weighed 500–800 g (18–28 oz), had limbs which were adapted for swimming and digging and teeth adapted for eating fish.
Multituberculates, which survived for over 125 million years (from mid Jurassic, about 160M years ago, to early Oligocene, about 35M years ago) are often called the “rodents of the Mesozoic”, because they had continuously-growing incisors like those of modern rodents.
Repenomamus sometimes preyed on young dinosaurs.
Fruitafossor, from the late Jurassic period about 150 million years ago, was about the size of a chipmunk and its teeth, forelimbs and back suggest that it broke open the nest of social insects to prey on them (probably termites, as ants had not yet appeared).
Volaticotherium, from the boundary the early Cretaceous about 125M years ago, is the earliest-known gliding mammal and had a gliding membrane which stretched out between its limbs, rather like that of a modern flying squirrel. This also suggests it was active mainly during the day.[48]
Repenomamus, from the early Cretaceous 130 million years ago, was a stocky, badger-like predator which sometimes preyed on young dinosaurs. Two species have been recognized, one more than 1 m (39 in) long and weighing about 12–14 kg (26–31 lb), the other less than 0.5 m (20 in) long and weighing 4–6 kg (8.8–13 lb).
Tamas.
(A) Global warming is not a “theory”, it is based on a wide range of direct observations, including mean temprature rises of 3 – 4 degrees C at the poles.
(B) Regarding comarative CO2 rise rates during the last glacial termination and during the 20th century, look at Table 1 of the “Milestones” paper I sent you, where you will read:
(C) During the last glacial termination (14 – 11.5 kyr:) the mean CO2 rise was 0.012 ppm CO2/year; mean Tempeature mean rise 0.0019 degrees C/year
(D) the 1970 – 2006 rates are one and two orders of magnitude faster, i.e. mean CO2 rise of 1.6 ppm CO2/year; Mean temperature rise 0.017 degrees C/year
(E) The temprature rise lull following WWII is related to (A) aerosol (SO2) efects, and (2) low sun spot activity.
Climate trends are not necessarily regular as they represent a combination of several forcings, the strongest ones being the elevated greenhouse forcing (at 387 ppm CO2 nearly 40 percent higher than during the last 3 million years) and the ice melt/warm water interaction feedback effect, as explained in the papers I sent.
Correction:
Item D should have read:
(D) the 1970 – 2006 rates are two and one orders of magnitude faster, respectively, i.e. mean CO2 rise of 1.6 ppm CO2/year; Mean temperature rise 0.017 degrees C/year
Andrew,
I think part of the answer to your important question about dealing with a predicted asteroid impact was seen in Italy last week, when a seismologist who had been travelling the L’aquila region warning of impending catastrophe has been arrested prior to the disaster for causing public disorder.
Seismology is refining its capacity to predict earthquakes. Meteorology may well be approaching precision in forecasting future droughts and floods (taking in account all of the factors, anthropogenic or otherwise).
Astrophysics and astronomy is becoming capable of detecting intruder objects a long way out.
Imagine how unwelcome it would seem to some minds if for example, we could predict with more than 90% certainty a Richter 7+ earthquake for Newcastle on May 1, 2010, or forecast with similar accuracy that the current drought will not end until the end of summer 2028.
Those most at risk of the next rupture of the San Andreas fault have already in recent years seen successful if generalised predictions of an earthquake in parts of California to within one day. The disruption caused by predicted risk avoidance will be enormous, but surely nothing like the destruction without warning of San Francisco or most of Los Angeles as they currently exist.
Ben, I agree.
Almost invariably scientists who tried to take an ethical stand, for example warn of ozone layer depletion, HIV/Aids, or tobacco smoking, have been ridiculed by the mouthpieces of vested interests, frequently using ad-hominem and conspiracy theories. (its almost a lithmus test, i.e. when such methods are used it tells where the objections are coming from …)
With regard to the climate, the race is on … the atmosphere/ocean/land systems changes faster than we thought, the science is still trying to catch on, the political/economic establishment is resisting or slowing down mitigation and adaptation the best they can.
Still looking for evidence of Rudd’s pre-election promise/non-core promise (?) of “evidence based policies”. … But then what the EU, Obama and Rudd are trying to do is create the mechanism/framework for future Carbon control, though even this is vehemently resisted by those who like to call themselves “conservatives” (Its a good question what they are trying to conserve?).
They are still trying to argue with the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere.
Question is whether the climate will be waiting for human decision ?
This item about a book by Professor Ian Plimer, which appeared in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, may rattle the death cage a bit.
The link is:- http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html
Since I haven’t read the book, and may not be able to read it in full for several weeks, I can’t comment on what it says beyond Paul Sheehan’s summary, but I have a few prejudicial thoughts, both for and against.
The ‘against’ include the absence during geological time of a civilisation capable of lacing the atmosphere with synthetic chemicals never before present in the environment, some of which have proven adverse consequences.
They also include the capacity of our industrialised times to inject massive quantities of greenhouse gases into the environment in a very short period of time, mimicking some of the consequences of major ruptures in the tectonic plates or impacts from comets and asteroids, and possibly even some of the side effects of close exposure to supernovas. (Very bad for the ozone layer, soft tissue and had they then existed, electricity grids.)
So while Professor Plimer and Tamas draw attention to geological global warming (GGW) the real concern for most of us in the room is surely anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
On the ‘for’ side of my own prejudices about Plimer’s unread book are Sheehan’s references to the exploitation of AGW science for political or activist purposes.
This is where I think some people including myself are in some disagreement with brother Andrew. Once research becomes subordinated to pre-ordained answers or agendas (like the ice shelf was melted by global warming…) it can be variously corrupted or misused. As suggested earlier, there is a latent danger that innovation in energy technology will be suppressed to protect an investment in ‘settled science’ or new social structures more attuned to a repressive religion or ideology than the progression to a solution.
I wonder if this thought dawned on the delegates in Copenhagen recently when a mob stormed one of the sessions protesting that the ‘science is settled’. As in WTF have we started…?
These risks are even more alarming if for example, they became part of a new state organised around current nuclear fission technology, or ‘clean’ coal. The latter risk is apparent in Australia already.
I’d like to see Plimer answer the concerns about GGW versus AGW. But perhaps, on reading the book, it may turn out that he has.
Plimer and likeminded:
(1) do not appear to recognize the thermal infrared absorption/emission effect of of greenhouse molecules (water, CO2, methane, ozone, and other) on the energy state/temprature of the atmosphere, thereby ignoring the critical radiative forcing by some 1.6 Watt/m2 by some 305 Gigaton Carbon coupled with land clearing.
(2) They often state that, since the climate has always changed in the past, there should be no issue in current climate changing at present. Had they recognized the reality of anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, this appraoch could have been compared to, for example, drilling and triggering N-charges under volcanoes, or blowing asteroids off course, under the “premise” volcanic events and asteroid impacts occurred throughout geological history anyway…
I note the comment regarding “subordinated to pre-ordained answers or agendas”.
So far as I am concerned I confirm I have no other motive except for what I consider the professional ethical duty of scientists to alert society to the extreme dangers of runaway climate change and its dire consequences.
Wayne Robinson,
Antarctica was located at lower latitudes during parts of the Mesozoic, when ferns and cold-climate dinosaurs existed at intermediate to high latitudes. Glaciation of Antarctica commenced about 34 million years ago, end-Eocene, a period when:
(1) Rapid weathering and thereby CO2-capture and deposition occurred in connection with the rise of the Tibetan Plateau and other orogenic ranges, decreasing atmospheric CO2 below 500 ppm (William Ruddiman’s theory)
(2) The Drake Passage (between Antarctica and Patagonia) opened up, restricting access of warm currents from low to high southern latitudes (as you state).
(3) Two very large asteroid impacts (Cheasapeake Bay [90 km diameter) and Popigai [100 km diameter] occurred by the end-Eocene, although their potential tectonic effects and atmospheric effects are not clear.
Harold Thornton,
Some “skeptics” reckon “0.7 degrees C” is insignificant, but once the tansient aerosol albedo effect is removed, which it has to in the longer term, tempratures increased by a mean of ~1.3 degrees since 1750, and the critical point is the current increase of mean temrpatures by 3 to 4 degrees C over the poles, which is where the ice melt/warm water fast feedback processes take place.
Past civilizations collapsed due to much smaller climate changes, affecting their agricultural systems, i.e. Egypt ~4000 years ago.
In this respect curent global warming (forced by ~1.6 Watt/m2 greenhouse anthropogenic forcing and feedback and ~1.5 Watt/m2 ice melt/warm water feedback plus) is reaching near-50% of the last glacial termination (forced by ~3.0 degrees C greenhouse feedbacks + ~3.5 ice sheet melt/vegetation extention feedbacks) and current climate change …
correction: delete the last part of the last sentence: “and current climate change”
Gentlemen, (in particular Andrew Glikson, Mark Byrne, Ben Sandilands and my tag team soul mate Tamas Calderwood);
I have been commenting on AGW matters in Crikey for about 2 years now, and one of my targets has been Andrew Glikson’s pieces which Crikey regularly feature. I am glad Andrew, that we are all now fighting in the same cage, rather than taking potshots from the ridges (Afghan style). Mark Byrne and I fought to a standstill on the veracity of the 1.6W/sq.m “heat-up forcing” – a devilish detail which remains at the heart of the AGW predictions from IPCC AR4. (Remember that Antarctica was not warming right up until 2007 when AR4 was published – and it has only recently fallen into line with AGW theorists who now claim that the data was there but obscured for the last 50 years!)
My recent rant in Crikey included the Wikipedia Holocene Temperature Chart which attracted vigourous attention from Mark Byrne and Stephen Morris. My reply didn’t get any attention at all – just an invitation into the cage. Andrew Glikson has been notably missing in action when I have attacked his offerings. I wonder why? Andrew, could you give us your thoughts on the Holocene Temperature Chart for a start, and perhaps your analysis of the mechanism of global cooling involving CO2? In all the skirmishes I have seen between AGW theorists and sceptics, which involve the Earth’s history, the proponents of CO2 driven warming never seem to explain what mechanism has arrested past warmings and what role CO2 plays in historical cooling.
Over to you Andrew..
Ken Lambert
Previous climate changes
It is frequently blithely stated by people who either dismiss global warming as not existing or dismiss it as a matter of concern that global temperatures have varied by several degrees in the past and sea levels have varied by up 80-100 metres in the past. This point is true but these changes were firstly far more gradual than changes occurring presently and secondly and more importantly from the viewpoint of human civilization, both civilization and human population were very different during those last temperature and sea level changes.
Firstly, at the end of the last ice age when temperatures and sea levels last changed by large amounts, the maximum population of people on the planet was a few million (5 million according to “People, plants, and genes” Denis J. Murphy). Today the population pressure is slightly different, we have over thirty cities with more than five million people (with almost twenty of those cities on the coast) and a total world population of 6.8 billion. But critically the infrastructure of the world 12,000 years ago was very primitive and very movable, ie tents, bark huts, light structures, there seem to have been no permanent villages of towns with established infrastructure to support them.
Today we have not only a vastly more populated world, but the majority of our population lives in large cities, with most of those bordering on the sea. Each of these cities has a vast and extremely expensive infrastructure, built up from the wealth of our current and especially previous generations. Indeed, probably the majority of the world’s wealth and productivity over time has gone to build up the infrastructure of these great cities and population centres near the sea. If we do nothing as a civilization about global warming and happily accept a movement of sea levels even by a few metres, I wonder when the penny will drop for the “don’t worry its happened before crowd” that moving a vast complex infrastructure supporting those cities and hundreds of million of peoples (if not a billion eventually) in a hurry, is not as simple as moving a few thousands of wigwams, bark huts etc over hundreds and thousands of years as occurred at the end of the last ice age.
Stephen Morris
@Mitchell Porter, comment #42,
Why did glaciations and interglacial warmings stop when they did instead of proceeding to iceball or Venusian inferno stage?
I am certainly no expert and I think you’re probably right that ocean dynamics and the position of the continents influenced developments somewhat.
But the positive climate change feedbacks (which we find so alarming at the moment) are quite limited; negative feedbacks also exist and were evidently stronger in the longer term.
In a warming phase, ice albedo can only be reduced to the point that the ice-caps and glaciers are gone and as much ocean surface is exposed to direct sunlight as possible. Increased humidity will probably result in increased cloud cover, compensating somewhat. The powerful positive feedback of methane release from permafrost and ocean clathrates is strictly temporary, as methane degrades naturally in the air over a fairly short timescale.
The big greenhouse gas, CO2, is extremely dynamic with carbon cycles of days, seasons, years, decades and longer. The warmer surface waters of the ocean carry dissolved CO2 in a temperature-dependent equilibrium with the atmosphere. Deeper ocean layers carry vastly larger amounts of dissolved CO2, reflecting a much earlier state of the atmosphere. A functioning biosphere will daily and seasonally draw down a significant fraction of atmospheric carbon into living things, much of it released again in short order and much of it laid down for the long term in the soil and on the ocean floor.
Any climate change will drastically change rates of growth and decay in the short term, only to have them stabilise over time through the Darwinian process, giving a new status quo some staying power until the next perturbation of Malinkovich cycles, asteroid impact or industrial civilisation.
In the longest timescales of all, we must never forget the geological carbon cycle which would continue, slowly, even if the Earth did reach an ‘iceball’ or ‘Venusian hell’ state: volcanoes emit huge quantities of various gases including water vapour and CO2, leaving behind igneous minerals which are able to re-absorb carbon over time through the weathering process. A planet-wide ice sheet would prevent most weathering; a hot and volatile one would weather very quickly. There is more carbon bound up in non-fossil minerals than in any other reservoir and these long-term geological feedbacks are basically stabilising.
There has been a powerful human influence on a few of the major carbon reservoirs, but we could influence the others as well if we chose, and we can influence all of them in *both* directions. The biggest factor stopping us from using our ingenuity to manage these cycles sustainably ourselves is the ongoing (false) assumption that the cheapest form of energy available to us is fossil fuels; short-sighted exploitation of land resources (deforestation) is a close second.
@ Ken Lambert, comment #55,
Not wanting to steal Andrew’s thunder, but I think my post #57 in reply to Mitchell Porter explains some of the mechanisms that arrest “runaway” warming or cooling in the longer term. The carbon cycle *is* the most important factor in the long-term negative feedbacks that stabilise the climate, as well as a major factor in the short-term positive feedbacks that cause sudden climate change.
As for the Holocene temperature graph, I believe you’re talking about this one (it would have helped if you’d shown us a link):
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/lanser_holocene_figure5.png
I’ll readily admit (Andrew may prefer not to, or he may have better information) that the Manne-et-al temperature reconstructions were dodgy in their earlier iterations. Maybe (just maybe) there really were a long-lasting global holocene optimum and medieval warm period. But just as Manne played statistical tricks by weighting the post-1850 instrumental temperature record higher than the older proxy data in the same continuous reconstruction (eliciting the probably spurious ‘hockey stick’), I think Lanser is playing a similar trick by picking the year 1000 as a ‘pivot’ and choosing equally arbitrary weightings for his proxy series.
Now even if the orthodoxy is incorrect (which I doubt) and there *were* periods which were warmer than those we are experiencing right now, that would not mean that there is no cause for alarm about climate change. Those earlier warm stretches, whether they reached peaks as high as today’s or not, were relatively gradual and obviously temporary. Whatever their causes (and there are several good theories), they were *not* caused by high greenhouse gas levels. To the best of our knowledge the current warming *is* caused by high greenhouse gas levels, and those levels continue to increase so we have every reason to expect ever-higher temperatures in coming decades unless we turn that around.
An 0.4 degree warming is nothing to worry about in and of itself. What is worrying is ever-increasing greenhouse gases which have plainly caused the warming to date and will, if unchecked, cause further warming in the future.
What is thoroughly alarming is short-term natural positive feedbacks such as decreased ice albedo and increased methane releases which, because of the sustained raised temperatures of the past and coming decades, could add further to the earth’s energy imbalance and cause much more warming than anthropogenic emissions alone.
Catastrophic abrupt anthropogenic climate change hasn’t happened yet. But it is a very real possibility and will be a very real, very large catastrophe in human terms if it does.
It isn’t a foregone conclusion, either. Various things may delay or avert it, such as reduced solar activity, increased aerosol pollution, deliberate geoengineering or (most simply and cheaply) a deliberate and comprehensive reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions including those from land-use-change, and concurrent drawing down of atmospheric CO2 by reforestation, enhanced agricultural production and soil carbon using compost and biochar, mineral sequestration of carbon through weathering of mine tailings; and maybe even some technological direct carbon capture.
Thank you Jonathan Maddox for your wide ranging discussion. There is much to agree with in what you have said; including the outrageous ‘hockey stick’ manipulation published in IPCC reports prior to 2007. Any humble seeker of truth (aren’t we all?) should forever discount the IPCC as a reliable source of scientific information on climate prediction after such an episode.
The Wikipedia Chart is found on the following link borrowed from my piece which Crikey kindly printed on 3APR09:
http://redirect.cmailer.com.au/LinkRedirector.aspx?clid=1bce1b6a-26b7-43b1-b0c8-a87f21e1650f&rid=bef016ae-4766-4655-bbbe-24a1497297e6
Note that it is similar to your Lanser chart except that the baseline temperature is a “mid 20th century temperature”. This applies to the last 2000 year inset which is also included on a bigger scale in the Wikipedia page. There is detailed reference to the sources of the 8 proxies and the limitations of the data. It reads as a cautious and ‘undoctored’ source of data to me, consistent with NGS data I have studied.
Cage dwellers – please comment?
And crucially – please inform me of any climate model (or combination thereof) which has accurately duplicated the temperature changes in the Holocene, and prior to that – the last 400,000 years. My basic point is one of logic – if you cannot accurately model the ‘background noise’ of temperature change, then how can you accurately separate out the AGW temperature signal?
Ken Lambert
@ Ken Lambert #59
Two comments from me: the Wikipedia graphs might not flatten the holocene optimum and medieval warm period like the ‘hockey stick’ did, but the shorter timescale graphs including the inset on the graph you linked to certainly do show the sharp hook upwards in the last 50 years.
Even the original ‘hockey stick’ wasn’t so egregious as people like to think; it was always published with obvious and very wide error bars, admitting the possibility that earlier temperatures *may* have been higher than the late 20th century.
I’m no climate modelling expert and can’t point you in the direction of particular ‘working’ models but rest assured that the known mechanisms of climate change in the geological past are entirely adequate to explain all the ups and downs in the proxies.
What’s harder to explain (and too easy to ignore) is why different proxies record contradictory changes. The best explanations I’ve seen are that many of these changes really were localised to a particular hemisphere or continent; or that they reflect eg. rainfall more closely than temperature. As far as I know these theories can’t be confirmed or disproven for lack of data.
Uncertainty about past temperatures isn’t due to any inadequacy of modelling, but because there is no comprehensive record of all the inputs to the models.
We know about orbital variations with the precision of Newtonian mechanics; there are fairly accurate sedimentary records of volcanic eruptions; and the prehistoric atmosphere is trapped in ice cores; but there is no reliable prehistoric record of solar activity (isotopes have been proposed as a proxy here but there is no way to gauge their validity).
Modellers must *assume* values for unrecorded inputs such as solar variations — and those assumptions can obviously be chosen so that the model’s predictions match *any* reconstruction of the past temperature record.
Re; Jonathan Maddox #60
Jonathan, your explanations all sound very plausible. Climate Models work perfectly well – its just the input data which is uncertain and of course; garbage in = garbage out; and they don’t run well backwards in time.
IPCC AR4 is uncertain about a lot of things. LOSU – level of scientific understanding is admitted as ‘low’ for most of the “cool down” forcings in Fig 2.4 – where the magic warming power of 1.6w/sq.m. is derived. “Heat up” forcings have a ‘high’ LOSU.
This is from a string of Crikey *comment* jousts with Mark Byrne (6 & 10FEB09).
Mark Byrne:
“In short we have high confidence about GHG forcing temperature change by 2.6 W/m2 and low to medium confidence about smaller contribution forcing a net temperature forcing of –0.8 W/m2. If this is your argument then it sounds accurate.
There is even a chance that our contribution to warming is below best estimate and contribution to cooling above best estimate.
However the chance of every component going to the 95% confidence limit (in the direction consistently needed +2.64 and –3.25 W/m2) is of a probability of 0.05^10, roughly equal to 1 in 10,000,000,000,000. And this is not supported by our continuing warming trend.”
Ken Lambert:
“Thank you Mark Byrne. I am glad that my point is accurate, however your summation of the cool-down forcings is misleading. AR4 Fig 2.4 shows the largest cool-down components of direct and cloud albedo aerosols of -0.5 W/sq.m and -0.7W/sq.m summing to -1.2W/sq.m. The range of uncertainty in these is large; – 0.9 to – 0.1 for direct aerosol, and -1.8 to -0.3 for cloud albedo. If only one of these cool down terms is correct ie. the -1.8W/sq.m for cloud albedo, then the total GHG effect of CO2 (+1.83W/sq.m max) is wiped out. Furthermore, the cloud albedo effect is ‘best estimated’ at -0.7 W/sq.m when the arithmetic average of -1.8 and -0.3 is -1.05W/sq.m. All the other components in the table (except smaller ozone) use the arithmetic average. Finally, the critical point is that the net result of the subtraction of a low confidence number from a high confidence number, is a low confidence number – namely 1.6W/sq.m.”
Ken Lambert again:
“Mark Byrne could perhaps explain the confidence levels of the net heat-up forcings. I think my point is made about the wide variability of the net result. IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 (which we have been debating) gives a range of +0.6Wsq.m to +2.4W/sq.m. with an average heat-up power of the magical +1.6W/sq.m. Are we to assume that the +0.6W/sq.m is 90% certain and that +2.4W/sq.m is 10% certain? What certainty level is the +1.6W/sq.m? You do not have to be a mathematician to work out that 0.6 is roughly one third of the 1.6 and one quarter of the 2.4. Net heat-up power applied to every sq.m of the Earth’s surface is the basis of global warming theory. Is it not fair to conclude that the warming theorists could be wildly inaccurate in predicting temperature increases when our highest estimated heat up power could be 4 times the lowest and our average heat-up power nearly 3 times the lowest?”
Maybe Mark Byrne or Andrew Glikson could engage on these devilish details?
Ken Lambert,
With regard to the relations between CO2 and climate, past and present, I recommend the following recent papers:
Climate change and trace gases”, Hansen et al., 2007. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 365A, 1925 – 1954. (documents and explains the role of greenhouse gases in regulating the energy level (temrpature) of the Earth’s atmosphere)
Target CO2: Where should humanity aim? Hansen et al., 2008. The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2008, 2, 217-231 (The latest synthesis of the role of CO2, methane, solar, aerosols, alnd clearing and other forcings on current and early atmosphere states).
Milestones in the history of the atmosphere with reference to climate change” (Glikson, A.Y., 2008, Australian Journal of Earth Science, 55, 125-139.
(a comprehensive review of climate state forcings through time)
An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics. James C. Zachos et al. 2008, NATURE|Vol 451|17 January 2008|doi:10.1038/nature06588 (documents the sharp transition from greenhouse Earth state to the glacial/interglacial cycles 34 Ma ago)
CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate. Royer et al., 2008 GSA Today; v. 14; no. 3 (documents the evolution of CO2 through geological time in relation to greenhouse and glacial climates).
With regard to Holocene paleo-tempratures, based on multi-proxy studies of ice cores, marine sediments, lake deposits, tree rings, cave deposits and so on, the observation is these studies mainly agree, within the error range of the methods. In so far as you may have scientific observations which questions these studies, I suggest you formulate them in the form of a paper or a discussion/letter to peer reviewed scientific literature.
Jonathan Maddox
You write: “Catastrophic abrupt anthropogenic climate change hasn’t happened yet. But it is a very real possibility and will be a very real, very large catastrophe in human terms if it does.”
Dangerous/catastrophic climate change is expressed through a series of extreme weather events which, sadly are occurring around the world at accelerated pace.
You only have to read about the extensive droughts in several continents: Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production By Eric deCarbonnel Global Research, February 10, 2009 http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=12252
For the scale of extreme weather events look at: Great weather disasters 1950-2004. NatCatSERVICE, Geo RiskResearch, Munich, 2006. http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/events/2006/newyork/holliger.pdf
But perhaps the most telling is the rate at which polar ice sheets are melting/disintegrating.
Some lessons we need to bear in mind
1. When in the eye of the storm one can only see limited manifestations of the storm.
2. The story of the seven wise men and the elephant. As poignantly pointed out by James Lovelock, too many are tinkering at the edges of the climate issue, but since the atmosphere/ocean/land/biosphere system is a complete system, where “everything is connected to everything else”, it is the total synergy which counts.
3. Our “skeptic friends” follow a “methodology” reminiscent of that of creationists arguing with Darwin evolution, tinkering at the edges, looking for faults, from time to time questioning the validity of fundemental physical, chemical and biological processes. They rarely submit their arguments to the peer-reviewed science literature, often claiming conspiracy theories by editors and reviewers. .
Unfortunately these people have provided governments with convenient excuses to delay miitigation by more than 20 years …
Jonathan Maddox,
Don’t worry about “steeling my thunder”.
Those who seriously question the physical reality of climate change, or even the physics and chemistry which explains much of it, will go to the science literature and then, if they have further questions, can disucss them with the authors either directly or through science journals.
Those who do not do the above will continue to “tinker at the margin” ad-infinitum, asking both valid and less valid questions.
Though the principal trajectories of climate change and their underlying forcings and feedback factors are knpwn, science does not have ALL the answers to EVERYTHING). “Skeptics” will exploit this and claim that, since science does not have ALL THE ANSWERS, it may be incorrect.
With regard to the termination of end-glacial processes, as shown by recent papers, in particular Steffensen et al. 2008, the terminations are associated with abrupt warming and cooling shifts on the scale of 1 to 3 degrees C in a few years (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1157707v1). The upshot – fast feedback processes dominate, primarily the ice melt/water interaction, and the reverse freezing. The CO2 feedback effect, namely release from warming oceans and drying biosphere, appears to lag behind.
Which differs from 20 – 21st century scenario, where hundreds of GtC drive rising atmospheric CO2 and tmperatures at rates one to two orders of magnitude faster than during the last glacial termination.
Andrew,
This is my main concern as a lay writer. Our industrial inputs are so voluminous over such a such interval that they demand real action now. But here we see a government exploiting the confusion over carbon being bad from any source to dilute attention to the critical component, the release of fossilised carbon. Sure clean coal is wonderful in theory, ….so is nuclear fusion, but there is an element of severe urgency over this which is being betrayed by a lack of focus on coal and oil emissions forthwith.
Ben,
I agree.
Senator Fielding says a CPRS would “cost familities too much”. Ha it occurred to him families are about trying to secure a future to their children?
In Earth science we are used to think in terms of millions, even billions, of years, but I try and imagine the point of view of our children, perhaps only a few decades from now, when tempratures are 2, perhaps 3 degrees C higher, with all the consequences.
They will ask, why in the world did civilization act IN TIME, using the wide range of tools available (solar-thermal, geothermal/dry rocks, hydrogen, wind, tide … the possibilities are endless), perhaps even lowering our standards of living slightly (an anathema to materialistic societies) for the sake of a future, instead of continuing to use the atmosphere as an open sewer for carbon gases?.
Sorry, too many errors in my message:
Replace “Ha” with “has”
Replace “act” with “not act”
Hi Andrew,
The Steffensen paper confirms (from the abstract) that when the earth warms up from a glaciation, short-term feedbacks overwhelm slower ones and the change is very sudden. All the feedbacks discussed seem to be positive ones operating on the scale of years or centuries (ie., those feedbacks that would imply runaway climate change), not the negative stabilising feedbacks that prevent the change from going further. As I understand it most of the negative feedbacks operate on a longer timescale still: local ecosystem stabilisation and geological carbon cycles.
During a glacial phase, the albedo of the Earth is very high, but in lower latitudes the ice cover must necessarily be much thinner than at the poles. Purely as a thought experiment, I would guess that ice melt in the tropics would be a *very* sudden positive feedback, in the same vein as current polar ice melt and similarly involving decay of permafrost to methane, but on a larger scale since the poles are only a small part of the earth’s surface while the tropics and ‘temperate’ latitudes are a majority of it, and get more sun.
The question asked by both Ken Lambert and Mitchell Porter which I attempted (with limited knowledge) to answer was why change *stops* and the climate returns to a relatively stable state, not why it is sudden in the first place.
Nothing indicates that warming *ends* as suddenly as it begins when the earth stabilises into a long-term temperate phase. I would guess that warming stops mostly due to an easing of those positive feedbacks as less and less of the earth’s surface is available to make the transition from ice-field to open ocean and/or forest; and I’d expect that to be much more gradual (nearer the poles) than the sudden initial equatorial melt. Indeed, the present warm phase still has plenty of polar ice and we’d be happiest if it stayed that way.
On the other hand, some interglacial warmings are very brief, indicating a sudden return to high-albedo ice cover. All that is required is a few seasons’ heavy snow over a wide land area, and/or lots of long-lived low heavy cloud. The suddenness seems to be mostly a consequence of the phase changes of water.
The suddenness of the end of a glacial period is not repeatable (at least not through the same means) from the earth’s present climatic state. The mechanisms and probable consequences of the current warming are quite different; and probably rather less dramatic than the start or end of an ice age.
Don’t you think?
Jonathan
Ken Lambertsays: “My recent rant in Crikey included the Wikipedia Holocene Temperature Chart which attracted vigourous attention from Mark Byrne and Stephen Morris. My reply didn’t get any attention at all – just an invitation into the cage.”
Ken, see post number 2 in this cage (page 1).
Ken Lambert says : “Remember that Antarctica was not warming right up until 2007 when AR4 was published – and it has only recently fallen into line with AGW theorists who now claim that the data was there but obscured for the last 50 years!)”
Ken, The Antartic temperature ismeasured far less than most of the globe. It also has shorter and infrequent patchy history data set of measurement (you’ll notice that the satellites don’t measure temperature that far south.
Hence, though we haven’t measured Antartica’s temperatere comprehensively over time didn’t mean it wasn’t warming. From memory I think the recent finding of warming was of warming over a number of decades.
Andrew Glickson has an excellent post Currently at Brave New Climate; http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/16/the-war-against-science-while-rome-is-burning/
A great summary Andrew!
Suprisingly a number of people want Tamas Calderwood to comment on that blog.
Tamas is getting a real following. I suppose Tamas is great ambassador for what ever it is that he helps us to learn.
Jonathan,
I am not clear whether you read Steffensen et al. 2008, where Figure 2 shows sharp cooling as well as abrupt warming. Thus at 12.9 kyr temprature drops over 1 year from the Allerod warm period to the Younger dryas, which lasts 1200 years to 11.7 kyr.
The last glacial termination is only one of many sharp terminations, such as those which end the Oeschger-Daansgaard cycles during the last glacial period, for example during 50 – 24 kyr, where glacial terminations of 3-4 degrees occur over a few decades (see Rahmstorf, 2007; Ganopolski and Rahmstorf, 2005; Broecker, 2000) (send me an e-mail to geospec@iinet.net.au and I can send you pdf reprints).
Likewise, as you will see from the ice core records, the decline from interglacial eras occurs in sharp zig-zag stages.
As shown by detailed age [based on varve counting]- temprature proxies of upper (less disturbed) ice core sectors, tipping points appear to be the norm (no such precise age determinations are possible on sediments).
Why both positive and negative terminations are this abrupt has more likely to do with fast feedback-driven processes rather than gradual exhaustion of greenhouse gases. In the case of the 1470 kyr-long O-D cycles, Ganopolski and Rahmstorf suggest the forcings ensued from combined weak orbital forcing maxima (sub-Milankovic cycles) activating ocean current changes.
Some of the upheavals are preceded by quiet periods, “lulls before the storm”, as in a recent paper I can also send.
Below is a summary of some milestones in the evolution of the Earth system with reference to curent climate change, intended for those not quite familar with basic elements of Earth/climate science:
Lost all too often in the climate wars between climate scientists and climate change
skeptics is an appreciation of the delicate balance between the physical and chemical state of the atmosphere/ocean/land system and the evolving biosphere, which controls the emergence, survival and death of species, including humans.
By contrast to Venus, with its thick blanket of greenhouse gases, or Mars with its
thin atmosphere, the modulation of the Earths atmosphere by trace Carbon gases,
CO2 and methane, allows surface temperatures in the approximate range of -50 to
+50 degrees C, presence of liquid water and thereby of life.
Forming a thin breathable veneer only slightly more than one thousand the diameter of Earth, evolving gradually and through major perturbations with time, the atmosphere acts as the lungs of the biosphere, exchanging carbon gases and oxygen with plants and animals, which in turn affect the atmosphere, for example through release of methane and photosynthetic oxygen.
Any significant increase in the level of carbon gases triggers powerful feedbacks.
These include ice melt/warm water interaction feedback, further release of CO2 from
the oceans and drying/burning vegetation, shifts of climate zones toward the poles,
reduced capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2 and ocean acidification.
The essential physics of the infrared absorption/emission capacity of greenhouse
molecules has been long established by observations in nature and laboratory
studies. Attempts at rationalization of further carbon emissions which claim such
changes occurred in the past miss the point.
Such approach would be analogous to a hypothetical claim as if past volcanic
eruptions and asteroid impacts justify the blowing up, using N-charges, of volcanoes, or of passing asteroids.
There is a view as if warming of the Earths atmosphere may be beneficial for
humanity. However, ideas as if Homo sapiens can alter and transcend, willingly or
otherwise, the very physical and chemical boundaries of the atmosphere/ocean/land/biosphere system which allowed its development in the first
place, are founded on a misunderstanding of the geological evolution and the present state of the Earth system.
Before 2.4 billion years ago mainly methane-producing prokaryotes (nucleus-free)
bacteria existed under an oxygen-free atmosphere. Only in the wake of a second
oxygen-enrichment event about 610 540 million years-ago could multicellular
protein-based animals emerge in the oceans.
Through most of Earths history atmospheric greenhouse conditions prevailed,
modulated by CO2 levels of several thousand parts per million (ppm). Ice age
intervals resulted from sharp drop of CO2 (and equivalent levels of methane) to
lower levels of several hundreds or even tens of ppm, as at 2400-2100, 800-635,
450-420, 360-260 and 34 0 million years ago (Ma).
Episodic perturbations in the composition of the atmosphere, triggered by volcanic
events and asteroid impacts, resulted in ejection of billions of tons of dust and
aerosols into the atmosphere, causing sharp short-lived cooling, and the release of
billions of tons of carbon gases (GtC), with subsequent global warming effects, mass extinction and radiation of species.
An example is the 65 million years-old (Ma) dinosaur-killing Yucatan asteroid impact, which released some 4000 GtC into the atmosphere. Another example is the
methane-driven greenhouse event at 55 Ma, releasing some 2000 GtC. Both resulted in mass extinction of species. By comparison, to date human industry released over 300 GtC carbon, with further annual increase of more than 25% due to deforestation, increasing global temperatures by about 1.3 degrees C since 1750.
The sharp glacial age terminations during the last 3 Ma were triggered by cyclic solar radiation maxima associated with the orbital Milankovic cycles, which resulted in powerful feedbacks. These include rapid ice melt interacting with warming water, and the release of CO2 from warming oceans and biosphere. It is during these extreme cycles than humans developed, having to adapt to climates governed by CO2 levels in the range of 180 to 300 ppm and variations in global temperatures of +/-5 or 6 degrees Celsius.
Since about 3 million years ago the evolution of humans has been intimately related
to an overall cooling trend and to an increase in the amplitude of glacial-interglacial
cycles. These included extreme conditions which forced prehistoric clans to migrate
and adapt, developing language and technology, culminating in the mastering of fire and thereby increasing control of the environment.
But the development of agriculture and thereby human civilization had to wait until
climate stabilized about 8000 years ago, when large scale irrigation along the great
river valleys the Nile, Euphrates, Hindus and Yellow River became possible.
But fire can be a two-edged sword. Since the 18th century, the release into the
atmosphere of hundreds of millions of tons of buried fossil carbon is proving the
“sting in the tail” of “Homo Prometheus”. The consequent increase in atmospheric
CO2 levels by nearly 40 percent above its natural level is threatening the delicate
atmospheric carbon cycle balance which allowed the development of the Antarctic ice sheet some 34 million years ago, when CO2 concentrations fell below 500 ppm, and of Greenland and the Arctic Sea Ice some 3 million years ago when CO2 fell below 400 ppm.
The current CO2 level, as 388 ppm, near 40% higher than the natural maximum of
the last 2.8 billion years ago, underpins the danger of the demise of the ice sheets,
which constitute the thermostat of Earth.
About 124 thousand years ago, during the Emian interglacial, temperatures rose by
about 1 degrees C and sea levels by 6-8 meters. About 3 Ma-ago, CO2 rise to about
400 ppm and temperature rise by about 2 3 degrees C resulted in sea level rise of
25+/- 12 meters.
Sorry for the disjointed structure of the text above … (it is hard to control when copying/pasting a text)
Andrew Glikson #71
Interestingly my NGS Chart (published October 2007) shows temperature, sea level and CO2 for the last 400,000 years; and the interglacial (Emian) at approx 120,000 years ago shows peak temperature at about 3.5 degrees C above the ‘current level’, and sea levels ‘four (4) or more metres higher than today’. The interglacial lasted about 12000 years (at temperatures above the current level). Even more interesting is that sea levels started a continuous rise about 4000 years before temperature started continuously rising.
Further, what is the ‘natural’ level of CO2? Over the last 400,000 years it has varied from about 170ppm up to 300ppm according to the NGS data. 388ppm is not 40% larger than 300ppm, and 1 degree C is not 3.5 degrees C.
I assume that the venerable National Geographic Society would publish a reliable distillation of the best data available, and being part of the ‘warmist’ consensus would if anything, exaggerate AGW theories.
Ken
1. Maximum Vostok (Petit et al., 1999, Nature 399) ICE CORE TEMPERATURES for the Emian interglacial (124 kyr) were about 3C higher than present POLAR TEMPERATURES (although these are rising in East Antarctica by a mean of 0.2-0.3C over the last 50 years). To derive the MEAN GLOBAL TEMPERATURE you need to divide this value by 2, i.e. the difference will be 1.5C (since polar temprature variations are at least twice the mean global, as is evident from NASA/GISS charts showing that large parts of the Arctic, Siberia and west Antarctic display mean 2007 – 2008 temperatures higher than 4C relative to 1951-1980 and 2C – 3C higher than mean tempratures of lower latitudes) (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/) (click on the 2nd map from the top which allows you a scan of recent global temprature variations).
2. For Emian ~1.5C mean global temprature rise, sea level studies by Siddall et al. 2003 indicate an SL rise in the range of 6 – 7 metres relative to the present (NATURE |VOL 423 | 19 JUNE 2003). The consequent SL/T ratio of at least 4 bears implications for current global T rise which, once accounting for the masking effects of SO2 aerosols, is about 1.3C, consistent with Hansen et al. 2007 and 2008 estimate of ~5m sea level rise through the 21st century.
3. A comaprison between Petit’s (1999) tempratures and Siddall’s (2003) sea level rise indicates Maximum T at 130 – 124 kyr and peak sea level rise at 124 – 117 kyr, namely sea level rise lag of several thousand years behind initial T rise. Most glacial terminations also display a lag of 600 – 800 years in CO2 rise behind T rise, underpinning a prior major role of ice melt/water feedback preceding CO2 release feedback
(for relevant papers, including my 2008 paper “Milestones in the evolution of the atmosphere with reference to climate change” send a request to geospec@iinet.net.au).
4. 388 ppm relative to 280 ppm (defining the mean maximum of interglacials at 280 ppm, while rising to ~300 ppm during the “Holocene optimum” 8 – 7 kyr) means an increase of ~38.5% (in my article I state “toward 40%” or “near-40%)
5. “3.5T” vs “1T” – as above, ice core temperature variations are at least a factor of 2 greater than mean global tempratures, a difference arising from the fast ice melt/water feedback reaction, involving loss of ice albedo and infrared-gain/absorption by exposed melt water and sea water.
While National Geographic is generally reliable, for a serious consideration of the climate issue its best to go to the original science journal papers.
I will be pleased to provide you with further information, but in this case, please refrain from using the common derogatory terms such as “warmist” or “consensus” etc. used against climate scientists, which are no substitute for evidence-based scientific arguments.
In relation to Antarctica, I was perplexed by the recent research claiming that the main ice masses had been found to be warming after all, contrary to the actual surface readings at the South Pole, on Dome C, McMurdo and so forth.
This issue is touched on in Greg Robert’s story in the Weekend Australian at:-
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-601,00.html
Let’s just pull back and take a quiet look at this.
There was a rather ideological ‘glee’ to the announcement that the missing warming had been found, and pleasure expressed at removing the ‘anomaly’ in the data.
But the surface temperatures surely are more relevant than inferring from other observations that well, really, they are wrong.
I don’t think that approach is consistent with evidence based science. Especially as whatever is happening across the massive extent of the polar continent and its relationships with the oceans will undoubtedly be linked to the changes going on in the world in total.
But what if the feedbacks that take place in the very far south will for a period drive, and even deepen the temperature difference between the high and less high latitudes. It would be very tempting to get carried away by the last few seasons down there which have thrown up some unusual cold events and been a total PITA for the air and sea links too, with many of those operations retarded by over a month because winter did not release its grip when expected.
However a few cold events mean nothing in the broader scheme of things. Ian Allison is often relied upon in articles about global warming as an authority on the speed of the changes that we are saying. I first interviewed him in the 70s on his return from a serious survey of the now all but totally vanished glaciers of West Papua. He made the seemingly incredible point at that time at an interview at Melbourne University that the ice could vanish by the middle of the ‘next’ century. Almost all of it had gone by 1997! (And during the interview in Parkville it snowed for about one second outside, adding to the piquancy of the story.)
If Allison has been so right about everything he has said in the past, should we discount what he says in this story. I’d suggest not. We have to deal with the evidence whatever it is, and should keep in mind, all the arrows don’t have to pointed in perfect parallel alignment in one direction to validate global warming. That validation has been overwhelmingly achieved. The odd variations around the edges may yet provide us with important clues about what is going on, rather than be seen as an irritation.
Ben,
What climate science is looking at is an overall trend, which means, when parts of the Earth system may not conform with the pattern, scientists look closely at this region, in this case East Antarctica, to detect the underlying reasons. As confirmed by a combination of satellite data and ground stations, this part of the continent has wrmed by 0.2 – 0.3C over the last 50 years.
From earlier correspondence I understand it you accept the evidence for rapid climate change, progressing at mean rates surpassing any observed over the last 740,000 years. With this perspective, I am not clear why you write “There was a rather ideological ‘glee’ to the announcement that the missing warming had been found, and pleasure expressed at removing the ‘anomaly’ in the data.” ?
I can assure you nothing will relieve me and the greatest majority of my colleagues more than if there was evidence Antarctica is holding, despite accelerating temeprature changes elsewhere. In so far as an “ideology” exists, it is the responsibility of scientists to report to governments and the public, in view of growing concern for future generations and species.
Sorry about the blood pressure Harold Thornton, but no deal. Try John Christy, Vincent Gray, Richard Lindzen, Ian Clark, Robert Balling and Tim Ball for starters. Skeptics all and with some very strong arguments why global warming is not explained by CO2 concentrations.
Also, you repeat a common argument that nothing will be lost by investing in new energy sources anyway, so what does it matter if the AGW hypothesis is wrong? Rubbish. The opportunity costs of massively increasing energy prices are enormous. And the costs will fall mostly on the poor, especially in the developing world. Hey, pay through the nose for ‘wind power’ and whatever you like, but don’t FORCE people to fork out because of a far from convincing scientific hypothesis.
In any case, sorry for my light posts as I was on holiday and had my laptop stolen to boot. Punishment for my heretical beliefs I guess.
I look forward to a fresh round of debating in the comments section and the blog soon.
Tamas, Have you read the key climate science papers I sent you?
If positive, do you have any specific reservations or questions regarding what Earth, atmospheric and marine science are indicating?
Andrew Glikson #74 and Ben Sandilands #75
This is Andrew Glikson printed in Crikey 2APR09:
“Publishing in politically friendly media provides a golden opportunity to gain public exposure and air grudges against science and scientists. A hallmark of climate change skeptics is the dissemination of doubt (“doubt is our product”) and a reluctance to engage in direct public discussions with climate scientists.
The skeptics ignore the severe deterioration of the atmosphere-ocean system, as stated by the UK Hadley-Met in 19 December, 2008, the consequences of 5.5°C warming by 2100, which are “likely” on our current emissions path, are all but “unimaginable mass extinction, devastating ocean acidification, brutal summer-long heat waves, rapidly rising sea levels, widespread desertification.”
Andrew is offended by my use of the words ‘warmist’ and ‘consensus’ against(?)climate scientists; despite smearing a swathe of ‘skeptics’ as in the pay of Exxon or Big Oil interests. Andrew if the cap fits – wear it. Ye who are without sin – cast the first stone.
Remember you are in a cage with people who are not ‘reluctant to engage in direct public discussions with climate scientists’.
Let me name a few highly respected ‘skeptics’ who hold sincere un-bought views:
Freeman Dyson: “All the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated”
Iam Plimer: “My job is to profess my discipline, if people don’t like that, bad luck”
Prof Don Aitken: “ABC Science Show’s Ockham’s Razor from a two part broadcast of 27APR08 and 4MAY08:
“The fact that the IPCC has pronounced on climate change does not mean that it is infallible, and indeed its reports frequently use adverbs like ‘likely’ or ‘highly likely’. The fact that the Royal Society agrees with the IPCC does not mean that all the Fellows of the Royal Society agree, or even that they were asked what they thought about it. In any case, to adapt Einstein, it doesn’t matter how many people agree, since one controverting experiment will demolish the hypothesis. And if you look hard at the reality of the ‘two and a half thousand scientists’ who are supposed to have done all the work and agree, it turns out that the IPCC reports are the work of a very much smaller number.”
Ben Sandilands’ made cautious notation of the Weekend Australian’s pieces by Greg Roberts, which quotes Dr Ian Allison (head of the Australian Antarctic Division Glaciology program): “Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally” (WE18-19APR09).
Andrew skated over the finding as of little significance in the global picture, despite previously stating that Antarctica was by far the biggest knob on the Earth’s thermostat.
And how about “engaging in direct public discussions” about the derivation of the magic 1.6W/sq.m (so far ignored) and the ‘historical mechanism of global cooling involving CO2′ which is largely unexplained, and why sea levels started to rise several thousand years before temperature started to rise in 3 of the last 4 interglacials (including our own).
Ken,
(1) You are mistaken regarding the relations between peak temperatures and sea levels during the Pleistocene interglalcials. As shown by comparisons between Petit et al.’s 1999 ice core T values and Siddall’s 2005 SL values, in every one of the terminations peak temperatures PRECEDED sea levels (I can send you the relevant pdfs if required)
(2) In my previous reply I tried to make specific responses to some of your points and offer to send you key climate science papers by climate and paleo-climate authorities. (The people you mention in your list are not specilist climate scientists, while Plimer is a geologist.).
(3) Developments in the atmosphere, ocean and crysophere display decade-scale trends which are NOT regular, as controlled by a combination of factors, (including GHG, the 11 years sunspot cycle, ENSO, ocean currents and aerosols) Those who question the overall trend appear to expect smooth curves and base their arguments on annual or biannual oscillations. For example suggestions of “global cooling” were made on the basis of the high 1998 El-Nino anomaly and the 2007-2009 La-Nina cooling, and neglects the 1975-1998 and 1999 – 2006 warming trends.
(4) In this resppect I suggest you study NASA/GISS global climate website, where you can trace variations in both area and in time.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/).
(5) I note in general few people tend to question critical decisions made by jet pilots, or by heart surgeons, or by nuclear physicists etc.. Earth and climate science are speciallized fields of research requiring many years of study. (In my case 40 years), and while I certainly welcome quesitons and requests for clarification, I should think that serious enquries ought to involve careful consideration of the expert literature . I repeat my offer to send you some of the most recent reviews of the subject, which can be followed by discussion of specific points.
(5) With regard to the ethical dimension, while climate skeptics accuse the IPCC and climate scientists with “conspiracy” and environmentalists often point to the relation between climate “skeptics” and fossil fuel companies, in my experience it is mainly some of the former who indulge in ad-hominem ( look at http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/sceptics_are_parasites_to_an_anu_scientist/), something I would never do.
Last, I cite Clive Hamilton (http://newmatilda.com/2008/05/19/death-rattles-climate-change-skeptics):
“I have often wanted to put the following question to skeptics like Don Aitkin: What if you are wrong? What sort of moral responsibility will the skeptics have if they succeed in their aim of stopping the world from taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? If scientific advances cause scientists to reject the conclusions of past IPCC reports and agree that there is nothing to be alarmed about, it will be mildly embarrassing for people like me; but not too much harm will have been done – according to all of the economic studies, the costs of reducing emissions are low. But if Aitkin and his fellow skeptics were successful in stopping policies to cut emissions and the IPCC projections turn out to be correct, then environmental catastrophe will follow and millions of people will die. Do they lose sleep over this? Do they worry about how their grandchildren will see them? Or are they so consumed by their crusade that they know they will never be proven wrong?
In so far as you like me to send you recent climate reviews, including my own papers, you can write to geospec@iinet.net.au
In a way there is a similar ‘perception’ problem going around in temperate and polar regions.
Those of us who live in Australia and are told that the world has really been cooling since 1997 (or whenever) when our daily experience is completely contrary to that find climate change denialism really so excruciating we’d take reading Andrew Bolt as remedial therapy. I grew up in a Blue Mountains that still had snow clearing equipment and needed it too. It was, by today’s standards, a notably colder and snowier place. It isn’t (expletive deleted) getting cooler. It is (expletive) cooking!
Then we have the experience of those who actually work in Antarctica, whether Casey or McMurdo, who have nearly had their tits frozen off over recent so called summers, with diabolical logistic issues caused by late sea ice and some astonishingly cold episodes in recent years at the south pole, consistently recorded on the radial stations as well. Telling them that they are in a warming environment produces the same incredulity, especially as they see all the readings each day and know that they aren’t (expletive) getting warmer.
This is one of the dilemmas faced by serious science. The public experience versus the declared research.
Which reminds me that this is just past the 10th anniversary of the devastating Sydney hail storms, when several million people were acutely aware of the impending disaster over a period of hours while a handful of duty meteorologists actually had no idea what was going on outside and blithely followed the instruments and forecast model that totally blind sided them.
Of course, the weather and the climate are not quite the same thing, the former being the local and regional variabilities superposed on decade-long trends. Over 30 years ago climate scientists predicted that a global warming trend will be manifested with greater regional temporal variabilities — a consequence of higher atmosphere and ocean energy levels leading to stronger turbulence, marked lows and cold fronts.
It is to be hoped that, despite global warming in other parts of the Earth (a global mean of 0.6 degrees C since the mid 1970s) the East Antarctic continental ice holds, since otherwise progressive melting would result in major sea level rises.
Melting of the cryosphere is not a regular or smooth process, some areas melt and some cool. Large parts of the Arctic Sea, northern Siberia and west Antarctica have warmed over the last 30-40 years by almost 3 degrees C and in some cases 4 degrees C, relative to the 1951-1980 baseline, which accounts for extensive melting.
Based on a combination of ground stations and satellite observations, NASA/GISS reports a mean temperature increase of +0.12 degrees C per-decade for the entire continent of Antarctica, and +0.17 degrees C per-decade for west Antarctica during 1957-2006 (NASA, 21.1.2009).
Manifestations of warming include reduced concentration and thickness of sea ice around parts of Antarctica and the disintegration of ice shelves due to the effect of warming seas. While sea ice grows in other parts, it is its thickness which is the problem. In particular part of west Antarctica which overlies sub-sea level basement is vulnerable to sea water-induced melting.
While most of the peripheral near-coastal zones of west and east Antarctica display various degrees of warming and glacier melt, small area in east Antarctica have been cooling, a likely result of ozone depletion above Antarctica, ozone being a greenhouse gas, as well as acceleration and wind-chill effect of the Antarctic wind vortex. Larger evaporation over warming oceans results in heavier snowfalls in parts of Antarctica.
The concern is that, should overall warming continue, as over the last 50 years ( +0.12 degrees C per-decade for the entire continent), the net ice loss of the cryosphere in both the NH and SH, and associated feedback processes (decrease in albedo due to melting ice and increase in the exposure of infrared abosbing water, which in turn melt more ice), would result in further increase in sea level.
At great personal danger I have determined that aliens are the root cause of climate change. They have mastered the art of mind control and have infiltrated businesses and politicians world wide. These aliens originated from a world of oceans which are quite like ours except that they are warmer and more acidic. Their objective is the transformation of our oceans so that their ruling class can continue their domination of habitable planets galaxy wide. They are known throughout the galaxy as the BoldenwAter. They are particularly ugly and deceitful little creatures skilled in manipulation of the masses through media releases and misinformation.
Rather than post a reply to Mark Byrne’s comment (Crikey April 21) on the site, I thought I’d reply here.
The black coal industry puts around $21 billion into the Australian economy each year in the form of royalities ($4 billion) to state governments, taxes, wages, services, payments to contractors. This doesn’t take into account shareholder profits (yes, lots of Australians have shares in coal mining companies) that are spent in Australia. The only subsidy the industry receives, to my knowledge, is the diesel fuel rebate which is available for all industrial vehicles used off-road. So that’s about half of Kevin Rudd’s fiscal stimulus package each year. Oh yes, it gives jobs directly and indirectly to 130,000 people.
I’d read Mark’s Planet Greenpeace list of what needs to be done; some of it makes good sense and some of it is emotional and impractical clap-trap in a world where 1.6 billion people have no electricity at all. Who are we to tell them that they shouldn’t burn coal to lift themselves out of poverty, when there are not, and will not be for some considerable time, economically viable renewable sources of energy…even in the developed world.
We need practical, not emotional and purely political responses. And sticking your head in the sand, or hold your ears and going “nyah, nyah, nyah”, is not an adequate response to the technology fix that will allow people to continue to burn coal (which they will do anyway, no matter what happens in Copenhagen) and also contribute to massive reduction in emissions.
The price of carbon will increase, and that’s why the coal industry, and governments around the world are putting money and effort into commercialising CCS technology. Yep, the industry wants to continue. Greenpeace should be supporting this as strongly as other key environment groups are. Just as the coal industry also believes that renewable sources of energy are important to meet global electricy demands, which could double by 2030.
I’m a keen observer of China, having spent most of the 90s living and working there. The Chinese will not sign up to anything that will prevent economic growth and lifting living standards; nor will the Indians. In recent months, the Obama administration has begun pushing hard to engage the Chinese on carbon capture and storage; Australia, through the Global CCS Institute, will be doing its bit because it needs to be done. Contrary to popular myth, China imports very little coal from Australia and that’s unlikely to change given that the middle kingdom has the world’s largest coal resources. I’m sure there are some but I’m finding it hard to think of a nation, political party or regime that has deliberately signed up to international agreements or protocols that will undermine domestic economic developmen and security without some massive compensation or military threat. Sorry, but I can’t see either India or China suddenly adopting the greenpeace plan.
Ben – every individual is susceptible to recency bias and availability bias. But the satellite temperature record allows us to ignore our personal experience and base our conclusions on instruments. I know I keep coming back to this but the record shows only about ~0.4C warming in the past 30 years and no warming in at least seven years and maybe even 10.
I have yet to see an argument that convinces me this observed temperature increase is a crisis. Similarly, the instrument record shows slow and steady warming for 150 years with periods of cooling throughout.
We can argue about the outputs of beautiful mathmatical models but the data is the data and it doesn’t suggest a crisis.
Andrew – I haven’t yet read the papers you sent me because my computer was stolen. Give me a week. Nonetheless, I’d be interested in your response to the points I made above. Why has the world not warmed this century? And why is the little warming we have seen a crisis?
I also want to quickly respond to Matt Hardin’s questions about my educational and professional resume. Surley they are irrelevant Matt. My credentials should have no bearing on the validity of the arguments I make here.
You also say that I have “often stated that the AGW position is unfalsifiable and yet …never stated what evidence would be required to change (t)his view”.
To be clear; no hypothesis can be unfalsifiable. I will believe the AGW hypothesis when I see strong evidence that supports it. If I see data that falsifies it (like cooler temperatures) then I’ll believe the data rather than the hypothesis.
Dr Glikson writes (ARO27JAN09)
“Scientists at the forefront of climate research face a stream of new data, not least the recent updates by the UK Hadley Met Office on rapid Antarctica warming. Contrary to claims by sceptics, over the last 50 years West Antarctica warmed by about 0.6 degrees C and East Antarctica by an average of 0.3 degrees C.
In his December letter to Barack and Michelle Obama, Hansen favours carbon tax as the only practical means of limiting carbon emissions and enhancing alternative clean energy. This will include development of fourth generation nuclear plants (4th GNP) which can burn nuclear waste, leaving small residual volumes with a half-life of decades rather than thousands of years. Coal-fired power plants will need to be equipped with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).” End quote
I am sure that “Smart Lawyers’ like Barack and Michelle Obama are just the ticket to divine fact from fiction. Michelle in particular would no doubt be able to decide if the Earth is warming at 0.6W/sq.m or 2.4W/sq.m. and whether 0.2W/sq.m cooling is enough to cause an ice age.
Richard Farmer quoted the following on Antarctic sea ice (Crikey 23JAN09), which is supported by real measurements:
“The first is a graph of what has been happening to the extent of sea ice over the last 25 years. Despite what we have just been told are the rising temperatures, the trend line of total ice coverage is steadily upwards from the 1979-2000 mean of 11.1 million sq km.
Looked at as a map, the data from last month shows a total area of 12.2 million sq km — 1.1 million sq km above the mean. There are clearly some parts of the continent where ice is disappearing and others where its extent is growing.
The variation in concentration from 100% ice to no ice is considerable.
In some parts of the Antarctic sea, the concentration is 50% greater than during the mean years and in others substantially less.
When the trends are mapped it is clear to see why scientists are so concerned about what is happening to the ice shelf where the Antarctic continent points up towards South America. Here the ice concentration looks to be falling at around 20% a decade, but there are equally parts where the ice concentration is increasing at a similar rate.” endquote Richard Farmer
Perhaps Dr Glikson could explain the increasing trend of the area of Antarctic sea ice since 1980, against the new revelation that the Antarctic has actually been warming for the last 50 years. An average of all the IPCC standard model runs (nearly 40) predict Earth surface temperature increases of 0.2 degrees C per decade. But the facts are that surface temperatures have actually decreased in the last 10 years by up to 0.1 degrees C per year. Surely this is a failure of all the modelling which I strongly suspect is underestimating the background noise of natural climate forcings.
Maybe Michelle Obama could lawyer this out for us.
Tamas
You write “but the record shows only about ~0.4C warming in the past 30 years and no warming in at least seven years and maybe even 10.(years)” and “Why has the world not warmed this century? And why is the little warming we have seen a crisis?”
It is always easier to discuss data/numbers when looking at graphs than in words (I am sorry your computer was stolen). When you get back on a computer and access the Internet, click on: NASA/GISS’s URL http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Clicking on the temperature graph (1st on top) will allow observation of mean global land/ocean temperatures, meteorological stations temperatures and temperature variations for different latitude zones.
Clicking on the second image from the top (the map) will allow you to examine land/sea temperature changes in various parts of the Earth relative to chosen base periods.
In so far as you do not have the image in front of you at the moment, I will list the main variations: (Values are global mean temperature anomalies (GMTA) relative to 1975 temperature which is defined as 0:
Looking at the 5 years running mean temperature anomalies (GMTA) (the red line):
1880 – 1910 -0.2C to -0.35C
1910 – 1942 Sharp rise from -0.35C to +0.1C (i.e. rise of 0.45C in 33 years, during which heavy industrial/military production and C pollution occurred related to WW1 and WW2.
1942 – 1950 Decline by about -0.15C (generally attributed to the albedo effects of the industrial SO2 aerosols emitted during the preceding period)
1950 – 1976 Oscillation by +/- 0.1C to 1976 (attributed to the combination of the aerosol factor as well as a low in the 11 years sunspot activity)
1976 – 2006 Sharp rise by +0.55C over 30 years. These includes annual anomalies, in particular the high 1998 El-Nino anomaly.
2007 – 2009 The annual anomaly (black line) falls to +0.45C, attributable to (1) the La Nina cooling phase and (2) low sun spot activity
Note the mean between the end of the 1998 El-Nino anomaly and 2007 is still rising by about +0.1C.
Global cooling associated with the La Nina and minimum sun spot activity occurs from 2007 by about -0.14C.
THUS THE OVERALL RISE IN THE 5 YEARS RUNNING MEAN T (THE RED CURVE) FROM 1880 TO 2006 IS BY +0.8C. HOWEVER, ONCE THE MASKING EFFECTS OF THE SHORT-LIVED AEROSOLS IS ACCOUNTED FOR THE RISE IS CALCULATED AS +1.3C.
It is projected that ith increased energy (temperature) annual and biannual oscillations become sharper, as expressed by extreme weather events, a projection which is unfortunately confirmed by recent events around the world.
The ice core record indicates that temperature rises of about +1.0C result in sea level rises of +6 to +8 meters in the Emian interglacial, 124,000 years ago, and rises of 2 – 3C by +25+/-12 meters in the mid-Pliocene (3 million years ago), so the SL/T ratio is more than 5 meters per 1 degrees C, with implications for 21st century projections.
The difference is between those who are looking at the decade-scale trend, which indicates an overall rise of +0.55C between 1976 and 2007, and those who are looking at annual or biannual variations, such as the 1998 El-Nino or the 2007-9 La Nina.
As I conveyed more than once above, nothing would delight me more than if the latter was correct and temperatures continued to fall.
The critical point is to look at mean global temperatures variations at the poles, which act as the Earth’s “thermostat” from which cold wet fronts emanate, and where extensive ice melt results in ice/melt feedback effects (a self-enhancing process where the ice albedo loss and the melt water infrared-gain combine as warming water keep melting ice at the surface, beneath and laterally of ice sheets).
Now click on the map (2nd from top) and look at the relative warming of large parts of the Arctic, Siberia and west Antarctica relative to the 1951-1980 base line (or other parameters you can choose). You will find that over the last 30 years or so NH polar temperatures rose by more than 2.0C and in large areas more than 4.0C relative to low-latitude zones and relative to the 1951-1980 baseline.
Climate science uses a combination of criteria, including (A) surface station measurements; (B) satellite measurements of surface (land and ocean) and troposphere temperatures; (3) an analysis of the various forcings (solar, greenhouse gases, aerosol and dust effects, precipitation, evaporation, ocean currents etc). General Circulation Computer models are used to test the compatibility of calculations of the effects of the different forcings with DIRECT MEASUREMENTS — NOT as a substitute for measurements.
It is when direct observations in nature, instruments measurements and computer analysis and projections agree that a picture starts to emerge.
UNFORTUNATELY, DIRECT OBSERVATIONS SINCE THE FIRST IPCC REPORT (EARLY 1990S) INDICATE CO2, MEAN GLOBAL TEMPERATURE, ICE MELT RATES AND SEA LEVEL RISE ARE TRACKING AT THE MAXIMUM OF THE IPCC PROJECTION RANGE (see the Rahmstorf 2007 paper and reports from the recent Copenhagen meeting).
Now, Tamas, I have spent quite a bit of time listing the data. I suggest you look at the NASA website (as well as Hadley-Met and the UAH/RSS data), and the papers I sent you, for clarification of further relevant points.
Andrew is proceeding with a mass of NASA/GISS data which is headed by James Hansen who could now be regarded as more of a propagandist than a scientist. Beware of those who have no doubt, and are driven by computer model and forward projections – the Earth has a ‘down to earth’ way of bringing on reality.
I would love to become a catastrophist believer – it would be a quieter life (less late nights in the cage) and possibly profitable too if I could secure a tenured academic post.
I have deliberately argued a sceptical position using The Wikipedia Holocene Temperature Chart and National Geograhic Society Charts, because these are distilled for the reasonably intelligent layman – not the climate scientist. I repeat the link from Comment #59 – take a look – and check the 8 proxies. No one in this debate has seriously challenged the veracity of this data. All the references to the proxies are detailed in this link.
http://redirect.cmailer.com.au/LinkRedirector.aspx?clid=1bce1b6a-26b7-43b1-b0c8-a87f21e1650f&rid=bef016ae-4766-4655-bbbe-24a1497297e6
Here is a quick summary of what I see in this Holocene Chart:
1) The average “0″ baseline is a mid-20th century temperature. The trend over the last 8000 years is a *fall* in temperature of approx 0.5 degrees C
2) The heavy black wriggly line (the average of all 8 proxies) has a peak to trough amplitude of about 0.4 deg C
3) There are 5 peaks in this average above the mid-20th century temperature – all occuring in the 4000 – 8000 year BP range.
4) There are 4 peaks below the mid-20th century average, all in the 800 – 3500 BP range.
5) The range of trough to peak time interval is 200-500 years.
6) The last trough was about 450 years ago (little ice age) around 1560 which bottomed out at an average of 0.5 deg C *below* the mid-20th century baseline.
7) The average today (2004 on this Chart) is still approx 0.2 deg C below the mid-20th century baseline.
9) The 8 proxies have much greater swings in temperature from -1.3 deg C to +1.5 deg C (2.8 deg C) over 8000 years.
10) When you look at this time scale you can see that the steepness of the curves (the rapidity of the temperature changes) are not vastly different and the last 450 years is of comparable steepness to rises occuring at roughly 2200, 3400, 4600, 5300, 6400, 7300 and 8000 years BP.
CO2 (not plotted on this chart) rose from about 260 to 280ppm over most of this 8000 year period up until about 1850. Ice core data gives CO2 rising from about 290-310ppm from 1850 to 1950, and from 310-380ppm from 1950 to present.
When you look at the whole AGW case. it nearly all rests on the last 40-50 years of ‘recent proxy’ temperature readings (often quoted in the NH only), and the human release of CO2 over the ‘industrial revolution’.
Well, the industrial revolution really only got going from about 1800 onward, and CO2 levels had only risen to about 310ppm by 1950.
Temperatures started continuously rising from a trough in about 1560, which is roughly 250 years *before* CO2 levels started moving at all. Warming was happening anyway, and its (non-CO2) contribution (noise) to the observed rise is never discussed in the AGW story.
The Holocene has been remarkably stable (compared with previous interglacials) with a 0.5 degree C cooling trend over the last 8000 years, and the Wikipedia averaged chart shows approx nine (9) peak-trough temperature swings in the amplitude range of about 0.4 degC. All of which is background ‘noise’.
So what are we to make of the 0.4 deg C proxy temperature rise in the last 40-50 years – why it must be CO2 driven warming Snow White!
Never has the rate of CO2 released from fossil fuel burning and land use been higher than in the last 10 years, yet global temperatures are flat or slightly falling.
A vast climate change edifice is therefore based on 30-40 years of data, with the last 10 years being discounted as a ‘weather anomaly’ by AGW theorists.
Much of the edifice has been based on James Hansen’s Nasa/GISS construction of the data. A reasonable person would conclude that a lot more than 30-40 years of data is needed to verify the AGW CO2 driven warming theory. Something more is going on here.
I will talk more about the last 400,000 years tomorrow.
Now for the last 400,000 years:
We are being asked to accept that the rising CO2 in the atmosphere is warming the oceans, and that the oceans release more CO2 to warm the atmosphere further and this feedback loop is ongoing. So where does this positive feedback lead? The last 30-40 years does not seem anywhere near long enough for the atmosphere to do much warming of oceans which are said to have 1000 times the thermal capacity of that same atmosphere, given that the CO2 time lags in the historical record I believe are in the region of 700-800 years.
As a novice controls engineer 30 years ago, my experience of feedback loops gave two general outcomes: stability about a set point, or instability and run away control loss.
Without even knowing the particulars of the process, I could suggest that if increased CO2 released as a result of oceanic temperature increases then fed back into more temperature rise, the “set point” might rise but then must stabilize as counter cooling influences (clouds, plant growth, increased CO2 absorption by Ian Plimer’s bacterial, geological means etc) topped out the cycle.
The alternative is instability and a run-away greenhouse.
Clearly this stabilization happened in the past 3 interglacials, or we would have evidence of run-away ‘greenhouse’ instabilities in the last 400,000 years. I believe that this ‘run away greenhouse’ can only happen if the CO2 reaches about 4 times the present level, and the oceans become a massive stagnant green algal bloom. The IPCC AR4 report predicts no such catastrophic outcome, yet offers no consistent explanation for the cooling effects which stopped and reversed past warming cycles.
The logical flaw in trying to prove a human induced warming hypothesis by citing the warming bits and not the cooling bits of past ‘natural’ cycles seems obvious, yet our AGW theorists and popular amateurs like Al Gore are getting away with precisely that argument.
If the IPCC models cannot adequately explain the last 400,000 years, what level of confidence can we have in current predictions which prescribe vast efforts to slow and reverse CO2 emissions?
If the current IPCC AR4 modelling accepted as fact, I am well informed that the task will involve throwing at the world energy demand every source feasibly available – nuclear, clean coal, full CO2 sequestration and all renewables in order to stabilize the CO2 levels by 2050.
This is a massive effort which few policy makers yet comprehend and where scientists and engineers must play a decisive role. It is our duty to pursue solid sober facts, not popular clamour and media made science.
The climate change debate must continue. But a resolution requires much better-balanced science analysis and more convincing evidence than is currently offered by the AGW theorists.
Having debated “climate change skeptics” for some years now, my experience is that:
(1) First they attempt to make technical comments, some valid but mostly mistaken
(2) I try and respond to their technical comments (based on 40 years of studies of the Earth/atmosphere system)
(3) Next they raise further technical comments
(4) I try further to further explain
(5) Next, truth is out – they resort to derogatory terms such as “alarmists”, “warmists”, AGW theorists”, which reveals they are not really interested to learn either the science facts or the physics/chemistry explanation, but have a prior conviction, i.e. the atmosphere is not warming, or if it does its not of anthropogenic origin.
Where they can not argue with scientists on technical/scientific points, they resort to personal denigrating comments. Just about every climate scientist has been subject to such references, including Wallace Broecker, James Hansen, Steffen Rahmstorf,.Pep Canadell, David Karoly, Barry Brook, myself …
Ken, I have already indicated that earlier comments you made, for example regarding the relations between interglacial thermal peaks and sea level rise, were incorrect. Climate change is a far from a smooth process, representing interaction between GHG, solar, ENSO, aerosol, ice melt and other factors. While decade- scale increase in temprature resulted in 0.8C since the early 20th century (1.3C when albedo effects are taken into account), annual or biannual variability is increasing, a result from the increased energy level of the atmosphere/ocean system and enhanced turbulence/storminess.
Below I will respond to your further comments:
(1) “driven by computer models” – I thought I tried to explain that GMC models are NOT SUBSTITUTE TO DIRECT MEASUREMENTS FROM GROUND STATIONS OR SATELLITES, but are tools (extending the brains’s calculation speed) aimed at testing the extent to which combination of various forcings match the measured data. Climate “skeptics” repatedly question computer calculations as means of climate research, but probably don’t worry too much about the use of computers in hospitals, enginering, communciations, aviation and so on.
(2) “Hansen who could now be regarded as more of a propagandist” – here is pure and simple “ad-hominem”, and no substitute to scientific arguments. Virtually all climate scientists regard Hansen and his group as leaders in the field. The difference is that he has taken an ethical stand to warn humanity of the dangers of using the atmosphere as an open sewer for carbon gases, just as Crutzen and Lovelock warned the world about depletion of the ozone, and medicals warned regarding tobaccoo smoking.
I suggest you try and study Hansen’s papers (2006 – 2007) (which I can send you) published jointly with a large group of US climate scientists and paleoscientists (all of them propagandists?). If you have any technical questions regarding these papers, I will be available to explain them.
(3) “The Holocene has been remarkably stable (compared with previous interglacials) with a 0.5 degree C cooling trend over the last 8000 years, and the Wikipedia averaged chart shows approx nine (9) peak-trough temperature swings in the amplitude range of about 0.4 degC. All of which is background ‘noise’.
The various T proxies have different error margins, but mostly are in agreement in sub-concordant trends, lending confidence to paleo-T variations. Paleo-climate papers will provide you with explanaions for what you describe as “background noise”, namely periods of high sun-spot activity and of low sun-spot activity and periods affected by volcanic activity.
Thus the Medieval Warm Period (1150 – 1300 AD) is marked by high sun spot (40 – 55), the Little Ice Age (~1700 AD) by almost no sun spot activity, and the first half of the 20th century very high sun spots (60-80). However, even the latter maximum is responsible for no more than 0.4 Watt/m2 (~0.3C) T rise.
(4) “the oceans release more CO2 to warm the atmosphere further and this feedback loop is ongoing.” Not so. The oceans are still sequestering CO2, albeit at a reduced rate due to increase T, by about 0.2 – 0.3C in some regions. Ocean pH has decreased by ~0.1-0.3 points due to increased CO2 saturation and decreased calcification of organisms and thus of sequestration.
(5) “given that the CO2 time lags in the historical record I believe are in the region of 700-800 years.” You mistake the lag of CO2 rise behind T rise during the glacial terminations (where the main T driver is the melting ice/water feedback process), with the modern period (since the 18th century) where the release of >300 GtC carbon is the main driver, followed by carbon cycle feedbacks and ice melt/warm feedbacks.
(6) “the “set point” might rise but then must stabilize as counter cooling influences (clouds, plant growth, increased CO2 absorption by Ian Plimer’s bacterial, geological means etc) topped out the cycle. ” The various parameters have been quantified (yes, using computers, as in other sciences), as represented by the various GHG, clouds, aerosols, solar, land clearing etc., for example in IPCC reports. (Look at the IPCC-2007 AR4 WG1 Report),
(7) “if the CO2 reaches about 4 times the present level”. 4 times the present level (~1500 ppm CO2) are the extreme level of the Cretaceous “greenhouse Earth” when only small burrowing mammals existed. The breating mechanism of larger mammals, which appeared mainly after the Earth cooled by 5 – 6C about 34 million years ago, are not atuned to such temperatures. The Antarctic sheet formed 34 million years ago when CO2 levels fell below 500 ppm, and the Artctic ice only 3 Ma ago when CO2 fell below 400 ppm (which is where we are now, watching it melt away).
The ice core studies and sedimentary research are now highly advanced fields of research. if you like to read some of the up-to-date reviews of these studies I can I can send you relevant papers, which can be followed by discussion of specific points.
Andrew Glikson Comment #92
Andrew – don’t be too sensitive – this is a cage fight not an academic conference.
If you think ‘warmist’ and ‘AGW theorist’ are derogatory terms you must be feeling a little insecure. “Propagandist” is a little stronger and probably a bit tough on Jim Hansen, however still a lot nicer than some of the terms used against AGW sceptics. eg:
Sceptics such as Prof’s Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, Don Aitken, Freeman Dyson, Lance Endersbee and others have been called ‘deniers’ – invoking the term used mainly in connection with the Jewish holocaust; ‘cranks’; ‘the climate change equivalent of David Irving’ etc.
From your comment #92 you would probably call yourself a ‘truthful climate scientist’, and I am happy to notepad that term for future references. Not to be confused with ‘truthful Jones’ – the much loved Frank Hardy character from the ‘Yarns of Billy Borker’.
I will get to your other comments tonight, however my Comment #91, regarding CO2 and Ocean exchange was prefaced by ‘We are being asked to accept…….’
The ensuing description was taken from my notes of Prof Karoly’s explanation at the time of the very plebian ‘Great Climate Change Swindle” debate run on ABC TV. It did not make a lot of sense at the time.
Peter Logue (Australian Coal Association),
The problem with Clean Coal is that it cannot solve our “immediate future energy needs”. There are serious bottlenecks in the scaling up the technology to become commercially viable. There is no clear sign yet that the process can be run on a mass scale and be cost effective agaist current alteratives.
Meanwhile funding for exhisting renewables could be ramped up for immediate deployment.
So what is your fall back if in ten years clean coal is still too expensive on scale and we’ve failed to invest in rewables sufficienty? We wreck the economy? Cook the planet?
Logue wites: “The Chinese will not sign up to anything that will prevent economic growth and lifting living standards; nor will the Indians.”
It happens that averting a climate catastrophe is in the economic interest of the majority.
Logue writes: “We need practical, not emotional and purely political responses.”
Mr Logue, please remind us, who is funding the self described “Greenhouse Mafia”? That’s quite a political response, which undermines practical solutions (while hijacking democratic processes). Who is paying the lobbyist to pressure the Government to produce an ineffective ETS?
I find your claimed support for renewable to be inconsistent with the practice from your sector.
Finally, what 2020 reductions targets are the Australian Coal Association asking for?
Mark, make your choice. Solving the world’s future energy needs with low emission coal, or with coal as it is now burned? (Why are you using the phrase “clean coal” that your organisation and others routinely lambast?) My point is that because energy demand will double by 2030 (IEA) developing countries will continue to burn coal no matter what the views of middle glass environmentalists, safe with their plasmas and airconditioners and hybrid cars say. (electricity for these cars in Australia comes from…yep…mainly coal. It’s much better for the planet if carbon capture and storage is developed quickly and deployed as quickly as possible and green organisations should overcome their idealogical opposition to what is a good and workable technology.
The Government’s renewable Energy Target will subsidise renewables to the tune of $10 billion dollars over the next ten years; on top of that another billion dollars – at least – is being spent to subsidise a range of research into renewable energy. Explain to me what it will cost to “ramp” up renewables for “immediate deployment” and tell me which technologies are now read to replace coal and gas as baseload power and how long the transition will take and, finally, who’s going to pay for it.
The ACA is a member of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, for which we pay a modest fee. I think you’ll find that the work they do is apolitical and aimed at getting sound, workable policy.
The ACA does not have a position on 2020 targets and has consistently supported a well developed and balanced Emissions Trading Scheme. We argue that there is little or no point placing a tax on the Australian coal mining industry that is not part of a global solution; doing so will simply drive our clients into the arms of other countries that have few if any environmental standards for mining and who are not investing the amount that we are in CCS technology.
Andrew Glikson #92
“Ken, I have already indicated that earlier comments you made, for example regarding the relations between interglacial thermal peaks and sea level rise, were incorrect. Climate change is a far from a smooth process, representing interaction between GHG, solar, ENSO, aerosol, ice melt and other factors. While decade- scale increase in temprature resulted in 0.8C since the early 20th century (1.3C when albedo effects are taken into account), annual or biannual variability is increasing, a result from the increased energy level of the atmosphere/ocean system and enhanced turbulence/storminess.” end quote
Andrew, please remind me where the NGS data I quoted re the Emian interglacial peak temperature and sea level rise is ‘incorrect’. I quoted ’4m or more’, and you quoted ’6-8m’. Not that big a difference. Critically, I did not say *peak* sea level rise preceded temperature – I said the ‘start of sea level rise’ preceded the ‘start of temperature rise’. Peak temperatures on the NGS Chart are coincident up to about 3.5 deg C – so the average could not be less than 2 deg C above current levels. And further in the interglacial warming approx 330000 years BP, sea level rise ‘started’ well before and ‘peaked’ very close to the ‘start’ of temperature rise.
Also you have not made clear your opinion of the Wikipedia Holocene Temperature Chart and my 10 observations from it.
Nor have you explained how your quoted 0.8 deg C (or 1.3 deg C) rise since the ‘early 20th century’ is reconciled with the Wikipedia Chart.
Perhaps you could expound on my point from Comment #88 ” An average of all the IPCC standard model runs (nearly 40) predict Earth surface temperature increases of 0.2 degrees C per decade; which is not happening.
Lets clear up also your equation of computer hardware and proprietary sofware which everyone uses as a tool, with computer ‘models’ devised by climate scientists. You still have not talked seriously about the mechanisms of cooling and CO2, and the accuracy of modelling backwards through the Holocene and last 400,000 years. When the models are not accurate – the reasons are given as increased variability (higher energy, storminess etc) in the real climate – which was predicted in the AGW theories.
This is of course the perfect ‘unfalsifiable hypothesis’. Just about any contrary temperature change, storm, drought, flood, ice shelf collapse et al. can be drafted as grist to the mill of global warming.
Also your continual repetition of the IPCC AR4 data does not touch on the derivation of the 1.6W/sq.m number. I have jousted at length with Mark Byrne about the issue of LOSU – level of scientific understanding of the cooling factors. See Comment #61.
Finally, you have not commented on the massive effort required to stabilize CO2 by 2050 involving clean coal, nuclear, full CO2 sequestration and all renewables and how on earth this is to be achieved on a global scale.
Andrew, don’t stereotype sceptics as following a script. We are mostly humble seekers of the truth with all the foibles of the human condition. Like amongst academics, engineers, lawyers, politicians and greenies; there are plenty of liars, fools, dills and rent seekers.
A. Relation between T rise and SL rise, based on original references (Petit et al. 1999; Siddall et al., 2004) (Values read from the graphs’
all values are within errors of T and SL ice core and SL (Red Sea-based) measurements.
>420 kyr T rise onset; 410 kyr SL onset
~335 kyr T and SL onset about the same time..
~245 kyr T rise onset; 240 kyr SL rise onset
~135 kyr T rise onset; 125 kyr SL onset
B. T rise by 0.8C and (once the aerosol factor is taken into account) 1.3C since the early 20th century.
I read the values from NASA/GISS and Hadley-Met, not from Wikipedia. For T values look at (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/)
For an explanation of the aerosol masking factor read Hansen et al. 2007 ( http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Hansen_etal_2.pdf ) and 2008 ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 ).
C. IPCC models. As shown by Rahsmtorf et al. 2007 CO2, T and SL are tracking at the top range of the IPCC scenarios (model A1B), which means mean T has risen by well over 0.2C since 2000.
D. Cooling of interglacials and “accuracy”. From the ice core data cooling can occur just as abruptly as warming. The explanation resides in (1) reduced orbital forcing as eccentricity/precession factor is reduced, followed by (B) negative ice feedback, meaning once ice starts forming, its increased albedo results in reduced atmospheric T, further ice crystallization, so on. Feedbacks (warming and cooling) are now understood to be the dominant factor driving abrupt climate changes.
Regarding “accuracy”: empirical observations of nature hinge on the identification of patterns and of trends, with temporal and spatial variations. Likewise climate change projections can identify trajectories but rarely specific values or points in time. The same rule applies in all natural sciences, although calculations of astronomical values (Milankovic cycles) are realtively (but not absolutely) highly accurate.
E. For explanation of the IPCC estimate of anthropogenic warming since 1750 by ~1.6 watt/m2 you need to read (1) the full IPCC technical report and the publications on which it is based.
Indeed, since it is near-impossible to explain the evidence and underlying processes without resort to graphs and plots, reading these reports and papers will explain much more than I or anyone can do on this blog.
Finally, in so far as you are trying to identify errors in climate science, you must realize that science is a self-correcting process. The methodology involves (1) gathering of all available evidence; (2) analysis of the data aimed at identifying regularities, patterns and trends; (3) attempts at explanation of such regularities in terms of established physics and chemistry. Obviously in view of the magnitude of the database computers are used, as in any science.
In so far as anyone can re-analyze the vast amount of climate data which exists in terms which vary from a dominant anthropogenic GHG driver, we will all be able to breath a huge sigh of relief.
Andrew, the NGS Chart is not in agreement with your T and SL onsets for the last 4 interglacials. I will see if the graphic can be sent through Crikey.
Meanwhile, could you answer one simple question:
“Had there been no industrial revolution, and no un-natural release of CO2, what would have been the temperature rise since 1750 to the present day?”
(1) National Geographic has not by itself determined the paleo-temperature or sea levels of the glacial-intrglacial era. In order to examine original data you need to go to the original references rather than 2nd or 3rd hand derivatives.
(2) The nature of the glacial-interglacial records, related to orbital forcings followed by carbon cycle and ice melt/water re-melt feedbacks, distinguishes them from GHG-forced post-industrial climate change, where CO2-driven T rise exceeds the solar factor by an order of magnitude.
(3) The study of the ice cores indicates (1) the high sensitivity of the atmosphere/ocean system to even minor forcings, and (2) the essential role of feedbacks, including carbon cycle feedbacks (CO2 emissions from oceans and biosphere) and the ice melt/water interaction.
(4) The industrial revolution was preceded by low T spells related to the Dallton Minimum (1780 – 1840 – below 50 sun spots) and the Maunder Minimum (1650 – 1700: almost no sun spots). Sun spots rose from the beginning of the 19th century to ~1950 when it reached near-200 sun spots, translated to about +0.2C T rise, stabilizing from mid-century to the present to +/- 0.1T. By contrast GHG-driven T rose by ~0.8C and 1.3C when the masking effect of SO2 industrial aerosols is removed. Had no industrial emissions occurred, Earth would have been about 0.8C cooler. This may not sound very much, except note the extensive droughts caused by T changes on the order of +0.2 – +0.4C which resulted in the collapse of ancient ciivilization.s on the Nile and the Hindus
p.s. As well as a number of short-lived cold spells resulted from major volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, the Philipines and Iceland.
Andrew,
I have emailed Sophie Black .pdf copies of the NGS Chart published August 2007. This is what I have been using for T, CO2 and SL readings over the last 400,000 years. Hopefully she can forward to you as a regular correspondent. There are also links to the talks by Prof Don Aitken of April and May 2008 (Ockham’s Razor – ABC Science Show)
Correct me if I am uninformed of your professional work, but I expect that you have not yourself “determined the paleo-temperature or sea levels of the glacial-interglacial era” and have used other’s original data, which puts you at the same degree of separation from it as the NGS. Hence it is hard to accept that the NGS data is incorrect on your say so.
Are you also discounting the Wikipedia Chart as a valid source of Holocene temperature data?
Not having seen the NGS chart until I received it this morning, what I suggested was it is always best to go to peer-reviewed reports in the science literature.
I have now seen the NGS chart, which appears in the main consistent with the original papers.
In so far as your original query relates to the relationships betwen T rise and SL rise, to gain an insight of the driving factors you need to look at the oset of the glacial terminations, i.e. the base of the upward-turning curve. As indicated in an earlier post, onset of T precedes onset of SL, although they may reach maxima about the same time.
Regarding Don Aitkins views, I have discussed them with with Aitkin directly in correspondence, and can send you the relevant summaries. Essentially Ainkin repeats the common 10 arguments which other “climate change skeptics” raise, and which have been accounted for earlier. Also, Clive Hamilton discussed Aitkin’s views in: http://newmatilda.com/2008/05/19/death-rattles-climate-change-skeptics
I doubt it we wish to trouble Sophie Black as an in-between messenger, so will indicate below my relevant online articles:
21.11.2008 Climate tipping points OpEdNews http://www.opednews.com/articles/21st-century-climate-tippi-by-Andrew-
Glikson-081121-208.html
Other on-line articles include:
Dangerous climate change. OpEdNews http://www.opednews.com/articles/Dangerous-Climate-Change–by-Andrew-
Glikson-081206-176.html
Andrew Glikson and I seem to be the only inmates left slugging it out in the vaunted Crikey Climate Change Cage Fight.
We are at the stage of ‘my data is better than your data’; just about the same as Glikson and Bolt in today’s Crikey.
I am trying to send Andrew Glikson the NGS data I have been quoting and Andrew is referring me to many technical papers, mainly Hansen’s NASA/GISS and UK Hadley Centre data.
Crikey – you have a problem. Either close down the Cage Fight and let us fight it out in the open, or redirect Gideon Polyna, Bolter and others into the cage.
Meanwhile check these links out to Prof Don Aitken’s talks on the ABC Science Show (Ockham’s Razor):
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2232630.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2226464.htm
Ken Lambert
My last comment is ‘awaiting moderation’ and no mention of the ‘Cage Fight’ blog in ‘Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups’ today.
It is time to declare *victory* and go home?
Wait! There’s more.
I’ve been contacted by two people intimately involved with Antarctic matters. They are somewhat angry that the empirical fact, that main continental readings provide no evidence of a warming trend is being submerged as one of them put it by inferred interpretations saying everyone on the ice is failing to understand that persistent falling values are really rising values.
I don’t detect that either person is a climate change denier for a moment. But they know that a reading is a reading, and feel that may comment about ‘zealotry’ in seeking to make Antarctica conform were fair.
One thing that has always plunged me into hot water as a reporter is to fail to adhere rigidly to ‘established’ views. This is especially true in my main area of interest at least in the media, which is air transport. So I don’t care about being flamed. It saves me on heating bills up here in the highlands.
I’m confident I’ve made the right choice in not investing the time needed to read Plimer. The imperatives of industrially forced climate change, irrespective of the natural inputs for hotter or colder, make the need for action to reduce the massive rates of carbon release from fossil sources a policy and technology priority. What nature cools nature also can heat. We can’t stuff around making excuses anymore when what we do is magnifying and accelerating those climate change forces.
But, a surface reading is a surface reading.
In so far as local and trasient warming/cooling processes are focused on, the evidence of the Greenland and Antarctica ice cores needs to be borne in mind, namely the sharp warming and cooling events over periods as short as a few dacades and even a few years (Steffensen et al., 2008; Kobash et al., 2008; Lenton et al., 2007). Thus, rapid warming resulting in discharge of cold ice melt into the North Atlantic resulted in the 12.9 – 11.7 kyr ‘Youngest dryas’ cooling, with similar events at 8.5 kyr. Observations and future projections of the behaviour of the cryosphere need to take the possibility of such developments into account, i.e. cooling of the North Atlantic if and when the Gulf Stream fails, and cooling of the southern oceans as west Antarctica melts.
Such sharp perturbations may last tens to hudreds of years. With current rates of global climate changes, including increasing variability of the ENSO, such as the strong 1998 El-Nino peak and the 2007-09 La Nina, the precise behaviour of the ice sheets under fast rising global tempratures is difficult to predict
.
What Andrew Glikson fails to mention is that East Antarctica is four times the size of West Antarctica (divided by the Transantarctic Mountains). Antarctica in total holds about 90% of the world’s ice. According to Dr Ian Allison (Australian Antarctic Division glacialogy program head); ‘Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally’ and ‘Sea ice losses in West Antarctica over the past 30 years have been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea – just one of the sectors in East Antarctica’.
IPCC AR4 published in 2007 deliberately excludes Antarctica as warming at all; and yet the latest revelation is that Antarctica has been warming for the last 50 years. As if the data was not there in 2007, so much so that ‘Antarctica’ is specifically excluded – and within 2 years it was found – and found to be warming by the requisite 0.2 dec C.
Is it any wonder we are called ‘sceptics’.
Off to the coast for the labour day long weekend – pray I survive rising sea levels until next Tuesday.
Andrew Glikson,
I forgot to mention – please give us your reading of the NGS Chart for the onsets of SL rise and T rise for the last 3 interglacials going back 400,000 years. By onset I mean the point where SL is a minimum and then starts a continuous rise, and similarly for T.
Ken Lambert
(1) The draft IPCC 2007 was submitted in 2005 before the NSIDC and NASA centre presented their reports.
(2) West Antarctica warmed by 0.17C per decade over the last 50 years and East + West Antarctica by 0.12C per decade (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/)
(3) Large thermal anomalies over west Antarctica are 3 to 4 degrees C higher than the 1951-1980- base line (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/, ).
(4) While East Antarctica has warmed around the coast where glaciers discharge, it remains stable at large parts of the centre, probably due to accelerating vortex wind chill speed and depletion of the ozone layer.
(5) We all pray and hope East Antarctica will hold, but further emissions of CO2 and a rise of mean global temperatures to and above 2 degrees C are not going to help East Antarctica remains stable!
(6) Constant questioning, namely skepticism, is inherent in the scientific method and is exercised by all scientists.
(7) We do not start from an assumption (such as “the globe is warming”, or “is not warming”, or “warming is anthropogenic”) but examine any proposition from all angles and all points of view.
(8) It seems those who deny global warming are making an assumption, then continue to look for faults, real or imaginary in the science.
(9) Any one seriously concerned regarding climate change, needs to read the excellent (although at this time outdated by 3 years) reports of the IPCC, the collective work of the worlds expert climate scientists.
(10) Had there been evidence that the injection of over 300 billion tons of Carbon gases into the atmosphere is not having deleterious effects on the atmopshere, we could have all breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“(8) It seems those who deny global warming are making an assumption, then continue to look for faults, real or imaginary in the science.”
Andrew, I could say the very same thing about advocates of AGW warming theory.
They started with data showing temperature rise over the last 40-50 years, found atmospheric CO2 rising at the same time, and formulated a theory of CO2 driven warming. Computer models were constructed with several known variables then run forward to make future predictions. Alarming results were obtained with various inputs.
The computer models don’t run well backwards, supposedly because the input variable data is not well known from the past.
In the last 10 years, temperatures have flattened or cooled, and other observations have diverged from predictions (such as East Antarctica).
The scientific method involvs proposing theory from observations, testing theory against future observations and modifying or discarding theory which cannot be made to fit new or better observations.
AGW CO2 driven warming theory predicts steeper warming, and greater climate variability. When warming does not occur for 10 years (out of the last 40 years), then it must be greater climate variability – not a cause for a hard look or modification of the theory to fit the observations. And despite growing data from the historical record, computer models do not accurately duplicate the Holocene or the last 400,000 years, which in logic would separate out the background ‘noise’ of natural factors.
Ken Lambert – Schoneveld’s quote is fantastic. Thanks. It’s funny because I vaguely believed in climate change for a while. But like you I get suspicious of panics and hysterias. This panic is a doozy but I think their case is starting to fall apart. Logic, as they say, is persistent.
Tamas Calderwood – mate – good to make contact. The sweet thing about Dr Schoneveld’s experiment is that anyone can repeat it with access to Google – and it works just as described. It seems that the AGW theorists have vacated the cage. I had declared myself the cage fight winner (as the last one left), but maybe we can lure the AGW theorists back for a knockout round. I was hoping Crikey would then anoint us as the official “AGW deniers” with regular paid pieces in the front pages of Crikey; in the interests of Crikey’s vaunted journalistic balance and good taste.
Ken – brother – you can be my “AGW denier” wingman anytime. I’ve read all your comments and I love them. This issue is fascinating, don’t you think? Full credit to Crikey for giving our heretical views a run though. We go against the “house view” but they still print them. Respect.
I found the proposition about google searches interesting and worth a test. Intuitively I thought that there might be some basis to the view that people inevitably focus on the worst.
Here are some results:
Climate change adverse impacts on forests: 250,000
Climate change positive impacts on forests: 2,340,000
Climate change increased ocean productivity: 159,000
Climate change decreased ocean productivity: 83,900
Climate change increased crop productivity: 201,000
Climate change decreased crop productivity: 195,000
Climate change increased bad weather: 241,000
Climate change decreased bad weather: 177,000
Climate change averse impacts on health: 22,400,000
Climate change positive impacts on health: 20,400,000.
I then tried:
improved forest productivity climate change: 206,000
reduced forest productivity climate change: 208,000
I will be frank in stating that I am not sure what the above means, but I would be hesitating to take too much from it at all – certainly not when bark beetles are creaming north american forests. I would have expected the actual hits for the forest productivity to have the very heavy ‘bias’ resulting from the inclusion of bark beetle hits. But it does not look like the case. (One of the bark beetle species killing millions of hectares of forest is normally limited in population numbers by runs of very low winter minima, but not any more.)
Boerwar,
I think Dr Schoneveld was analysing the quality not just the quantity of the Google searches eg; “you will never find butterflies thriving and cockroaches suffering” in correlations with global warming.
“Climate change” is also a popular but inaccurate description for AGW (anthropogenic global warming). Climate change is never disputed by the serious sceptic, it’s always been happening and always will. That is a part of my sceptical position – separation of ‘naturally driven climate change’ from the human driven variety (AGW).
I recently Googled some solar energy companies to see what it was like to take advantage of the $8000 Federal Govt subsidy for domestic PV Solar installation.
A 1.04kW ‘home power station’ with grid feed inverter cost about $12000. It saved about $0.81 (81 cents) per day in coal fired grid power usage which averaged about $300 per year. This will produce the power output of a domestic frypan.
Without the subsidy it would take $12000/300 = 40 years to pay for itself. With the $8000 taxpayer subsidy it would cost a net $4000 and take about 13 years to pay for itself.
Scaling up to 3kW and 6kW ‘home power stations’ cost about $40,000 and $80,000 respectively, and the $8000 subsidy off these systems took the payoff periods to 35 years and 40 years.
The PV solar panels were warrantied for 20 years, and other components 10 years.
Assuming the PV panels have a usable life of 35-40 years, they just pay for themselves when ready to be replaced (and this ignores any interest cost on the initial capital over 35 – 40 years).
To be commercially viable, a 7-10 year payback period would be reasonable, and this would require a cost reduction for PV solar to 20-25% of current costs. ie 4-5 times cheaper than at present.
For those who see all the house roofs in Australia covered in PV solar panels, (just 4000 km2), please supply a working cost model.
I think I will wait for the next generation of PV Solar – one that actually produces a saleable surplus of energy and is not a cost black hole subsidised by cheap coal fired energy.
Perhaps someone with a bigger brain than I, could advise what the energy economics of PV solar would be if coal fired energy generated at 4-5 cents per kWh was subsituted by PV solar energy at many times that cost in a closed system.
Would you be able to make the silicon wafer, glass, aluminium, etc which composes a solar panel with the energy produced by that panel over its lifetime? If not the whole PV solar enterprise is unsustainable at current costs and efficiencies without cross subsidy by much cheaper energy sources – an energy black hole.
Ken, your grade for your essay is D-. Although your grasp of basic arithmetic is sound there are a number of problems that need to be addressed if you are to produce work of acceptable quality.
Firstly, you appear to be under the misapprehension that the correct unit of accounting for energy calculations is the dollar. It is in fact the Watt (or Joules per second). In this light, the energy payback time of solar, hydro, wind, geothermal, or any other renewable energy is far more interesting than their dollar cost. Watts are a more suitable unit of measurement than dollars becuase their rate of production is fixed, wheras dollar costs vary over time, and because they much more closely mirror the nature of the good being produced.
Secondly, while you’re eager to point out the subsidy involved in solar production, you make no effort to point out the governmnent subsidies enjoyed by the fossil fuel producers, which are substantial. Because they are well established, subsidy of fossil fuel energy inherrently appears more efficient per watt than renewable energies at their current stage in the market are realising the full potental of economies of scale and technological maturity. With appropriate investment into R&D and infrastructure, there is no reason why renewable energy technology can not be in precisely the same position after some period of time.
Thirdly, despite substantial dataavailable (example is not comprehensive) that shows that photovoltaics, the most inefficient of the solar technologies have a short net energy payback time, you present this notion as if it is speculative and unproven.
In summary, I am disappointed in your work this term. While you can clearly write on subjects that interest you, you are unwilling to deal with ideas that do not fit your preconceptions. I hope that after the upcoming holidays, that you apply yourself more thoroughly to your work and make an effort to develop a more balanced view.
Welcome to the cage kdkd. I presume that the others have left because I made a good argument or a real stink.
I had a look at your ‘substantial data’ about the payback period in erergy terms for PV solar. The number is 1 up to 2.7 years. Amazing. Then Snow White – why is PV solar so expensive?
The data is not clear on whether *all* the energy inputs required to make a ‘solar home power system’ have been included – or just the discrete manufacturing of the PV cell itself with the raw materials ignored.
eg; to get all the energy inputs I would expect to include the aluminium, glass, labour, fuel etc etc right back to bauxite in the ground and sand on the beach.
In fact, that is what a dollar cost represents. In any industrial product chain, the raw material of one link is the end product of another. Excluding profits and royalties, all the cost in any product is represented by human labour (an energy absorber) and the energy contribution of every process involved. So the dollar cost should proportion to the total energy expended in making any product.
If PV solar is 1-2.7 years (say 2 years) in energy payback, then coal fired energy must be several times less ie. about 6 months. Seems very short doesn’t it?
The tough thing about solar is that the sun can’t be talked into squirting more than about 1 kW per sq.m onto the surface of Earth, so no matter what gadget you use, the collection area will only reduce with greater PV efficiency and that generally means greater cost.
Perhaps kdkd you can start putting numbers on your assertions, and we will see how they stack up.
Ken: Plenty of life cycle analysis stuff for you to sink your teeth into here. Interestingly a lot of it seems to be calculated in the fairly far northern hemisphere. Having said that, asking me to do the research component of your assignment for you is simply unacceptable.
Your penultimate paragraph doesn’t make much sense, PV is only one approach to solar, solar isn’t the only renewable channel. 1KW per M2 is quite a lot by the way, but as any skeptic will tell you, it doesn’t work for solar at night time, and needs a lot of geographic optimisation. The sun’s failure to consistently shine is a further optimisation problem that’s presented as intractable by the skeptics.
Coal fired energy will never have an energy payback time, as you just have to keep digging it out of the ground, and once it’s burned, there’s no getting it back. That’s what non-renewable means! Also unlike renewable energy, the amount of energy generated by fossil fuels will never exceed the embedded energy within the material itself. With renewables, there’s an existing constant flux of energy (which is input at a fixed rate) that you can tap into, but you have to invest into constructing the tap first.
Don’t buy your econobabble about dollar/energy correlations. Maybe that stuff works in an idealised scenario (aka model), but the political economy distorts that substantially.
So I’m afraid I’m unable to reconsider my grade of D-. I suspect that the reason it went quiet here was due to excessive amounts of nonsense being spouted by so-called-skeptics staring at the tips of their own noses.
And for those of you who have not got assignments due and failing grades, according to
Keoleian and Lewis (1997) in the mid-90s the payback time was between 1.2 and 7.4 years, depending on location and whether the installed module was frameless or not. I’m guessing that this has improved somewhat since then.
G. A. Keoleian and G. M. D. Lewis, “Application of life-cycle energy analysis to photovoltaic module design,” Progress in photovoltaics: Research and Applications 5, no. 4 (1997).
kdkd
I hope you have invested in a sturdy tap to suck energy out of the flux about us.
You will need one which pays for itself well before it wears out. I will be happy to subsidize it with tax dollars to the same proportion as coal fired energy.
As for econobabble and standardised abuse of the skeptics – well we shall all know in 10 years or so who reality is mugging.
Still the question remains; Snow White – why is PV solar so expensive?
As for your grades – you can insert them where the sun don’t shine.
Ken: PV is expensive because all forms of electricity generation that don’t have a component where electricity is generated via heat or kinetic energy are inherrently complex, and therefore likely expensive . PV does have the advantage that compared to power station they don’t suffer from ( aprox 30%) transmission losses, because the energy is used at source.
I have invested in an evacuated tube solar hot water system, which is inherrently much more efficient than either PV or the traditional flat plate solar collectors for hot water (53-150% more efficient than the flat plate collectors in my region, I don’t have figures for absolute efficiency though). Although installing them was very expensive, it’s very nice to have a tap into the flux of energy above us, and to only have to put the electric booster on 4 or 5 times a year.
From an energetic perspective it makes no sense to avoid renewable energy techs, as, to repeat what I said earlier, reneable energy will usually generate more energy than is embedded within the materials used to make the generator. This is never the case with fossil fuel energy. In economic terms, while not exactly a free lunch, it is a very very cheap lunch, which I guess is why the big polluters feel threatened by long-term investment away from their sector.
kdkd
I would have through a coal fired plant was vastly more complex than a PV solar panel or solar hot water collector. Solar hot water makes some economic sense, and has been around for a long time but is still around the 7-10 year payback in dollars, so consumers are not rushing to buy.
Boilers, Steam Turbines, Condensing & Feedheating plant, Precipitators, High Pressure Water and Steam Pipework, Cooling Plant etc…all complex but well developed technologies.
I note that the energy payback periods for PV solar at just 5% efficiency (1997) were in the 1-7 year range and the aluminium frame was a significant factor.
At an average energy payback of say 5 years, and with a 35 year life for the latest PV, we should see an energy surplus of about 6 times the original energy input to make and install the PV system.
Given that all the energy to make PV solar panels and componentry are produced in a non-renewable energy economy (coal fired, nuclear, hydro, etc), perhaps you could cite a study which examines whether PV solar can reproduce itself in a closed system where the only input is PV solar generated energy. By all means include the best location such as Phoenix or Alice Springs for the sums.
If that is the case, I suggest you have a ideal re-education community for serial AGW ‘deniers’ and other skeptics when ‘AGW denial’ becomes a criminal offence. In such a place, we can stamp out PV Solar panels instead of numberplates and grow rich on the energy surpluses we produce – and live happily ever after.
Previous post; first line …. “I would have *thought*….not through
Ken, the technology underlying coal/oil/gas generation is simple. You take something with high energy chemical bonds and you oxidise them, and this creates heat which you use to boil water. It’s just basic science developed by Newton, Lavoisier and others. In fact, the whole burning things with high embodied energy is stone age technology.
PV on the other hand relies on our understinding of quantum mechanics for us to be able to make them work. They require precision manufacturing at atomic scales.
Your other point is interesting, but it’s just a matter of infrastructure, at least for the energy requirements of these systems (feedstock is a longer term problem that is less acute if we stop burning so much oil). Perhaps good policy would be to phase out across the board subsidy for fossil fuel producers and re-target them to fossil fuel producers whose products are used to create renewable infrastructure. Eventually the economics of the energy production should reach critical mass so that renewables beget renewables.
kdkd
Happy to phase out all subsidies for fossil fuels and let renewables fight it out on a level playing field.
Dubious about the idea of ‘build it and they will beget’.
Like to see some analysis of the ‘tipping point’ in cost where a PV solar panel reproduces itself let alone (god forbid) 1.5 little PV’s
Andrew Glikson has escaped the cage – and his needle is caught in the groove…
When you look at the whole AGW case, it nearly all rests on the last 40-50 years of ‘recent proxy’ temperature readings, and the human release of CO2 over the ‘industrial revolution’.
Well, the industrial revolution really only got going from about 1800 onward, and CO2 levels had only risen to about 310ppm by 1950.
Temperatures started continuously rising from a trough in about 1650, which is roughly 200 years *before* CO2 levels started a more rapid rise around 1850. Warming was happening anyway, and its (non-CO2) contribution (noise) to the observed rise is never discussed in the AGW story.
The Holocene has been remarkably stable (compared with previous interglacials) with a 0.5 degree C cooling trend over the last 8000 years, and the Wikipedia averaged chart shows approx nine (9) peak-trough temperature swings in the amplitude range of about 0.4 degC. All of which is natural background ‘noise’.
Hence a logical proposition is to run your climate change models backwards with reasonably well known input data (the historical record) and see how accurately they duplicate the known temperature proxies. If the backwards correlations were accurate, then we could have much higher confidence that the background ‘noise’ of natural climate forcings was being correctly modelled, and crucially; that any industrially released CO2 and other GHG effects could be separated out.
Consider the logical absurdity that climate models run very poor correlations backwards with known historical data, yet are trumpeted by AGW theorists as reliable predictors of the future where the input factors going forward are increasingly unknown or just plainly unknowable 40-50 years hence.
Never has the rate of CO2 released from fossil fuel burning and land use been higher than in the last 10 years, yet global temperatures are flat or slightly falling.
What AGW theorists rarely discuss is the role CO2 plays in cooling mechanisms which have peaked and reversed the last 3 interglacials. Icemelt/ocean albedo and re-freezing feedbacks are stated to be the most important mechanisms. Andrew Glikson has stated that the Earth’s atmosphere/ocean system is sensitive to even minor forcings and temperature changes of 0.2 to 0.4 deg C have ended civilizations. All of which happened without human release of ‘industrial’ scale CO2 at all!
The exact role CO2 plays when the system is cooling is still vague. In the case of Prof Karoly’s ‘Swindle’ debate, his CO2 played an incoherent game of ocean absorption/release /feedback/warming – always warming, with icemelt/ocean albedo thrown in to boot! The exact scale of absorption of CO2 by the world’s oceans is largely unknown.
Last week ‘The Economist’ Science & Technology section (23May09) reported that jelly fish like thaliaceans (a type of gelatinous chordate) are one third carbon by weight and in their billions could sink *twice* as much carbon to the ocean bottom as dead planktonic algae; hitherto assumed to be the main way of sinking carbon to the ocean bottom. “The carbon cycle has thus acquired another epicycle – something that will have to be added to computer models of how the climate works”.
Without reasonable confidence in the current climate models (gained by accurate backward correlations), who could reasonably argue that CO2 is a major forcing, when Dr Glikson’s ‘minor’ forcings (all natural factors) have caused major climate change in the historical record?
The Antarctica story is critical. AGW theorists have recently found ‘continental’ warming, when respected scientists on the spot find a 30 year cooling trend, and increased East Antarctic ice outweighing lost West Antractic ice. East Antarctica is 4 times bigger than West Antarctica. At 90% of the Earth’s ice, Antarctica is the big knob on the Earth’s thermostat – vastly bigger than all the other global glaciers, ice sheets and the Arctic combined.
A vast climate change edifice is therefore based on 30-40 years of data, with the last 10 years being discounted as a ‘weather anomaly’ by AGW theorists.
Much of the edifice has been based on James Hansen’s NASA/GISS construction of the data. Given the Earth’s vast history of natural climate change, sometimes abrupt and disruptive; a logical thinker would conclude that a lot more than 30-40 years of data is needed to verify the CO2 driven warming theory.
Ken: “Interesting” parroting of the same old boring stuff. A nice remix of a variety of climate skeptic talking points. So as to not waste too many electrons, here’s some starting points to help you improve your grade next time.
1. [There's nothing happening stage of denial, contradictory evidence] 100 years is not enough: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/01/one-hundred-years-is-not-enough.php
2. [There's nothing happening stage of denial, inadequate evidence]: Warming stopped in 1998: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/04/warming-stopped-in-1998.php
3. [[There's nothing happening stage of denial, contradictory evidence] The temperature records are unreliable: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/temperature-record-reliability-attack.php
Because this time you have creatively knitted together various climate change sceptic talking points into a semi-coherent rant, in a way that makes it superficially appear that it’s not just the same-old-same-old argument, I’ll give you an improved grade of D+, but as you’re basically still failing to examine the evidence thoroughly and in a balanced way then it’s still a failing grade.
kdkd – please grade the following.
1) Mars, Jupiter and Pluto are all experiencing Global Warming. It seems unlikely that Earth’s warming is independent of theirs.
2) Solar cycles, plate tectonics, volcanic activity, changes in Earth’s orbit, changes in the Sun’s position relative to the gravitational centre of the solar system, ocean currents and many other natural factors all play a part in the climate system. On what basis do we assume that all those factors remain equal while an increase of CO2 to 0.0004 of the atmosphere has driven all recent warming?
3) History shows that periods of warmth tend to be better for human society. Why are we panicking about a very small increase in the observed temperature over 100 years?
4) The latest UAH data shows May 2009 was just 0.04C above the 30 year mean temperature. Why are temperatures flat while CO2 levels are increasing?
Tamas,
You know that you can go and visit the how to talk to a cliamte change sceptic pages yourself, you don’t need me to do it for you (it’s at http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php). Nice little grab bag of sceptic talking points here though, although I must say that Ken did a better job of confabulation (that’s a psychological term for making things up into a coherent story) than your selection of bullet points.
So: 1. It’s interplanetary global warming. (comes under the category that Climate change is [exclusively] natural, but this is really an extension of the claim that it’s the sun causing climate change. Short answer, no there has been no increase in solar radiation reaching earth since around 1940. Longer answer: have a look at the pages linked from here: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/04/its-sun-stupid.php . I’m a particular fan of the realclimate.org blog as it’s written by real scientists, not pretend ones outside of their field like me.
2. A nice grab bag, but not coherently put at all. We already covered the sun. Ocean currents aren’t an independent variable in this system (if you don’t understand what this means, then your grasp of scientific method is so tenuous then you’ve got a big problem with the legitimacy of your opinion). The plate tectonics argument is nonsense (http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/10/global-warming-comes-from-within.php). There’s a general lack of detail here that smacks of grasping at straws. As for the “there’s no proof that CO2 is causing global warming argument”, you can pick up any number of textbooks from the 1950s onwards that will explain the physics to you. Or you can read this: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/there-is-no-proof-that-co2-is-causing.php .
3. The “a warmer world would be better” argument. Classic intellectual incoherence. You start by saying it doesn’t matter anyway, and then continue with an even if it does matter, then it doesn’t matter statement. “It’s not where it is, it’s how fast it’s moving”. http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/whats-wrong-with-warm-weather.php .
4. This is the “it was cold to day in Wagga Wagga” and as such is worthy of nothing but derision. http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/its-cold-today-in-wagga-wagga.php
So overall this scrapes an
E-. Lacks intellectual coherence (unlike the opposite argument that AGW is a problem) and generally shows little more than the ability of the poster to memorise a few talking points.
3. Global warming is better for humanity.
kdkd
Last week The Economist’s Science & Technology section (23May09) reported that jelly fish like thaliaceans (a type of gelatinous chordate) are one third carbon by weight and in their billions could sink twice as much carbon to the ocean bottom as dead planktonic algae; hitherto assumed to be the main way of sinking carbon to the ocean bottom. “The carbon cycle has thus acquired another epicycle — something that will have to be added to computer models of how the climate works”.
Indeed, if the previously understood *main way* of sinking carbon to the ocean bottom by dead planktonic algae was given the magnitude of 1 unit, our Economist’s newly discovered thaliacean pump would add two units; making a total carbon pump of magnitude three units. Our main way has just been tripled. Seems like a worthwhile addition to computer models, especially when one carbon absorption variable is tripled and then compounded for 40 years to tell us what the temperature will be in 2050.
Tamas,
kdkd is Crikey’s talent scout – marking our cards. This is for the paid job of ‘official AGW denier’. You get to do an Andrew Glikson in the numbered pages and live happily ever after.
kdkd
I checked out Coby Beck – seems like a gifted amateur just like me. He even quoted the Wikipedia Holocene Temperature Chart which I sent to Crikey before the ‘Cage Fight’ was started and which is extensively discussed in earlier postings of this blog. All Coby needs to get the temperature story right is read these postings.
I hope you don’t get all your information from gifted amateurs.
I was rather hoping you had sorted out the *PV Solar begetting PV Solar* question by now; and was looking forward to marking your answer.
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I hope that thaliaceans are putting huge amounts of carbon into ocean sinks – to the extent that this bio-feedback is so powerful that it is capable of stopping CO2 global warming in its tracks. It would suit me fine.
To me, though, it seems that Thaliaceans are a useful priority for further research. In the interim, it might be useful to use a few caveats when discussing the role of the thaliaceans in global carbon sequestration.
In relation to this, your statement is fairly clear and definite: ‘Our main way has just been tripled.’
What the article actually said was:
‘But the discovery of just how carbon-rich and prone to sinking thaliaceans are may change that assumption.’ (The assumption that planktonic algae are the main biological agent for sinking carbon in oceans). Note the ‘may’.
‘He (the researcher) admits it is difficult to make accurate comparisons, because the research is still in its infancy. But he estimates that the “jelly pump”, as he refers to it, sinks almost twice as much carbon as algae do. Note both the ‘difficulty in making accurate comparisons’ and the ‘estimates’.
‘The question is, does that carbon stay down once it has arrived? That is unclear.’ Note the ‘unclear’.
Thus there are some significant questions before your logical jump from ‘may’, ‘estimates’ and ‘unclear’ to black and white certainty could be reasonably sustained.
Where is the peer review science for this article?
Where is the quantitave analysis demonstrating that the total quantum of carbon being sunk by thaliaceans is three times that of planktonic algae?
As it happens, we do know something about the distribution of thaliaceans. Their biomass is ‘highly variable’.
http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/JO/abstract/5703/57030361.html
The article is really just a bit of a speculative chat about what might be true. I would regard it as a useful lead for some serious oceanographic research.
It is far from something that could sustain the assertion, ‘That the main way has just been tripled.’
It may be that the climate models should include thaliaceans as having a significant global impact on Carbon sequestration but that would have to be based on a bit more than a largely speculative chat.
Ken: There’s no way you can be described as a gifted amateur. I don’t see any evidence that you do anything other than cherry pick evidence and jump to conclsions based on isolated data points. Coby’s “How to talk to a climate change sceptic” (http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php) work is comprehensive, well cited to popular and professional scientific sources and paints an intellectually coherent picture of multiple interacting bits of evidence where the whole is greater than the sum of thier parts. You on the other hand show a good ability to think in a contrarian way, but your jellyfish booboo suggests that you’re confusing contrarian with critical/sceptical.
As for renewables begetting renewables, I would have thought that the answer would be obvious. Once there’s a surplus of renewable energy in the system (a fair way off, and requires quite a lot of new infrastructure at this stage) then you can do what you like with the surplus. Of course getting a surplus of renewables requires quite a lot of infrastructure, and efficiency gains, but there’s nothing a-priori from stopping this.
kdkd and Boerwar:
I treat the ‘Economist’ reports with the same reverence as AGW theorists treat the offerings of Jim Hansen of NASA/GISS.
I thought the ‘could’ in the first paragraph was sufficient to quantify the uncertainty about the ‘jelly pump’. My extrapolation that *our main way has just been tripled* is still covered by the overarching ‘could’.
Economist Quote: “The carbon cycle has thus acquired another epicycle — something that will have to be added to computer models of how the climate works”. Endquote
The Economist’s final sentence seems confident enough about the research conclusions. Their information is usually pretty good but like all AGW theories – subject to further research and refinement and the possibility of sinking without trace.
Seems a lot more than ‘speculative chat’ though – bit of a booboo that!
It is interesting Boerwar that your trying to cast doubt on the importance of the Thaliaceans is a bit like the skeptics expressing similar doubts over the ‘coulds’ and ‘mights’ in documents such as IPCC AR4. How does it feel when the boot is on the other foot?
kdkd:
Is Boewar’s piece supposed to be my ‘jellyfish booboo’. Please read the above.
I would certainly place more credence in the ‘Economist’ than Coby Beck. But as Prof Don Aitken says; ‘to paraphrase Einstein; all it takes is one contraverting experiment to be right and the whole theory collapses’. Or words to that effect.
Anyway, I am flattered with my elevation in the contrarian stakes.
I am glad that you confirm my point about PV Solar and seem to extend it to all renewables ie. renewables cannot beget renewables.
Your quote: *Once there’s a surplus of renewable energy in the system (a fair way off, and requires quite a lot of new infrastructure at this stage) then you can do what you like with the surplus. Of course getting a surplus of renewables requires quite a lot of infrastructure, and efficiency gains, but there’s nothing a-priori from stopping this.*
Love that – reads like an application for a research grant.
As if the ‘surplus’ wasn’t what humankind and its industrial civilization live off!!
How about a few ‘peer reviewed numbers’ to let us all know when is a ‘fair way off’ and how much infrastructure (with how much embedded energy) is required for say Wind, PV Solar, Geothermal, Tidal, Fumaroles etc.
PS (By the way, I always thought Geothermal was a very good idea and cheap enough to bolt on to existing steam turbine technology – but it seems to be another ‘gunna’ . ‘Gunna’ happen soon.)
Gentlemen (and Ladies if such be into Cage Fighting)
Sorry to post two in a row but I could not resist this cocky rant from another fight.
“Business will exist in any climate in a market driven economy. If CO2 warming theory gets a run and Government is the buyer of ‘black hole’ renewables – business with sing from that song sheet to make a dollar.
When the AGW theorists can run their models backwards and duplicate the Holocene with accuracy; when the IPCC explains what happened to the Mann ‘hockeystick’ and where went the Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age; and when Ian Plimer recants and seeks Jim Hansen’s forgiveness – then I will gladly become a convert to the established religion of CO2 driven warming. Meanwhile, tune in for more heresy from Tamas and yours truly!”
Ken,
Personally I go to the Economist for an intelligent layman’s appreciation of political economy. Go to the New Scientist or the Scientific American for an equivalent rag on scientific issues. In the case of the jellyfish, I’ve found you the original paper here: http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_54/issue_4/1197.html , or you can grab the fulltext from this page: http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_54/issue_4/index.html . So, according to the paper itself this is a near-coastal phenomenon. It’s also occuring in a part of the ocean that according to my oceanography book (Pinet 1998) is in a part of the ocean that has some of the highest primary productivity in the world. It’s also worth noting that it’s an observational study, not experimental, so the conclusions we can draw from it are limited. It would appear that the writer in the Economist here has overreached themselves trying to create a biosequestration angle. So while it may well be an interesting addition to the carbon cycle, the magnitude of the effect is highly unlikely to be as large as we would like it to be. It’s clear from the paper that the authors present this as a part of a nutrient cycling process, not a sequestration process, which is removal of components from the system.
Onto part two. You clearly have an ability to conflate economic and political issues with scientific and engineering issues. In terms what you can do with it, energy generated from renewables is no different from energy generated from fossil fuels. If politicians and lobbyists hadn’t spent the best part of my life wasting our time clinging to outmoded 19th century ways of doing things, it’s likely that the political and economic barriers would have been breached many years ago and we’d be well on the way to a self-sustaining renewables industry (no, not a perpetual motion machine).
And finally, I’m sick of doing your research for you. How about you dig out the numbers on self-sustaining renewables if it’s so interesting to you?
Peer Reviewers, your review of ECOENG’s piece would be interesting. The Leipzig Institute of Marine Science is hardly a crackpot outfit. Maybe the Thaliaceans have a hand in this warming hiatus.
ECOENG writes:
“On 1 May 2008 Keenlyside and others of Germany’s Leipzig Institute of Marine Science, published a paper in ‘Nature’ forecasting no additional global warming “over the next decade.”
Al Gore and his minions will continue to chant that “the science is settled” on global warming, but the only thing settled is that there has not been any since 1998. Critics of this view (rightfully) argue that 1998 was the warmest year in modern record, due to a huge El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean, and that it is unfair to start any analysis at a high (or a low) point in a longer history. But starting in 2001 or 1998 yields the same result: no warming.
The Keenlyside team found that natural variability in the Earth’s oceans will “temporarily offset” global warming from carbon dioxide. Seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is oceanic; hence, what happens there greatly influences global temperature.
It is now known that both Atlantic and Pacific temperatures can get “stuck,” for a decade or longer, in relatively warm OR cool patterns. The North Atlantic is now forecast to be in a cold stage for a decade, which will help put the damper on any global warming. Another long term Pacific temperature pattern (the Pacific Decadal Oscillation); PDO) is also forecast not to push warming either.
Proponents of aggressive legislation like to point to the 2007 science compendium from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In it there are dozens of computer-driven projections for 21st-century warming.
Not one of them projected that the earth’s natural climate variability will shut down global warming from carbon dioxide for two decades. Yet, that is just what appears to be happening.
If you think about it, all we really possess to project the future of complex natural systems such as the Earth’s climate, are computer models. Therefore, if the models that serve as the basis for policy do not work – and that must be the conclusion if indeed we are at the midpoint of a two-decade hiatus in global warming – then there is no verifiable science behind the current hysteria.
What does this mean for the future? If warming is “temporarily offset” for two decades, does all the “offset” warming suddenly appear with a vengeance, or is it delayed?
Computer models, like the one used by Keenlyside, et al., rely on “positive feedbacks” to generate much of their warming. First, atmospheric carbon dioxide warms things up a bit. Then the ocean follows, raising the amount of atmospheric water vapor, which is a greater source of global warming than carbon dioxide. When the ocean does not warm up, it seems that the additional warming is also delayed.
All of this may mean that we have simply overestimated the amount of warming that results from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. What the climate zealots are incapable of acknowledging is that this final point has actually been a subject of much debate for over a decade. This is the core issue that makes their claims of a ‘consensus’ or ‘the science is settled’ laugably naive.
A significant number of recent publications in the peer-reviewed literature argue that observed changes in temperature show the “sensitivity” of temperature to increasing carbon dioxide is lower than earlier estimates.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, this currently suggests a 21st-century warming trend that will be near to, or lower than the minimum value calculated by the climate models in the IPCC compendium. But who really knows? Before Keenlyside dropped his bombshell, few scientists would have said publicly that global warming could stop for two decades. Anyone raising that possibility would doubtlessly have been treated to the smug reply that “the science is settled,” and that only the most bumptious ignoramus could raise such a question.
The only ‘thing’ that currently appears “settled” is the politics, NOT the science and we all know what a transient and illusory thing ‘political truth’ is!
Pressures to pass impossible-to-achieve legislation, are based upon projections of rapid and persistent global warming. The truth is: current science no longer provides justification for any mad rush to pass drastic global warming legislation.”
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My comments were not based on the authority of individuals or of journals. So I will regard your comments on those as being germane to red herrings and not thaliaceans.
My comments were based on the internal inconsistency of the article, the lack of peer review, the complete lack of quantitive analysis, and the various uncertainties specified in the body of the article. I now add the observation that none of these acknowledged uncertainties were quantified so there is no scientific basis for statements relating to degrees of probability, let alone certainty.
Being sceptical, I assessed the article as having real value as speculation rather than providing a statistically rigorous, peer reviewed conclusion which has any weight at all. Clearly, the contribution of thaliaceans to oceanic carbon sinks needs the proper quantitative scientific attention which to date it has not had. You may differ. If so, I am prepared to acknowledge that your benchmarks for scepticism may differ from mine.
You raise the point that I have doubts about the thaliaceans. I do indeed, and so do the researchers in the article. They specify the quality of these uncertainties in the article but not the quantitative parameters of the uncertainties. I have itemised these uncertainties above. I gave the reasons for for some additional doubts of my own. I provided a peer-reviewed article as the basis for these additional doubts. You have not addressed the bases for either my doubts or the uncertainties expressed by the researchers in the article. Instead you descended into an ad hominem attack on what you appear to assume to be selective doubt raising on my part.
The article moves from gross levels of scientific uncertainty of various kinds to a statement of certainty. The conclusion of the article is:
“The carbon cycle has thus acquired another epicycle — something that will have to be added to computer models of how the climate works”.
In this context, your words were: ‘Our main way has just been tripled.’ For good effect you propose some maths applying this statement to temperature predictions.
You may wish to withdraw the statement, clarify it, qualify it, or even acknowledge that there is no science underpinning the statement. You might modify the statement to agree that it is speculative and well worth pursuing in terms of further scientific research. Then again, you may even try to persuade the sceptical amongst us to accept the statement as it stands.
The Keenlyside stuff looks interesting. The full reference is at Keenlyside et.al. (2008) “Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the
North Atlantic sector” Nature 453, 84–88 (http://xrl.us/bevsxk), and there’s an interesting less technical explanation in the same issue on page 43. It’s quite an interesting read, and maybe if true buys us a little bit of time compensating for the appalling policy vacuum of the last two decades.
It’s interesting how the contrarians will use models when it suits them (hey look at Keenlyside, maybe it’s not so urgent after all!) but given that I’ve got environmental science texts on my bookshelves from the late 80s that basically say that when AGW kicks in we’ll see warming at the arctic first, which is well and truly being confirmed by observations now. The effects of warming in high lattitudes and at altitude is obvious, and rapid, but the contrarians don’t like to admit that this is just confirming the models, and quite possibly closer to the “worst case” end rather than the end we would all want it to be at.
136 Boerwar
A very scholarly analysis. Suggest you send it to the ‘Economist’ letters page and preface it with ‘SIR’.
Perhaps the ‘Economist’ science and technology writer has satisfied him or herself that the certainty in the final sentence is justified. Perhaps the rise and sinking of the Thaliaceans could best be described as a ‘known unknown’ instead of an ‘unknown unknown’.
for kdkd and Boerwar:
ECOENG makes the point that *All of this may mean that we have simply overestimated the amount of warming that results from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide*.
This could also mean that the oceans are absorbing more carbon dioxide without warming and that ‘known unknowns’ like the ‘jelly pump’ *could* be factors in that.
Notice I said *could* – wouldn’t want to claim something that wasn’t peer reviewed would I?
I am heartened by the lack of dissent about my ‘non-peer reviewed’ statement that the climate models produce very poor correlations with the Holocene when run backwards (hindcasts).
ie: “Consider the logical absurdity that climate models run very poor correlations backwards with known historical data, yet are trumpeted by AGW theorists as reliable predictors of the future where the input factors going forward are increasingly unknown or just plainly unknowable 40-50 years hence.”
Given that even Coby Beck uses the Wikipedia Holocene Temperature Chart and it shows a cooling trend of about 0.5 degC over the last 8000 years with the averaged curve (the thick black wriggly line) showing approx nine peak-trough temperature swings in the amplitude range of about 0.4 degC.
Reference link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.pngs
Crikey featured expert Andrew Glikson has stated that the Earth’s atmosphere/ocean system is sensitive to even minor forcings and temperature changes of 0.2 to 0.4 degC have ended civilizations. All of which happened without human release of ‘industrial’ scale CO2 at all!
On this point it seems that Dr Glikson and Prof Plimer agree – human civilizations have risen and fallen due to climate change in the Holocene.
Which brings me back once again to my key point; unless you can ‘hindcast’ climate computer models to the accuracy of Dr Glikson’s ‘civilization ending’ 0.2-0.4 degC – then you cannot know that all the natural input forcings and their complex relationships (background noise) are accurately computer modelled at all.
If you do not accurately model the background noise temperature signal then you cannot accurately separate out the effect of industrial release of CO2.
The issue of ‘known unknowns’ then becomes an urgent topic for research eg. clouds, aerosol effects, biological processes – even Thaliaceans.
Even if you got accurate climate ‘hindcasting’, computer modelling with a number of variables compounded over say 40 years forward to 2050 or 90 years to 2100 would have all the mathematical error of compounding. Tiny errors in the accuracy of one variable can produce large errors in results when cycled many many times.
Unless you can time travel and send back corrective readings every few years – I don’t see how the ‘compounding’ error problem of computer model forecasts could ever be solved.
Over to you boys..
Ken,
Your holocene chart doesn’t support your argument. From the wikipeda page: “Because of the limitations of data sampling, each curve in the main plot was smoothed and consequently, this figure can not resolve temperature fluctuations faster than approximately 300 years. Conveniently this also exposes your hindcasting furphy as well. To understand this, you’ll have to think two things. Firstly, what can we directly observe now (answer: lots), and what can we directly observe from the past (answer: comparitively, not much). So, the models we can run that are based on actual collected climatic data are of course going to have different resolution from reconstructions of past climate. In fact you may not have notices, but reconstructions of past climate are also models (admittedly based on the measurement of some geophysical phenomena, but models nonetheless). The available models of current climate are a bit like a 30cm ruler, able to measure at the precision somewhere between 0.5mm and 2mm (depending on the quality of the ruler), while, in comparison, the holocene model is like a 300km ruler, which can maybe meaure to the precision of a kilometer. While we can align our 30cm ruler up to the end of our 300km ruler to get an idea of the differences of behaviour at scale, because our scale is time rather than space, we can’t actually align our model up further back on the scale. The only thing we can do further back in time is to estimate precision based on the current data. So your request for hindcasting seems of very little relevance.
Your assertion that the world is cooling doesn’t stack up either. As stated, the precision of 300 years means that estimates of current temperature based on the holocene model actually encompass pre- and post-industrial society, including clear confounding factors like smog and aerosol production. You’ll need at least another 300 years to get a single worthwhile data point to see if you’re correct, which would be rather amazing seeing as all the global climate models I’m aware of seem to be underestimating the amount of observed warming in recent history.
In conclusion, trying to treat science and statistical modelling as a sub-discipline of economics is a fool’s errand. Your approach simultaneously overstates uncertainty, while simultaneously understating uncertainty based on your own subjective biases. Proper application of scientific method generally minimises the effect of the latter while trying to provide good estimates of the degree of “objective uncertainty”. Very creative, but must fit the limitations of the observed data more closely there fore grade D
kdkd #142
Here is a quick summary of what I see in this Wikipedia Holocene Chart:
1) The average “0″ baseline is a mid-20th century temperature. The trend over the last 8000 years is a *fall* in temperature of approx 0.5 degrees C
2) The heavy black wriggly line (the average of all 8 proxies) has a peak to trough amplitude of about 0.4 deg C
3) There are 5 peaks in this average above the mid-20th century temperature – all occuring in the 4000 – 8000 year BP range.
4) There are 4 peaks below the mid-20th century average, all in the 800 – 3500 BP range.
5) The range of trough to peak time interval is 200-500 years.
6) The last trough was about 350 years ago (little ice age) around 1650 which bottomed out at an average of approx 0.5 deg C *below* the mid-20th century baseline.
7) The average today (2004 on this Chart) is still approx 0.2 deg C below the mid-20th century baseline.
Note *I am not sure if the 300 year resolution applies to the last 2000 year inset – it would not make much sense if it did* Maybe kdkd could clarify this.
9) The 8 proxies have much greater swings in temperature from -1.3 deg C to +1.5 deg C (2.8 deg C) over 8000 years.
10) When you look at this time scale you can see that the steepness of the averaged curve (the rapidity of the temperature changes) are not vastly different and the last 350 years is of comparable steepness to rises occuring at roughly 2200, 3400, 4600, 5300, 6400, 7300 and 8000 years BP.
CO2 (not plotted on this chart) rose from about 260 to 280ppm over most of this 8000 year period up until about 1850. Ice core data gives CO2 rising from about 290-310ppm from 1850 to 1950, and from 310-380ppm from 1950 to present.
When you look at the whole AGW case, it nearly all rests on the last 40-50 years of ‘recent proxy’ temperature readings (often quoted in the NH only), and the human release of CO2 over the ‘industrial revolution’.
Well, the industrial revolution really only got going from about 1800 onward, and CO2 levels had only risen to about 310ppm by 1950.
Temperatures started continuously rising from a trough in about 1650, which is roughly 200 years *before* CO2 levels started a more rapid rise. Warming was happening anyway, and its (non-CO2) contribution (noise) to the observed rise is never discussed in the AGW story.
The Holocene has been remarkably stable (compared with previous interglacials) with a 0.5 degree C cooling trend over the last 8000 years, and the Wikipedia averaged chart shows approx nine (9) peak-trough temperature swings in the amplitude range of about 0.4 degC in the averaged smoothed curve -not the proxies, which have an amplitude range of about 2.8 degC.
Even with this relative stability, Dr Glikson finds that human civilizations have ended with temperature changes of 0.2-0.4 degC.
kdkd – if you have better information please reveal it. You referred us to Coby Beck who was using the same Wikipedia Chart for the Holocene time scale.
Your discussion of the time scales is confusing. There is plenty of historical data of what happened in the last 2000 years back to Roman times, and information from antiquity which can be cross referenced with proxies. For sure the further back you go, the poorer the resolution of the data.
Dare I say (non-peer reviewed) Prof Ian Plimer (Heaven + Earth) has dozens of references to proxies back to the Bristlecone pine (8000 years old), and a swathe of cross referencing to historical events such as the Roman Warming, Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age.
Much of this temperature variation was temporarily lost by the IPCC in the Mann hockeystick interpretation of the Holocene.
I assume you prefer Coby Beck’s last 8000 years to Mann’s?
I don’t think you addressed my point about the mathematical uncertainty of compounding when running forecasts forward 40 to 90 years. Is this point a subjective bias on my part?
Ken @ 141
It seems that you have accepted my point about the lack of science underpinning the conclusion of the Economist’s article that:
“The carbon cycle has thus acquired another epicycle — something that will have to be added to computer models of how the climate works”.
You also appear to have agreed with me that there is a lack of science underpinning your post, which stated: ‘Our main way has just been tripled.’
Further, with your reference to ‘Known unknown’ we appear to have reached agreement on another point I made in an earlier post. I pointed out that the Economist’s article was in the nature of a useful speculative chat.
To draw our two points together, thaliaceans may contribute significantly to oceanic carbon sinks and are therefore a useful focus for further research.
In my view that is what the researchers in the article were actually trying to say as well, and that it was the writer in The Economist who appears to have gone a bridge too far.
Ken:
Ian Pilmer was excoriated on radio national over the weekend. I know that these are self serving IPCC scientists that are doing the excoriation and therefore part of the conspiracy, but I’m glad to see that the reviewers on the radio are accusing him of the kind of selective reporting and intellectual incoherence that I’m accusing the climate change contrarians on this forum of ( http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2009/2589206.htm http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2586947.htm ).
Re the Holocene chart. The black line on recent proxies ought to be based on the same methodology as the black line in the main chart, i.e. with 300 years resolution, otherwise there’s no intellectually coherent case for presenting those data together [edit: here we go: "Note that the short-term proxies are not at all used in constructing the average itself." ].
The additional information I have is a bit more than a decade of training in statistical methods (admittedly in the human and life sciences, so I defer to expertise and consensus on geological/meterological issues). I’m thoroughly brainwashed in scientific method, so although I’m working as an industrial sociologist at the moment, the scientific process has a major influence on my approach. Back to topic. You can’t directly compare individual data points at time t, with smoothed averages based on indirect observations over a much longer time period. It only makes sense to compare smoothed averages with smoothed averages. On the 2000 year timescale we’re still only at the beginning of the warming trend, and the direct observations we have over the most recent 150 odd years are confounded by a number of factors, some of which we can control for (e.g. lack of precision of parts of the measurement system), and some of which we can’t (e.g. the albedo effect of increased SO2 emissions). In the inset chart, it seems to me, that (a): the gradient of the line of best fit of the proxies increased dramatically some time in the mid 20th century, and (b): getting enough data to demonstrate that this is a statistically significant effect over the whole 2000 year time period of the chart would be tricky. Oh yes, (c) all the science points to strong lags in the system that the policy vacuum of the last 20-30 years has done its best to overcome.
Hope this helps
I think you’ll find that the organisms are not sinking to the ocean floor, but to the thermocline, under 100 m or so of stirred water. There is a large accumulation of organic matter there, which can be stirred up again when storm waves get large enough. Carbon dioxide does get drawn down into the deeper oceans by downwellings of cold water, particularly at the Antarctic Convergence, but the oceans remain largely oxygenated. I think the main long-term sink in the oceans is limestones laid down by living organisms in shallower water. That is, until they are suppressed by acidification.
Boerwar@146
It seems that you are determined to have a small win here – so I will not disappoint. It the interests of rigour I will rephrase my extrapolation from the ‘Economist’ report.
The overarching ‘could’ from Post #137 has just been transplanted to;
‘Our main way *could* have just been tripled.’
Happy now?
kdkd #147
I read the Ockhams’s razor transcript before it was broadcast. I thought the attack on Prof Plimer was pretty weak. It attacked a couple of minor points and avoided Prof Plimer’s main thrusts.
If I was not having so much fun with the Cage Fight, I would be further advanced than page 133 of *Heaven + Earth*. We are already at reference No. 599. The book is 493 pages and the last reference is No. 2311.
The story so far is somewhat repetitive, rambling but robust on a central theme ; the Sun did it! viz:
The Sun was thoroughly ignorant of the perfidious release of CO2 by industrialized humanity, and kept doing what it has been doing through geological time : causing climate change on Earth and on other planets in the Solar system.
All that 0.2-0.4 degC temperature change that *ended civilizations* according to Dr Glikson was a result of natural ‘forcings’ mainly caused by the Sun and its spots, wobbles, recessions, progress through the galaxy, progress in orbit, solar wind and influence on cosmic radiation.
When I finish Prof Plimer’s book I will give you all an update.
By the way, Prof Plimer is a combative character and has done over the ‘creationists’ -that other bunch of religious zealots – so don’t be surprised if he whups the newest of new age religions – anthropogenic global warming.
ken #150:
You haven’t actually done anything to refute the accusations of selective reporting, reliance on outdated information or inconsistency which Pilmer is accused of by his critics. Unless you can directly address those, I suggest that you won’t convince anyone of the merit of his arguments.
Creationism is also intellectually incoherent and relies on selective reporting of the evidence as well by the way
kdkd #151
Prof Plimer is perfectly capable of arguing his own case. I will post a summary after I have finished his *Heaven + Earth*.
I have taken two basic approaches in arguing sceptical positions on AGW. Firstly the argument from logic using generally accepted data on which we basically agree and then making deductions from that.
Secondly, I have taken specific quantities – temperatures, ‘forcings’, energy costs etc and made points from those.
Prof Plimer has taken a powerful general position: viz. *The Earth has a dynamic climate which has always changed due to many complex processes – and that will continue. Climate change has been rapid and disruptive in the Holocene and back through geological time. In the Holocene it has sharply affected human civilizations, and none of this historical change has any relationship to CO2 release or prevailing CO2 levels.*
If you accept that position then it is consistent with Dr Glikson’s position that 0.2-0.4degC temperature changes have rapidly ended human civilizations.
Where is the logic in assuming that these ‘natural forcings’ have suddenly stopped or their influence *diminished by an order of magnitude* with the human release of CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution?
The IPCC AR4 have published data based on the last 40-50 years which takes the basic position that anthropogenic forcings outweigh natural forcings by an order of magnitude ie 1.6W/sq.m. to 0.12 W/sq.m. (RF average 2005 relative to 1750).
If this is accepted as fact, then again logic would place CO2 as a vastly bigger driver than any historical driver of ‘civilization ending’ climate change in the past.
This mind boggling conclusion is all based on 40-50 years of data despite recent leveling or slight cooling of temperature and reputable scientists (eg Leipzig Institute) predicting a 20 year hiatus in warming!
I would be happy to debate with you the specifics of IPCC AR4 and its Figure 2.4 and its catastrophic implications.
Ken #152
I’m not asking for a parrotted reiteration of Pilmer’s arguments. I’m asking for a detailed, robust defence of why climate the change “sceptic” does not rely on selective reporting, cherry picking of data points and failure to follow up on new findings. If you do a good job of this (which apparently Pilmer hasn’t) this will lead on to why the mainstream (IPCC accepted) science as you see it is invalid. I don’t want parroting of the same old talking points that are the mainstay of contrarians, seemingly dominated by a particular class of late-middle aged male professional (often in the pay of an oil company or similar), I want something that will give you the basis to publish as a piece in New Scientist, Scientific American or even the pop-sci front part of Nature. Good luck, that’s a tall ask, but the climate change contrarian broken record needs to get over groundhog day and put up or shut up. Of course this means that you need to move your grade from an average of D to A, which is a tall ask.
kdkd #152
Do I detect a little frustration with AGW skeptics (contrarians) you berate as *seemingly dominated by a particular class of late-middle aged male professional (often in the pay of an oil company or similar)*?
Dear dear, is this the dummy spit from a member of a younger class of kiddie to whom much has been given and very little asked?
Resorting to smearing AGW skeptics as the tools of Big Oil instead of treating the arguments on their merits is the sort of low blow which Cage Fighters have commendably avoided to date.
Perhaps such frustration has resulted from a few niggling doubts raised by my points playing on your scientifically brainwashed mind and obvious intelligence.
For a start please offer a refutation of the simple logic of the arguments I have presented in #152 eg:
Quote: *The Earth has a dynamic climate which has always changed due to many complex processes – and that will continue. Climate change has been rapid and disruptive in the Holocene and back through geological time. In the Holocene it has sharply affected human civilizations, and none of this historical change has any relationship to CO2 release or prevailing CO2 levels.*
If you accept that position then it is consistent with Dr Glikson’s position that 0.2-0.4degC temperature changes have rapidly ended human civilizations.
The IPCC AR4 have published data based on the last 40-50 years which takes the basic position that anthropogenic forcings outweigh natural forcings by an order of magnitude ie 1.6W/sq.m. to 0.12 W/sq.m. (RF average 2005 relative to 1750).
If this is accepted as fact, then again logic would place CO2 as a vastly bigger driver than any historical driver of ‘civilization ending’ climate change in the past.” endquote
I have challenged the venerable National Geographic Society (NGS) with a piece but they studiously ignore antipodean upstarts.
Remember that I am just a humble middle aged piano player in the brothel of climate change clients.
Low blows hurt because they’re to the testicles also known as the “vitals”. There’s plenty of documented evidence that the fossils have paid PR “scientists” to do their dirty work. Many of these people appear to have had past links to tobacco company PR efforts.
“Nothing to do with C02 in the past.” Maybe not, CO2 obviously doesn’t have to be the only driver. Previous large climate change when humans were around occured when society was pre-agricultural (agriculture as we know it has only been around for around 10,000 years).
The rest of your statement seems to reiterate evidence that yes, runaway CO2 emissions, and the associated positive feedback loops that seem to be kicking in at the beginning of what could become runaway global warming are an enormous risk that we need to take seriously, and act upon.
Then again, natural history suggests that when organisms overshoot and their consumption levels exceed the resouces available in the environment, this results in population crash. Humans on the other hand ought to have the intellect to be able to mitigate this, although I can’t think of a historical precedent for this at a national or regional level.
kdkd #155
I think you are a statistician of sorts. Perhaps you could think on this overnight. It is a devilish detail: (for more discussion see Post #61 with Mark Byrne)
IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 gives a range of +0.6Wsq.m to +2.4W/sq.m. with an average heat-up power of the magical +1.6W/sq.m. Are we to assume that the +0.6W/sq.m is 90% certain and that +2.4W/sq.m is 10% certain? What certainty level is the +1.6W/sq.m? You do not have to be a mathematician to work out that 0.6 is roughly one third of the 1.6 and one quarter of the 2.4. Net heat-up power applied to every sq.m of the Earth’s surface is the basis of global warming theory. Is it not fair to conclude that the warming theorists could be wildly inaccurate in predicting temperature increases when our highest estimated heat up power could be 4 times the lowest and our average heat-up power nearly 3 times the lowest?”
Ken #155
You’ve misread this. The estimated mean anthropogenic forcing effect is 1.6 W/m2, and the 95% confidence interval is between 0.6 and 2.4 W/M2. The important thing to note from this is that zero is not a part of this range, nor even close – this means that the anthropogenic forcing effect is significantly different from zero. In terms of statistical theory you can’t infer anything further than that. While I can’t easily calculate the 99% confidence interval without digging through the report for some specific figures, the normal distribution, which these error bars are generated with are asymptotic, which means the incremental uncertainty added by an extra 4% from 95-99% wouldn’t add very much, compared to say moving from a 90%CI to a 95% CI. So the the minimum estimated figure would still be quite a long way from zero. So to get 0 in the confidence interval we’d probably need the 99.999999999999% confidence interval or something, which is awfully close to 99.99[recurring], for which a mathematical proof is available to state that 0.9 recuring is the same number as 1.
To finish off, let’s translate these into more familiar figures – Kilowatt hours per kilometre2 and per metre2. A watt is one joule per second, and the IPCC figures are expresssed in Watts/m2. So if we just multiply the figure of 1.6W/m2 by 3600 (number of seconds in an hour) we get 5760 KWh/km2. That’s a lot of energy. We can make it less scary by dividing by 1000 to get KWh/m2 which is 5.76. That’s suggests that the anthropogenic forcing effect is equivelent of nearly 6 bar heaters per metre squared across the planet surface running 24 hours a day. That’s where atmospheric effects, and the buffering effect of the ocean and the earth and other variables come into play to protect us from some, but not all of this effect (and also to make the system subject to lag).
Now the really interesting thing is that if you look at solar irradiance above in the same figure, a favourite of climate change contrarian talking point, we see that although the uncertainty of the estimate is lower (the 95% CI is a smaller spread), the magnitude of the effect is also 10 times lower.
kdkd
I do understand what a confidence interval is. My question was different. Your answer did not address the central point anyway viz. *Is it not fair to conclude that the warming theorists could be wildly inaccurate in predicting temperature increases when our highest estimated heat up power could be 4 times the lowest and our average heat-up power nearly 3 times the lowest?”*
Setting that aside for now, I really am staggered by your *bar heater* analogy.
I assume you are talking about a typical 1kW (1000W) bar heater. Six (6) of them would deliver 6000W of heating power. Your area is per metre squared which presumably is a sq.m (or m2 if you like).
Your heaters are therefore delivering 6000W per sq.m; NOT the 1.6W per sq.m of IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 fame.
You are only in error by a factor of 6000/1.6 = 3750 times. Scary indeed.
If one order of magnitude is 10 fold and two orders is 100 fold then you are between 3 and 4 orders of magnitude in error.
Pity it takes a white middle-aged professional engineer to point this out to you kdkd.
ken #158
I’m sure my calculations are incorrect, I was going to have them checked by a real physicist, but you beat me to it
. My credibility as a physical scientist is dreadful.
I think that you need to consider the etimated forcing in terms of orders of magnitude, not in absolute distance from zero. Trying to think about temperature in human terms when it’s stuff that’s happening on a planet-wide scale is a dangerous thing to do, and will lead to wrong conclusions.
However we’re still sure that number is greater than zero. That’s the additional heat being stored in the earth’s atmosphere. I don’t actually think that you do really know what a confidence interval is, #156 is incoherent and doesn’t make any sense. All that matters is that the radiative forcing is above zero, and it’s about an order of magnitude greater than the effect of current variations in solar activity. Given that the sun alone has the capability to end civilisations, we’ve got to be wary about an effect that’s 10x bigger.
Figure 3.2 of IPCC AR4 (bottom p 46, must be x referenced with box on p 44) is a pretty sobrering diagram. It’s pretty clear from that that whatever we do, we’re in trouble. The rate of change of temperature curve seems exponential for the fossil fuel scenarios, while with the other scenarios the emissions rates are dropping by then. That’s really the important thing here — we’ve stuffed up, we need to contain the rate of change of the tempreature, but it’s difficult or impossible to measure the rate of change just now because of the strong lag effects and long time line that global warming occurs on. If we wait unitl 2030 or 2050 when we can clearly and unambiguously measure the effect before we do anything it will be too late.
So the question for you is if the climate gun is cocked with 3/4 of it’s bullets in the barrel, do you feel lucky punk? Well, do you?
Ken @ 149
Happy? Yes.
*exits cage*
Boerwar #160
Please don’t leave – is it something I’ve said – or is it kdkd making a booboo of staggering proportions ie. only a factor of 3750 in his calculations.
kdkd #159
I think I will let you explain CI and CL. I am such a pratt with arithmetic and diabolically incoherent regarding IPCC ‘forcings’.
Make sure that you state the confidence level (CL) of your answer and keep the confidence interval (CI) as small as possible.
So ken #162. You are correct that my KWh/m2 calculations are almost certainly wrong. I would like a worked step by step example of how to calculate KWh/m2 from w/m2 – it seems the process is slightly non-intuitive. That’s me conceding a likely error, a second time. The most helpful way for you to gloat now is to provide me with a worked example, which will educate me.
Your error appears to be that you think the confidence interval should be small to represent a substantial effect. This is incorrect, it should be a number indistinguishable from zero, which the IPCC anthropogenic CO2 and total compontents are. Compared to solar forcing, which nobody, contrarian or otherwise is in any doubt about anthropogenic components to global warming are about an order of magnitude larger (IPCC figure). So if the contrarians tell us that changes in solar input are a factor that concerns us, then the anthropogenic forcing components ought to be of about 10x greater concern to them, according to the data.
#161
I keep to leave too, but I’m concerned that there will be some back slap happy cabal of contrarians come along to turn this forum into a part of the lunatic fringe again, unless someone sticks around to keep it real.
kdkd #163
A kWh is a unit of *Energy* ie. Mechanical Work or Heat. Its units can be take back to basic dimensions Mass, Length, Time (M,L,T) as ML2/T2. (M x L squared over T squared).
Its basic unit is the Joule. A Joule is defined as the work done or energy required to exert a force of one Newton for a distance of one metre. Its basic units are therefore kG-m2/s2.
A Watt is a unit of *Power* ie. the rate at which energy is generated or transferred. It is Energy/Time. It’s units are ML2/T3. Basic units are Joule/sec (Watt) which is a kG-m2/s3.
Conversion of energy terms : 1 kWh = 3600 kJ = 3,600,000 Joules.
The kWh (or kWhr) is 1000 Watts delivered for 3600 seconds = 3,600,000 Watt-sec, and a Watt-sec is a Joule. ie; 1 Watt is a Joule/sec.
The kWh is the common ‘unit’ charged by electricity authorities at a domestic rate of about 17 cents per unit.
You can see that you get a lot of Joules for 17 cents. (3,600,000 in fact)
Is that real enough for you kdkd.
kdkd #163
While you are thinking on CI and CL, perhaps you could explain the correlation of CI with LOSU (level of scientific understanding) in the AR4 Fig 2.4.
My humble brush with statistics a long time ago was all about bell curves, standard deviations sample sizes and populations.
I don’t know what the sample size of the ‘high’ and ‘low’ LOSU terms are in Fig 2.4 but I do know that the ‘high’ LOSU forcings are mainly on the ‘heat-up’ side of the table and the ‘low’ LOSU are on the ‘cool-down’ side.
Is it good academic practice kdkd, to mix high LOSU terms with low LOSU terms, and then sum them up to produce a net number (1.6 W/m2)?
A net number which has enormous ramifications for the planet.
Ken #164
thanks for the explanation of KWh v W. That’s much clearer. So in fact the IPCC figures of W/m2 will transfer to KWh without further calculation 1.6W/m2 = 1.6KWh/km2 (correct me if I’m wrong). So we have between 1 extra 1kwh bar heater equivalents per 1.6km (0.6 W/m2) and 2.4 bar heaters per extra km2 (2.4 W/m2) with the most likely number being 1.6 bar heaters per Km2. Scaling to the surface of the earth, this is the equivalent of having 816,115,200 bar heaters on the earth’s surface running for 24h a day adding extra heat into the atmosphere. Lets put more of them at the poles and in places like Australia to reflect the outcome of the climate models as well!
With respect to the level of scientific understanding, it would appear to reflect research priorities and the known and estimated magnitude of the effects (you can make an estimate of something that’s poorly understood without necessarily making a wildly inaccurate estimate). So the largest effects, with lowest uncertainty would to a large extent mask the effect of smaller effect items with high uncertainty. I wouldn’t extend a high level of uncertainty to indicate that it’s highly likely that the magnitude of any effect with high uncertainty was wrong by orders of magnitude. In addition, the (the low) probability of being wrong is just as likely to be in the negative direction than the positive direction. So in order for that figure to be hideously wrong, we’d need multiple items of low understanding evidence to be out by one or more orders of magnitude, all in the same direction. This is even more unlikely. There’s no relationship between the size of the error bars and the size of scientific uncertainty. I’m working on the assumption that these figures are based on samples that are either medium or large in size (i.e. from the 100s to 1000s of observations), but I can’t find reference to that in the report.
Actually the report isn’t clear on whether these are quantitative uncertainties based on a theoretical distribution, bootstrap estimates of the same, or a subjective estimate of uncertainty (which would have something in common with the bootstrap uncertainty at an intuitive level).
Anyway, you’re sounding less like a climate sceptic these days, and more like someone skilled in the application of Socratic method. Well done!
kdkd #166
You are still confusing power and energy, and km2. A km2 is 1000m x 1000m which is 1,000,000 m2 – not 1000 m2.
Your calculation should be: 1 bar heater of 1kW ie. 1000W divided by 1.6W/m2 = 625 m2 per bar heater. The surface area of the Earth is approx 510,000,000 km2 which is 510E12 m2. (assume you are familiar with the exponent ‘E” to represent the power of 10).
The equivalent number of bar heaters is 510E12 divided by 625 = 8.16E11 which is 816E9..which is 816,000,000,000 x 1000W bar heaters. 816 billion bar heaters.
I think that the best comparison is to imagine a 625 m2 space… a room 25m x 25m with one x 1000W (1kW) bar heater in the middle. You would get cold in the corners.
You were only out by a factor of 1000 this time. How about a generous D- ?
You wrote: *There’s no relationship between the size of the error bars and the size of scientific uncertainty. I’m working on the assumption that these figures are based on samples that are either medium or large in size (i.e. from the 100s to 1000s of observations), but I can’t find reference to that in the report.* endquote
A big call kdkd.
Fig 2.4 description notes “best estimates and 5 to 95% uncertainty ranges”.
Could you relate this nomenclature to CI and CL?
Also do you find it passing strange that all the ‘error bars’ straddle what appears to be an arithmetic mean value for all the forcings except Tropospheric Ozone (+0.25 to +0.65)and Cloud Albedo (-1.8 to -0.3) and Solar Irradiance (0.05 to 0.3) W/m2 ?
And of course the only ‘natural’ forcing listed is Solar Irradiance at (0.05 to 0.3) W/m2.
So this puny Solar ‘natural’ forcing is responsible for all the ‘civilization ending’ rapid and disruptive (within decades to hundreds of years) climate change prior to the industrial revolution? Pray tell me it is not so!
Hehe, out by a factor of 1000 the other way this time – I’m undersetimating the effect, thus showing that my incompetence is not subject to bias.
The reason the uncertainty should be based on medium to large sample sizes is that physical phenomena are easy to measure and easy to replicate. The error bars ought to straddle the mean if they are confidence intervals, or confidence interval like things. If the underlying distribution of uncertainty is thought to be different to a normal distribution then this doesn’t hold, or if there are factors that are understood to operate at only one end of the scale, then this also doesn’t hold again.
The solar forcing component is small at present, but has the capability to vary in a manner independent of geological processes (AGW is in some sense a geological process). We haven’t got direct observations of solar forcing over a suitably long time scale, so are unable to extimate the extent to which forcing can vary.
I see the ABC science show had another review of Heaven and Earth (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2593166.htm#transcript) which nicely destroys many of Tamas Calderwoods talking points. Very eloquent and more fact packed than last week’s Occam’s Razor.
kdkd – Please list exactly the talking points you think that transcript “destroys”. I will then respond.
If I apply the Socratic method to the issue of your self-admitted incompetence in calculation of energy and power ‘forcings’; would I then conclude that all your arguments are therefore incompetent and not to be considered seriously?
I am sure you would agree that the answer is *NO*, and that each of your arguments be treated on its merits.
If that be the general case then it should apply equally to Plimer, Karoly and Walter, Tamas Calderwood and myself.
I am sure there are errors and exaggerations in Prof Plimer’s tome. It is not a tightly argued well edited read. It would be truly amazing on probability alone if all his points were proven right. In searching for the exact role that CO2 plays in warming the Earth, Plimer has no doubt exaggerated for effect, weakened his other strong arguments and probably commmitted a few howlers – just like you.
Karoly & Walter’s reviews are interesting for what they leave out. One of the critical issues is the non-linearity effect of increasing CO2. Both reviewers don’t mention it. They also tippy-toe about the major issue of warming over the Holocene.
Here is Karoly from his review:
Quote: *The report of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2006, cited by Plimer, states ‘Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all individual locations, were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since AD 900.’* endquote
So how does this damage Plimer’s case?
Karoly should then answer the obvious follow-up question – “what caused it to be so warm in AD 900?”
You have claimed; “We haven’t got direct observations of solar forcing over a suitably long time scale, so are unable to extimate the extent to which forcing can vary.”
Plimer has discussed multiple cycles of Sun activity, 11 year, 22 year etc etc and all the wobbles and geometric movements of the Earth and even the movement of the solar system through the arms of the milky way galaxy.
I am sure that the vast resources of science could come up with a reasonable estimate of what the Sun was doing just 1100 years ago.
Meanwhile let me resolve that in spite of all provocation; “that each of your arguments be treated on its merits”.
Tamas #169
Your repetitie drivel is here (http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/06/15/comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups-18/ bottom of page). The review to which I referred is here: (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2593166.htm#transcript). You can see that there is a one-to-one correspondence with the points that you raise, and rather more detailed rebuttals of why your assertions are not true than the detail you have given in raising the assertions in the first place.
Now the reason I’m being rude about your repetitive drivel is that you appear to not let the evidence get in the way of firmly holding a specific set of points of view.
Ken 170.
Socratic method is the art of asking naive questions to get the answerer to improve the logical quality of their arguments.
“Non-linearity[sic] effect of increasing CO2.”? Please show me a graph. I don’t know what you mean. Is this some kind of asymptotic thing, or some kind of chaotic osscilation. Should be easy enough to demonstrate with an experimental system either way.
It’s not tip-toeing around the Holocene data. It’s that the data there is smothed over a 300 year period. We do not have useful data about AGW at present due to this time period containing a number of confounding variables, as well as increasing CO2. This is an interesting straw man, as you seem to have applied some concrete rendering to the surface.
The mediaevel warm period appears to have been a regional north atlantic phenomenon. So yes, it’s causes are an interesting question, but not hugely relevant to the AGW argument, apart from demonstrating that regional effects not caused by CO2 concentrations can approach the kind of warming that we’re seeing at the moment. (let’s discount the ‘global warming stopped in 1998 furfy, that’s clearly an argument from statistical dishonesty or illiteracy).
Sunspots. Well to be honest, I know less about astronomy than I do about physics, but the statistics I’ve seen on this lead me to believe that these cycles, at this point in astronomical history are at least (i.e. not 4billion years ago or 1 billion years in the future), an order of magnitude smaller than the greenhouse effect and the enhanced (anthropogenic) greenhouse effect. So I’m willing to concede that my argument here is spurious, although due to the likely small magnitude, not really relevant.
kdkd Re: Post #167
Re: IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4
You wrote: *There’s no relationship between the size of the error bars and the size of scientific uncertainty. I’m working on the assumption that these figures are based on samples that are either medium or large in size (i.e. from the 100s to 1000s of observations), but I can’t find reference to that in the report.* endquote
A big call kdkd.
Fig 2.4 description notes “best estimates and 5 to 95% uncertainty ranges”.
Could you relate this nomenclature to CI and CL?
Kindly give us your answer to the above question. Keep it brief and clear because it is highly relevant to the forcings *order of magnitude* issue.
The reported non-linearity effect of CO2 is that the effect of doubling the concentration does not produce a doubling of the supposed heat-up power. eg. If the heat-up power is roughly 1.6 W/m2 attributed to CO2 (and other GHG) at say 385ppm, then doubling it to 770ppm will not produce a heat-up power of 3.2W/m2.
I think you will find that the Medieval warming was a global phenomenon.
Ken # 173
“Best estimates” = mixed methods. Bear in mind this is based on peer reviewed scientific papers, followed by development of consensus with the aim to get all participating governments to sign off on it. This makes the IPCC documents conservative, and likely to understate the magnitudes of projected effects.
Mediavel warm period. From IPCC 2001 (via Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period ): “…current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Medieval Warm Period’ appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries”. Again from a conservative consensus driven and somewhat political body.
Non linearity of CO2 effects. Please find me quantitative function or graph that describes this. Is it asymptotic, chaotic, complex or what? Until you provide that evidence, your statement doesn’t provide much in the way of contribution.
kdkd
On the polemic front – don’t you love it when Crikey feels it necessary to throw all reinforcements (Clive Hamilton, Bernard Keane and Andrew Glikson) into yesterday’s Crikey expose?
The Anti-Christ (Carter, Evans, Franks, Kinninmonth) has visited Sen. Fielding and the good Senator is listening.
When your opponents (kdkd et al) are calling you dishonest, illiterate, tools of Big Oil and smeared with tobacco, then you know you have them worried.
Of course the *cooling since 1998* can be rubbed out if you extend your scale back 40 years and smooth it a little. Just the same as using the Wikipedia smoothed curve (at 300 year resolution) to wipe out any warming at all over the last 8000 years.
So it is OK to wipe out the *cooling since 1998* by extending the time scale and trending, but not OK to use the Wikipedia trend and smooth.
And of course this warming forcing 1.6W/m2 is so potent that it can be stopped for 10 years (and probably 20 years) by an Earth based ElNino/LaNina phenomena in the southern hemisphere, when CO2 release over the last 10 years is greater than ever (more than the preceding 20 years).
For AGW theorists it appears that the first 30 years is ‘catastrophic AGW’ and the next 10-20years (20 according to Leipzig Institute) is a ‘weather anomaly’.
Hello!!
Ken #175
Smothing is a legitimate statistical practice. Temperature lags CO2 emissions due to buffering effects. So the warming we see now is mainly caused by emissions from the 1970s and earlier.
Warming stopped in 1998? Don’t make me laugh. It only apparently stopped if you’re statistically illiterate. The graphs on this page: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm are very interesting. The first graph shows a moving average (legitimate statistical practice for noisy data sets). No cooling. The second shows trend since 1998. Again no cooling, and a gradient that is definately positive. The third graph is interesting as it shows the effect of El Niño removed. Again no cooling. Interestingly here we see what looks like the effects particulate and sulphur pollution between the ’40s to ’70s
The reference to “tools of polluters” or whatever means nothing of the sort (“running scared”). For me it means that I’m sick of the poor standards of evidence you’re using, the intellectual incoherence, and dishonesty including cherry-picking of data to suit your point of view (and not in any kind of statistically valid way either).
kdkd #175
Your spray: *For me it means that I’m sick of the poor standards of evidence you’re using, the intellectual incoherence, and dishonesty including cherry-picking of data to suit your point of view (and not in any kind of statistically valid way either).*
Dear dear, not another tantrum kdkd.
It seems that you use the word ‘intellectual’ a bit too often, and ‘dishonest’ too often as well.
You need to get out more for your data. You would not call ‘skepticalscience.com’ an impartial disinterested source, would you?
You can do a lot of ‘smoothing’ with an 11 year moving average – especially when you are looking at a 10 year time period since 1998!!
Perhaps you should apply the same ‘averaging’ standard to the Wikipedia Chart. the resolution is 300 years in 8000 years; 1 in 26. If you applied the same resolution to the last 50 years of ‘warming’ than you would get 2 years. Why don’t you produce a chart with a 2 year moving average?
While you are at it;
Fig 2.4 description notes “best estimates and 5 to 95% uncertainty ranges”.
Could you relate this nomenclature to CI and CL?
You are such an intellectually coherent honest kiddie, that on your two outings outside your apparent specialty – statistics; you have produced gross errors due to a complete lack of understanding of key variables in the AGW story – *energy and heating power*.
ken #177
I discussed the source of variability of the 5 & 95% confidence levels previously. from #174: ““Best estimates” = mixed methods. Bear in mind this is based on peer reviewed scientific papers, followed by development of consensus with the aim to get all participating governments to sign off on it. This makes the IPCC documents conservative, and likely to understate the magnitudes of projected effects.”
My calculation errors were honest errors, as seen by the fact that there was no systematic bias. If I didn’t have a basic understanding of the variables I would have used the wrong *units*. My errors were arithmetical, not based on the underlying misunderstanding of the concepts of energy and heat. Your errors in statistical reasoning seem show that you don’t understand how to deal with uncertainty properly in a quantitative way. I’m guessing that you com from a professional background where quantitative calculations are required, but where generally things are easy to measure, and if a measurement is wrong it can be discarded and collected again. Am I right?
So how do you suggest that we deal with the uncertainty of measurements in noisy systems? I see a lot of destructive questioning of the data, but no constructive suggestions as to how you think it should be done better (we’ve already covered why we can’t have a hindcast model of Holocene data based on direct observations of today). And certainly no reference to authors who have analysed data in a statistically robust way to find the kind of conclusions you’re suggesting.
The skeptical science link is simply re-reporting a paper and its updated cousin from The Australian Meteorolical and Oceanographic Society 2007 to which it links. That’s a source with pretty good scientific credentials. Now find me something of reasonable quality in the scientific press that suggests that there is in fact cooling or at least no warming since 1998. The only source I ever see you using is Pilmer. Something to hide?
You know, in the end AGW is a human rights issue. If I’m wrong and it’s a beat-up, but there’s proper action anyway what happens? A more efficient sustainable economy. If you’re wrong and it’s really important for the future of humanity, but we go business as usual, then there are big problems. Do you feel lucky? And do you think everyone else should follow your lucky streak?
kdkd #177
You are hanging on by a thread son.
AGW – a human rights issue! Incredible! When all else fails fall back on human rights.
What about the human rights of those who might want to rise out of poverty by the process of accessing cheap energy?
Most policy makers (and probably you too) have no idea of the massive effort required to stabilize CO2 emissions by 2050. All of the resources of nuclear, clean coal, sequestration, all renewables will have to be thrown in to do that.
Regarding my statistical understanding.
I seem to remember that a CI (confidence interval) of 95% was 2 standard deviations from a mean when dealing with a roughly normal distribution (the bell curve).
Am I in error here kdkd?
Think on this and see if your bell curve applies:
Quote: “There is no good statistical basis for any such quantification, for the object to which it is applied is, in the formal sense, chaotic. The climate is “a complex, non-linear, chaotic object” that defies long-run prediction of its future states (IPCC, 2001).
Unless the initial state of its millions of variables is known to a precision that is in practice unattainable, as Lorenz (1963; and see Giorgi, 2005) concluded in the celebrated paper that founded chaos theory –
“Prediction of the sufficiently distant future is impossible by any method, unless the present conditions are known exactly. In view of the inevitable inaccuracy and incompleteness of weather observations, precise, very-long-range weather forecasting would seem to be non-existent.”. end quote
ken # 179
Personally I thought that your edifice was in danger of crashing to the ground any minute. Looks pretty wobbly from here!
I’ve repeatedly said the figures aren’t confidence intervals – which are a function of the sample size, standard deviation (estimate of spread) and standard error (estimate of the accuracy of the estimate of spread. So no as I said earlier these estimates are confidence interval like things.
Now don’t go confounding chaos with unpredictability. It’s still possible, and in many instances straightforward to estimate trends in chaotic and complex systems. On the other hand it can also be hard. I’ve provided you with many instances of evidence of warming trends. The best you can do it provide the canard that 1998 was a particularly warm year and there have been no years where the global average has been warmer since.
Now come back and define sufficiently distant future as quoted in your citation. Now apply what sufficiently different means in the climate system. Please use cited references that relate directly to climate prediction. I’m guessing that “sufficiently far into the future” in this instance will correspond to “the period of time where the variables in the climate model can be validated with a sufficient sample size of existing data”. Please feel free to correct me if there’s good quality literature to show that this assumption is incorrect.
I see that the feds think that global warming is a human rights issue: http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about/media/papers/hrandclimate_change.html Green nazi pinkos!
“Most policy makers (and probably you too) have no idea of the massive effort required to stabilize CO2 emissions by 2050.”
On the contrary, policy makers can base their understanding of the effort required on a range of extensive studies of all the economic issues, including of course Stern and Garnaut. These studies find, on the evidence transparently adduced and analysed, that a) the net costs will not be huge b) they are much less than the likely costs of doing nothing and c) they will however rise steeply the longer action is delayed.
So, on the one had policy makers have detailed studies based on evidence. On the other they could rely on your unsupported assertion.
What to do?
#181 Harold Thornton
Nearly two years ago (prior to IPCC AR4), I attended a ‘climate change’ seminar presented by a senior scientist employed by Rio Tinto. The audience was a university assembly of over 100 professional engineers and academics.
The Rio man Powerpointed the ‘hockey stick’, said the ‘debate was over’ and proceeded to show that all of the resources of clean coal, all renewables, nuclear etc would be required to stabilize CO2 levels by 2050. He rated it a huge task based on the technical projections of what was available in terms of demand reduction and coal fired substitution by improved and new technologies, CCS, build times for major central generation such as nuclear, maximum deployment of renewables etc. on a world wide basis.
Forget Australia; at about 1.5% of world CO2 emissions we could turn off everything this winter, return to the stone age and make negligible effect on the planet other than feel-good publicity before we freeze in the dark.
At the end of the seminar, two emeritus Professors of Engineering stood up and vigorously disputed that the ‘debate’ was over, and directly challenged the ‘science’ behind the hockey stick and AG CO2 driven warming theory. A subdued and shocked Rio man paid his respects to the eminences and the meeting ended in an overflow of repressed doubt expressed by many participants.
kdkd
“So no as I said earlier these estimates are confidence interval like things.”
What does that mean precisely kdkd? Are we dealing with ‘forcing’ values which follow a normal distribution or some sort of chaos?
Don’t forget that if the ‘low’ LOSU forcings such as cloud albedo are bigger than we thought and high LOSU CO2 forcing is smaller; then the total heat-up forcing could be negative or close to zero which must be happening in Keenlyside’s projections for the next 10 years of no warming.
Cleaning up earlier points:
How is your 2 year moving average temperature chart going?
I understand that relationship between Incremental Forcing and CO2 increase is logarithmic Ie. Delta ‘F’ = K x ln(CO2b/CO2a). Delta ‘F’ is the change in heat-up forcing. K = a constant.
If CO2b is double CO2a then ln (2) = 0.69.
Ken Lambert,
I read your comment at 182 and something seemed vaguely familiar. A short search through the Crikey archives and sure enough I find a post made by you on 14 May 2009, in the comments section of an article by Clive Hamilton, reproduced in part below:
“Nearly two years ago, I attended a ‘climate change’ seminar presented by a senior ‘scientist’ employed by Rio Tinto. The audience was a university assembly of over 100 professional engineers and academics. The Rio man Powerpointed the ‘hockey stick’, said the ‘debate was over’ and proceeded to show that all of the resources of clean coal, all renewables, nuclear etc would be required to stabilize CO2 levels by 2050. A huge task.
At the end of the seminar, two emeritus Professors of Engineering stood up and vigorously disputed that the ‘debate’ was over, and directly challenged the ‘science’ behind the hockey stick and CO2 driven warming theory. A subdued and shocked Rio man paid his respects to the eminences and the meeting ended in an overflow of repressed doubt expressed by many participants.”
So what is it Ken? Do you believe the Rio man or don’t you? Because you seem to be arguing in this post that reducing emissions to an acceptable level would be too huge a task and you cite the Rio Man as evidence of this, but then you proceed to attack the Rio Man’s arguments regarding the actual existence of AGW. After reading all of your post of 14 May it appears to me that you feel you cannot believe anything the ‘rent seeking’ Rio Man had to say. So why use him as evidence?
ken # 183
Your requirements for me to repeat myself are becoming tedious. I’ve explained the best estimate stuff previously. It’s done to death. The answer doesn’t really suit your agenda to question their validity. By the way, chaotic systems can have components that are normally distributed. Maybe you’re confounding “model” and “parameter”, this could be the source of your confusion.
You hand me Keenlyside (from the abstract: “Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.”) see where it says temporarily. In any case it’s a regional phenomenon with some limited knock-on effects, according to the paper.
Now you have to comment on how the models suggest that the arctic warming is an important canary, and that this was what the models predicted over the last 20 years. And how the models only predict this if an anthropogenic component is included (standard climate textbook stuff by the way).
A two year moving average is ludicrously short. That’s two seasonal cycles and only has one degree of freedom – it’s meaningless in the context in which you ask for it and looks to me like another attempt to cherry pick data.
And finally, if your calculation is correct (I’d like to see a citation), then 0.7 is still quite ahigh number. Additionally, according to the graph I plotted (number of doubling cycles required before heating effect reaches asymptote relative to pre-industrial levels – or something like that – there’s a good chance I got it wrong though) then it’s still an awful lot of doubling cycles before we get to asymptote. Relative magnitude, not absolute magnitude would seem to be the important figure here.
Big booboo on the “effort required to reduce co2 emissioins is excessive” and “human rights, bah!” front too. Tunnel vision anyone?
Ken – as Fawlty Towers’ Manuel would say, que?
I commented on your statement that policy makers ‘had no idea’ about the costs of mitigation. You’ve come back with what we in the logical debate community refer to as a ‘non sequitur’, illustrating in passing that engineers other than Steve Fielding seem to have difficulty understanding climate science. Perhaps they have too much emotional investment in obsolescent technologies… but I digress.
I reiterate: contrary to your barefaced assertions, policy makers actually have plenty of understanding about the costs of moving to a low-emissions economy. These costs are low, they are much less than the assessable risk of what will happen should it prove that the climate scientists are correct, and these costs will rise steeply the longer action is delayed.
I take it from the irrelevant bluster with which you’ve responded that you concede the point.
Chris Owens #184
“So what is it Ken? Do you believe the Rio man or don’t you? Because you seem to be arguing in this post that reducing emissions to an acceptable level would be too huge a task and you cite the Rio Man as evidence of this, but then you proceed to attack the Rio Man’s arguments regarding the actual existence of AGW. After reading all of your post of 14 May it appears to me that you feel you cannot believe anything the ‘rent seeking’ Rio Man had to say. So why use him as evidence?”
Welcome to the cage Chris. A good point. Glad you were following my pieces.
Let me say firstly that the Rio man’s belief in the CO2 driven hockey stick, and the task of stabilizing CO2 levels are not the same thing.
Neither I, nor the audience at that time were doubting the measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere nor disputing that human release was the major cause (although there are papers out there which dispute the historical levels).
The emeritus professors mentioned were disputing the extent to which the temperature changes were CO2 driven, compared with all other factors.
The means and the size of the task outlined by Rio man were not challenged – only the need to do it at all!
Perhaps I could refer to my post #170 referring to kdkd’d first attempt at energy/power forcing calculation:
Quote: If I apply the Socratic method to the issue of your self-admitted incompetence in calculation of energy and power ‘forcings’; would I then conclude that all your arguments are therefore incompetent and not to be considered seriously?
I am sure you would agree that the answer is *NO*, and that each of your arguments be treated on its merits. endquote
That is exactly the approach taken with Rio man.
Harold Thornton #186
Come in Harold – great to see you piling in to help out kdkd…
Firstly, rather than asserting that the costs are ‘low’ perhaps you could put a number on the cost of a kWhr of electricity to the consumer in a ‘low emissions economy’ given that about 83% of the electricity generated in this country is from coal fired power stations. Consumers now pay around 14-18 cents per kWhr. Number please?
And while you are at it, pray tell us which ‘low emissions technology’ will replace coal fired electricity over the next 20 years.
kdkd #185
I am sure you will have an obscure reason but please explain why 2 years in 50 years is ‘ludicrously short’ while 300 years in 8000 years is not good enough resolution?
*Now you have to comment on how the models suggest that the arctic warming is an important canary, and that this was what the models predicted over the last 20 years. And how the models only predict this if an anthropogenic component is included*
I suggest you track down the descendants of Eric the Red who I believe set sail for Greenland in around 980AD and ask them why Greenland was much greener in those days. Apart from Eric’s farting cows and sod fires, I doubt if the Nords got too anthropogenic with the disappearing summer ice.
Gentlemen
Heading for the coast to check the sea levels this weekend.
Might I leave you all with a quote from a recent interview with Freeman Dyson late of Princeton (CM APR18-19,2009) – someone with a much bigger brain than mine:
*Climate models he says, take into account atmospheric motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of sky, soil and trees. “the biologists have essentially been pushed aside,” he continues. “Al Gore’s just an opportunist. The person who is really responsible for this overestimate is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates the dangers.”
Dyson agrees with the prevailing view that there are rapidly rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere caused by human activity. To the planet, he suggests, rising carbon may well be a striking yet ultimately benign occurrence in what he says is still, “a relatively cool period in the Earth’s history”. The warming, he says is not global but local, “making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter”.
Far from expecting any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, he says the carbon may well be salubrious – a sign that “the climate is actually improving rather than getting worse”, because carbon acts as the ideal fertiliser promoting forest growth and crop yields.
“Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now,” he contends, “and substantially richer in carbon dioxide’.
I am sure Ian Plimer would agree.
Ken, Ken, Ken. Never a backward step, eh? You asserted policy makers had ‘no idea’ about the costs. I called you out, demonstrating that your confident assertion was without foundation. A concession that ‘I wuz wrong’ is clearly in order. But no, back on the attack, demanding I do your research and play a new game. It’s like dueling with Monty Python’s Black Knight – each severed limb is ‘only a flesh wound’. Time to retire hurt, Ken.
The Garnaut report is readily available, his methodology transparent. Go read it and learn something. Oh, and not BTW, the price of coal-fired electricity is rising well ahead of inflation. How much will it cost in ten years with BAU, if such a thing is imaginable? Number please? Show your calculations, and you might like to get a year 11 economics student to check your work.
harold #191
Spot on! Ken is now to be known as The Black “it’s only a flesh wound” Knight. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to terminate this dialogue. I’ve been looking for a way out for a while.
Tamas # 169
I see you’ve had the good sense to keep your mouth shut. See the end of this post for your conditions of reply.
Ken. #too many to remember.
This is my final comment. I will conclude that unless you provide us with substantial new information, that your opinion is of no relevance. I hope that you a. had fun looking for data at far too small a Δt, and at the wrong end of the X axis to make sense of the phenomenon that you’re examining, and b. This has all been an elaborate ruse to provide a reducto ad absurdam for the climate change contrarians.
The level of detail you’re constantly looking at isn’t really important, it’s all at the wrong scale – either theoretical or the scale of the collected data. What’s clear is that between the mid 19th century and now, is that anthropogenic climate change has been a concern throughout, and the level of that concern has not diminished. On the contrary, the level of concern is at least the same, and by all reasonable readings of the literature and commentary a lot higher than it was when the theory was first developed. By a lot higher, I mean broadly speaking it’s coming in closer to the worst case scenarios put forward by the IPCC rather than the most likely scenarios. Because this is based on the way that observed data relates to the theory behind AGW in a holistic way, it has a lot more credence than looking at the odd data point in the past here and there.
Finally what we have, on the balance of probabilities is a very very compelling (99th percentile) case that AGW is a problem, and that the sooner we act properly, the less likely it is to be a problem that will cause even more severe adverse consequences than those already observed. The forces of destructive conservatism (which is what I’ll hereon call the activities of the Heartland Institute, Tamas, probably Ken and the like, because the contribution seems to be entirely negative) have only acted to delay reaction to this problem. Given there was a substantial realisation about 30 years ago that the problem was becoming acute[1], we’ve got to hope that the time we have to act to reverse the trajectory of emissions within the next 5-10 year, and that we can engineer an equilibrium towards total C02 equivalents budget that the planet has given civilisation ( http://xrl.us/bexrfp [nature.com] ).
So I declare the contrarians curled up in the corner of the cage, burbling their delusional nonsense waiting for the nurse to come and give them another injection. Should, in any rebuttal, the contrarians appeal to the scientific conspiriacy[1] or repetition of points they have already tried to make, their grade will automatically be assigned F, and they will therefore concede that they indeed need Nurse’s attention.
[1] Climate change skeptics have sought to denigrate the scientific consensus. The scientific conspiriacy is a nice rhetorical technique but no more than that. By contrast, the activities and funding of places like the Heartland Institute with their links to organisations with a (short term) vested interest in the status quo are well documented and beyond question.
Gentlemen (kdkd, Harold Thornton)
I feel just like Jackie Chan after an attack my a pod of flailing Ninja.
Great to see that at least Harold has a sense of humour.
kdkd – the anonymous humourless kdkd – you tried hard with every smear tactic and ripe assertion, but lost every round decisively.
Let’s name a few:
1) Solar PV – an a technology heavily subsidized by cheap coal.
Keenlyside – another inconvenient truth?
2) Solar PV – cannot beget itself – an energy black hole
3) Renewables – if they cannot repay their costs before their life expires – another black hole.
4) IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 – tried to dazzle me with statistics – ended up trying to catch me on the CI of a normal distribution – never explained why high and low LOSU ‘forcings’ should be treated as equal terms in a summation.
5) Heat-up Power – your overestimate by only 3750 times
6) Bar Heaters – your underestimate by only 1000 times
7) Forcing and CO2 concentration – a logarithmic relationship doubted by you
9) Freeman Dyson quote – another inconvenient ‘Heartlander’ ignored
A few quotes from kdkd:
*I’m sure my calculations are incorrect, I was going to have them checked by a real physicist, but you beat me to it
. My credibility as a physical scientist is dreadful.*
*Hehe, out by a factor of 1000 the other way this time – I’m undersetimating the effect, thus showing that my incompetence is not subject to bias.*
Game, set and cage match
Harold Thornton #191
kdkd started out with a similar line a few weeks ago viz ” I’m not going to do your research for you – you – you asserter you….
I asked you for a number first – what is so hard about that if you have Garnaut at hand?
Ask kdkd about his outings with calculations – he ended up with a couple of black-eyes after giving me a D-
Ken #192.
Nothing new there. All dealt with fine previously. Actaully of those 9 “points” you make, they’re either irellevant or you’ve misrepresented them. Well done F.
*toddles along to see the Knights who say “Ni” now …
oops
Ken #192.
Except of course for the points that are plain wrong.
A cage leaving thought for AGW alarmists and their fellow travellers:
We should remember Dr Paul Ehrlich of 70’s fame, who was a hero of youth worldwide in predicting a “Club of Rome’ food disaster by the end of the 1980’s.
Young, sideburned, charismatically bright, Ehrlich held the world in thrall to his prophesies of doom. Opponents such as Dr Colin Clark were pilloried as silly old farts, hopelessly out of touch.
Dr Erhlich was proved wrong, wrong and wrong, and had the good grace to admit it.
James Hansen and AGW alarmists everywhere ….beware.
And here’s something a little more recent emanating out of the respected Club of Rome think tank: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/02/fred-pearce-senior-environment.html
Erlich is well respected, along with E.O. Wilson. While a physiologist by trade Jared Diamond can be seen as endorsing similar “limits to growth” views. In closed systems the population limited by the availability of resources is well understood and is called the “logistic model”. The logistic model can then be extended to the “law of competitive exclusion” AKA Gause’s law. Evolutionary history confirms both phenomena as real, and there’s no reason to suppose that in a closed system like the Earth that Humans are immune from this. Working around these kinds of constraints requires very intelligent optimisation for a large human population. If any species is capable of doing this in a way that’s not acutely lethal, it’s people.
Gentlemen (kdkd can self-include if that cap fits)
Are we suffering a dreaded Crikey version of Stockholm syndrome, or perhaps Basil Fawlty syndrome – right! thats it! – now you’ve done it!!!
Having been accused of only destructive intent and wilful damage to that vaunted AGW scientific concensus, I will offer a few ‘constructive’ ideas which for some will seem like dragging a dead cat through a clean room, and for others will make perfect sense.
If we don’t really know how much warming (if any) is caused by anthropogenic release of CO2 since 1750, because we can’t accurately model the ‘backgound noise’ of natural forcings, then a political rather than scientific choice is to be made.
Clearly the AGW skeptics have made some ground recently, but the realities are that the ‘alarmists’ will get some ‘precautionary action’ from governments and the best we can hope is that in Australia’s case it will be the least damaging to our fossil fuel powered economy.
Whether it is an ETS or a Carbon Tax; it is still a tax which will raise the cost of energy and lower our standard of living.
As Terry McCrann so astutely put it in the WE Australian (19-20Jun) :
Quote; “Power generated from cheap and abundant coal is a, perhaps the, core building block of both our standard of living and our entire economy. Exports of coal and iron ore which ‘someone’ else turns into CO2 – with our government and elites discreetly averting their virtual reality eyes, like the Victorfian Lady of Virtue – keep us from true ‘ banana republicanism’.” endquote
So here are a few ideas in descending order of conservatism:
1) Reduce consumption of petrol and diesel by switching to gas.
2)
2) Encourage electric public transport – train and light rail – free and frequent as possible.
Start building a nuclear storage and reprocessing facility in SA or WA stable geology served by a dedicated port, railway and airport, serving all the nations to which we export uranium.
3) Encourage line haul road transport onto electric rail by tax concessions or differential taxation.
4) Encourage viable renewables such as solar hot water, geothermal, hydro, wind possibly solar-thermal with tax concessions
5) Encourage electric car technology, particularly viable potential technologies such as ultra-fast recharging of batteries and battery exchange systems with tax concessions
6) Encourage energy conservation by insulation, energy saving lighting, thermally efficient design, water storage systems etc
7) Start a crash program of building nuclear power plants of viable scale (maxi and mini) using perhaps Dr Wang Fang’s pebble bed ‘non-melt downable’ reactor technology from China; as close to major loads as possible. Run electric rail and grid systems with nuclear power as soon as available.
9) Examine the feasibility of ‘power ships’ carrying multiple mini-nuclear plants to supply power local decentralized coastal grids and export locations. Ships could discharge spent fuel and fuel up at the dedicated port/reprocessing facility. Export energy not uranium.
10) Pump coal fired flue gases rich in CO2 into long skinny greenhouses and grow forests of salad greens for the greater and greener good.
The medication must be working, because aside from the signs of residual delusions in the preamble, points 1 to 6 look sane. And 10′s not as insane as it first seems, (http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/ best done on the Bight in australia due to the low sea temperatures and high land temps ). And nuclear does have a place as a technology to transition away from coal/oil but not in Australia. Shock horror agreement. And I tend to agree that PV has niche uses, but isn’t really suitable for grid based uses (solar thermal on the other hand looks the go). On the other hand I’m a big supporter of feed-in tarifs because solar panels are net energy producers, and there’s a useful economic incentive that can drive innovation.
kdkd #201
What medication have you taken kdkd – truth serum?
Before we start waterproofing our pockets, perhaps you could think on a couple of residual issues:
You ignored the Freeman Dyson quote – now there *is* a head case;
Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSxubKfTBU
And from what I have read there has not been a run-away greenhouse in all of the Earth’s geological history, but there has been a snowball which caused the greatest mass extinction of all. Worry about cooling.
So you liked my 10 point plan – I would include Solar PV for remote locations where there is no grid and the only option is diesel. Note that the Rudd Govt has just cut off overnight the PV Solar subsidy for remote aboriginal communities (except WA) and this will cause them to revert to diesel – one of the few places where PV Solar makes economic sense.
Solar thermal could be useful for augmenting feedwater heating in steam plant and I understand that the Callide ‘A’ could include this experimentally with super-oxygenation and CCS.
CCS is BS. You lose 25-30% of the power in capturing and compressing the CO2 into pipelines which have to run to the right geologibcal storages – or liquify into cryogenic tankers and run on rail or trucks to a remote hole in the ground. The tonnages are enormous for a large coal fired plant, and the logistics of moving the compressed or liquified CO2 mind boggling.
Point (10); by all means run CO2 into lakes of green slime or seawater farms of green seaweed. Seaweed is full of nutrition.
Don’t forget that the cool Swedes are back into nuclear power and have built a mile long granite tunnel near Stockholm to store the waste – how much better would that be re-processed in Woomera?
Remember you read my ‘Power-ships’ idea here first.
kdkd – I’m not shying away from a debate with you, I just haven’t checked up on the cage-match for a while. Good think I looked though – Ken Lambert really is wiping you all over the floor in this debate.
And you can follow my debates in the comments section for specific climate change articles in Crikey, as well as the email’s comments section from time to time. most interestingly though, you just referenced that silly ABC review of Plimers book and assert that it completely debunks my arguments.
Why bother debating when you can appeal to authority, right?
Tamas: #203
Actually I’ve had it up to here with your delusional nonsense, and I’ve basically decided that there’s no point communicating on this matter, in much the same way I treat creationists – as incoherent lazy thinkers with an overblown sense of their own importance. Cherry pick individual data points all you like, it doesn’t change the much broader consensus of fact that tells a strong scientific story over the last 150 years. You can read my comment #193 for my final word on the matter. The fact is that climate change “skeptics” seem to want to denigrate the skills and expierience of anyone that doesn’t fit their blinkered views, and their contribution to the debate is purely destructive.
Come back when you have something constructive to say. I’m guessing that this will be in approximately never.
kdkd & Tamas #203
My 10 point plan was very constructive kdkd – not another bit of abuse.
What about debating the thoughts of a thinker like Freeman Dyson – big silence from you there.
And don’t it seem strange that Dr Glikson’s 0.2-0.4 degC ‘civilization ending’ rapid and disruptive climate change in human (Holocene) history was achieved with a ‘natural’ Solar forcing. Solar forcing which IPCC AR4 now rates at less than *one tenth* of the 2005 CO2 forcing?
‘Forcing’ is a poor term – Heat-up Power is a more scientifically correct term.
kdkd: I take your rudeness as a sign of your frustration because you are comprehensively losing this debate.
Ken: I like your 10 point plan – in particular the ideas on nuclear power.
Also, this is a very interesting article: Could Australia Blow Apart the Great Global Warming Scare?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/24/could_australia_blow_apart_the_great_global_warming_scare_97148.html
Realclearpolitics is a very popular US political website and the article was the most read story on the day it was published.
Tamas, you can take my rudeness as a clear indication that there isn’t a debate, and that you’re unable to see beyond the end of your own nose. Parts of Ken’s 10 point plan are remarkably sane.
Also Tamas, how rude is it to do nothing but denegrate the difficult work done by people who have dedicated their careers to improving the understanding of climate science? Not only is it disrespectful to the people involved, but it also promotes scientific illiteracy and ignorance to the community at large.
kdkd – don’t be so silly. I’m not denigrating anyone. I am simply saying the global warming hypothesis is wrong. It’s part of a process called “debate”. You know, you point out the weaknesses in your opponents case and present an alternative argument.
Thus, I say that the global warming hypothesis is extremely weak. I counter by saying natural forces are a much better explanation for climate change.
You have not convinced me otherwise.
Tamas: but the only way you can do that is by ignoring the gaping holes in the evidence you present, and by pretending that these isolated data points are just as coherent as a much larger, much more coherent body of work. Your arguments appeal to the kind of simplistic arguments that are beloved of the extreme right wing, and promote scientific ignorance as viewpoint from where it is possible to have a valid opinion.
Skeptics like Pilmer may have done a lot of reading, but can’t maintain a consistent argument.
Besides, seeing as current data is indicating that we’re coming out closer to the IPCC’s worst case scenarios than the best case scenarios, or even the middle, the time for so called debate is long gone. From an ethical point of view, at this point, I’d expect the “skeptics” to be showing some contrition and trying to help undo the last 30 years of policy vacuum for which they can carry a large portion of responsibility.
Ken,
A couple of quotes from Freeman Dyson:
“I don’t claim to be an expert. I never did. I simply find that a lot of these claims that experts are making are absurd. Not that I know better, but I know a few things. My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have. I think that’s what upsets me.”
and
“What’s wrong with the models. I mean, I haven’t examined them in detail, (but) I know roughly what’s in them.”
and
“Well, it depends on what you mean by sitting down with people. I do sit down with people. I don’t go over their calculations in detail. But I think I understand pretty well the world they live in.
I guess one thing I don’t want to do is to spend all my time arguing this business. I mean, I am not the person to do that. I have two great disadvantages. First of all, I am 85 years old. Obviously, I’m an old fuddy-duddy. So, I have no credibility.
And, secondly, I am not an expert, and that’s not going to change. I am not going to make myself an expert. What I do think I have is a better judgment, maybe because I have lived a bit longer, and maybe because I’ve done other things. So I am fairly confident about my judgment, and I doubt whether that will change. But I am certainly willing to change my mind about details. And if they find any real evidence that global warming is doing harm, I would be impressed.”
I took these from this site: http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151.
I guess what I am trying to point out to you is that Freeman Dyson does not pretend to be an expert in this argument and makes that clear. So I have a lot of difficulty then accepting what he says and using that as evidence in the climate change debate.
This review of Heaven and Earth from the notable climate contrarian rag The Australian is an interesting read. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25433059-5003900,00.html
kdkd –
I have read Plimer’s book and found his argument pretty consistent. Have you read it?
You say that “current data is indicating that we’re coming out closer to the IPCC’s worst case scenarios”. What data are you talking about?
Using the UAH temperature data, the slope of the linear regression line from December 1979 – May 2009 is 0.001045.
This translates to a trend of 0.125C per decade increase, or a total trend increase of 0.38C over the 366 months of data.
If we use just the most recent 10 years of data the slope is 0.00081, or a trend increase of less than 0.01C per decade. And that doesn’t include the 1998 El Nino peak.
How on earth is that a ‘worst case scenario”?
Rebut the point kdkd, and don’t bother telling me how ingnorant I am.
The UAH data is here: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
Chris #211
That’s interesting. Having just looked at a little more from Dyson’s wikipedia page, I think I can see his problem. In the micro- and quantum- scale physical sciences it’s quite legitimate to get upset by a lack of complete detail, and to be easily overwhelmed by uncertainty. Fortunately, the quasi-experiemntal designs and statistical methods developed in the human sciences and ecological sciences provide a framework for dealing with incomplete information, uncertainty in measurement and other scientific problems that result in lack of complete detail. It’s a toolkit for dealing with problems that are not easily subject to a reductionist approach if you like.
I just noticed a small error – the trend for the last 10 years is actually 0.1C per decade (I said 0.01C above). Sorry. But hey, are you afraid of the temperature going up by .01C per decade?
Tamas. Small increases in mean do not rebut the large increases in variability also observed. The arctic melt, the large scale death of the Boreal forests due to climate change induced pest range expansion, are strong evidence of climate change as predicted by the models over the past 30 years. Recent spectacular droughts and increase in wildfires away from the arctic are more evidence consistent with rising temperatures, and predicted by the AGW hypothesis. You’re fixated by tiny details and aren’t looking at the big picture.
kdkd – I’m afraid Tamas isn’t interested in facts or indeed debate. Over the last few years he’s propounded fantasies including
1. The war in Iraq was really all about WMDs and has been both a military triumph and a blessing for Iraqis.
2. David Hicks and Mohammed Haneef are dangerous terrorists who deserved everything that happened to them, and more.
Reality is a second-order issue for Tamas.
Boys, its great to see a few more entering the cage. It was getting a bit boring beating kdkd into shape every day…. even jokey darling Harold is back with some completely irrelevant abuse of Tamas.
Chris Owens #211
Good Dyson quotes Chris. Having admitted all that, Dyson should not have offered an opinion at all. I think he has overstated his ‘amateurism’ in the retiring British way; after all he was fooling around with CO2 at Oak Ridge when Jim Hansen was in short pants. Have a look at his CV. I think he is making Plimer-like arguments that many more factors are at play including vegetation, biological factors, in the Earth’s reaction to AG CO2 release and even if it is warming – is that really a cause for panic given that we are in a cooler phase and getting near the end of a typical interglacial.
kdkd #212
I had seen that review – it is extreme in claiming that everything Plimer says is nonsense. This is what I said:
Ken Lambert #170 to kdkd;
Quote: “I am sure there are errors and exaggerations in Prof Plimer’s tome. It is not a tightly argued well edited read. It would be truly amazing on probability alone if all his points were proven right. In searching for the exact role that CO2 plays in warming the Earth, Plimer has no doubt exaggerated for effect, weakened his other strong arguments and probably committed a few howlers – just like you.” endquote
I am about halfway through ‘Heaven + Earth’ and it needs a good editor.
Harold my old darling #217:
How are those ‘renewable’ consumer electricity costs coming along?
Gentlemen:
Any takers on this little IPCC inconsistency?
And don’t it seem strange that Dr Glikson’s 0.2-0.4 degC ‘civilization ending’ rapid and disruptive climate change in human (Holocene) history was achieved with a ‘natural’ Solar forcing. Solar forcing which IPCC AR4 now rates at less than *one tenth* of the 2005 CO2 forcing?
‘Forcing’ is a poor term – Heat-up Power is a more scientifically correct term.
Ken # 218:
“I am about halfway through ‘Heaven + Earth’ and it needs a good editor.”
And a good peer review so it can be pulped, and something relevant and useful can be published instead.
Ken #219
Solar forcing is not consistent over geological time. The 1/10th of CO2 forcing is current. In a few billion years time you’ll find the solar forcing is rather bigger.
kdkd #216 –
You say that “Small increases in mean do not rebut the large increases in variability also observed”.
You need to back that up. What large increases in temperature variability? Variability has been well within normal bounds.
You also say I am “fixated by tiny details and aren’t looking at the big picture”.
But the global temperature record is the big picture! If the temperature record doesn’t show rapid global warming then how can all these other effects be caused by global warming??
Harold Thornton #217 – I never said anything about Haneef, but I think we should just stick to the global warming debate here.
Ken #218 – I thought “Heaven & Earth” was a very interesting read. Obviously I agree with the main argument but it was a pretty solid demolition of the global warming hypothesis. And it’s sure selling well. I think the debate is turning on this issue. The skeptics are becoming more vocal and the general public is becoming more skeptical.
Tamas#222 and kdkd #220
My criticisms about ‘Heaven + Earth’ are rather minor; so far I have found it repetitive, rambling, and needing a good scientific editor to tighten and sharpen. It is hugely ambitious and brave to take on a whole scientific establishment and put your scientific reputation on the line. As I wrote in post #152:
Prof Plimer has taken a powerful general position: viz. *The Earth has a dynamic climate which has always changed due to many complex processes – and that will continue. Climate change has been rapid and disruptive in the Holocene and back through geological time. In the Holocene it has sharply affected human civilizations, and none of this historical change has any relationship to CO2 release or prevailing CO2 levels.*
I can’t see how this position can be anything but correct.
What we are all really arguing about is what effect CO2 release over the last 50 -100 years, and levels rising from about 300ppm to 385ppm having on the Earth’s climate.
If you cannot hindcast the computer models with accuracy (Glikson’s 0.2-0.4 degC temperature resolution would be a maximum), then how do you separate out the background *noise* of Plimer’s natural forcings and complex processes, from the theoretical CO2 warming effects.
The Medieval warming is difficult to explain for CO2 alarmists – firstly IPCC 2001 tried to minimize it with the Mann hockeystick. Plimer has many references to proxies with temperatures up to 3 degC warmer than now in that 900-1300AD period.
kdkd #221 is a similar distortion. We are not talking billions of years in comparing the magnitude of Solar effects here – we are talking about 1100 years ago!!
If IPCC AR4 is accurate, then current temperatures are caused by anthropegenic CO2 forcings of more than 10 times the magnitude of ‘natural’ solar forcings. The Medieval warm period was at least as warm or warmer than now, and the ‘forcings’ which caused that could only be ‘natural’ – mainly Solar.
So what is the conclusion from this – how about that ‘natural’ solar forcings must have diminished by a factor of 10 fold since the Medieval Warm period!! Less that one tenth??
C02 warmists – pray tell me what evidence is there for such a dramatic fall in ‘natural’ forcings since the Medieval warming?
Tamas #222
Small increases in mean temperature mask large increases in cliamte variability. Being fixated on one or two statistics obscures the big picture. You’re just terminally confused or blinded by your own agenda. Stop looking at measurements and start looking at behaviour. The observed measurements in many cases lag the behaviour by so long you, and even I will be dead by the time we’re able to demonstrate a definitive effect.
Ken #223
Neither was the little ice age associated with a drop in CO2 levels. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. From the chart that we’ve looked at a little bit before (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png) we seem to have moved rapidly from a temperature below the peak MWP temperature to exceeding it in the early 21st century.
As for your comment on solar forcing versus greenhouse gas forcing, I suggest that you phone a good university meterology/geoscience department and ask someone appropriate for an answer, not some random internet forum.
Now just to repeat myself:
“Besides, seeing as current data is indicating that we’re coming out closer to the IPCC’s worst case scenarios than the best case scenarios, or even the middle, the time for so called debate is long gone. From an ethical point of view, at this point, I’d expect the “skeptics” to be showing some contrition and trying to help undo the last 30 years of policy vacuum for which they can carry a large portion of responsibility.”
That means I’m calling Tamas, Ken and all other contrarians at best misguided, and at worst highly unethical.
kdkd #224 – You say that “The observed measurements in many cases lag the behaviour by so long you, and even I will be dead by the time we’re able to demonstrate a definitive effect.”
How convenient that your argument can’t be proven within our lifetimes. Obviously your “solutions” must be implemented immediately, so forgive me if I’m a little reluctant to sign up.
And calling Ken and I “unethical” because we don’t believe in this stuff is just plain silly. Why resort to such smears if your case is so strong? Reasonable people are allowed to disagree.
Finally, just re-read your own comment: “Small increases in mean temperature mask large increases in climate variability”.
That statement is meaningless. It has no logical meaning. You are just asserting weird things without any data to back it up.
Ken, no doubt you find it amusing to imagine that being picked up for telling, um, fibs is a bit of a joke. Perhaps it fits in well with the grade 5 education you seem to think adequate.
To return to the area you and Tamas seem to find the most difficulty with, i.e. facts, I wonder if either of you found the time this morning to tune in to RN’s Background Briefing about recent oceanic science in the Southern Ocean. It turns out that, entirely in line with all other science, but contrary to Fantasy Land where you both have palatial suites, the biota is undergoing massive change. Species never before seen in such southern latitudes are decimating Tasmanian kelp beds etc etc. Oops! Sorry to interrupt your channeling session with Mickey Mouse…
On a more serious note, Ken, you really don’t want to associate yourself with Tamas. He of the ‘it hasn’t warmed since 1998′ and the ‘glaciers aren’t melting’ crackpot deniers talking points. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Tamas #225.
It’s not meaningless, it has a solid foundation in mathematics – the tails of a normal distribution do not follow the same linear progression as the centre. In other words, as the probability of the central part of the observation changes, the probability observing an extreme event is rather larger. This is borne out in the observed data that we can directly observe which unfortunately for you, as your mind seems incabable of thinking in very linear causation patterns are not simple measures of temperature. In fields where levels of uncertainty are high, we have to deal with direct and indirect effects rather differently than in a straightforward field of knowledge such as rocket science.
Harold’s comment #226 is a perfect example of how you want to talk temperature but ignore all the surrounding evidence. The fact that we can’t definitively answer the temperature questions directly now, doesn’t mean we should ignore the overwhelming supporting evidence that surrounds it. Especially because it’s in the direction that indicates we should take urgent action. And extra-especially because the supporting evidence shows that in a system that is subject to long lags, and timeframes that are mostly out of the scope of human comprehension that the trajectory is rather faster than we were expecting it to be.
I’m kind of torn about sticking around here. I’d love to leave, but I can’t allow you to have a clear run on your crackpot, narrow intellectal scope, delusional ideas. It *is* an ethical issue, and your failure to see it as such really shows that you haven’t thought this issue through thoroughly. Oh, except as as a way for you to devise a personal system to support poor scientific thinking and delusional reasoning processes. (last comment mainly aimed at Tamas, but Ken also shows worrying signs of perseveration[1] as well).
[1] Just so you can look it up, perseveration: the uncontrollable repetition of a particular response (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseveration)
Harold Thornton #226 – I like a spirited debate, but sometimes I find you a little rude. Why am I a “crackpot” just because we disagree on a few issues?
Ken Lambert has made some very interesting and well argued points. I’m willing to bet he’s been educated beyond “grade 5″. And so what if anyone hasn’t. Judge their arguments on merit alone.
By the way, Ken’s “association” with me is limited to this debate in Crikey, although I reckon he’d be an alright bloke to have a beer with. You, on the other hand…
In any case, stick to the facts please. Where is your data that the world is rapidly warming?
The world has not warmed since 1998 and you have presented no data showing that it has.
kdkd #227 –
You say that “the tails of a normal distribution do not follow the same linear progression as the centre”. This statement does not make sense. Your statement does not describe a normal distibution (ie; Gaussian distribution or bell curve).
You also say that “In other words, as the probability of the central part of the observation changes, the probability observing an extreme event is rather larger.”
Wrong. The tails of a distribution curve represent observations that are less frequent and therefore further from the mean. It’s nicely decribed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
Anyway, back to global warming: You say that I “want to talk temperature but ignore all the surrounding evidence”
Mate, I really must make the point that the Global WARMING debate is about, um, temperature. If you can’t show that Earth is rapidly warming then your really have no argument at all. All the hypothetical consequences of this “crisis” remain hypothetical until Earth, um, warms.
Tamas,
1. You’re completely wrong, and show that you need to leave the scientific understanding to people with training. Maybe I wasn’t clear. As the mean rises, the outliers cease to be outliers very very quickly. This is why apparently small changes in temperature have dramatic consequences.
2. It’s not about warming it’s about climate. Warming affects the climate, but it is not the thing we’re really concerned about – the mean, which you’re fixated on (more perseveration) conveys only a very small amount of information. To get a bigger picture you need to know about range, effects on geochemistry, biodiversity and many other things. Heat and temperature are linear measurements. Climate is a complex phenomenon with chaotic components. The methodology required to understand the climate is completely different that required to understand temperature.
Please stop wasting my time with this trivial but extremely irritating nonsense which demonstrates you don’t understand a topic that you’re clearly very interested in.
That should read “positive outliers cease to become …” the negative outliers obviously become even rarer.
Onya Tamas #228 – have a beer with you anytime
Keeping the kdkd kiddie on the subject is getting harder and harder.
My #223 final question: *So what is the conclusion from this – how about that ‘natural’ solar forcings must have diminished by a factor of 10 fold since the Medieval Warm period!! Less that one tenth??
C02 warmists – pray tell me what evidence is there for such a dramatic fall in ‘natural’ forcings since the Medieval warming?* endquote
Was your rant anything to do with my above question? Is your answer that this is all too complex and I should ring my nearest Uni for a phone consultation on global warming?
Hysterical laughter……. followed by falling off chair in mirth spasm.
And now Tamas and I are accused of being unethical because we don’t agree with the AGW alarmists.
This is like being beaten with a warm lettuce!!!
We must be landing some telling blows Tamas or kdkd and Harold would not be resorting to such prattle.
This is from Karoly’s review of ‘Heaven + Earth’ ABC Science Show 13JUN09
Quote; “Plimer writes repeatedly that global warming ended in 1998, that the warmth of the last few decades is not unusual, and that satellite measurements show there has been no global warming since 1979. He is correct that on time scales of the last 100 million years, the recent global-scale warmth is not unusual. However, it is unusual over at least the last 1,000 years, including the Medieval warming. Plimer makes the mistake of using local temperatures from proxy evidence rather than considering data from the whole globe at the same time. The report of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2006, cited by Plimer, states ‘Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all individual locations, were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since AD 900.’
We do not expect significant warming to always occur for short periods, such as since 1998. Natural climate variations are more important over short periods, with El Nino causing hotter global-average temperatures in 1998 and La Nina cooler global temperatures in 2007 and 2008. Global-average temperature for the current decade from surface observations and from satellite data is warmer than any other decade with reasonable data coverage. Plimer is wrong to write ‘Not one of the IPCC models predicted that there would be cooling after 1998′. Actually, more than one-fifth of climate models show cooling in global average temperatures for the period from 1998 to 2008.” endquote
Check out the last sentence.
Boys, which climate models do you now believe – the 80% or the 20%?
Ken #223
No, it’s because you’ve chosen an inapropriate forum to discuss the really detailed hard bits of climate science. In the words of an ecologist I once saw in a lecture, “this isn’t rocket science, it’s really really hard” (Tony Uderwood – http://www.usyd.edu.au/sustainable_solutions/environment/tony_underwood.shtml, you’d like him, but his sceptical approach stays within the bounds of his area of expertise, which he actually has some understanding of. The quote wasn’t about climate change, but it does apply to that domain). You are making the fatal mistake of using methodology deriving from rocket science to understand a subject to which the rules of calculus do not really apply. Here’s your reference for that last statement: http:// necsi.org/projects/baranger/cce.pdf, again a work not about climate change.
ken #233
You’d need a sophisticated understanding of what the models are measuring, their sensitivity and the things that they predict other than mean global termperature to understand why 80% of them predict warming and 20% of them predict cooling. This kind of thing can be really useful in a bootstrap/model selection analysis, especially if you can run the different models with cross-model comparable permutations to further eke out the signal to noise ratio, but here is not the place for such advanced statistical technique. What we can do here is look at the observed data, which shows what appears to be a small warming trend since 1998 despite that data set starting at an extremely strong El Niño event. All this means is that El Niño can have confounding effects on the observed data, and we have to treat unsophisticated (intuitive if you like) examination of the data with extreme caution. Here’s the source for the small warming trend: http://www.aussmc.org/documents/waiting-for-global-cooling.pdf . Jennifer Mahorasy, a moderately well known climate fossil concurs that this is a correct reading of the data: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002934.html . On the other hand, we have a bunch of physical scientists in her blog’s comments, who clearly are only experienced at reading clean datasets (i.e. the “you have discard data points that need statistical correction in our field” crowd) decrying the techniques used. Did you know most physicists lack training in complexity theory, partly because it’s hard, and partly because it’s an area of rapidly advancing knowledge, thanks in part to the climate model crowd.
Just to continue where you left off from your quote (selective use of references? *cough*?):
“Plimer writes that solar activity accounts for some 80% of the global temperature trend over the last 150 years. This doesn’t fit the observational evidence. Increases in solar irradiance would cause more warming in the daytime, in the tropics and in summer, as well as warming in the upper atmosphere, and these are not observed. Changes in solar irradiance and cosmic rays show a large 11-year sunspot cycle and negligible trend, but observed global temperatures show a large warming trend and small 11-year cycle.”
All the Heaven and Earth reviews I’ve looked at have been a good read, and make me really not want to read the book. Here’s the ABC science show review again: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2593166.htm
Another proponent of moral argument in the New York Times today. While the Wall Street Journal has an op-ed that elevates Steve Fielding to the status of someone who’s opinion is elevated to valid as someone who actually understands climate science, the New York Times has a much more evidence lead view of the climate change sceptics in politics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html
“The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.”
“But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.”
“Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual? Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.”
See a clear moral issue. It’s not about a fact or two, here or there, it’s about a century of theory and evidence that within the last 30 years has built into a case to show failure to act is inexcusable. Selectively ignoring the bulk of the evidence is not only sloppy and suggests a hidden agenda, but it’s ethically inexcusable. Ken, Tamas et.al. You can run back to your couple of data points that superficially look like they buck the consensus. You can try to take comfort in 19th century scientific methods, but you can’t hide from the mass of meterological and ecological evidence that destroys your case.
These appear to be stuck in a moderation queue, so just to keep you guys happy with your wet lettuce flogging, here they are below:
Ken #223
You’d need a sophisticated understanding of what the models are measuring, their sensitivity and the things that they predict other than mean global termperature to understand why 80% of them predict warming and 20% of them predict cooling. This kind of thing can be really useful in a bootstrap/model selection analysis, especially if you can run the different models with cross-model comparable permutations to further eke out the signal to noise ratio, but here is not the place for such advanced statistical technique. What we can do here is look at the observed data, which shows what appears to be a small warming trend since 1998 despite that data set starting at an extremely strong El Niño event. All this means is that El Niño can have confounding effects on the observed data, and we have to treat unsophisticated (intuitive if you like) examination of the data with extreme caution. Here’s the source for the small warming trend: http://www.aussmc.org/documents/waiting-for-global-cooling.pdf . Jennifer Mahorasy, a moderately well known climate fossil concurs that this is a correct reading of the data: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002934.html . On the other hand, we have a bunch of physical scientists in her blog’s comments, who clearly are only experienced at reading clean datasets (i.e. the “you have discard data points that need statistical correction in our field” crowd) decrying the techniques used. Did you know most physicists lack training in complexity theory, partly because it’s hard, and partly because it’s an area of rapidly advancing knowledge, thanks in part to the climate model crowd.
Just to continue where you left off from your quote (selective use of references? *cough*?):
“Plimer writes that solar activity accounts for some 80% of the global temperature trend over the last 150 years. This doesn’t fit the observational evidence. Increases in solar irradiance would cause more warming in the daytime, in the tropics and in summer, as well as warming in the upper atmosphere, and these are not observed. Changes in solar irradiance and cosmic rays show a large 11-year sunspot cycle and negligible trend, but observed global temperatures show a large warming trend and small 11-year cycle.”
All the Heaven and Earth reviews I’ve looked at have been a good read, and make me really not want to read the book. Here’s the ABC science show review again: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2593166.htmsceptical approach stays within the bounds of his area of expertise, which he actually has some understanding of. The quote wasn’t about climate change, but it does apply to that domain). You are making the fatal mistake of using methodology deriving from rocket science to understand a subject to which the rules of calculus do not really apply. Here’s your reference for that last statement: http:// necsi.org/projects/baranger/cce.pdf, again a work not about climate change.
No, it’s because you’ve chosen an inapropriate forum to discuss the really detailed hard bits of climate science. In the words of an ecologist I once saw in a lecture, “this isn’t rocket science, it’s really really hard” (Tony Uderwood – http://www.usyd.edu.au/sustainable_solutions/environment/tony_underwood.shtml, you’d like him, but his sceptical approach stays within the bounds of his area of expertise, which he actually has some understanding of. The quote wasn’t about climate change, but it does apply to that domain). You are making the fatal mistake of using methodology deriving from rocket science to understand a subject to which the rules of calculus do not really apply. Here’s your reference for that last statement: http://necsi.org/projects/baranger/cce.pdf, again a work not about climate change.
kdkd #230 – you say that “as the mean rises, the outliers cease to be outliers very very quickly”.
Well, not in the 30 year UAH temperature record. It shows a maximum temperature 0.77C above the mean in April 1998 and a minimum of -0.49C in September 1984. The standard deviation is 0.21. So 3 of the 5 months of 2009 have been within 1 standard deviation of the mean.
Yet it’s you that ‘selectively’ ignores the most fundamentally important data in this debate – the global temperature. It’s just not going up kdkd, so all the ‘science’ saying we’re doomed isn’t worth a can of beans.
There has to be more warming before I believe in global warming.
Ken #233 – Good point. Karoly’s basically saying 80% of climate models are wrong. Well, he’s getting closer to the real number…
kdkd #234
Tamas, I think we have sent kdkd over the edge. Maybe we should put in a call to Michael Jackson’s doctor to get him injected with something.
Not only are we unethical but immoral as well!
This must be a cleverish in-joke – like ‘The Avengers’ or ‘Desperate Housewives’.
kdkd, dear kdkd, a century ago scientists were into radioactivity and relativity. Thirty years ago, the same scientists who now scream AGW were warning of a new ice age!
The 19th century brought such methods as devised by Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Isambard Brunel, Louis Pasteur at al…..
Hold on kdkd, is is warming or cooling at the moment?
Karoly is having a a $1 bet on cooling and an $4 bet on warming at the moment – just in case.
And how would you interpret the Karoly bombshell, kdkd?
Well we think it is warming, but one fifth of climate models did predict cooling from 1998 to 2008, so if it is cooling then we have that covered too!
The perfect unfalsifiable hypothesis – a quinella – $4 on warming for a win – and $1 on cooling for a place.
Tamas, it’s probably beyond your astoundingly linear thought processes, but the global mean temperature is actually an aggregation of lots of temperatures all over the face of the earth. It will vary, and as the temperature rises the “hot spots” on the earth will increase, and become hotter over time. This will not be evident from the global mean. Also temperature may not be the easiest way to spot events, rather precipitation, wind speed or some biodiversity indicator may be a better measure.
Ken. I note that whenever you make an error you fail to admit it, and whenever someone brings up a bit of evidence that challenges your blinkered view, you ignore it (guess that’s why it’s called blinkers). The the sign of a very weak case if you ask me, as it makes it clear that your arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny. the 19th century methods bring us a great toolbox, but it’s capacity to illuminate complex dynamic data is limited. Having to understand the dynamic system rather than the odd point here or really does require an enhanced toolbox. Uncertainty is the name of the game, and the balance of probabilities (here we’re running at 98% + when you look at the big picture rather than a couple of hand-selected statistics on global mean temperatures) is the score card.
Prof Plimer has taken a powerful general position: viz. *The Earth has a dynamic climate which has always changed due to many complex processes – and that will continue. Climate change has been rapid and disruptive in the Holocene and back through geological time. In the Holocene it has sharply affected human civilizations, and none of this historical change has any relationship to CO2 release or prevailing CO2 levels.*
kdkd – this sounds like your sort of dynamic chaotic system – and Plimer’s book is wide ranging, speculative in parts, chaotic in execution – just the ticket to fit with your kind of post-modern uncertainty.
Certainly too loose and expansive for a couple of blinkered pedants like Tamas and myself.
By the way – have you read ‘Heaven + Earth’?
Ken, complex dynamic system is not a synonym for internally inconsistent, or factually inaccurate. My understanding of Heaven and Earth is that it’s both these things , and in general a bit of a rehash of that other fictional account of climate science, The Great Global Warming Swindle (I believe that Pilmer presents one of the fradulent graphs first promulugated by that so-called documentary).
Point # 2. The human population density and rate of exploitation of planetary resources we are seeing now is without precedent. Therefore while local extinctions and disruptions of the human population over the history of agriculture might provide some ideas for modelling present day scenarios, I have absolutely no idea why you think they are directly comparable.
I’ll restrict my climate change reading to sources that are either peer reviewed sources themselves, or the proper scientific press thanks. So tell me, why is your primary citation in this discussion generally regarded as a rather poorly written piece of science fiction?
Kdkd #239
Give me a break …I read Karoly, Glikson, Flannery, Trenberth, Dyson, and a host of others.
Why are you afraid of reading Plimer? I can lend you my personally signed hardback copy if you like?
As Bob Carter says: Peer Review has been over-rated – ends up a bit like a daisy chain in a bath-house.
Ken: #243 Good to see your reading’s not as narrow as your arguments make it seem. Begs the question what’s with the blinkers then? To be fair, Tamas seems more delusional and utterly uninformed, wheras you have the ability to zoom in on some very specific parts of the big picture.
I’m not keen on expending my time on Pilmer at the moment, because the reviews I’ve read suggest that it’s largely a work of fiction. Rather than reading confabulations, I’d prefer to read a proper piece of fiction. My factual bookshelf is out of the realm of climate science at the moment by necessity.
kdkd – you say that “as the temperature rises the “hot spots” on the earth will increase, and become hotter over time. This will not be evident from the global mean”.
But if hot spots become hotter, why would that not show up in the global mean?
In any case, I looked at the 30 years of UAH data again and they break down the world temperature into the Northen Hemisphere, southern hemisphere and the tropics.
The northern hemisphere had a temperature range of -0.605C to +1.01C with a standard deviation of 0.27C. A linear regression of the data shows a trend increase of 0.59C over 30 years.
The Southern hemisphere had a temperature range of -0.51 to +0.65C, with a standard deviation of 0.19C. A linear regression of the data shows a trend increase of 0.18C over 30 years.
The tropics have a temperature range of -0.73C to +1.29C with a standard deviation of 0.28C. A linear regression of the data shows a trend increase of 0.16C over 30 years.
Hmm… so while the range of the northern hemisphere and the tropics is higher than the global one, the southern hemisphere’s range is lower. No surprises here because the NH has much more land than the SH so you would expect a higher variance.
Also, this so called “global warming” seems to actually just be some observed warming in the NH with the SH and tropics pretty flat.
And those southern, northern and tropical maximums were all in 1998 during the El Nino peak, so again, no sign of CO2 being the driver of the maximums.
It gets worse though (for you). A 10 year linear regression show warming of just 0.13C in the NH, 0.09C in the SH and 0.11C in the tropics.
Think that was bad? Well wait till I tell you the 5 year trends. A linear regression from 2004 until now shows the following trend COOLING.
Earth: -0.15C
NH: -0.12C
SH: -0.19C
Tropics: -0.41C
Whoaa – so how do those “hot spots” cause global cooling over the past 5 years? And just where is this data you refer to showing the increase in “hot spots” anyway?
It would be nice if you could refer to some actual data in your response and drop the usual insults. Not that I’m expecting you to do either…
So Tamas, well done for doing some work, this is progress!
The essence of what you’re saying is that unless you try to peform a regression over an inappropriate ly short time period (15-30 years is good, any period under a decade will have more noise than signal), then you see a clear warming trend. We won’t be able make 2004 our start point until at least 2014, and more realistically 2019 for this reason. Also you made no mention of figures for Arctic areas[1], where we expect a clear and larger warming, as predicted by most or all climate change models. Also consider this. If you take the regression through the early to mid part of the 20th century, you see cooling, which is consistent with the effect of particulate and sulphur pollution.
Now onto the variability of temperatures. You are continually referring to annual global or in your last post, macro-regional means. Now in Victoria the daily annual maximum temperature is about 18ºC, but as we saw last December, temperatures are quite capable of getting up to the high 40s, and this was a major contributor to the fires. Now if you aggregate across time so coarsely small changes to the aggregate mean will mask large changes in the day to day variability. This is why a rise in temperatures of around 1.5ºC wll kill the Great Barrier Reef, not because of the 1.5ºC rise, but the associated changes in day to day variability and much increased probability of having days sufficiently hot to be lethal to the reef.
You can seem methodology to calculate this kind of stuff at http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/embarrassing-questions/ which is a variant on the analysis published here: http://www.aussmc.org/documents/waiting-for-global-cooling.pdf
[2] In the absence of a huge mass of ice, we’d expect much warming in the Antarctic too, but there’s obviously a substantal buffer here.
Tamas #242 – spot on information.
Tamas I think it is about time Sophie Black gave you and I the Cage fight prizes and put kdkd out of his misery.
He should get the ‘dummy spit’ and ‘ill-considered abuse’ awards and be jolly thankful for those as well.
Hold on though – there might be another kdkd tantrum in the offing after your insertion of cold steel temperature data.
By the way – Cage Fighters past and present – this is Post #243.
Have you noticed – The debate is not over!!!
Ken, all well and good, but many of my posts seem to have been stuck in a moderation queue. I think it’s because they contain lots of urls (you know actual references) which the software mis-interprets as spam. Quick precis. Ken’s last comments caricature perfectly valid statistical methods which makes the uncertainty look much greater than it actually is. Tamas’ last post was progress in that it appears that he’s actually thinking about it, but the only way he can demonstrate what he wants to is to use a time period (i.e. less than 10-15 years) over which the noise component exceeds the signal.
So therefore I pronounce the “debate” over. And medication time for the delusional fossils again! NURSE!!!
kdkd #248
Quote: “The essence of what you’re saying is that unless you try to peform a regression over an inappropriate ly short time period (15-30 years is good, any period under a decade will have more noise than signal), then you see a clear warming trend.” endquote
kdkd are you going to inform Prof Karoly or your ‘Amimal Farm’ like mantra: “15-20 years good, 10 years bad” viz.
Prof Karoly: “Global-average temperature for the current decade from surface observations and from satellite data is warmer than any other decade with reasonable data coverage.” (Review of ‘Heaven + Earth’ ABC Science Show 12JUN09)
Note the ‘reasonable data coverage’ (Erik the Red did not have a thermometer when he set sail in 980AD for Greenland).
And Professor, kdkd says that your assertion of ‘current decade’ long warming is more noise than signal.
Ken: #249
*sigh* This is complex stuff, so these cheap shots smack of grasping at straws. If you regress the current decade you get a positive but stastically insignificant regression coefficient. If you use a two decade range, you get a statistically significant but smaller regression coefficient. If you use a three decade range, you get an even smaller regression equation. Beyond this you see some warming since the start of industrial times, but also the confounding effect of particulate and sulphur pollution in the mid-20th Century. Therefore there is no evidence for the cessation of warming in the 21st century, and we can also draw some conclusions about the effects of El Niño on warming trends, as an important confounding variable. My impression is that the effect of El Niño events mean that we are unable to use this data to make any conclusions about accelerated warming. However the behaviour of Arctic climate does provide evidence to support this.
Actually I misremembered what I’d read – the 50 year trend is 0.6ºC warming with each decadal period having roughtly the same amount of variability. I am getting the information from this page: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/embarrassing-questions/ which given it has been linked from the realclimate.org blog so has been through a reasonable but minimal peer review.
kdkd #224
kdkd: “As for your comment on solar forcing versus greenhouse gas forcing, I suggest that you phone a good university meterology/geoscience department and ask someone appropriate for an answer, not some random internet forum.”
Critical point about the order of magnitude CO2 verses Solar. This is complex stuff. So is it all – why are we trying to figure it out using the ordinary tools of logic and deduction? Try harder.
ken # 252
Is that the best you can do? Here’s a good proxy for your phone call. It’s a necessarily rather technical discussion: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-lure-of-solar-forcing/
And a quote from the end: “In summary, although solar forcing is real, the implications of that are often rather overstated. Since there has been a clear history of people fooling themselves about the importance of solar-climate links, any new studies in the field need to be considered very carefully before conclusions are drawn, especially with respect the warming over recent decades, which despite all of this discussion about solar activity, is almost all related to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.”
kdkd #253
Lets break it up into bite sized pieces for you.
The Medieval warming was at least as warm or warmer than the present. Prof Karoly quotes we are now the ‘warmest since 900AD’.
What then were the ‘forcings’ which drove the Medieval Warming? For sure they were ‘natural’ ie. ‘background noise’ ie. definitely not industrial release of CO2.
Agree so far?
Other than ‘natural’ solar and solar induced forcings (including orbital and planetary effects), what other forcings could have caused the Medieval warming?
Now since the Earth has about the same mass, volume, atmosphere etc. as 1100 years ago, could we make the leap that in reaching roughly the same temperature as presently, the ‘forcings’ causing that would have a similar magnitude to those currently at work.
Sound reasonable?
Conclusion – that ‘natural’ forcings from 1100 years ago are similar to proposed anthropogenic (mainly CO2) forcings of today.
Let me know if you are still in agreement.
Ken #254
900AD is the beginning of the conventionally defined MWP, so you’ve shot yourself in the foot a bit there.
From IPCC 2001:
“the posited Medieval Warm Period appears to have been less distinct, more moderate in amplitude, and somewhat different in timing at the hemispheric scale than is typically inferred for the conventionally-defined European epoch. The Northern Hemisphere mean temperature estimates of Jones et al. (1998), Mann et al. (1999), and Crowley and Lowery (2000) show temperatures from the 11th to 14th centuries to be about 0.2°C warmer than those from the 15th to 19th centuries, but rather below mid-20th century temperatures”
and IPCC 2007 refines this somewhat:
“The evidence currently available indicates that NH mean temperatures during medieval times (950–1100) were indeed warm in a 2-kyr context and even warmer in relation to the less sparse but still limited evidence of widespread average cool conditions in the 17th century” – but no retraction of them being warmer than mid 20th century.”
Given that the MWP appears to have been cooler and more regional than the present warming, and that according to (strtraightforward) chemical bond theory, and (much more complex) climate theory we know that we have not yet observed the full increase in temperature caused by current GHG levels, then your premises seem incorrect.
I take it from your silence on other matters, you concur that temperatures are continuing to rise etc. You’re meant to present straw men in order for them to be easy for *you* to demolish, not me
.
kdkd: #254
This is Karoly: Quote: The report of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2006, cited by Plimer, states ‘Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all individual locations, were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since AD 900.’ endquote
Where have I shot myself in the foot kdkd?
Does not the above mean that it is as warm now as any period since the MWP (roughly 900 -1150AD)?
You can see it coming can’t you kdkd – not the light at the end of the tunnel – but the train!
Conclusion – that ‘natural’ forcings from the MWP must be similar to proposed anthropogenic (mainly CO2) forcings of today if the temperatures today are as ‘high as any period since 900AD’.
But hold on kdkd, IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 says that net anthropogenic forcings are 1.6W/sq.m. and ‘Natural’ (solar) forcings only 0.12 W/sq.m. – 13 times larger – your favourite ‘order of magnitude’ larger.
We are not talking 20% or 50% or 100% here old son, we are talking 1300%.
The upshot is inescapable – either we have seen a dramatic fall in ‘natural’ forcings since the MWP, or the 1.6 W/sq.m or the 0.12 W/sq.m stated in IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 are seriously wrong.
If we are in the middle of a Keenlyside 10-20 year cooling period then the liklihood is that the AG forcing of 1.6W/sq.m is wrong.
Gentlemen – revisiting Karoly review of “Heaven + Earth” 12JUN09 ABC Science Show;
Karoly: “Plimer is wrong to write ‘Not one of the IPCC models predicted that there would be cooling after 1998′. Actually, more than one-fifth of climate models show cooling in global average temperatures for the period from 1998 to 2008.” endquote
A little gem isn’t it?
Having worked so hard to keep the AGW story intact by extended defence of the proposition that regardless of what the temperature data shows – it is still warming, wvarming, wvarming.. damn you!!! – Prof Karoly probably does not realise the Strangelovian implications of the above statement.
What has happened to the 1.6W/sq.m ‘forcing’ for that 10-20 years of ‘cooling’., in the 20% of models which show cooling?
What about the 80% of models which still show warming – are they wrong and to be discarded or re-jigged to match the other 20%.
Or are the 20% ‘cooling’ models simply wrong, and because we use 11 year moving average temperatures for the last 10 years, it still must be wvarming?
Not only Strangelovian but Marxian as well – Groucho Marxian…
Groucho; “Sir, if you object to my Principles – I have others!”
Ken #257.
Nothing of the sort. You just don’t understand how to evaluate quantitative models of chaotic and complex systems. It’s requires specialist techniques, and field specific knowledge. The techniques go under the umbrella of bootstrap and model selection, and the specialist domain knowledge required is in climate science. The skills needed are far beyond the technical capabilities of people contributing to this forum. In my experience of looking at this stuff (complex systems, not chaotic and in human sciences), it’s a rare person who can teach this material well. Guffawing and saying that it’s an 80/20 bet each way belittles the value of the expertise[1], and is entirely inappropriate. What you are presenting here is not evidence, it’s poorly informed innuendo.
Now #256.
You have clearly misinterpreted Karoly. This is understandable, as I don’t think he expressed himself terribly clearly. Having now done a little bit of research on the MWP, it’s clear that what he means is that since the latter part of the 20th century, it has been consistently warmer than any period since before the start of the medieval warming period (i.e. since before 900AD). Therefore your starting argument is completely wrong, and all the points that you use to follow-up on this are based on this faulty premise, and therefore irrelevant.
So either find me yet another one of your straw men to knock down, or retire defeated.
—
[1] I’m less convinced of the worth of this expertise in human sciences due to the ephemeral and intangible nature of things being measured, but it makes perfect sense in complex physical systems.
Ken – kdkd is telling us that “You just don’t understand how to evaluate quantitative models of chaotic and complex systems. It’s requires specialist techniques, and field specific knowledge…The skills needed are far beyond the technical capabilities of people contributing to this forum”
Get it? We’re all too dumb to be debating this Ken. Of course, I don’t think I need a super-high IQ (like kdkd’s) to figure out that if the planet is cooling then we don’t really need to fear global warming.
But hey, what would I know? Cooling is warming in the weird world of the global warming debate. And besides, some of the warming models predict cooling, but most of them predict warming so we really must stop driving, flying and producing electricity.
Tamas #259.
Wow, a comedian … no, I said I don’t really understand how to apply the model selection process to the models too. Ken seems to have models, and observed temperature anomaly confused anyway.
Anyway, have a look at this graph: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/giss39y.jpg . Now can you show me where the cooling trend is on that graph, because I really can’t spot it?
Again, too easy: you’re punch drunk and on the ropes. Do you have anything better, or have you run out of (apparently limited) material?
Ken # 256
“Does not the above mean that it is as warm now as any period since the MWP (roughly 900 -1150AD)?”
No Ken, I’m afraid it doesn’t. What Karoly is clearly saying is that the last 25 years have been warmer than any comparable length of time since 900AD. What he is clearly NOT saying is that the last 25 years have been as warm as 900AD (or the MWP).
And why does Karoly only go back as far as 900AD? Well, looking at more of the quote from the US National Academy of Sciences might provide an answer.
“4. Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period A.D. 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. The uncertainties increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified.
5. Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about A.D. 900″.
See the entire statement: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=6222006
Ken (again) # 257
What this quote from Karoly goes to show is that Plimer is (once again) wrong. Plimer makes a blanket statement that the models didn’t predict cooling, Karoly (again) shows that Plimer is wrong. Kdkd is right in saying that Karoly doesn’t explain himself well. A better explanation is that all models predict cooling of the kind apparently seen, but only 20% put it in the right period. In other words all models predict variability.
For a better explanation than I am capable of providing, see the responses from Penny Wong to Steve Fielding’s questions at http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2009/tr20090624c.html
kdkd #260 Tamas #259
I am not sure whether Tamas is delivering the short sharp jabs and I am ‘smoking round the body’ or visa versa – but for sure neither of us is punch drunk from being beaten with your wet lettuce. Just getting set for the straight right in fact.
So Tamas and I are too simple for all this complexity huh? Seems like we have done well enough with the numbers to keep your explanations looking increasingly obscure and desperate.
Simply get out your Wikipedia Holocene Temperature Chart (which you referred to me after I referred to it much earlier in the Cage Fight) and have a look at all the peaks in the smoothed curve going back from around 1100AD to 8000 years BP *AND* all the *noisy* peaks in the proxies up to 1.5 degC higher than the mid-20th century baseline.
All these pre-industrial peaks were produced by ‘natural’ forcings.
The most recent “proxy” (2004) peaked at 0.5 degC above the mid-20th century baseline.
Yet we are being asked by CO2 warming theorists to believe that the CO2 forcings which gave us the 0.5 degC peak (2004), are 13 times the ‘natural’ forcings which in the Holocene have given us up to 1.5 degC peaks.
Please explain this complex chaotic system which only kdkd can understand and works beyond the minds of mortal men.
Ken #261
I think you are mistaken who is holding the wet lettuce. I take it from your silence on other matters that you concede the last three rounds (temperatures are rising, models are useful but are not exact, and the MWP was cooler than the present day).
You need to stop repeating yourself. Holocene warming was an astronomocial phenomenon caused by procession in the earth’s orbit. Summers were warmer and winters were cooler, and this was confined to the northern hemisphere. The same procession causes warmer summers in the Southern Hemisphere in the present day. The astronomical theory and calculations used to predict this are straightforward, well understood and capable of high levels of precision. There is also no evidence to suggest that the mid-holocene was warmer than the present day.
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html
Quote from the text: “What is most remarkable about the mid-Holocene is that we now have a good understanding of both the global patterns of temperature change during that period AND what caused them. It appears clear that changes in the Earth’s orbit have operated slowly over thousands and millions of years to change the amount of solar radiation reaching each latitudinal band of the Earth during each month. These orbital changes can be easily calculated and predict that the northern hemisphere should have been warmer than today during the mid-Holocene in the summer AND colder in the winter. The paleoclimatic data for the mid-Holocene shows these expected changes, however, there is no evidence to show that the average annual mid-Holocene temperature was warmer than today’s temperatures. We also now know from both data and “astronomical” (or “Milankovitch”) theory that the period of above modern summer temperatures did not occur at the same time around the northern hemisphere, or in the southern hemisphere at all.”
Ding ding. Round 4 over. The ref is going to have to step in and intervene unless you lift your game rather suddenly. Your form suggests this is unlikely
On a side note, if you look at the data from antarctic ice cores: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc-co2.txt you can clearly see that CO2 levels clearly rose substantially coming out of the last ice age. To save you the bother, I plotted a graph: http://imgur.com/UqoDM.png . Even given the log relationship between CO2 and warming, the same increase again from the climatic optimum will very likely have dramatic consequences, some of which we are already observing (most dramatically in the arctic). Additionally, evidence suggests that there are various earth-systems that could prompt runaway greenhouse gas increase (e.g. loss of Amazon carbon sink due to preciptitation changes, melting permafrost releasing methane hydrates, oxidation of peat bogs). These could provide a number of positive feedback mechanisms. This in turn means rapid action is necessary to minimise risk.
But sorry, starting another round before the opponent is out of their seat, especially in as poor condition as these ones is unsporting and against the rules.
kdkd #264
Not so fast kdkd – you reconstruction of Prof Karoly’s meaning renders it meaningless.
viz: kdkd: “Having now done a little bit of research on the MWP, it’s clear that what he (Karoly) means is that since the latter part of the 20th century, it has been consistently warmer than any period since before the start of the medieval warming period (i.e. since before 900AD”
Well what period ‘before’ the start of the MWP in about 900AD is ‘your Karoly’ speaking of kdkd?
We know that it was cooler in the dark ages after the fall of Rome before the MWP and that it was warmer in the ‘Roman warming’ about 2000 years ago.
The only reason for the quotation of the 900AD is that your reference: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html is not confident in going back any further than 900AD.
No great discrepancy with the Wikipedia data except the short cutoff at AD900. Are you now discounting the Wikipedia Chart?
And all the simulated temperature reconstructions are for the northern hemisphere – not the whole earth. Read Plimer for the whole earth approach.
kdkd; “The astronomical theory and calculations used to predict this are straightforward, well understood and capable of high levels of precision. There is also no evidence to suggest that the mid-holocene was warmer than the present day.”
Except the Wikipedia Chart which shows several proxies warmer than the 2004 “proxy” in the last 4000 years and all the smoothed peaks from 4000-8000 years BP.
Tell me kdkd, if the causes of Holocene temperatures are known with such precision ie
“astronomical” (or “Milankovitch”) cycles etc, why are the climate models so lousy in hindcasting??
Even your new understanding of ‘bar heater’ proxies must accept that there are at least two factors in ‘natural’ solar irradiance forcing (1) is the orbital variation of the Earth relative to the Sun, and (2) is the variable radiation output of the Sun itself.
If this natural “solar irradiance’ is known with such precision kdkd, why does IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 assign it a ‘low’ LOSU (level of scientific understanding)?
Even more interesting from your ncdc/noaa data is the 900AD to 2000 ‘Solar irradiance forcing’. It shown significant peaks up to 0.5 W/sq.m in the 900AD -1250AD period, low or negative up to about 1750AD, and 0.2-0.5 W/sq.m. from 1750AD to the present with the last 50 years close to 0.5W/sq.m.
Yet IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 ascribes only a figure of 0.12 W/sq.m.to ‘natural’ Solar Irradiance with a ‘low’ LOSU.
Is that science or politics kdkd?
Ken #264
Very spirited defence for someone so hanging by a thread. However, it continues to be very repetitive – the only new thing you bring to the table, are yet more ways of confusing scientific scepticism with pseudo-scientific pig-headedness.
Quote:
“Well what period ‘before’ the start of the MWP in about 900AD is ‘your Karoly’ speaking of”
MWP commenced some time around 900 AD, lasted about 300 years and peaked around 1050 AD. Ipso facto any period in recent history before was cooler than at 900AD was on average cooler than then. QED.
Quote:
“The only reason for the quotation of the 900AD is that your reference: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html is not confident in going back any further than 900AD.”
I was looking at data up to 20K years ago on this point, I would have thought the graph I showed you of CO2 concentrations would have made that clear. Instead it’s just given you more rope.
Quote:
…. “Except the Wikipedia Chart which shows several proxies warmer than the 2004 “proxy” in the last 4000 years and all the smoothed peaks from 4000-8000 years BP.”
You can only demonstrate this by looking at the data dishonestly. It is only valid to compare the 2004 data point within the rest of the black line – a smoothed global average. The coloured lines are averages for particular study sites, and so contain noise not contained within the black line. Comparing noisy “raw” data with smoothed data is not valid, so your point is factually incorrect. Not a bad feint, which is probably how you’ve lasted this long.
“why are the climate models so lousy in hindcasting??”
Please demonstrate why this is relevant, with references. Besides, I would have thought that a high precision astronomical model of the holocene solar forcing was a valid “hindcast”. I am also unable to identify which of ‘my’ noaa data you are referring to here, due to sloppy referencing on your part. Maybe we can deal with the solar forcing data when you clearly identify what it is you are talking about – at the moment it looks like you’re hiding behind pseudo-references.
In other news, the IARU systhesis report (http://www.anu.edu.au/climatechange/wp…/06/synthesis-report-web.pdf) demonstrates how “greenhouse gas emissions and many
aspects of the climate are changing near the upper boundary of the IPCC
range of projections.” Of course, the IPCC range of projections only make sense with greenhouse gasses included in their modelling. Are you saying that there are natural forces additional to AGW that are causing the current warming?
A spirited attempt at a comeback Ken, but I’m pretty sure the ref’s going to have to stop you from doing yourself too much more damage soon.
kdkd – I must point out that the UAH temperature data for June 2009 shows the world was 0.001C above the 30 year average.
Are you starting to get embarassed with the world’s refusal to warm? If the temperature doesn’t start heading up real fast real soon, your whole argument simply disolves.
I guess that’s the problem when you base an apocalyptic faith on something so measurable. I look forward to the mental gymnastics you’ll use to get around this very simple but inconvenient fact.
Tamas #266.
Repetition, and more half-referenced claims that there is no warming, let’s have a closer look.
In the interests of trying to take you seriously, I grabbed the raw figures for this satelite data from http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2 and imported it into a statistics package. Having a quick look I was a little disappointed to see that the June 2009 figure you asserted was not there, it’s only up to May, where the temperature anomoly is 0.043. I also see at the end of the data file we’re informed that per decade we’re observing 0.126ºC of warming.
So a nice obvious quick and dirty way to look at this data is to perform a regression. That is predict the position in data set (i.e. months since start) against temperature anomaly. This results in the following equation:
Anomoly = 0.00146 X month number
Adjusted r squared is 0.275 which indicates that number of months since start predicts 27% of the variance of temperature anomaly. We also note that the 0.00146 coefficient is positive and is significantly different than zero. This is a clear indication of a warming trend, even with raw data – the earth is warming has been warming by 0.00146ºC per month since the beginning of this data set, according to this simplistic regression analysis. Of course we should really process this data before doing this kind of thing to control for things like seasonal effects and noise. Guess what happens if you do this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png That’s right, a very clear warming trend.
Nice work Tamas, you’ve made it possible for me to refute your claim with the data set that you claim supports you. You’ve clearly demonstrated that you have zero credibility on this issue, and that your level of ignorance on how to interpret this kind of data is at staggeringly poor levels for someone who professes an interest in the subject.
I declare KO. Ref, get this sorry state out of the ring, I’ve still got to put Ken out of his misery next time he pipes up.
Tamas, comment stuck in moderation. I see that your mental gymnastics involve simply ignoring 99% of the data or more.
As I said in my comment that you won’t see until someone at Crikey approves it, Ref, that’s a clear KO, get this guy a doctor before he loses too much more blood.
kdkd – I note that you again ignore the global temperature data. How can global warming be such a crisis if the globe is not warming?
Tamas,
On the contrary, you’ll have to wait for the post to be approved (it has too many references in the form of URLs – I note you never reference your assertions – so the blog comment software thinks it’s spam). But the quick precis is, there’s an unequivocal warming trend shown in the UAH data. Yes, that’s the satelite readings of global temperature data that you referred to as not supporting any warming trend at all. No question about it at all, warming.
You’ll have to wait for approval before you get the gory details. Of course I can find several data points in the UAH dataset with negative temperature anomalies, but that provides no evidence whatsovever for your assertions either. In fact given that there are 227 data points (average +0.19ºC) in the UAH dataset with positive temperature anomaly, and only 139 (average -0.14ºC) of negative anomaly is yet more strong evidence for an unequivocal warming trend.
Are you so deluded to actually believe this stuff, or are you just talking utter rubbish to irritate me?
kdkd – do a linear regression on the past 8 years of UAH temperature data. Explain how the cooling trend could be consistent with the global warming hypothesis. Thanks.
Well you’re right in that you’ve cherry picked data to show your point. Because you’ve engaged in a type of statistical cheating here, you have superficially demonstrated that we can’t detect warming over this time period, with this data. Well done at providing such meaningless evidence.
However there’s no evidence of any cooling trend in this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png summarising the data set you’re so fond of. Next, you can fess up that your starting point is one of warmests year on record during a strong El Niño event. Next you can find the southern osscilation index data for the same period, and run a multivariate linear regression of ENSO and anomaly against time and report back.
Finally a repeat of my quick and dirty analysis. Over this period 90 months have had a positive temperature anomaly (mean 0.26), and only 7 have had negative anomaly (mean -0-06). Doesn’t make your point look terribly good or valid, does it?
Also from the same data set, May 2009 was one of the warmest on record, only being exceeded by other May temperatures in the 1990s and 2000s. Why didn’t you mention this as well?
kdkd #264
“MWP commenced some time around 900 AD, lasted about 300 years and peaked around 1050 AD. Ipso facto any period in recent history before was cooler than at 900AD was on average cooler than then. QED.”
What on heaven of earth does that mean kdkd? Is English your first language?
Have a look at; http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig613.png Graphs (b) (d) for the ‘sloppy’ references you so loosely spray around.
Even the ‘Simulated NH temperature’ Graph (d) anomaly for 900-2000AD used by the IPCC shows the northern hemisphere temperature range of the 900-1100AD period at 0.5 to 1.0 degC warmer than the baseline (1500-1899) and the 1900-2000AD period at a similar 0.5 to 1.0 degC warmer than that baseline.
My point was that the MWP was ‘at least as warm’ and possibly warmer (Plimer has several references globally claiming warmer MWP temperatures). Even excluding the Plimer references, the critical issue of ‘forcings’ remains.
You have repeated ignored the central point that IPCC AR4 claims that Anthropogenic forcings (mainly CO2 driven) are 13 times ‘natural’ solar irradiance forcings, (2005 relative to 1750), yet in a similarly warm period, the MWP; AG forcings did not exist, so the forcings in the MWP could only have been ‘natural’.
#Graph (b) shows the solar irradiance at up to 0.5W/sq.m. in the MWP and the last 50 years of the 20th century, yet AR4 fig 2.4 shows solar irradiance at 0.12 W/sq.m (2005 relative to 1750). Given that solar irradiance was 0-0.15 W/sq.m in about 1750 (Graph (b)), the 2005 figure was actually 0.12 – 0.27 W/sq.m in absolute terms which is not the 0.5W/sq.m shown on the same Graph (b) for the last 50 years.
By using *relative to 1750* components, AR4 Fig 2.4 is actually quoting absolute values for anthropogenic CO2 forcings (because they were 0 in 1750 before industrial release of CO2), against a ‘relative’ solar forcing, which unless it was 0 in 1750 understates the absolute value, which still does not match the 0.5 W/sq.m of Graph (b). Is that why IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 lists ‘Natural’ solar irradiance forcing as low LOSU??
This is consistent with my contention that the ‘natural’ forcings have been understated in the current warming, and the CO2 forcings have been overstated as evidenced by the last 10 years of flat or cooling temperatures.
Ken, your premise that the MWP was “at least as warm or warmer” than the present day is incorrect, demonstrating otherwise requires some especially one-eyed cherry picking of data. You see that the relative forcing in graph (c – non solar) that you conveniently ignore is much larger – double – (b). These two facts combined leave your argument starting with incorrect premises and renders the rest of what you have to say irellevant.
You and Tamas clearly have nothing new to say, and can not demonstrate any substantial uncertainty in the data without cherry picking data, misrepresenting facts, or using spurious data frequently provided by people with a vested interest in a business as usual emissions scenario.
So we leave both Tamas and Ken comatose on the floor of the ring, bereft of medical attention, and in a subconscious fantasy land where nothing in reality matters aside from the contents of inside their own head. Here’s the final cage match score card:
The sceptics’ Ability to make repetitive points and drive away most critics of their position away by repeating drivel with almost no relationship to observed data made this a close game. This was achieved by ignoring a reality based view of the situation and irritating the less persistend into going away. Later on, kdkd turned up with the occasional suppporting role from others that exposed their views as based on sloppy sources, cherry picking, and really very small parts of the big picture. In short a delusional fantasy.
Unfortunately for them, these delusions appear persistend and fixed, so very difficult to cure. Meanwhile we leave them to continue to pretend that the data is on their side, but rather like in a chronic psychotics’ ward we see from the outside that this just represents the end stage of a long decline into total detachment from reality.
See ya guys, it was fun, but no fun. Get well soon
Ken,
I posted a couple of responses to you on Friday at around 3pm, but my comment is still stuck in moderation. I have reproduced it below minus the links in the hope it will go through.
Ken # 256
“Does not the above mean that it is as warm now as any period since the MWP (roughly 900 -1150AD)?”
No Ken, I’m afraid it doesn’t. What Karoly is clearly saying is that the last 25 years have been warmer than any comparable length of time since 900AD. What he is clearly NOT saying is that the last 25 years have been as warm as 900AD (or the MWP).
And why does Karoly only go back as far as 900AD? Well, looking at more of the quote from the US National Academy of Sciences might provide an answer.
“4. Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period A.D. 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. The uncertainties increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified.
5. Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about A.D. 900″.
See the entire statement at the National Acadamies website (nationalacadamies.org)
Ken (again) # 257
What this quote from Karoly goes to show is that Plimer is (once again) wrong. Plimer makes a blanket statement that the models didn’t predict cooling, Karoly (again) shows that Plimer is wrong. Kdkd is right in saying that Karoly doesn’t explain himself well. A better explanation is that all models predict cooling of the kind apparently seen, but only 20% put it in the right period. In other words all models predict variability.
For a better explanation than I am capable of providing, see the responses from Penny Wong to Steve Fielding’s questions at the Senator’s (Wong’s) web page.
Here’s your community erratum for Heaven and Earth: http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91 At present count, a scholarly analysis shows 118 serious errors – 1 in every 4 pages – many of which are serious enough to refute the whole book’s premise. There are a further 5 bits of rhetorical stupidity that just show sloppy thinking. I didn’t really realise he’s a mining geologist. That’s a discipline with a strong culture of “the earth is for exploitation, and has essentially infinite resources”. No wonder Pilmer’s cross that there’s strong evidence that humanity is overshooting.
kdkd #272
Tamas, how many times has the kdkd kiddie taken his marbles and headed home as soon as a W/sq.m. is mentioned? When a telling point is made, he (or she) screams ‘dishonesty’ and ‘cherry picking’ about you and I.
How about this for a kdkd ‘cherry pick’?:
kdkd #264 “You can only demonstrate this by looking at the data dishonestly. It is only valid to compare the 2004 data point within the rest of the black line – a smoothed global average. The coloured lines are averages for particular study sites, and so contain noise not contained within the black line. Comparing noisy “raw” data with smoothed data is not valid, so your point is factually incorrect. Not a bad feint, which is probably how you’ve lasted this long.”
The black line in question from the Wikipedia chart is a smoothed average of 8 worldwide proxies – and 2004 is a single year data point!!
And the kiddie has the temerity to suggest that the single year data point should be validly compared with a smoothed average!!! Well why not 1998 or 1933 then kdkd? Aren’t they vying for ‘hottest year on record’?
Totally ignores the Graph (b) ‘forcings’ issue; by quoting the all other (mainly CO2 forcings) from Graph (c) which is similar to the Anthropogenic forcings of 1.6W/sq.m quoted in IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4.
Graph (c) is effectively mirrored by the IPCC in AR4 Fig 2.4 as ‘Total Anthropogenic’ forcings of 1.6W/sq.m. and the large CO2 component has a ‘high LOSU’.
Yet Graph (b) which shows solar forcing at about 0.5W/sq.m. is quoted in IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 as the *only* ‘natural’ forcing at 0.12 W/sq.m. with a ‘low LOSU’.
Which brings me back to an earlier point of whether it is valid to sum ‘high’ and ‘low’ LOSU ‘level of scientific understanding’ components in a table at all.
Ken: Let me spell it out for you: Your entire starting premises are incorrect (not as wildly off the mark as Tamas, but he’s like shooting fish in a barrel), which is a polite word for wrong. You really need to come to terms with this before you can develop your ideas further. It’s your medication time. Bye.
kdkd #275, #272:
This is what Wikipedia say about their “Holocene Temperature Chart” with respect to year 2004AD:
“Because of the limitations of data sampling, each curve in the main plot was smoothed (see methods below) and consequently, this figure can not resolve temperature fluctuations faster than approximately 300 years. Further, while 2004 appears warmer than any other time in the long-term average, and hence might be a sign of global warming, it should also be noted that the 2004 measurement is from a single year (actually the fourth highest on record, see Image:Short Instrumental Temperature Record.png for comparison). It is impossible to know whether similarly large short-term temperature fluctuations may have occurred at other times, but are unresolved by the available resolution. The next 150 years will determine whether the long-term average centered on the present appears anomalous with respect to this plot”
QED
See you in 150 years (when the next ice age threatens), and we will see who was right.
Ken, Good nit-picking, it doesn’t stop your opening premises from being wrong. You’re playing join the dots with a Rorschach ink blot there, entertaining, but it only relates to the inside of your own head. Conflating uncertainty is not a valid approach to interrogating this data set.
kdkd #275,
While you are on your way out, see if you can tag team with Dr Glikson – we have not finished with him yet..
Ken: don’t expect the last word, you admit your delusional ramblings for what they are. This “we” that you speak of is you, and you alone. Tamas doesn’t count, he has a single fixed delusion that flys in the face of all evidence. Your system of faulty thinking is more complex, and relies on a more comprehensive selective ignoring of evidence.
I appear to have two comments stuck in limbo. One this morning and one from about 3pm last Friday (though the one from this morning is just a repeat from Friday’s). This is like trying to debate via Australia Post. C’mon Crikey, lift your game! Or has the cage been left unsupervised?
kdkd – you say I have “a single fixed delusion that flys in the face of all evidence”.
Sure, whatever you want to call it. I just look at the temperature data and notice that it’s not doing what the GW hypothesis says it should be doing. Therefore the hypothesis is falsified.
Ken – I, like you, just can’t get straight answers out of kdkd on these fundamental points. Usually he/she just shoots back a very complicated reply that I suspect is an attempt to cloak that reply’s meaninglessness. Oh, and lots of abuse too.
Tamas, you are uttlerly deluded and beyond all help. A suitable analogy would be like looking at a wooden tabletop with a magnifying glass and stating “that’s not from a tree, that’s just surface with a particular pattern to it”. Neither of you have a starting point that makes any sense.
See how nobody’s responding to you here except the poor fool me? It’s not becuase you’re right, it’s because you’re wasting your time with faulty reasoning and delusional ideation. The sooner this comment thread is shut down by the administrator, the better.
I tell you what, why don’t you go and visit http://realclimate.org, and post some comments there asking for feedback on your ideas. The people who run that site are sufficiently influential that if you’re right, you might even influence the next IPCC report.
kdkd – but again I ask you, why isn’t the world warming up?
Tamas: but I ask you again, why do you think this when all the evidence clearly demonstrates that it is. Are you an imbecile? Or do you have some other interest in being completely at odds with reality?
kdkd – Hey, maybe I am an imbecile. But the temperature data does not support the GW hypothesis.
The temperature data is the most important test of Global Warming. How can CO2 emissions be warming the planet if the planet is not warming?
The temperature IS reality kdkd.
Please make it clear to an imbecile like me where I am wrong.
I mean look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png – global warming has “stopped” at least six times since 1940. But this time is different eh? But if you’re happy with making yourself look like an idiot, please do prattle on
kdkd – I note you link to the NASA temperature record that includes the corrupted surface station data. I also note that the graph stops about 5 years ago.
Also, please explain the cooling from the 1940′s to the 1970′s. CO2 production was rapidly increasing then, so why did it cool?
Tamas, The effects of sulphur and particulate polution and their cooling effect in the mid 20th century is well documented. That’s why there was some cooling in that period.
“The graph stops about 5 years ago”. Hahaha good one. Why didn’t you mention that May 2009 was the 5th warmest may on record for the last 130 years? Is that evidence of cooling. April was also 5th warmest, March was 10th warmest on record, Feb, 9th, January 6th, last december was the warmest december on record as was november. Are you detecting a trend there?
Are you happy with continuing to make yourself look even more stupid, or do you want to stop now?
kdkd, Tamas #279 thru #287
Tamas, I think the kdkd should replace abuse with serious argument. I know we have him in a Stockholm-like grip – he keeps threatening to leave the cage but never makes it outside the front gate..
kdkd’s terms of abuse like ‘idiot, stupid, imbecile’ are getting beyond a joke, and detracting from this debate. In fact if these terms of abuse were used face to face, kdkd might end up with a re-arranged face. So cool it kdkd.
No Ken, there is no “debate” except in your own imagination. We’ve repeatedely been through strong evidence to demonstrate that, but you ignore it every time, pretend that it’s not there and present the same old same old stuff again as if the previous refutation didn’t count. It’s no surprise that I’ve lost patience with the pair of you. You at least have two or three tricks based on some fairly subtle confabulation. Tamas has a single fixed delusion.
Have you noticed how nobody else is listening? It’s because of the lack of value of your contribution, not because the silent majority agrees with you
Like I said before, why don’t you go an present your arguments over at http://realclimate.org where real climate scientists read the comments, and respond to them. The authorship there has sufficiently good credentials that you might even influence the next IPCC report. You’re wasting your time chasing your own tail here.
p.s. I have some pretty strong evidence of a strong anthropogenic warming trend based on month-by-month rank of mean monthly temperature data over the past 130 years, using fairly naive methods. But I’m going to work them up and publish them eslewhere, and horror of horrors, I’m going to try to get some basic peer review first.
Ken,
See my post at #261. You may have missed it because it was stuck in moderation since Friday.
ken #293
With regards to my lack of politeness, if it were clear that either you or tamas were listening, you wouldn’t cause that loss of patience. If this were a face to face discussion, I would have lost interest long ago, but I feel it’s important, as this forum has potentially wide readership, that your opinions are clearly marked with their worth. As this is essentially a political discussion disguised as a technical one, I feel that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of Keating style verbal argy-bargy. If you don’t like it, don’t come into the cage.
I don’t intend to contribute any more technical discussion here, but given for the last 100-200 or so posts, you, and Tamas have just consistently repeated yourself, evidence be damned, I will keep flagging your repetitive drivel for what it is. Disrespect, yes, but you clearly don’t respect other parties in the discussion enough to make an honest interpretation of the evidence that they present.
Chris Owens #276, #261
Thank you Chris – a pity your posts did not make it thru earlier before the latest fraught flurry with kdkd. Looks like there were two #261 posts.
kdkd – take a look at the contribution from Chris – try to emulate his non-abusive sober style.
Chris (and kdkd if he can control himself); my central point regarding the MWP was that currtne IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 data show that AG forcings are currently (2005) 13 times the ‘natural’ forcings (solar irradiance). ie Total AG forcings 1.6W/sq.m; Natural (solar irradiance forcings) 0.12 W/sq.m.
If the MWP was as ‘as warm as now’, or even similar in temperature (or even slightly cooler than now) given the admitted error margin and paucity of the data back 1000 years ago, the warming of the MWP could only be caused by ‘natural’ forcings.
That implies the ‘natural’ forcings which caused the MWP must have been similar magnitude to now. Not exact magnitude – similar – smaller even – smaller even by 20, 30, 50% could be feasible; But 13 times smaller – one thirteenth? Smaller by 92%?
Hence my contention that IPCC 2007 is either overstating current AG forcings or understating ‘natural’ forcings; or both.
I also find it hard to believe that ‘solar irradiance’ is ascribed a ‘low’ LOSU – (level of scientific understanding) in IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 whereas CO2 forcings which are the major component of AG forcings are ascribed ‘high’ LOSU.
kdkd #296
Others will judge if your ‘keating style argy bargy’ is helping your arguments – I think not. You know what happened to Keating – ended up brown nosing the Suharto clique and then the old bugger died on him.
Happy to reserve some vitreol for you old son if you want to keep it up. ‘ doing you slowly’ as Keating would sneer.
Ken, I think you’re already done, I’m just keeping the corpse warm
. My arguments are finished, unless you come up with anything new anyway, which seems unlikely on past form. I really do encourage you to try your arguments out at realcliamte though. Or maybe you already is this you: http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=98#comment-710 ? . If so, you obtained a detailed and courteous response, which appears to have been ignored.
Kdkd – are you just making this up as you go along?
You say that “May 2009 was the 5th warmest may for the last 130 years”.
Hmm… So I checked the UAH global temperature data and noted that May 2009 was 0.04c above the 30 year mean.
But get this – drum roll – of the 30 May UAH observations before 2009, 15 have been warmer than 2009 and 15 have been cooler. Ooops.
Thus we’re right on average and there’s no evidence for global warming in May 2009.
So am I still looking stupid?
Tamas,
I used a different (composite) data set. By the way the UAH dataset seems to consistently underestimate temperature compared to other sources. I suggest that it’s imprudent to put all of your eggs in one basket.
kdkd #299
No the *Ken* in your 2005 blog is not me – though I might take up your realclimate suggestion. As your arguments are now exhausted, I assume you found something to agree with in post #297 viz;
“That implies the ‘natural’ forcings which caused the MWP must have been similar magnitude to now. Not exact magnitude – similar – smaller even – smaller even by 20, 30, 50% could be feasible; But 13 times smaller – one thirteenth? Smaller by 92%?
Hence my contention that IPCC 2007 is either overstating current AG forcings or understating ‘natural’ forcings; or both.
I also find it hard to believe that ’solar irradiance’ is ascribed a ‘low’ LOSU – (level of scientific understanding) in IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 whereas CO2 forcings which are the major component of AG forcings are ascribed ‘high’ LOSU”.
Happy to peer review your ‘technical paper’ when you publish.
Ken # 302
No just the same old same old nonsense. Your starting premise is *wrong* and so therefore there is no value in the subsequent points your are trying to make. You appear to be engaging in something akin to confabulation, in the sense that you’re using your imagination to spin a superficially convincing story around a small group of specially selected facts. (confabulation is usually defined as a neuropsychiatric phenomenon, and I’m not trying to suggest this).
Tamas #300
Again, your starting point is even more fundamentally flawed than Ken’s and so deserves to be treated with hostile derision. I have tried to politely explain the problem with your reasoning to you in the past but you seem incapable of taking it on board. Therefore I conclude that you have some intellectual deficiency causing a disconnection with reality.
kdkd – you say Ken and I deserve to be be “treated with hostile derision”. Well, you certainly do that very persistently.
But, um, how is my “starting point … fundamentally flawed”. Please explain? You got it wrong when you said May 2009 was the 5th hottest ever kdkd. It was bang in the middle of 30 years of observations. You keep refusing to address the facts. It’s weird.
What data set do you use that shows May 2009 to be so hot? I use UAH. Please link to your data set so I can examine it.
Can’t wait for your peer reviewed “technical paper”. Be sure to post it for Ken and I to read. You don’t mind a couple of critical eyes being cast over it, do you?
Tamas:
No I didn’t get it wrong, I was just referring to a more comprehensive dataset derived from multiple sources. Here’s the 130 year dataset I used: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat which demonstrates a clear, unamigous trend of increasing anomaly, which is particularly clear if you transform the absolute figures to a rank.
The reason I am being so rude to you is that you appear unwilling or unable to acknowledge that short term fluctuations have nothing whatsoever to do with long term trends. I suspect it’s deliberate dishonesty on your part, so I’m trying to shame you into coming clean by questioning your *ahem* apparently limited intellectual ability. Got it?
Tamas #304.
Here’s an interesting tendency for you. You claimed that I said that both your and Ken’s opinions deserve to be treated with hostile derision. I stated that *your* claim (you’ve only made one claim the entire time you’ve been here, that warming stopped as far as I can see) is to be treated with hostile derision. You will note I’ve been far ruder to to you than to Ken. Is this a general tendency to excessive extrapolation on your part?
kdkd#306 #303
I imagine my starting point (premise) that the Medieval Warm Period was “as warm as our current temperatures” is the bit you claim is wrong.
Well kdkd please tell us exactly how much cooler was the MWP according to your expert sources.
When you have done that we will see how well my ‘confabulation’ stands up.
You clearly have a serious concern that Tamas and I are punching holes in the citadel of your beloved AGW alarmist story. Few would go to your lengths of invective and spite as you do unless there were dollars or livlihood involved.
Dollars or livlihood involved in this for you kdkd?
#307
‘livelihood’ not ‘livlihood’ – sorry I misspelt or was it misremembered?
Ken.
The MWP was largely a regional phenomenon, and cooler in the present day. Apparently there’s some recently published evidence that goes a long way to nailing the cause of the phenomenon, summarised here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16892 with the original paper here: “Persistent Positive North Atlantic Oscillation Mode Dominated the Medieval Climate Anomaly” Valérie Trouet, Jan Esper, Nicholas E. Graham, Andy Baker, James D. Scourse, and David C. Frank (3 April 2009) Science 324 (5923), 78. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1166349]
So I don’t accept your premise and I strongly contend that you are confabulating uncertainty. I think you are using this apparent uncertainty to claim that “because we don’t know what caused that phenomenon, we don’t know what caused the current phenomenon” which logically does not bear out under scrutiny.
Happy to retract your claims now?
argh. one of the problems with these web forums is that I always make lots of typos. That of course should read “cooler than the present day”.
Cheers
And in answer to your second question, I earned about 2000 dollars to write a report looking at the social science of climate change – barriers to effective mitigation activity mainly – last year, but that is the sum total of my earnings in this area. I have come very close to getting a couple of academic or commercial research jobs in this area within the last three years or so, but at present my occupational activities are in a completely different area.
Tamas #300
It is meaningless to say that the 30 UAH observations before 2009 had 15 cooler and 15 warmer. How cooler and how much warmer are important factors that this comment chooses to ignore. In fact, when the figures for the last 30 May readings are compared (as I have just done on good old Excel), there is a clear linear progression upwards.
Chris and kdkd – Tamas and Ken’s position is easy to summarise: ‘I don’t know much about science books or statistics, but I know what I like’. What is more difficult to determine is just what set of conditions, observations or discoveries it would take for them to abandon their perverse positions. My guess is that no imaginable set of events or observations could disturb their delusional state. The avalanche of new data and observations from fields as widely diverse as oceanography, marine biology, botany, astronomy etc all supporting the reality of rapid AGW leave them unmoved. Detailed analysis demonstrating that fixing the problem isn’t even going to cost much – nah, nah, don’t believe it, my ears are covered, can’t hear you! It’s the dialogue of the deaf attempting to engage in reasoned debate with this pair. Theirs is an intellectual dishonesty as obvious as the wickedness of the old music hall villain tying the maiden to the railway tracks. For example, Tamas’s claim in the pre-cage Crikey that the ‘glaciers aren’t melting’ has been repeatedly discredited: the origin of the claim is internet blather on the wingnut sites citing a non-existent paper from Science. Like urban mythology or viral emails, this rubbish gets constantly recycled by the credulous and the ideologically driven to whom it has obvious appeal. If this pair possessed a scintilla of intellectual honesty, they’d concede a point when exposed as being in blatant error, such as when I exposed Ken’s absurd claim that policy makers had ‘no idea’ about the costs of moving to a low carbon economy, or when kdkd demonstrated the basic statistical mistakes in Ken’s take on the figures. But it ain’t gonna happen. For them, the world is as they’d like it to be and nobody is going to tell them different. My advice: give up.
Good work Harold #313. I agree. Hopefully they’ll get bored soon and go away
(Actually it’s the disengaged and business leaders that are more of a challenge than the scientifically psychotic).
Tamas might find this graph educational (http://www.realclimate.org/images/weather_vs_climate.jpg) if he could momentarily remove the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses
Harold,
You may well be right, but at the moment I find this a good opportunity to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge on the subject.
kdkd,
I fear that Tamas will reject your link, being as it is not based on his favourite source for temperatures, UAH. I bet he will continue to state that the world has not warmed, notwithstanding the terrible strain that must be to logic.
Chris:
The beauty of it is, is that you can replicate that same analysis with the UAH data if you’re so inclined. Given that it seems to be a pretty good summary of the direct surface observations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png), you’d see an identical phenomenon. The whole point of the graph is that it clearly shows the difference between weather and climate. Seeing as Tamas can’t tell the difference, he’d better get rugged up warm for the coming summer months, seeing as it was pretty cold today
Kdkd – first, you seem to be rather rude to Ken sometimes as well, although I admit you’re ruder to me. Lucky Ken.
You also say that the only claim I have made in this forum is that warming has stopped. Once again, the facts are different to your assertion.
Allow me to list some of my claims:
1) Warming has stopped and we have witnessed recent cooling.
2) Observed warming in the past 100 years is only 0.7C. This is neither unusual or a cause for concern.
3) Natural factors are a far better explanation for observed warming (and cooling). These natural factors include sunspot cycles, changes in Earth’s orbit, volcanic activity, plate techtonics, ocean currents and many other natural factors.
4) We do not understand the climate system well enough to claim all warming is caused by man made CO2.
5) Past climate changes cannot be explained by human produced CO2
6) The climate has been wamrer in the past and we have not suffered disaster from this.
I think Ken has expanded on many of these points and also added many more.
Also, you link to the NOAA instrumental temperature record that includes surface stations. It is quite clear that surface station measurements have been corrupted by poor station placement and the urban heat island effect. Anthony Watt’s http://www.surfacestation.org has surveyed 2/3rds of the US surface stations (which account for 50% of global surface stations) and shown that 89% of measurment stations have been corrupted by poor station management / placement. This is why I only trust the unbiased satellite record, and it is also why the satellite record shows less warming. Take a look at Watts’ report here: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf.
Now, you also say you have written a paper on “the social science of climate change – barriers to effective mitigation”. I’d be fascinated to read it and I’m sure Ken would be too. Can you make it available to us?
Chris # 312. The reason I said 15 of the past 30 Mays have been cooler (and 15 warmer) than May 2009 is because kdkd asserted that may 2009 was the 5th warmest ever, which is clearly wrong. I agree there has been a trend increase of 0.38C over the past 30.5 years. I do not find this increase to be unusual or unnatural.
Harold #313 as usual: lots of accusations, no facts.
#313 Harold
Welcome back my old darling Harold: “Theirs (Tamas and Ken) is an intellectual dishonesty as obvious as the wickedness of the old music hall villain tying the maiden to the railway tracks.”
What an amazing analogy – could not have dreamed of that myself. You have raised personal abuse and wild assumption to new heights.
Pity you never engage on real things like W/sq.m. and cents per kWh my old darling.
By the way have you worked out yet how many cents per kWh you were charging for electricity in your ‘low carbon’ economy?
This comment is repeated above with the links (but awaits Crikey’s moderation Gods)
Ken -How good are Harold’s comments?
++++
Kdkd – first, you seem to be rather rude to Ken sometimes as well, although I admit you’re ruder to me. Lucky Ken.
You also say that the only claim I have made in this forum is that warming has stopped. Once again, the facts are different to your assertion.
Allow me to list some of my claims:
1) Warming has stopped and we have witnessed recent cooling.
2) Observed warming in the past 100 years is only 0.7C. This is neither unusual or a cause for concern.
3) Natural factors are a far better explanation for observed warming (and cooling). These natural factors include sunspot cycles, changes in Earth’s orbit, volcanic activity, plate techtonics, ocean currents and many other natural factors.
4) We do not understand the climate system well enough to claim all warming is caused by man made CO2.
5) Past climate changes cannot be explained by human produced CO2
6) The climate has been wamrer in the past and we have not suffered disaster from this.
I think Ken has expanded on many of these points and also added many more.
Also, you link to the NOAA instrumental temperature record that includes surface stations. It is quite clear that surface station measurements have been corrupted by poor station placement and the urban heat island effect. Anthony Watt’s (link – see above when Crikey permits) has surveyed 2/3rds of the US surface stations (which account for 50% of global surface stations) and shown that 89% of measurment stations have been corrupted by poor station management / placement. This is why I only trust the unbiased satellite record, and it is also why the satellite record shows less warming. Take a look at Watts’ report here: (link – see above when Crikey permits)
Now, you also say you have written a paper on “the social science of climate change – barriers to effective mitigation”. I’d be fascinated to read it and I’m sure Ken would be too. Can you make it available to us?
Chris # 312. The reason I said 15 of the past 30 Mays have been cooler (and 15 warmer) than May 2009 is because kdkd asserted that may 2009 was the 5th warmest ever, which is clearly wrong. I agree there has been a trend increase of 0.38C over the past 30.5 years. I do not find this increase to be unusual or unnatural.
Harold #313 as usual: lots of accusations, no facts.
kdkd #311
kdkd: “And in answer to your second question, I earned about 2000 dollars to write a report looking at the social science of climate change – barriers to effective mitigation activity mainly – last year, but that is the sum total of my earnings in this area”
Well kdkd, I would like you to know that I have not sullied my ‘gifted amateur’ status by payment of any kind. You are welcome to plagiarize any of my ideas (eg; the 10 point plan – don’t forget the nuclear power ships) at no cost.
As Bob Carter says – if only Exxon would send money – but it seems that they are splitting their budget between ‘heartlanders’ and green groups which is what business does – an each way bet on warming or cooling.
Ken #319. Good to see that you seem to have conceded that your ideas (aside from some of the 10 point plan) are incorrect, according to the concession by silence approach that has been your habit.
Tamas #320.
Amazing. Good to see you totally ignore the climate versus weather graph in such a spectacular manner.
OK, I was wrong, your delusional system is superficially more complex than I rememberd it. However, it is exclusively populated by climate change skeptic talking points, with no evidence of any original or creative thought . Additionally, none of these have any merit, and as I now recall have been dealt with satisfactorily before, not in your favour. Many of your points rely on out of date information – you need to update your knowledge.
Ken has about two things to say on top of this, which we have clearly demonstrated are based on faulty premises.
I’m unable to make my paper available, as I don’t have clearance from the people who commissioned the work to do so, and am unlikely to get it in the short term.
You will find that the “corrupted” NOAA data is nothing of the sort. This may have been a problem in the past, but where a problem before it has been corrected using statistics. The sattelite and surface temperature graph I posted in #316 demonstrates this. So again, your 100% streak of being entirely incorrect, and wilful dishonest interpretation of the data is maintained.
Tamas #318 – Good summary Tamas. Your reputation on Crikey (after all they started the cage fight to contain you) is more illustrious and thus attracts more fetid abuse.
kdkd #309
I was tooling around on your ‘realclimate’ site – it is worth looking at – thanks for the reference kdkd. Lots of in depth discussion and no feverish abuse.
The same cannot be said for your April 09 New Scientist bombshell. Crikey – just when we thought that AGW alarmists had ignored or rubbed out the MWP – up it pops as a real phenomenon. Even Michael Mann, who rubbed it out of the hockeystick has become a fan of a ‘regional NH’ MWP sparked by volcanoes and run by solar activity.
I followed the comment trail and found an extraordinary load of rubbish and ratbaggery on both sides – mainly on the ‘hate Bush, hate neocon side’. If that is the calibre of New Scientist readers, I think I will stick to “The Economist”.
Of course I would have to check commentary and peer review on your two month old paper against some of the other references to the ‘global MWP’ – a couple of likely ones from realclimate in 2005 which rang a bell with my own contention about the MWP; understatement of solar forcings and overstatement of CO2 forcings in AR4.
kdkd #310
Is it ‘cognitive dissonance” when you accuse someone of some undesirable behaviour which you are in fact manifesting yourself? I have conceded nothing ‘by silence’ on the MWP or any other point which comes to mind.
Give me a list of my so called ‘silent concessions’ and I will dig up yours which are real.
for example: “That implies the ‘natural’ forcings which caused the MWP must have been similar magnitude to now. Not exact magnitude – similar – smaller even – smaller even by 20, 30, 50% could be feasible; But 13 times smaller – one thirteenth? Smaller by 92%?
Hence my contention that IPCC 2007 is either overstating current AG forcings or understating ‘natural’ forcings; or both.”
Ken – not so sure the cage match has “contained” me, or you. Quite the opposite. And I’m not so sure my Crikey reputation is all that “illustrious”. But hey, if you or anyone else here lives in Sydney I’m up for a “live” cage match at a pub somewhere…
kdkd – you say that “You will find… the “corrupted” NOAA data is nothing of the sort. This may have been a problem in the past, but where a problem before it has been corrected using statistics”.
Hmm, nice. A stastistical correction. Take a look at www} dot } surfacestations } dot } org (This link is in my above post but is being “moderated” by Crikey)
Take a look at the audit these guys did on the US surface stations and then tell me that the data from them can be “statistically” corrected. Some of the photos of the temperature stations are just hilarious. No statisticaly adjustment can correct for BBQ’s, jet engines, black tarmac, air conditioners, concrete walls, you name it…
Ken #322, well I see at least that you are down to a single argument. We’ve already established that as this is based on (since I located the Science 2009 paper) a couple of faulty premises, we can safely ignore this and leave you in delusional lala land. Again, you are overstating uncertainty and confusing it with unmeasurability.
Tamas #323
It’s quite challenging to discuss climate science with someone who doesn’t believe in statistics. However, as it helps you to maintain your delusional state, I suppose that lack of belief is necessary for you. The rank data I gathered is not from US substations, it’s a composite of land and sea surface readings from multiple sources across the globe. I suspect that it’s also enhanced by sattelite data. That noaa data set is widely regarded as the best global temperature data available.
The weather versus climate graph can be repeated with any data set you like and will show the same thing, even with your favourite satellite data. Here’s a very nicely written article that thoroughly demolishes your position
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/
Now stop wasting my time. I’d probably be happy to meet Ken for a beer in real life, at least in a small dose. You, I’m afraid that if we met, I’d probably get an uncontrolable urge to run away from the idiocy, slash your tyres and torch your car. I suppose you wouldn’t object to that on environmental grounds, but for myself, I fear that it would not be a greenhouse friendly thing to do.
Tamas,
“Surfacestations” is an interesting site for what it leaves out. Click on either of the pictures of surface stations and then search the gallery for Miles City (in Montana). Then ask yourself this: Why hasn’t this station been rated? Clearly it should be rated a 1. Furthermore, the accuracy given to the surface stations rated 4 is in the range of >2c. That is plus or minus >2c.
Have a look at IPCC 2007, chpt 3 at p.244:
“Studies that have looked at hemispheric and global scales conclude that any urban-related trend is an order of magnitude smaller than decadal and longer time-scale trends evident in the series (e.g., Jones et al., 1990; Peterson et al., 1999). This result could partly be attributed to the omission from the gridded data set of a small number of sites (<1%) with clear urban-related warming trends. In a worldwide set of about 270 stations, Parker (2004, 2006) noted that warming trends in night minimum temperatures over the period 1950 to 2000 were not enhanced on calm nights, which would be the time most likely to be affected by urban warming. Thus, the global land warming trend discussed is very unlikely to be influenced significantly by increasing urbanisation (Parker, 2006).
Over the conterminous USA, after adjustment for time-of-observation bias and other changes, rural station trends were almost indistinguishable from series including urban sites (Peterson, 2003; Figure 3.3 (sic), and similar considerations apply to China from 1951 to 2001 (Li et al., 2004). One possible reason for the patchiness of UHIs is the location of observing stations in parks where urban influences are reduced (Peterson, 2003). In summary, although some individual sites may be affected, including some small rural locations, the UHI effect is not pervasive, as all global-scale studies indicate it is a very small component of large scale averages.
Accordingly, this assessment adds the same level of urban warming uncertainty as in the TAR: 0.006°C per decade since 1900 for land, and 0.002°C per decade since 1900 for blended land with ocean, as ocean UHI is zero”.
Also, NOAA compared 70 of the best rated USHCN stations (rated 1 or 2) with all the UHSCN stations and concluded that “there is no indication from this analysis that poor station exposure has imparted a bias in the U.S. temperature trends”
Finally, I note that surfacestations dot org is associated with Anthony Watts, a noted climate change skeptic.
kdkd #324: “Ken #322, well I see at least that you are down to a single argument. We’ve already established that as this is based on (since I located the Science 2009 paper) a couple of faulty premises, we can safely ignore this and leave you in delusional lala land. Again, you are overstating uncertainty and confusing it with unmeasurability.”
Don’t suppose that one two month old ‘New Scientist’ paper about a Scottish stalagtite and Morroccan tree rings proves that the MWP was ‘regional NH’ only.
Here are a few papers from the ‘Southern hemisphere’:
(1) South Africa
The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming in South Africa
P. D. Tyson1, W. Karlén2, K. Holmgren2 and G. A. Heiss3.
1Climatology Research Group, University of the Witwatersrand
2Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University
3Geomar, Wischhofstr. 1-3, 24148 Kiel, Germany; present address: German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), P.O. Box 120161, 27515 Bremerhaven, Germany, E-mail: g.heiss@gmx.de
Abstract
The Little Ice Age, from around 1300 to 1800, and medieval warming, from before 1000 to around 1300 in South Africa, are shown to be distinctive features of the regional climate of the last millennium. The proxy climate record has been constituted from oxygen and carbon isotope and colour density data obtained from a well-dated stalagmite derived from Cold Air Cave in the Makapansgat Valley.
The climate of the interior of South Africa was around 1oC cooler in the Little Ice Age and may have been over 3°C higher than at present during the extremes of the medieval warm period. It was variable throughout the millennium, but considerably more so during the warming of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Extreme events in the record show distinct teleconnections with similar events in other parts of the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The lowest temperature events recorded during the Little Ice Age in South Africa are shown to be coeval with the Maunder and Sporer Minima in solar irradiance. The medieval warming is shown to have been coincided with the cosmogenic 10Be and 14C isotopic maxima recorded in tree rings elsewhere in the world during the Medieval Maximum in solar radiation.
(2) New Zealand
Evidence for a ‘Medieval Warm Period’ in a 1,100 year tree-ring reconstruction of past austral summer temperatures in New Zealand
Cook, E R | Palmer, J G | D’Arrigo, R
Geophysical Research Letters. Vol. 29, no. 14, pp. 12-1 to 12-4. 15 July 2002
The occurrence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) in the Southern Hemisphere is uncertain because of the paucity of well-dated, high-resolution paleo-temperature records covering the past 1000 years. We describe a new tree-ring reconstruction of Austral summer temperatures from the South Island of New Zealand, covering the past 1100 years. This record is the longest yet produced for New Zealand and shows clear evidence for persistent above-average temperatures within the interval commonly assigned to the MWP. Comparisons with selected temperature proxies from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres confirm that the MWP was highly variable in time and space. Regardless, the New Zealand temperature reconstruction supports the global occurrence of the MWP. (Author)
(3) South America (Patagonia)
Ricardo Villalba1, 2
(1) Department of Geography, University of Colorado, 80309-260 Boulder, CO, USA
(2) Present address: Laboratorio de Dendrocronologia, CRICYT – CONICET, Casilla de Correo 330, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina
Received: 22 September 1992 Revised: 27 October 1993
Abstract A tree-ring reconstruction of summer temperatures from northern Patagonia shows distinct episodes of higher and lower temperature during the last 1000 yr. The first cold interval was from A.D. 900 to 1070, which was followed by a warm period A.D. 1080 to 1250 (approximately coincident with theMedieval Warm Epoch). Afterwards a long, cold-moist interval followed from A.D. 1270 to 1660, peaking around 1340 and 1640 (contemporaneously with earlyLittle Ice Age events in the Northern Hemisphere). In central Chile, winter rainfall variations were reconstructed using tree rings back to the year A.D. 1220. From A.D. 1220 to 1280, and from A.D. 1450 to 1550, rainfall was above the long-term mean. Droughts apparently occurred between A.D. 1280 and 1450, from 1570 to 1650, and from 1770 to 1820. In northern Patagonia, radiocarbon dates and tree-ring dates record two major glacial advances in the A.D. 1270–1380 and 1520–1670 intervals. In southern Patagonia, the initiation of theLittle Ice Age appears to have been around A.D. 1300, and the culmination of glacial advances between the late 17th to the early 19th centuries.
Most of the reconstructed winter-dry periods in central Chile are synchronous with cold summers in northern Patagonia, resembling the present regional patterns associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The years A.D. 1468–69 represent, in both temperature and precipitation reconstructions from treerings, the largest departures during the last 1000 yr. A very strong ENSO event was probably responsible for these extreme deviations. Tree-ring analysis also indicates that the association between a weaker southeastern Pacific subtropical anticyclone and the occurence of El Niño events has been stable over the last four centuries, although some anomalous cases are recognized.
Enough of the southern hemisphere MWP, kdkd? Perhaps some MWP from China?
kdkd #324
Tamas, I am not in Sydney, but when Sophie Black appoints us official Crikey AGW sceptics (paid first class airfares to academic climate conferences with kdkd’s mates), I will make it my business to have a couple of beers with you in Sydney.
I will be watching your car for that crazed kdkd kiddie; “You toucha my AGW – I torcha your car!!!”
kdkd #324
Anyone for Chinese MWP?
The Medieval Warm Period in the Daihai Area
Jin, Z | Shen, J | Wang, S | Zhang, E
Journal of Lake Sciences [J. Lake Sci.]. Vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 209-216. Sep 2002.
Based on the rubidium to strontium (Rb/Sr) ratio, carbonate (CaCO sub(3)) content and organic carbon concentration (C sub(org)) record in lake sediments from the Daihai Lake, Inner Mongolia, dated by AMS- super(14)C and super(210)Pb, the climatic and environmental change process was reconstructed since the last 2,200 years, including two important climate events, i. e. the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. An increase Rb/Sr ratio but a decrease both CaCO sub(3) and C sub(org) correspond to a cold period, and vice versa. In this paper, we first suggest that there existed the Medieval Warm Period in the northern China during 900-1200a B. P. by a high-resolution lake record characterized according to lower Rb/Sr ratios and higher CaCO sub(3) and C sub(org) concentrations in the sediments from a single watershed, which a warm and humid environment was demonstrated by significant increase of chemical weathering and by a progressive increase of biologic productivity, and by a high lake level. The Medieval Warm Period has not only an inner climatic fluctuant, but also the strongest chemical weathering during the last 2,200 years, which are indicated by a higher-resolution natural record in northern China. Furthermore, the Medieval Warm Period in northern China is contemporaneous with the worldwide event identified in the lakes, oceans, land mollusk sequences, polar ice cores, pollens and historical documents.
Ken:
Some of that, on the face of it looks fair enough. There is a commentary that post-dates these papers that makes level headed warnings that rainfall and temperature readings are often confounded, and that the data’s resolution in time is not terribly good[1]. My other curiosity with these papers, is that if they solve a widely known problem in climate reconstruction studies, why aren’t they more widely cited? And why aren’t they published in more well known journals? To be honest this MWP stuff is very technical and I do not have the expertise to assess all the claims properly.
However, assuming it is good quality evidence, it does not bolster your case. It does show that there are holes in my knowledge of the area, but in order for you to have a strong case that AGW is not real or important you need to answer the following questions properly.
1. Given that we do not know the underlying cause of the so called MWP and LIA, but we have a good understanding, backed by high quality evidence, of how CO2 and other greenhouse gasses cause increased temperature in the present day, why is the so called MWP relevant to the present day?
2. Given that the uncertainty of the data from the so called MWP relates to unmeasurability, and the sparse records available, compared to the much smaller uncertainty of the present day’s data which largely relates to short-term weather versus longer-term climate trends, and is much better understood, how is the MWP data relevant to that from the present day?
3. Using your answers to questions 1 and 2, please explain why the so called MWP, which was cooler than the present day, causes the risk of runaway global warming caused by human activities to be brought into question to the degree that it means it should not be something that we should be worried about.
The stakes are quite high for you here, as this is your single remaining argument with any hope of being valid. However, as the three questions above highlight the serious logical problems with your position, I will be very interested to see your response.
[1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/medieval-warm-period-mwp/ links to Jones, P.D., Mann, M.E., (2004) “Climate Over Past Millennia”, Reviews of Geophysics, 42 on that page.
Ken # 328.
That’s some good research there Ken. Certainly makes me think. However, I don’t pretend to be an expert in this area. I do agree with kdkd that this doesn’t necessarily support your case; three regions were warm for a time during a 200 to 300 year period does not mean the globe was generally warm. Obviously the more instances of regional warmth lends support to the possibility of general global warmth. However, we do not know the cause or the extent at this stage, and it in no way should invalidate the general consensus (yes, consensus) that the current warming and climate change is man made. The evidence is in and has been reviewed. The earth is warming (notwithstanding that it is cooling where ever Tamas stands), CO2 is increasing, and there does not appear to be another cause of the warming (apologies for a terribly simplistic description).
Mind you, the evidence you present suggests more research into these areas could be beneficial. Which of course is continually being undertaken. For example:
“On the long-term context for late twentieth century warming
Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres
Vol. 111, No. D3, D03103, doi:10.1029/2005JD006352, 07 February 2006.
Rosanne D’Arrigo1, Rob Wilson 2, Gordon Jacoby1
ABSTRACT:
Previous tree-ring-based Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions portray a varying amplitude range between the “Medieval Warm Period”(MWP), “Little Ice Age” (LIA) and present. We describe a new reconstruction, developed using largely different methodologies and additional new data compared to previous efforts. Unlike earlier studies, we quantify differences between more traditional (STD) and Regional Curve Standardization (RCS) methodologies, concluding that RCS is superior for retention of low-frequency trends. Continental North American versus Eurasian RCS series developed prior to merging to the hemispheric scale cohere surprisingly well, suggesting common forcing, although there are notable deviations (e.g., fifteenth to sixteenth century). Results indicate clear MWP (warm), LIA (cool), and recent (warm) episodes. Direct interpretation of the RCS reconstruction suggests that MWP temperatures were nearly 0.7C cooler than in the late twentieth century, with an amplitude difference of 1.14C from the coldest (1600-1609) to warmest (1937-1946) decades. However, we advise caution with this analysis. Although we conclude, as found elsewhere, that recent warming has been substantial relative to natural fluctuations of the past millennium, we also note that owing to the spatially heterogeneous nature of the MWP, and its different timing within different regions, present palaeoclimatic methodologies will likely “flatten out” estimates for this period relative to twentieth century warming, which expresses a more homogenous global “fingerprint.” Therefore we stress that presently available paleoclimatic reconstructions are inadequate for making specific inferences, at hemispheric scales, about MWP warmth relative to the present anthropogenic period and that such comparisons can only still be made at the local/regional scale.”
Of course, comparing abstracts is no substitute for reading and critically analysing the actual studies. I’m sure it would prove to be a more robust and educational debate if we all had time to sit down and engross ourselves in the studies.
Tamas and Ken
Here’s another set of tasks for you:
“In order to legitimately refute the current consensus on anthropogenically-forced climate change, you must offer a theory to do most, if not all, of the following:
1. Refute the Greenhouse Effect.
2. Prove another mechanism for heat/energy retention
3. Explain ice core data
4. Explain changes in habitat/flora/fauna relationships, i.e. why habitats are moving to higher latitudes/higher elevations or flora and fauna or out of synch, or why populations are crashing/climbing for various flora and fauna… etc.
5. Explain why the Arctic sea ice extent and mass have dropped precipitously since pre-2005.
6. Explain net land ice losses in Greenland and the Arctic.
7. Explain why the number and intensity of weather-related disasters has risen precipitously.
8. Explain why the overall temp trend is up.
9. Explain why temps are now higher than they have been for at least 2 million years.
10. Etc., etc., etc….. (Perhaps Gavin or one of the other contributors could give us a list of key elements of climate change that essentially must be refuted or explained alternatively in order to “debunk” ACC/AGW?)
11. Explain why the proof of climate denial by the GCC, Exxon, GC Marshall Inst., etc, is not pertinent and why, given that is the source of your skepticism, why this proof (yes, it is fact) does not affect your stance.
12. Refute the risk assessment that: given temps are rising, given they will continue to rise for 1k+ years even if we had zero emissions starting today, given the risks of rapid climate change and long-term temp rises are real and threaten our ability to function as a society, etc., we should act to mitigate these threats, particularly since the actions to be taken will lead to a healthier existence for humanity even if AGW/ACC turns out to be wrong. Meanwhile, doing nothing saves us from nothing, but makes the negative outcomes not only worse, but certain.
The above list is not exhaustive, to be sure, but until you can do at least that, don’t you think you are morally and ethically bound to cease and desist spreading disinformation?”
(reposted from http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/two-degrees/#comment-130339)
kdkd,
Re point 8. You forget that wherever Tamas is, the temperature is not rising. In fact, I see he has made another appearance in the Crikey “Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups”, stating that “the UAH satellite record still shows no increase”.
Chris Owens #330 and kdkd #329
Thanks Chris for your post. I will expand on this over the weekend – but for now, let me say that both you and kdkd seem to think that my ‘case’ is that human release of CO2 plays no role at all in the warming or cooling planet Earth. I have never claimed that.
What I have contended is that ‘natural’ forcings in the past have warmed the planet globally to similar or possibly warmer temperatures, and as far as we know this has been solar or solar induced forcing (whether by variation in the sun’s output or orbital changes).
I have further said that unless you can separate out the ‘natural’ from the proposed AG forcings – then no logical prediction of the future CO2 effects if any can be made.
kdkd tried to show with the New Scientist post that the MWP was regional northern hemisphere only and an internal artifact (such as ENSO).
My quotation of papers from South Africa, New Zealand and Argentina all report warming correlating with the MWP. These are widely spread southern hemisphere locations. China also reports similar warming correlating with the MWP, and it is again widely separated from Europe in the NH.
With widely spread synchronous warming in both the SH and NH matching the same time frame as the MWP, there is little doubt that the MWP was a global phenomeon.
As the MWP was global, then the cause must be external ie; solar and solar induced. If the level of solar forcing effects can be determined by hindcasting solar cycles and proxies, then that level can be compared with current solar forcings and an estimate made of the significance of ‘natural’ forcings.
To expand and paraphrase previous posts:
Similar temperatures implies the ‘natural’ forcings which caused the MWP must have been similar magnitude to the late 20th century. Not exact magnitude – similar – smaller even – smaller even by 20, 30, 50% could be feasible; But 13 times smaller – one thirteenth? Smaller by 92% as shown in AR4 Fig 2.4?
Hence my contention that IPCC 2007 is either overstating proposed current AG forcings (1.6 W/sq.m) or understating ‘natural’ forcings (0.12 W/sq.m); or both.
Ken #334
Logical Flaw number 537.
“As the MWP was global, then the cause must be external ie; solar and solar induced”
That’s a pretty big assumption. Care to back it up?
Logical flaw number 538
You can’t actually predict change in temperatures in the present day without using Greenhouse gas concentration in the prediction, at least according to all of the currently known science. Is there something you don’t know?
I think you might have answered one of my three questions. Now answer the other two.
Errata #335
Typo ridden, swine flu laden pre-caffeinated errors:
“That’s a pretty big assumption” = “Stating solar forcing was the cause of the mwp is a pretty big assumption”. That it was global is not fully supported by the evidence either, but I’ll let that go.
“Is there something you don’t know” = “Is there something you’re not telling us”
kdkd #335,336
It seems that the only significant ‘natural’ forcing other that Solar; is Volcanism. From all that I have read, big explosive eruptions produce short term effects (several years), but are not the main factor in global multi-decade or multi-century effects such as the MWP or LIA.
Happy to look at any evidence you have exploring Volcanism vs Solar.
Sorry Gents – been busy these past few days.
Chris #325 – I think the IPCC hugely underrates the urban heat island effect on the surface temperature record. Anthony Watts is a noted sceptic but facts are facts and the state of the US surface station network is a disgrace. Again, that’s why I only trust the satellite data (and the argo buoy ocean temp program, which also shows cooling in the 5 years it’s been operational).
kdkd #329 – You say that “we have a good understanding, backed by high quality evidence, of how CO2 and other greenhouse gasses cause increased temperature in the present day”. This is just an assertion without evidence. We simply don’t understand the climate system and asserting that we do is just bizarre. As Ken keeps pointing out, if we can’t explain the MWP then we can’t explain recent warming either.
Also on you “to do list” #332. Sigh, let’s go through it all then;
1) We don’t need to refute the greenhouse effect. We are saying that an increase in CO2 from 0.00038 to 0.00045 of the atmosphere is immaterial compared to other natural forces.
Overall temp trend is up because the Sun has been very active, although it has recently gone quiet and temperatures have fallen.
2) Hmmm… Prove another mechanism for heat/energy retention? How about “The Sun”
3) What the…? The ice cores show temperature increases BEFORE CO2. Der…
4) You have no evidence that “habitats are moving to higher latitudes”. Etc
5) Arctic sea ice is currently at normal levels. And since 2005 the global temperatures have been very close to the 30 year mean.
6) Explain the huge ice gain in Antarctica, buddy.
7) Weather related disasters have not increased.
9) Temps are not higher now than for 2 million years. As Ken has shown, the MWP was warmer than today.
10) Blah, blah, blah
11) Wacky Conspiracy theories
12) ???
Chris #333 – Again, facts are facts and the temperature is about the same as it was in 1979. Scary stuff this global “warming”.
Just to clarify, Ken #335 says that “‘natural’ forcings in the past have warmed the planet globally to similar or possibly warmer temperatures, and as far as we know this has been solar or solar induced forcing (whether by variation in the sun’s output or orbital changes)”.
I agree, although I also think things like the position of the continents (plate tectonics) and the resulting ocean currents could be a factor. Nonetheless, all past warmings and coolings must have been natural and we don’t know the exact mechanism for these, yet we now blithely assert that all warming is caused by CO2. It’s just madness.
Tamas #338
Good to see you expose the full range of your poor deluded mind by answering all those questions. You have given not a single correct answer in any of them. Your answer to number 11 I find interesting. Funding of astroturfing by big oil is well documented, and is based on the tobacco industries success using the same techniues (often paying the same “scientists”). How come that’s a wacky conspiracy theory, wheras your “all scientists are wrong unless they’re as deluded as I am” isn’t a wacky conspiracy theory. I fear you have things arse backwards. But we already knew that. Anyway you are irellevant to this debate, I think you probably just need a minder to ensure that nobody actually listens to your uninformed drivel.
Ken #337
Mainly I’m just questioning the relevance of the MWP to the present day. In the absence of any evidence, I think it’s most likely explanation is a short term perturbation to climate caused by sensitivity to initial conditions (i.e. osscilation in chaotic systems). What that perturbation was, I have no clue, and it seems to be irellevant to the present day in any case.
You still didn’t really explain why it’s relevant, so I presume that you concur I am correct.
kdkd #332
Conspiracy theories are not my bag. I am happy to accept that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK, and that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in July 1969 when I was glued to a B&W TV like all school children across this wide brown land.
Having said that, the AGW alarmists such as Hansen, Mann, Karoly, Flannery, Gore et al, have an enormous investment of credibility and prestige in the AGW story based on the predominance of human released CO2 warming the planet with dangerous consequences.
If you were looking for evidence of a conspiracy to distort information – look no further that the IPCC 2001 report, its predecessor and IPCC 2007 and the dealing with the historical evidence for the MWP.
It is clear to anyone with reasonable intelligence that historical events like the MWP which was probably as globally warm or warmer than the present would present a major ‘please explain’ for the AGW CO2 theorists.
On the historical evidence that MWP was a wholly beneficial period for humankind, and colder periods in the Dark Ages and LIA were not.
Those with a big interest in protecting the AGW story also have most to fear from controverting evidence of a ‘naturally’ driven MWP, beneficial to mankind.
Regarding the MWP, there have been attempts to minimize it, rub it out, regionalize it to NH only, internalize it to an ENSO/La Nina; all coming from those with much to protect.
AGW alarmists, know thyselves!
Tamas #338,
Firstly, there is no huge ice gain in Antarctica. West Antarctica is losing ice, East Antarctica is relatively static, despite some cooling in the centre. Furthermore, land ice is decreasing and sea ice is increasing. At least that is my understanding. I will try to link to some evidence for you sometime in the future.
Secondly, Ken has not shown that the MWP was warmer than today (although I see you may have corrected yourself at #339). Ken has shown that there was some regional warming, which in itself is interesting, but does not necessarily indicate global warming during the MWP and certainly doesn’t show temperatures reached today’s levels.
Thirdly, you again say that temperatures are the same today as in 1979, which shows I think that you are again being selective with the data. It is irrelevant that the temperature in Jun 09 is the same as June 1979. The trend is what is important. You also say that there has been no cooling for 5 years since the argo buoy ocean temp program has been operational. You need to understand that 5 years is not long enough to suggest a trend in any direction (or none at all), particularly when you consider 2005 was a record year for temp. This is just the “cooling since 1998″ argument all over again.
Finally, I think you only trust the satellite data because it is a better fit with your beliefs. I think your criticism of the surface station network is irrelevant. I do not consider that surfacestations dot org presents information on the surface stations fairly or accurately and, anyway, the USA is not the globe.
Ken #342,
Your logic doesn’t stack up. The MWP was a nice gentle 300-odd year hump in climate. We’ve seen that same degree of warming in 30 or 40 years, and the further temperature rise that current CO2 levels have us “locked into” by 2100 will far exceed the temperature of the MWP. http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2009/images/fig2.gif
Anyway Ken, you don’t seem to be a conspiracy nut, that’s Tamas’ job. Although I am curious about the fact that you ascribe importance to “prestige points” and modest funding of various climate change action advocates, but seem uninterested in the the way that the fossil fuel lobby are funding to try to ensure that they can continue business as usual for as long as possible. And using a lot of totally dishonest arguments, and lack of transparency of funding to boot. Try to be a bit more even handed.
Ken #342
Your post just doesn’t make sense to me. You say that the “alarmist…have an enormous investment of credibility and prestige in the AGW story…” but I would have thought that if these people have any doubt about AGW then they would be backing off to protect their credibility. I often hear the argument that scientist tow the line on AGW to keep themselves in the money via research grants, but to me common sense dictates that those raising doubts and urging further research into the causes of warming, or those arguing that no warming exists, could just as easily be accused of the same “crimes”. Even more so I would have thought.
Ooh, look Tamas,
Someone who’s not a gibbering idiot comenting on the “global warming stopped” idea of yours. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/ Happy reading.
Chris #344 – Antarctic sea ice area reached 16.2 million squared kilometres in 2007 – a new absolute record high since the measurements started in 1979.
There have been many warmer periods in the Earth’s history than today. In fact, the planet has only had ice for 20% of its history. The present temperature is 7C below most of the past 500 million years, 5C below the last four recent interglacials and up to 3% below the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warmings (Plimer, p490).
On your third point, (temp today is the same as 1979), it is not being selective to say this. The global warming hypothesis posits that temperatures will get consistently warmer and this has not been the case.
Finally, I trust the satellite data because it is the most accurate measurement we have. And yes, it show the least warming (and recent cooling), but this is because it is accurate.
Kdkd #338 – you say that “Funding of astroturfing by big oil is well documented”. Ok, please link to the documents. I am interested to read them.
And by the way, I do get a grin out of your vitriolic responses to my calm, factual and polite posts. I must really annoy the hell out of you. Bad luck Ken – I reckon I win that prize at least.
Sorry – correction to above: “up to 3C below the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warmings”
Tamas # 347
It’s called taking the piss. Your opinions are a bad joke, and berefet of useful information, so I just make bad jokes about you for fun – apparently, you also like the humiliation
. Anyway nice to confirm that your delusional system is so well entrenched and so far on the lunatic fringe that you’re probably a hopeless case.
The data you assert is nothing I’ve heard of, certainly nothing from the credible literature. Where did you cherry pick that from? Actually the Antarctic is certainly an odd beast. The increase in sea ice you observe is caused by an increase in precipitation on the driest continent on earth. That’s called climate change. There’s a lot of inertia on that continent due to the large masses of ice, and your position is only consistent if you ignore the large scale ice shelf collapses in recent years.
As for funding sources of climate skeptics, it’s a well researched area. George Monbiot in his book Heat documents a lot of links between Climate Sceptics and the formerly active anti-tobacco regulation lobby, with the same scientists on the payroll — fancy that, who’d have thought. And something else from a 1995 issue of Harpers (http://dieoff.org/page82.htm). Here’s an excerpt:
‘But while the skeptics portray themselves as besieged truth-seekers fending off irresponsible environmental doomsayers, their testimony in St. Paul and elsewhere revealed the source and scope of their funding for the first time. Michaels has received more than $115,000 over the last four years from coal and energy interests. World Climate Review, a quarterly he founded that routinely debunks climate concerns, was funded by Western Fuels. Over the last six years, either alone or with colleagues, Balling has received more than $200,000 from coal and oil interests in Great Britain, Germany, and elsewhere. Balling (along with Sherwood Idso) has also taken money from Cyprus Minerals, a mining company that has been a major funder of People for the West—a militantly anti-environmental “Wise Use” group. Lindzen, for his part, charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled “Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,” was underwritten by OPEC. Singer, who last winter proposed a $95,000 publicity project to “stem the tide towards ever more onerous controls on energy use,” has received consulting fees from Exxon, Shell, Unocal, ARCO, and Sun Oil, and has warned them that they face the same threat as the chemical firms that produced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of chemicals found to be depleting atmospheric ozone. “It took only five years to go from… a simple freeze of production [of CFCs],” Singer has written, “. . . to the 1992 decision of a complete production phase-out—all on the basis of quite insubstantial science.”
The skeptics assert flatly that their science is untainted by funding. Nevertheless, in this persistent and well-funded campaign of denial they have become interchangeable ornaments on the hood of a high-powered engine of disinformation. Their dissenting opinions are amplified beyond all proportion through the media while the concerns of the dominant majority of the world’s scientific establishment are marginalized. By keeping the discussion focused on whether there is a problem in the first place, they have effectively silenced the debate over what to do about it.’ [end quote]
Tamas,
Just noticed the Pilmer citation in your last delusional rant.
Please be aware that the independent scientific consensus is that Pilmer’s book is so riddled with factual inaccuracy, selective reporting and reliance on outdated research sources that it’s essentially useless as a serious discussion of climate science. Presumably you had your fingers in your ears and were singing “lalalala I can’t here you” when we clearly established this during earlier discussions on this forum.
kdkd #342 Chris Owens #344
Even the CSIRO Mark 2 climate model agrees that *external forcing* must have been involved in the hemispheric events of the MWP and LIA (and you know how reliable climate models are):
The Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age and simulated climatic variability
Author: Hunt, B.1
Source: Climate Dynamics, Volume 27, Numbers 7-8, December 2006 , pp. 677-694(18)
Abstract:
The CSIRO Mark 2 coupled global climatic model has been used to generate a 10,000-year simulation for `present’ climatic conditions. The model output has been analysed to identify sustained climatic fluctuations, such as those attributed to the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Since no external forcing was permitted during the model run all such fluctuations are attributed to naturally occurring climatic variability associated with the nonlinear processes inherent in the climatic system. Comparison of simulated climatic time series for different geographical locations highlighted the lack of synchronicity between these series. The model was found to be able to simulate climatic extremes for selected observations for century timescales, as well as identifying the associated spatial characteristics. Other examples of time series simulated by the model for the USA and eastern Russia had similar characteristics to those attributed to the MWP and the LIA, but smaller amplitudes, and clearly defined spatial patterns. A search for the frequency of occurrence of specified surface temperature anomalies, defined via duration and mean value, revealed that these were primarily confined to polar regions and northern latitudes of Europe, Asia and North America. Over the majority of the oceans and southern hemisphere such climatic fluctuations could not be sustained, for reasons explained in the paper. Similarly, sustained sea-ice anomalies were mainly confined to the northern hemisphere. An examination of mechanisms associated with the sustained climatic fluctuations failed to identify a role for the North Atlantic Oscillation, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. It was therefore concluded that these fluctuations were generated by stochastic processes intrinsic to the nonlinear climatic system. While a number of characteristics of the MWP and the LIA could have been partially caused by natural processes within the climatic system, the inability of the model to reproduce the observed hemispheric mean temperature anomalies associated with these events indicates that external forcing must have been involved. Essentially the unforced climatic system is unable to sustain the generation of long-term climatic anomalies.
Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1007/s00382-006-0153-5
Affiliations: 1: Email: barrie.hunt@csiro.au
Repeat Conclusion: “While a number of characteristics of the MWP and the LIA could have been partially caused by natural processes within the climatic system, the inability of the model to reproduce the observed hemispheric mean temperature anomalies associated with these events indicates that external forcing must have been involved. Essentially the unforced climatic system is unable to sustain the generation of long-term climatic anomalies.”
Chris – note that the other papers I quoted are widely dispersed – South Africa, NZ and Argentina in the SH and China in the NH, plus the well documented European MWP. The evidence is that the MWP was global and caused by *external forcing*.
Pray tell me what that forcing could be?
Ken #352
Thankyou for answering my question. The abstract you posted contains some interesting material, but does appear to be indicating that the MPW was a regional (“hemispheric”) phenomenon.
You still haven’t explaned why this is remotely relevant though. Go back to my three questions from #330.
1. Given that we do not know the underlying cause of the so called MWP and LIA, but we have a good understanding, backed by high quality evidence, of how CO2 and other greenhouse gasses cause increased temperature in the present day, why is the so called MWP relevant to the present day?
2. Given that the uncertainty of the data from the so called MWP relates to unmeasurability, and the sparse records available, compared to the much smaller uncertainty of the present day’s data which largely relates to short-term weather versus longer-term climate trends, and is much better understood, how is the MWP data relevant to that from the present day?
3. Using your answers to questions 1 and 2, please explain why the so called MWP, which was cooler than the present day, causes the risk of runaway global warming caused by human activities to be brought into question to the degree that it means it should not be something that we should be worried about.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you may have a valid point. You can’t actually establish its validity without answering those three questions, and you haven’t yet done that. Presumably that’s because you can’t. Now prove me wrong.
kdkd #353
kdkd: “The abstract you posted contains some interesting material, but does appear to be indicating that the MPW was a regional (”hemispheric”) phenomenon.”
You are confusing a region with a hemisphere. The paper refers to ‘hemispheric’ not exclusively NH or SH.
The meaning is clear in the last sentence of the conclusion viz: “Essentially the unforced climatic system is unable to sustain the generation of long-term climatic anomalies”.
The inescapable conclusion is that the MWP was externally forced – and the most likely feasible global forcing was Solar (including output and orbital variations).
Please produce some evidence to prove that the MWP was significantly cooler than the present.
Ken #354
“Please produce some evidence to prove that the MWP was significantly cooler than the present.”
Already done that in spades. Apparently you weren’t listening again. Now answer my three questions. Or would doing so clearly mark your overall argument as invalid or a distraction?
Kdkd #353– boy-oh-boy do you go through some tortured logic. You ask:
“1. Given that we do not know the underlying cause of the so called MWP and LIA, but we have a good understanding, backed by high quality evidence, of how CO2 and other greenhouse gasses cause increased temperature in the present day, why is the so called MWP relevant to the present day?”
First, If we don’t know what caused the MWP and LIA, then how can we assume that the factors that caused it are in perfect equilibrium at the moment? It is a crazy assumption to make. Second, we don’t have “high quality evidence” that CO2 causes increased temperature today – we have bunch of shonky computer models.
You then basically ask (after a very turgid introduction) –
2.“How is the MWP data relevant to the present day”?
Well, again, perhaps the same factors that caused the MWP are at work right now. It is bizarre to assume that all the factors that have caused past climate changes have simply been switched off and all warming is now caused by man-made CO2 (which, by the way, is less than 4% of all CO2 emissions).
And question 3. just doesn’t make any sense. I have read it about 5 times and cannot understand what you’re trying to ask.
And by the way, Plimer’s book is a best-seller, is getting very good reviews in the US and UK (where I imagine it will also sell very well) and you assertion that it has been debunked is nonsense. You can’t just dismiss his arguments kdkd. They are very well researched and backed up – although I understand you don’t know this because you haven’t read it.
Tamas,
I suspect the voices in your head are the ones giving Pilmer the good reviews. I certainly haven’t seen any. But then I tend to only respect scientific opinions on scientific matters.
You can’t understand question 3 because it would cause your delusional system to collapse. And for questions 1 and 2 your answers are based on factual inaccuracies, or poor logic.
Anyhow, here’s your errata for Pilmer’s book. http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91 Full of errors serious enough to clearly demonstrate that the book is a waste of time.
So Tamas, just to be clear …
I didn’t ask for you to answer those three questions because your relationship to reality is really not there, except to latch on to the odd small bit of data that confirms your delusions. This is also why you can’t adequately understand or answer my three questions.
I asked Ken to justify his argument, not for you to rationalise your delusions, so Ken, your turn.
kdkd #357 – to be clear, you are asserting that the natural forces that caused the MWP and LIA are all in perfect equilibrium at the moment.
Please justify this, prefereably with some facts. Please explain what those natural forces were and why they are in equilibrium now.
Calling me delusional isn’t really an adequate response.
Oh, and please explain what on earth you are trying to elicit with question three. After reading it several more times I think you are asking why we shouldn’t be concerned with current warming just because it was warm in the past… but who knows.
And check out this review of Plimer from the UK: www (dot) spectator (dot) co(dot) uk/…/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick (dot) thtml
Tamas,
Can you please explain why I think everything is in perfect equilibrium. You are using your over-extrapolation skills again. I haven’t mentioned anything about equilibrium, and fail to see that it’s relevant to my questions at all. Actaully don’t explain, just take it on board that you’re incapable of evaluationg this area of knowledge properly and go away.
Rephrase question 3 for you. “Use the answers to question 1 and 2 to justify why taking no action on anthropogenic climate change is a valid response”. I don’t actually expect you to answer that, because as you have demonstrated it does not fit with your delusional belief system.
The Spectator article is nonsense. It fails to acknowledge the vast swathes of factual errors, cherry picking of data, and distortion of facts that render the book invalid and not worth the effort it took to write it.
kdkd #360 – Well, by your logic if CO2 is the only factor that is responsible for the terrifying 0.7C of warming over the past 100 years, then all other natural factors that warm and cool the Earth must be in perfect equilibrium. Get it?
You see, given that Earth has warmed and cooled dramatically in the past we know there must be natural factors that do this. You are saying they are not at work now, ergo they are in perfect equilibrium.
I really can’t make it clearer than that. Hopefully you can get your head around it and come up with a reasonable response, as opposed to your usual insults.
Tamas:
Don’t expect much more than insults until you demonstrate that you’re not a delusional fool. I’m not holding my breath.
All it requires is that anthropogenic forcing exceeds natural forcing. This equilibrium thing of yours is smoke and mirrors.
Of course the climate has wildly varied over the history of the earth. The correct question to ask though is: which set of climatic conditions allows civlilisation to develop and to continue. Secondly, is the current anthropogenic forcing (which I know doesn’t exist in your delusional thought system) likely to take the system outside the range where civilisation as we know it is tenebable. On a business as usual scenario, the answer to that is yes and it’s nearly too late for action to be viable. The jury’s back, and your opinion is tarred, feathered and in the dustbin where it belongs.
kdkd – this is progress of sorts: you admit there could be natural factors warming the planet right now (“All it requires is that anthropogenic forcing exceeds natural forcing”). Ok, so what are the natural forcings? How much of a role do they have right now?
And spare me all the civilizational apocalypse stuff. We seemed to survive the recent 0.7C of warming ok and the temperature is going nowhere right now, so maybe we’ll muddle through.
Your first sentence is rather silly, by the way. I don’t understand why you can’t control that temper.
Tamas
There are natural factors, but all the evidence points them to being exceeded by anthropogenic factors.
The rest of your comment is deluded gibberish. I’m quite calm about it, I just want you to be absolutely clear that I hold your opinion in contempt, as it is obvious that you have crafted a delusional system based on a highly selective reading of the evidence. I think it’s probably selfish wishful thinking on your part, but I’d have a higher opinion of you if it was actual insanity.
0.7ºC is just the beginning, slightly more than the warming during the MWP. If it stopped today, things would be mostly fine. But it won’t we’re locked into the same amount of warming again, and much much more given a business as usual scenario.
Please go away, and come back when you understand the science, rather than memorising the deluded denialist talking points.
kdkd #357
kdkd: “Anyhow, here’s your errata for Pilmer’s book. http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91 Full of errors serious enough to clearly demonstrate that the book is a waste of time.”
I am sure that Prof Plimer is capable of answering all the criticisms, and I have not based my arguments on Prof Plimer’s references (you might recall much earlier that I postulated that amid the mass of his ambitious book with over 2000 references there were likely to be some *howlers*). Each of his arguments should be treated on its merits just like we treated your ‘bar heater’ calculations.
I noted you claimed that the MWP was cooler than the present.
It seems that Plimer’s critics (your errata log) while disagreeing with Plimer’s claimed 2-3 degC warmer – quote the MWP temperature higher by 0.1-0.5 degC.
viz: “The extent of natural variability is being misrepresented, particularly through an exaggerated emphasis on the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). The cited references for large-scale Medieval warming fail to support the claim and in several of these cases seem not to mention Medieval warming at all — [items 19, 20, 97]. The one reference that seems most relevant to global-scale changes (at least over land) is the paper on the borehole data [footnote 256]. The quote from this paper is selective and inaccurate [see item 21].
**The main results of the paper indicate MWP temperatures higher by 0.1 to 0.5C, rather than the 2 to 3C claimed by Plimer [item 21].**”
You should read all your favourite references carefully kdkd or you might accident on a MWP warmer instead of your preferred cooler.
Ken,
I’m aware that you’re avoiding Pilmer. I assume this is due to the serious errors, and him being out of his area of expertise. (as well as in a disciplinary culture that sees the earth for exploitation, and conservation as an afterthought). This is one of the reasons that you’re not getting the full derision unlike Tamas.
I was basing my non expert opinion of the MWP temperatures on the graphs we were looking at earlier. 0.1-0.5ºC higher than the present day doesn’t materially alter my argument, I still think that you’re pissing on the wrong tree. Bear in mind that’s one paper, and I can’t comment further untill you tell me the cited reference for footnote 256.
You still didn’t answer my three questions.
Ken #365
Never mind, that’ll be Steig et.al 1998 “Synchronous Climate Changes in Antarctica and the North Atlantic ” Science Vol. 282. , pp. 92 – 95
Something you missed further in that erratum:
” A later paper (by the authors of reference 256) A late Quaternary climate reconstruction based on borehole heat flux data, borehole temperatures data and the instrumental record. in Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L13703 (2008) states As the authors of HPS97 we can be criticized for not stating explicitly in HPS97 that the ‘present’ (the zero on the time axis) really represents something like the end of the 19th century, rather than the end of the 20th century. The range of reconstructions in the 2008 paper, show a peak warming between 500 and 800 years ago, whose peaks, relative to to 1961–1990 mean, range from about -0.4◦ C to 0.3◦ C.8
So Bzzt Ken, wrong again. Too quick to jump to conclusions. MWP. Probably cooler than the present day at its peak. Here we’re clearly at the beginning of a warming trend, and it’s already as warm as the MWP was at its peak. So your argument is irellevant. And another good exaple of Pilmer being intellectually bankrupt.
Now answer my three questions properly.
kdkd #366 #367
I am sure that any errors made by Prof Plimer are more a result of enthusiasm (a bit like the Mann “hockeystick”) in pursuit of one’s case. In Mann’s case a US Congressional Committee was convened and the raw data had to be extracted from an un-cooperative Mann, who was then condemned by a panel of statisticians – you would relate to them kdkd?
Your efforts at snookering the MWP remind me of an 8 year old playing ‘snap’. Likely to go off early and often but miss the big one at the end.
This is the state of play on the MWP according to recent posts:
KVL #365 : 0.1 – 0.5 degC above a 1961-1990 mean = average 0.3 degC (warmer)
kdkd #367: -0.4 – 0.3 degC above a 1961-1990 mean = average -0.05 degC (cooler)
Overall average: 0.3 -0.05 = 0.25 degC warmer.
Note the abstract of the South African paper quoted in an earlier post:
“The climate of the interior of South Africa was around 1oC cooler in the Little Ice Age and may have been over 3°C higher than at present during the extremes of the medieval warm period. It was variable throughout the millennium, but considerably more so during the warming of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Extreme events in the record show distinct teleconnections with similar events in other parts of the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The lowest temperature events recorded during the Little Ice Age in South Africa are shown to be coeval with the Maunder and Sporer Minima in solar irradiance. The medieval warming is shown to have been coincided with the cosmogenic 10Be and 14C isotopic maxima recorded in tree rings elsewhere in the world during the Medieval Maximum in solar radiation.”
This is the only abstract of the four papers (SA, NZ, Argentina, China) I quoted which mentions a temperature estimate. Have to read the full papers for the other three to see if a temperature estimate is made if they are – watch out – they could be warm.
So the state of play on MWP vs the present: -0.05 degC (cooler), 0.3 degC warmer, and “over 3 degC” higher in SA. Could it be a Solar maximum causing this kdkd?
I think that I am on safe ground saying that the MWP was as “warm or possibly warmer than the present” -a position which represents a huge difficulty for AGW alarmists on the grounds of explaining the ‘forcings’ and the overall threat to humankind.
And by the way, the Earth has been warming since the Maunder Minimum in 1650AD.
#368 Maunder Minimum: generally accepted as 1645 – 1715 AD.
Ken:
Going off half cocked due to excessive exuberance is inexcusable in published work that pupports to be scientific. In Pilmer’s case, the errors are sufficient to invalidate the arguments in his book. In throwaway forums like this, factual inaccuracy is less bad, if the poster then acknowledges thier error. Your track record here is pretty poor.
Your distractions simply show that you are unwilling to answer my three questions. If you could do an adequate job of this, you could show that AGW may be something that we’re shouldn’t really worry about. Your refusal to answer this, despite repeatedly being asked to indicates to me that you’re unable to answer these questions, and therefore indicating the following:
1. You are unable to establish that AGW doesn’t exist, or is insignificant.
2. You are unable to establish that we should not curb greenhouse gas emissions.
I’ve given you several chances to answer these questions and you haven’t. Therefore I conclude that your nit-pick MWP argument is bankrupt, illogical and of very little relevance to the present day. I guess the IPCC would concur, as it’s not something they’ve spent a lot of time obsessing on, preferring to closely examine the more pressing problem in the present.
Game set and match, opponent refuses to return serve, preferring to complain about the colour of the ball.
Ken Lambert #170 to kdkd;
Quote: “I am sure there are errors and exaggerations in Prof Plimer’s tome. It is not a tightly argued well edited read. It would be truly amazing on probability alone if all his points were proven right. In searching for the exact role that CO2 plays in warming the Earth, Plimer has no doubt exaggerated for effect, weakened his other strong arguments and probably committed a few howlers – just like you.” endquote
That about covers it kdkd.
Will engage on your other points late tonite. Have to do some real work to pay taxes to support academic sprogs like you.
Tamas:
Good to see your drivel getting a thorough going over in the comments section in Crikey today. My advice, give up and go away. At this point it’s probably not possible for you to make yourself look even more deluded and stupid, at least on matters relating to climate science.
Ken
Here’s a research task for you to see if we can differentiate between the apparently slightly warmer than I thought MWP [1] and the currently observed warming caused by greenhouse gas concentrations from burning fossil fuel.
The AGW climate models have long (20 years ago or more) predicted disproportionate initial warming in the arctic, and I recall reading that this was predicted when using CO2 forcing as a causal agent (makes sense – solar forcing would necesarily be seasonal and diurnal in the arctic). This phenomenon is well and truely confirmed, and we’re seeing arctic ice-albedo feedback loops.
Your task is to determine if there is any way of determining if this early polar response occurred during the MWP. Greenland is a side issue here – we need evidence from continental landmasses like northern Canada and Siberia where other variables are less prone to confounding what we’re looking for.
If you can find supporting evidence for this, then congratulations, you’ve found an interesting area for further research, and you should talk to a real climate scientist about it. If you find evidence that does not support this, then you’ve confirmed the MWP speculation as an irrelevant distraction. If you can’t find anything, then there’s a gap in the literature and you should start preparing your funding application, in collaboration with a real climate scientist.
But answer my three questions first.
[1] But much cooler than the locked in warming we’ve got to go as the ocean/atmosphere reaches equilibrium in the next 90 years, if emissions were to stop today …
Ken
In addition, your averaging trick “-0.05 degC (cooler), 0.3 degC warmer” isn’t really valid for technical reasons to do with statistics, but I’ll let that go right now.
kdkd # 373 Three questions:
kdkd: ” You still haven’t explaned why this is remotely relevant though. Go back to my three questions from #330.
1. Given that we do not know the underlying cause of the so called MWP and LIA, but we have a good understanding, backed by high quality evidence, of how CO2 and other greenhouse gasses cause increased temperature in the present day, why is the so called MWP relevant to the present day?
Answer: The MWP was a warming of similar magnitude to the present warming and was ‘forced’ by external ‘natural’ factors. These ‘natural’ forcings were unrelated to CO2 and appear to be mainly Solar or Solar induced. These ‘natural’ forcings need to be quantified with the same LOSU (level of scientific understanding) as the purported CO2 forcing is supposed to have (high LOSU) in order to separate out the real effect of CO2 forcing in the current warming.
2. Given that the uncertainty of the data from the so called MWP relates to unmeasurability, and the sparse records available, compared to the much smaller uncertainty of the present day’s data which largely relates to short-term weather versus longer-term climate trends, and is much better understood, how is the MWP data relevant to that from the present day?
Answer: There are many references to the MWP from both the SH and NH including the Holocene temperature reconstructions we have discussed extensively. I have cited references from China, South Africa, NZ and Argentina which correlate with the historical MWP, countering the argument that it was a regional NH phenomenon.
3. Using your answers to questions 1 and 2, please explain why the so called MWP, which was cooler than the present day, causes the risk of runaway global warming caused by human activities to be brought into question to the degree that it means it should not be something that we should be worried about.
Answer: The MWP was as warm (possibly warmer) than the present day according to already cited references. There is no reference that I have located to a ‘runaway greenhouse’ in the geological history of Earth, despite CO2 levels several times the current level. There is a dominant history of glaciation over roughly 100-120,000 year cycles in the last 400,000 years with short (roughly 15000 year) interglacials. We should worry about the next glaciation rather than a runaway greenhouse on the geological evidence.
kdkd #373
Let me know your pick for a ‘real climate scientist’ Karoly perhaps?
“The AGW climate models have long (20 years ago or more) predicted disproportionate initial warming in the arctic, and I recall reading that this was predicted when using CO2 forcing as a causal agent (makes sense – solar forcing would necesarily be seasonal and diurnal in the arctic). This phenomenon is well and truely confirmed, and we’re seeing arctic ice-albedo feedback loops.”
While climate models are you referring to here kdkd?
The 80% which predict warming or the 20% which predict cooling – or is it the fact that they all predict cooling – but at different times.
Or are they the 38 available standard runs from the IPCC which predict temperature increase of 0.2 degC per decade, which apparently has not happened in the last decade despite your ’1 kW bar heater’ running flat out 24/7 for every 625 sq.m. of the Earth’s surface?
Bjorn Lomborg (WE Australian 15OCT08) states that the heat content of the worlds oceans has been dropping for the last 4 years, and it is unclear where the heat from global warming should have gone.
Good work Ken. You have clearly demonstrated that you are concerned with earth processes on a geological time scale, and that you consider human civilisation per se as unimportant. You fail to account for the locked in warming that current CO2 levels will cause between now and 2100, and do not consider the way that this climate change will impact on human civilisation, it’s current infrastructure and population density.
So I’ll be reasonably generous and give your answer a C as you clearly imply your world view in your answer (i.e. unimportance of human civilisation which is fine as a scientific perspective, it would certainly solve some geological problems).
Now to fully illuminate the picture that you paint , you need to discuss the research questions I pose in #373.
Of course I could be marking too geerously and you might just be thinking about this whole set of problems too narrowly.
kdkd #372
All Stephen Morris has proven in ‘going over’ Tamas in today’s Crikey comments is that some of the observational temperature data show warming and some show cooling.
Warmists may ‘cherry pick’ warming data, and sceptics may ‘cherry pick’ cooling data.
The fact that both conflicting sets of data exist, and that Prof Karoly’s 20% of climate models predict cooling (but not just now), simply proves that the science and the data are not settled.
Which is the intelligent sceptic’s position.
Ken: Some more comment on your answers:
The climate models I refered to are in some 15 year old environmental science text books on my shelves. The findings I refer to haven’t been challenged in the intervening time, and observations are confirming the precocious warming in the arctic.
You’re overstating your case saying that the MWP is likely to have been warmer than the present day (I assume this is what you’re implying). I let you off with the statistical cheat earlier, but essentially what a correct evaluation of the statistics would tell you is that the difference between temperature *today* and the MWP *peak* is zero (until you account for locked in greenhouse gas warming later on this century when we will see a very different answer).
Consider we don’t really know what the effects of the likely drought during the MWP were in Southern Africa. The Chinese record may be better, but you’d have to find a proper historian to gather evidence about that. The higher than average temperatures, and lower population density relative to the present day in Europe is likely to have been beneficial. This then has knock on effects to the infrastructure for civilisation then as now (modest expansion versus precipitous survival – think about the Gulf of Mexico oil platforms during Katrina, early in this current warming phenomenon, or food price spikes last year – a knock on effect of likely climate change related drought and energy crisis). I suspect that due to the artificial reduction of resource limitation through (non renewable) fossil fuel use in the present day, that today’s civilisation, being much closer to the earth’s absolute carrying capacity is much more sensitive to pertubation than it was 500 odd years ago.
I don’t think you’ve thought the issues through at all in this way, which is why I suggest that “you might just be thinking about this whole set of problems too narrowly”.
Ken #378
You’re inflating the extent, range and importance of the uncertainty beyond a way that is justifiable in that comment. In addition, we would have to radically revise the laws [1] of physical chemistry in order not to see the mean temperature anomaly double by the end of the century based on the scenario where greenhouse gas emission ceased in 2009.
[1] You ought to note that laws are rare things in sciences that need to appeal to complexity theory in order to work properly. As such when one crops up, you treat it with a great deal of respect and look for uncertainties elsewhere.
Ken,
Final comments before bed. You don’t understand how models work do you? It’s only superficially like a horse race. Here’s some maths that relates to model evaluation for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaike_information_criterion.
And … Lomberg is pretty much discredited, and he’s not a climate scientist … cooling since 2004 is not relevant. It’s imprudent in this area to work on anything under a 20 year time frame for mean wide-area temperature estimates.
kdkd #381
Neither you, nor I , nor Lomborg, nor Al Gore, nor Stephen Fielding, nor Penny Wong, nor Kevin Rudd are climate scientists.
To a greater or lesser degree, we have to make decisions – some huge and disruptive of the current economy, all based on the ‘science of AGW’.
There are two standards of proof applied in our system.
“Beyond reasonable doubt” and “Balance of probabilities”. The former in criminal matters and the latter in civil matters.
I would suggest that the former is necessary to start making drastic action (economy disrupting) to cut CO2 emissions.
The latter would be necessary to start taking economically non-disruptive action to reduce emissions of CO2 by replacement technologies such as nuclear and viable renewables for central electricity generation and transport.
I would contend that ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ is definitely not established, and ‘balance of probabilities’ is more likely, but still very uncertain.
In practice, this would mean that a ‘non-scientist’ prudent policy maker should be guided to take “economically non-disruptive action to reduce emissions of CO2 by replacement technologies such as nuclear and viable renewables.”
But I would keep a close eye on the ‘unsettled science’, which over the next 5-10 years will remove all ‘warmists’ objections to short time frames to indicate cooling. I would place a modest wager on the ‘coolists’.
kdkd #380
You are familiar with maths kdkd. The IPCC CO2 ‘forcing’ equation in simplest form is:
Delta F (forcing) W/sq.m. = K x ln(CO2a/CO2b), where K is a constant (W/sq.m.) and CO2a is the current concentration in ppmv (roughly 385), and CO2b is the historical CO2 concentration in ppmv which you chose as a baseline (280 in 1750AD).
Why don’t you do some research on the value of ‘K’, and how it is derived.
Seems to me that if the Earth is not being forced at the moment (last 5-15 years), then ‘K’ might not be a constant at all, and could be a variable with a possible value of ’0′.
Ken #382
Well I am a scientist, so although many parts of the technical bits are beyond my capabilities, I do have expertise in methods and methodology as it applies to the scientific process. You’re right none of the other people you listed are practicing scientists, although Lomberg ought to know better (econometricians are a bit of a special breed though – lies damed lies in the dismal science anyone?)
So in my expert opinion, the kind of political jurisprudence that you’re suggesting isn’t really appropriate given the standards of methodology and robustness of the science performed to date. As I said before, it is inappropriate to mix and match the humanities with physical sciences in the way that this comment of yours suggests is the best course of action.
Ken #382
You can do the calculation, you know I’m likely to get it wrong. Or perhaps this is something you’ve copied and pasted from Pilmer. From the errata:
“p. 375, figure 50:12 As with many of the graphics, this is poorly described with no attribution of the numbers (see item 3). However above 100 ppm the values seem to be inversely proportional to concentration as expected for incremental change when temperature has a logarithmic dependence on concentration (which Plimer acknowledges on p. 338). Thus a better label for the vertical axis would be ‘incremental warming’. This means that the claim in the caption once the atmosphere is at its present 385 ppm, a doubling or quadrupling will have very little effect on the atmospheric temperature is untrue. (Note also similar statement on previous page — item 59). Each doubling will have the same effect on temperature until concentrations get so high that the logarithmic relation breaks down. The trend in Figure 50 shows no sign of this happening around 400 ppm. The bars would imply that the increments correspond to each additional 20 ppm of CO2 . This would imply a climate sensitivity of 0.35ºC. While the origin of the numbers is not given, the discussion on page 24 below notes that they can be explained by using 0.5º C for the climate sensitivity (the lowest of Plimer’s other values) and then having a factor of 1.44 error through neglecting to consider the change of base of logarithms.”
This strongly suggests that your conclusion is based on faulty reasoning.
With respect to cooling versus warming, I’m going on primary and secondary reports of warming to date, and the theoretical expectation of the locked in warming in the near future (i.e. end of 21st century). The only way you can claim that there is no forcing at the moment is to do the following:
i. Confuse short term variability with longer term trends.
ii. Miscast the 1998 El Niño as at the beginning of a long term trend.
(Un)fortunately it appears that there is another El Niño event on the way this year, which will likely shut down this spurious denialist argument. I wonder how many deaths will occur for this to happen.
Now I suggest that you go back and read this post at realclimate to disabuse yourself of your misconceptions: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/
Like I said before, a non-anthropocentric perspective of bio-geological processes is fine, and in some circumstances to be encouraged. I’m just not sure that these circumstances are one of those instances.
Anyway you appear to run out of arguments. Good luck with everything
kdkd #372 – you say “Good to see your drivel getting a thorough going over in the comments section in Crikey today. My advice, give up and go away”.
Well, bad luck. I refuse to go away mate. Did you read my comment in the daily email today? Any response? You’ll just have to keep losing the debate to Ken and me.
By the way, what field of science are you qualified in?
Tamas
You just keep repeating the same uninformed drivel. I have taken steps to try to put an end to it. Your continual repetition of the same old incorrect stuff, Himmler style, does not cause it to suddenly become correct. I use the insult you hard and insult you often technique as my own propoganda technique to counter your nonsense.
I have qualifications and industry experience in behavioural sciences (“hard” and “soft” side) and life sciences (molecular and ecological), but currently make my living as an industrial sociologist understanding how to make technology work better for people and organisations. Seeing as we’re in confessional mode, what scientific discipline(s) are you qualified in?
kdkd #386 – you have “taken steps to try to put an end to… (my) uninformed drivel”?!!
Ohh Nooo!!! Is that a threat? Pray tell what your powers will inflict upon me? How will you “end” my arguments?
You are a laugh kdkd. Love the Nazi smear as well. Just great.
Anyway, I haven’t referenced my qualifications in this debate so I don’t feel the need to share them with you. My arguments will do just fine.
Tamas #387
For someone who feels so assured of their position your posts are remarkably devoid of content and what little there is is regurgitated from discredited sources. As for the nazi smear … well according to Godwin’s law I automatically lose the argument. No threats, Just taken a course of action to try to terminate this fruitless discussion … At least ken is vaguley interesting. Your stuff is anti-intellectual propoganda of the worst kind.
kdkd #386 #388
kdkd I have the most vivid image of you – a sort of Dr Strangelove in sandals and socks struggling to keep your right arm flaccid. You don’t wear a wheelchair do you?
You haven’t socialogically worked out Tamas yet have you. He thrives on high pitched abuse from Herr Doctor kdkd.
Did you scrape through ‘industrial sociology’ with a pc (pass conceded) or did the Maoists who taught the course dispense with bourgeois grading?
kdkd #384
I love the assumption that my post #383 was taken from page 375 of Prof Plimer’s book. Sorry, I have not progressed that far yet. My piece is all my own.
Interesting to think about forcings ‘external’ to the Earth though.
Solar heating is clearly external, and Volcanism is external to the atmosphere/ocean system being from below the Earth’s surface; but the greenhouse effect is something different.
It is derivative. A heat absorber and insulator – but driven by incoming solar irradiance.
If you turn down the knob on the sun, the GHG gases – water vapour, methane and purported CO2 don’t keep the Earth warm on their own. They rely on the Solar Constant remaining constant.
So the ‘embedded heating’ from increasing CO2 concentrations out to 2100 is dependent on solar irradiance and we all know from the IPCC that solar irradiance has a low LOSU – (level of scientific understanding).
Does it follow then kdkd; that CO2 GHG warming also has a low LOSU?
Ken #390
And I love the way you’re back to florid confabulations again. The individual facts are sound, the way you have combined them is not. Good to see you and Pilmer’s ideas are converged rather than plagiarised – indicates the same biases I suppose.
Look, I know many many scientists outside of climate science who, level headed and conservative in the scientific mould, are rightly very very concerned about AGW. This is because of the strength of the evidence. The people I see who are not concerned about AGW are pretty much in one or more of the following categories:
i. Lacking scientific training.
ii. From scientific disciplines where measurement uncertainty, unmeasurability or complexity are seen as intractable.
iii. In the pay of the fossil fuel mafia.
Which category do you fit into?
Much as I dislike the ideological position of , Jennifer Marohasy [1], but there’s a nice description of the type of scientific uncertainty inherrent in solar forcing in this post: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/07/solar-cycle-link-to-global-climate-now-something-official/ which describes a study in the Journal of Climate. Note how there’s no mention of the study altering what we already know about AGW in the post.
[1] I’d say she was in category three, and possibly 2 of my typology of climate skeptics in #391 – her scientific expertise is in biological control of weeds, an agricultural sub-speciality of ecology, and she worked for a right wing think tank with close links to the Libs.
KL #390: kdkd #391, #392
“So the ‘embedded heating’ from increasing CO2 concentrations out to 2100 is dependent on solar irradiance and we all know from the IPCC that solar irradiance has a low LOSU – (level of scientific understanding).
Does it follow then kdkd; that CO2 GHG warming also has a low LOSU?”
I thought the above was a pretty good confabulation – how about a logical dissection?
I would put me in your Cat (ii), but hoping to catch the eye of Exxon and move to Cat (iii) so I can get paid for all the free late night overtime I am putting in for the Oil Mafia.
Remember that numbers don’t equate to quality and peer review does not equal ‘it must be right’ on either side of the debate.
The Mann ‘hockeystick’ debacle is a good example of peer review by a coterie of associates who were enviscerated by the US Congressional Report.
In that case the ‘peer review’ was about as independent as a daisy chain in a San Francisco bathhouse.
Ken #393
Duh, if the sun goes out it gets cooler. And if it gets brighter, then it gets warmer… You seem to be implying that there is some inherrent uncertainty in this. Solar output has been reasonably consistent for the past century, yet we still observe substantial temperature rise at the end of the 20th century. We can clearly conclude that it was not the sun wot caused it. I suggest that you have lost your LOSU under the sofa cushions or something, and should have a good look for it.
I think that the Journal of Climate paper I referred to in #392 makes it clear that the low LOSU of solar forcing relates to how changes in solar output alter climate (i.e patterns of drought, precipitation, extreme events and so on), not about how they cause temperature changes, which appears in my non-expert view to be a straightforward calculation. The solar modelling / MWP paper you posted the abstract from recently indicates the same kind of thing. The sun’s contribution to warming however is fairly straightforward, and has been fairly stable for the last century or so – we can’t go “ooh, low level of understanding, don’t understand it” and proceed around in some kind of Cartesian fog while the evil genius manipulates us poor brains in vats.
Which leads to my next point. If you’re like me, and don’t work with quantitative calculations of physical parameters regularly , then you have to be careful with your interpretations of such things, and defer to expertise. Just because it’s not my area of expertise doesn’t give me the right or ability to deny the existence of things like Joules, or question their applicability to the problem domain.
Likewise, if you lack the training to interpret the output of models (which clearly gives you mental indigestion), or to interpret the meaning of different types of uncertainty (which you appear to find overwhelming), then it doesn’t mean that these things are irrelevant, or don’t exist or whatever. It means that you proceed with caution around these things and it limits your ability to come to conclusions about this kind of information. It seems that your reaction to uncertainty caused by differences between models, causes you to question the validity of the premises, rather than acknowledge the limitations of your ability to interpret the data. Humility is the name of the game here
As for the hockey stick controversy, I must admit to have not looked into that in much detail at all before (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy). However, it seems to me from a little bit of reading after the event, that it’s a good bit less controversial than you claim. In fact from the Nature article
(reference 21 on the wikipedia page) about the resolution of the controversy we have the following quote:
‘Mann says that he is “very happy” with the committee’s findings, and agrees with the core assertion that more must be done to reduce uncertainties in earlier periods. “We have very little long-term information on the Southern Hemisphere and large parts of the ocean,” he says. As for the report’s effect on the policy debate, Mann says: “Hopefully this is the beginning of us, as a community, putting that silliness behind us.”‘
Clearly you have not put that silliness behind you, and you seem to be suggesting that scientific research is better performed by rejection of that which the reader does not personally do not understand, and that blind assertion is a better approach to research than peer review.
Agreed?
And in case you’re not familiar with the brain in a vat thing, here’s some further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat
kdkd #394
Your ramble is long winded and unconvincing.
Will expand on the solar forcing through the last 1000 years, soon.
Ken #396
Solar forcing over the last 1000 years would be fascinating. But you can’t explain why global average temperature is roughly at its highest for the last 1000 years while solar activity is modest, without using greenhouse gasses caused by the burning of fossil fuel as the explanation.
Besides you find my argument unconvincing, but you can’t state why. I smell the whiff of rhetoric that’s backed up with zero counter argument.
Ken #396
Actually my argument is detailed and makes three important points. I don’t think it can be done shorter without a lot more thought and a good bit of copy editing. Here’s a quick precis for you:
The fact that you don’t like the points I’m making doesn’t alter their validity. If you have a problem with the fact that you lack the capability to interpret models properly, that’s an issue with your arguments, not mine. If you lack the ability to resolve the different kinds of uncertainty caused by solar forcing (e.g. temperature versus climate) that’s again your problem. Finally, the hockey stick controversy is resolved, and you appear to be unable to move beyond that. Again, that’s a problem with your knowledge.
You remind me of Wile E. Coyote in a road runner cartoon, and your comment reminds me of one of the many scenes where he goes crashing over a cliff and hangs in mid air briefly before crashing to the ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz65AOjabtM
Beep beep!
kdkd#397
Have a look at the Solar Forcing (W/sq.m.) for the last 1100 years from:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig613.png
Let me know what you see.
Dont forget: “Humility is the name of the game here” kdkd.
kdkd “394
“Likewise, if you lack the training to interpret the output of models (which clearly gives you mental indigestion), or to interpret the meaning of different types of uncertainty (which you appear to find overwhelming), then it doesn’t mean that these things are irrelevant, or don’t exist or whatever. It means that you proceed with caution around these things and it limits your ability to come to conclusions about this kind of information. It seems that your reaction to uncertainty caused by differences between models, causes you to question the validity of the premises, rather than acknowledge the limitations of your ability to interpret the data”
I can see why you have only earned $2000 from your ‘research’ on AGW.
Your crass assertions about my abilities have gotten you into trouble more than once.
You elevate the low tactic of playing the man instead of playing the ball into an art form which only your Maoist academic mates could applaud.
I guess it is hard playing ball games in sandals and socks kdkd.
Ken #400
So now you need to explain why your sniggering innuendo that 20% of models predict cooling is somehow an each way bet is somehow valid commentary. That sounds like the prattling of someone who lacks the understanding of how to use models to test hypotheses to me. It’s no crass assertion, it’s a considered statement about your pretty idiotic interpretation of this statement.
And did you read the Y axis scales of the graphs that you posted in #399. Certainly doesn’t support your over-hasty conclusion that it’s the sun wot’s currently doing it.
Beep beep.
(Good to see you’re losing patience with me. I lost patience with your spurious arguments long ago).
p.s. If you’re going to claim expertise, you’d ought to indicate the area that it comes from. I’m guessing some kind of technical field like electronic engineering or something in mining/infrastructure engineering.
Ken #400
You know, I’d have much less objection to what you have to say if you couched it in terms of hypotheses to be tested rather than what you currently do which is some rather biased and selective statements of facts that appear designed to inflate the perception of uncertainty.
e.g. You’ve said something like: “We can’t know if the present day warming is a valid signal until we use models to hindcast the holocene”. I think a more acceptable way of exploring this would be to say : “Are there examples in the literature where models of complex systems have been used to hindcast independent data sources with different uncertainty paremeters than the direct observations used to test the models”.
The same goes for solar forcing. If it’s of interest to you, dig out the literature where that hypothesis has been tested, or failing that, suggest a hypothesis design. Innuendo makes you look like the Exxon shills.
kdkd #401,402
You are indeed a motivator – but you don’t like a taste of your style of invective do you old son?
If you have a look at the Graph 6(b) which I have discussed in a much earlier post, the Solar Irradiance forcing from approx 900-1200 AD is 0.3-0.5 W/sq.m for most of that period. If an integral of forcing wrt time is taken the area under the curve would represent the total energy forcing for that period as positive, and correlating with the MWP which as we know was of ‘similar’ temperature to the present.
The period from about 1320 to 1730AD shows more area below the ’0′ forcing baseline that above, indicating a negative net energy forcing – which correlated with the long cold bouts of the LIA.
The NH temperature reconstruction of Graph 6(d) also correlates well with the solar forcing reconstruction.
The period 1730 to 2005AD shows positive area under the curve except for a dip around 1814 which strangely matches the Tamboora eruption, but streadily climbs to a figure of about 0.4-0.5 W/sq.m. which correlates with the current warming from the Maunder minimum to the present.
Interestingly the volcanic forcing of Graph 6(a) seems sufficiently up and down over short cycles to have little net area under the curve on either positive or negative side, but the last 50-100 years seems to be more consistently negative. I did not reference the last century as particularly active for volcanic aerosols, and the IPCC dismisses volcanism as a short term transient in IPCC AR4.
Ken #403
Don’t like the taste of my own incentive? What’s “Good to see you’re losing patience with me. I lost patience with your spurious arguments long ago” supposed to mean then? Hint, It means I’m quite pleased that it looks like you’re in the mood for giving up in frustration.
I’ve got a deal for you here. I think that you like looking at this raw data, but when the conclusions made by people with more expertise with the data and more grasp of the sceintific and analytic concepts don’t fit your preconceptions, you just stare at the raw data, and make stuff up, Rorschach ink blot style.
So here’s the deal. If you dig out the raw data concerning volcanic, solar, and CO2 emissions and the Southern Oscillation Index score between 1800 (ish) and the present day, and I’ll run some regression models on them. This will empirically show us the amount of forcing inherent in each component. We can do it naively, and we can use clever smoothing techniques in order to try to remove noise components. While it won’t really resolve any scientific issues about the quantity of warming, it will show us the real amount of uncertainty in the data.
Of course if you’re unwilling to do this, then it suggests to me that you’re not really prepared to put your money where your mouth is, and you’d rather approach continue to use your psychoanalytic method.
p.s You can also see the effect of Krakatoa quite clearly in the volcanic forcing graph too, who’d have thought, data that reflects observations!
kdkd #404
Between the lines you are smart enough to see that the MWP was forced by solar (the positive area under the curve) 900-1200AD, and that this is also indicated for the current warming since ARO 1750AD.
Ya don’t need CO2 GHG effect to explain a chunk of this current warming to ‘similar’ temperatures as the MWP.
How do you propose for me to obtain ‘direct’ data measurements of the CO2 forcings, such as can be obtained with solar and possibly? with volcanism.
Other than direct ‘heating’ from eruptions (on land and undersea), aerosols from eruptions are ‘indirect’ effects which block the solar forcings, and probably much more difficult to quantify than solar.
Direct measurement of CO2 forcing requires a ‘hot spot’ in the stratosphere doesn’t it kdkd?
kdkd “I think that you like looking at this raw data, but when the conclusions made by people with more expertise with the data and more grasp of the sceintific and analytic concepts don’t fit your preconceptions, you just stare at the raw data, and make stuff up, Rorschach ink blot style.”
I think that even you could grasp the concept of integrating forcing wrt time to give a total energy forcing as the area under the curve. Grade 12 stuff, which is not made up.
As for your research program – you seem to be between engagements at the moment -so why not apply to Ms Wong for a grant – I will help out where I can spare the time from employing people and producing things.
You must admit that if you could convince me of the true value of purported CO2 forcing, you would have a powerful advocate – a ‘re-educated sceptic’.
Ken #405
Stop wasting your (and my) time here, and find me the raw data. Then we can bring this pointless discussion Of course atmospheric CO2 is a good proxy for CO2 forcing, with the added benefit that if the forcing is insignificant, then there’s no way that it would end up being a statistically significant term in the model. If not, then the contribution to currently observed warming is a number indistinguishable than zero. Is your rather weird statement in #405 indicate that you really have such a poor grasp of this kind of methodology? Well I’m surprised, you can turn a superficially plausible tale despite (or perhaps because) of this.
If you get the raw data, and it would take me an evening to start pumping out facts and figures that will test your hypothesis, and of course I would respond to any queries that you made based on this initial evaluation, and we could perform follow-up analyses. This is a description of scientific method.
It sounds like you’re not keen … presumably this is because you lack confidence to put your assertions robust empirical scrutiny, preferring the psychoanalytic method you detailed above.
Now you’ll have to excuse me while I too contribute to the functioning of society.
err that should read “bring this pointless discussion to an end.” at the beginning
kdkd #406
Which raw data would you like kdkd? NASA/GISS or Hadley or UAH? High or Low LOSU?
Glad you think my arguments are plausible – it seems to have pricked your latest tantrum over a dreadful fear that somewhere out there in Crikeyland my logical analyses might be gaining traction.
If you look at IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4, to make any naive analysis you would need raw data from all the significant factors including clouds and cloud albedo – another significant component with low LOSU (level of scientific understanding).
Yes, doubt is a currency in which I deal – there is so much of it about in the AGW story.
It is literally awash with the speculative, unproven, low LOSU – and in your case – the unloved.
Ken #408
What data? Whatever you want to provide. I’d be inclined to use the NOAA instrumental record of temperature anomaly from the early 1800s to the present day as the initial calibration dataset though. Just in tabular format, one observation per year, or something easily transformed to such.
And no, it does not need to be all data – a naive analysis would require the two, three of four seemingly most important dependent variables, and a single response variable. In regression analysis, you partition the model according to the formula:
y = mx1 + m2x2 … mnxn + c +e
Where c is the entercept, and e is the error or unexplained variance – you just keep adding terms until e becomes acceptably low or you can’t think of/obtain any new data . I suggest starting with sun, volcanism and CO2 for the instrumental record available from the NOAA data, subsequently substituted with Tamas’ favourite data set if possible.
And where we hit interesting bits of LOSU, as it were we should be able to detect some of that with diagnostics from the regression. Presumably some of this is already understood, and some of it isn’t.
So let me know when you want to start …
kdkd #409
Better fill in a few questions before you set off.
1) Are we joint authors of this ground breaking paper kdkd?
2) Has anyone done this type of analysis before – quick literature search kdkd?
3) The regression analysis you propose seems to ring a bell with Buckinghams pi theorem – which from dim memory is a dimensional analysis technique. I guess you would need ‘T’ (temperature) or delta T on the LHS of the equation. Are you up with the dimensions of T, and is this relevant?
4) My last tangle with statistical analysis was something like a ’3 way factorial analysis with least squares’ from my student past. Anything to do with regression analysis?
5) Assuming this is a world first – peer review is no doubt essential. Any objection to Ian Plimer and say Don Aitken from my end?
1. Yes
2. Probably, but that’s not the point. The intention here would be to be as transparrent as possible – all data made available, and all statistical analysis source code in the public domain.
3. Anomaly is a good proxy for T.
4. Yes, y=m_{ij}x_{ij} + c + e is the name of the game in all this kind of analysis
5. We’ll see how it goes.
5. If you are serious about this, then we should set up the infrastructure elsewhere than a crikey comment thread. Possibly here: http://pbworks.com/
ken #410/ question 5
Just to clarify my “we’ll see” response … in my experience it can be tricky to persuade people to read your stuff. So I vote for “anyone who would read it”. My idea basically is “some guys with conflicting not so hidden agendas get together interrogate the raw data and see what happens”.
kdkd #411,412,413
Your first raw data set from NOAA IPCC 2007 Fig 6.13 (Graphs a,b,c,d) is:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/ipcc2007/fig613ipcc2007-unsmoothed.txt
This is no longer ‘my stuff’, paleface – this is ‘our stuff’.
Never used pbworks – fill me in on the way you propose it would work.
Go to it.
Ken:
My email details should be in your inbox. Please contact me there. I will set up some infrastructure in today’s downtime.
Tamas:
It’s tin foil hat time: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090717_juneglobalstats.html — be sure to wrap up warm for summer time!
Ken: Stage 1 complete:
http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Stage-1
Comments over there please (via http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/request_access.php )
Gah. Stupid crikey moderation. Stage 1 complete: http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Stage-1
Also anyone interested will need to request access via http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/request_access.php.
kdkd #417 #418
Interesting analysis kdkd. Like your matrix table. Did you use any of the noaa data I referred?
Couple of suggestions. Perfect correlation of forcings and CO2 mean looks suspect.
Can you try ln(CO2a/CO2b) in place of CO2 mean, where CO2b is about 280ppmv in 1750AD?
This is supposed to be linear with CO2 forcing. Myrhe -1998 eqan:
Delta F(CO2) = 5.35 ln(Co2a/CO2b) where Delta F is increase in forcing (W/sq.m)
You would probably need to enter a decadal value for this and interpolate the yearly values eg some examples:
900 – 1750AD = Zero
The 1900AD value would be 5.35 ln(290/280) = 0.188 W/sq.m
The 1950AD value would be 5.35 ln(310/280) = 0.545 W/sq.m
The 2005AD value would be 5.35 ln(380/280) = 1.634 W/sq.m
Interesting to see the strong correlation between solar forcing and CO2 mean. CO2 has historically been a lagging indicator but always following temperature anomaly closely (by about 700 years).
I wonder how this correlation changes with using the function ln(CO2a/CO2b) instead of CO2 mean?
SOI is clearly an internal effect and Volcanic a fairly weak correlation with temp anomaly
Fascinated to see if any of the ‘thousands’ of IPCC authors have done a similar analysis.
Leave Tamas alone while you are doing this kdkd. To be universal and Catholic you must include the UAH data set somewhere which will warm his heart and cool his head.
Tamas – hope you are watching – this is interesting stuff.
#420 responded to at http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Stage-1, really because the one-url per post and inability to embed graphics into the page on these forums is quite unhelpful.
Sign up via the “request access” link.
Just a note to say that stage 2 is up and ready for digestion and questioning: http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Stage-2
kdkd #421 #422
I just put in 30 mins on a major post and lost it on ‘post comment’. Save it elsewhere first!!
It is no surprise that the Stage 1 and 2 analysis is getting CO2 as the main player.
You have left out the major cooling forcings of AR4 Fig 2.4 – F.aerosols (direct and cloud albedo). it would be intersesting how they correlate with CO2 as fossil fuel buring gets greener.
You should also include a F.naturalwarm and F.naturalcool to account for CO2 (before 1750AD) and other natural background factors which run all the time.
One thing you have established – the solar forcing absolute value is 0.3-0.5 W/sq.m not a ‘difference’ value of 0.12 W/sq.m.
It would be very interesting to see if the analysis shows the ratio of CO2 to solar in the temp anomaly when you get all the terms into it.
Ken:
Your loss of posts on pbwiki is a PEBKAC, I’m not having that issue here at all. Compose in another application and paste in will probably solve your issue.
Everything form the IPCC figures you asked for is included plus atmospheric co2, plus soi (then dropped due to poor fit, discussed why fit is poor). Please feel free to eyeball the CSV file I linked to (openable in your spreadsheet). I’m happy to include other data as you find it and point me to the source. To be honest, looking at the regression model so far, I’d be very surprised to see anything that would make the slightest bit of difference.
replace “the slightest bit of difference” with the term “for a model that would provide a substantially better fit”
Ken and kdkd – I’ve been busy the past week so I’m just catching up.
I requested access to the climatekaraoke link above and just received permission.
So far it looks very interesting. I will look at it and see if I can contribute anything meaningful.
Keep up the great work guys. This is what a good debate is all about.
Tamas #426
Mate, could you point me to any raw data on Cloud Albedo, Direct Albedo and any other raw data which would feed the kdkd statistical analysis. UAH Temperature Anomaly in .txt format would be a starter.
Also note my SORCE TSI (total solar irradiation)information about the TIM radiometers measuring 4.5 W/sq.m less that other space mounted radiometers as of December 2005. I can’t find any reference to the discrepancy being resolved. (see Stage 3 Climatekaroke)
cheers
Ken Lambert
Ken – the UAH data in text form can be found at:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
I’ll have a look for the other data but I’m a bit busy until the end of the week.
Tamas.
Tamas #428
Thanks for the link.
State of play so far in the kdkd analysis if you have not been to climatekaroake:
I have been invited to hypothesize:
kdkd: Analysis so far: “the correlation between solar and anomaly (0.68), co2 and anomaly – (0.9), and solar and co2 (0.77).”
Can you determine from this, the relative effects of Solar vs CO2 over time? eg between say 1750 to 1900, 1900 – 1930, 1930-1950, 1950 – 1980, 1980-2005. This would tend to separate out the effects of both in 20-30 year blocks which you claim are the minimum for significance.
I would suggest a few hypotheticals:
1) Analysis between 900AD and 1750AD would identify Solar forcings as the main driver of the MWP and LIA.
2) That the Temperature anomaly in the MWP was of similar magnitude to the last 25-50 years of the 20th century.
3) That Solar forcing since 1750 plays a much greater part in the observed warming than that implied by the IPCC in Fig 2.4 ie 0.12W/sq.m compared with 1.6W/sq.m for AG forcings.
4) That CO2 and GHG warming forcings may correlate with Cloud Albedo and Direct Albedo cooling forcings producing a natural balancing mechanism going forward.
5) That Solar will have contributed a portion of the warming currently attributed to CO2 over the last 25-50 years, rendering the alarmist predictions of catastrophic temperature increase exaggerated.
6) If your conclusion is that Temperature anomaly is linear with CO2 concentration, then we can look forward to less than 1 degC increase at double the CO2 concentration (560ppmv), which gives us plenty of time to implement Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan.
Tamas Calderwood writes: Katherine McGrow concludes her special report on Global Warming and the Pacific saying “by 2050, the International Organisation for Migration says, we can expect around 200 million people to be displaced by the effects of climate change. And that’s really not so far away.” No, but what is far away is any connection between these scare stories and some actual global warming.
The UAH data shows global warming has mostly occurred in the Northern Hemisphere in the past 31 years (a trend rise of 0.58C) while the temperature of the Southern Hemisphere — scene of the catastrophe so vividly described by Katherine — rose only 0.18C in the past 31 years. If the same trend holds (and it won’t, because the Earth is now in a cooling phase) the South Pacific will be a terrifying 0.23C warmer by 2050 and Earth will be an unbearable 0.5C warmer.
To help visualise this crisis, here is a chart I have made showing the 0.38C trend rise in Earth’s temperature over the past 31 years:
Crikey –lets get a way of publishing Graphs on this blog…
Ken Lambert
onya Tamas
Tamas’ imbecility knows no bounds.
http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiot
This may also interest the ostriches among you:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/aug/05/climate-change-scepticism
Kieren Diment writes: I take Tamas Calderwood’s graph (yesterday, comments) from a single source of data and raise is with a plot of temperature anomaly using the multi-source 1100 year data set published by the IPCC. This data encompasses the little ice age and the medieval warm period. From this graph we see we’re warmer than the medieval warming period in the present day, and the degree of change is greater than that during the little ice age.
If you do the gory statistics you’ll see that the only thing that predicts the increase in temperature between 1800 and 2000 properly is the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Worse, there’s evidence from the same statistics that we’re now starting to see positive feedback effects. Don’t believe me? Look at the data yourself.
I’ve looked at Tamas favourite NIH satellite data, and there is something odd about it — I can’t quite put my finger on it. However, it does broadly agree with the trend in the attached graph, and does not invalidate the anthropogenic global warming theory in the least.
What kdkd did not say was that he was jointly researching the AGW data with Ken Lambert, and that is ongoing, with neither party agreeing to go off and publish results outside the PB worksheets.
For those of you following along, I have coined a new term which should be acceptable to the politically correct and politically incorrect alike: Climate Solipsism. You can read more about it here: http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/ClimateSolipsism
Hi kdkd and Ken. Sorry I’ve been slack lately but I’ve been very busy with other things.
kdkd – re your Crikey comment last Friday, what do you find odd about the UAH data? And what data set are you using for the graph you link to in #431? It looks suspiciously hockey-stick like…
The graph in my Crikey comment was simply made by using UAH data and applying it to the average temperature observed in 1978 (15C). I made the Y axis 5 degrees each way because Andrew Glikson and others have been saying that Earth will now heat up 5C by 2100. I think that graph shows that we’re not really on a path for that kind of increase. In fact, it is a strikingly banal set of data when you look at it from that perspective rather than the 1C Y-axis scale it’s normally shown in.
Finally kdkd, I must point out that Ken and I would say that Climatesolipsism is what the alarmists seem to be displaying. The rhetoric and hysteria seems completely removed from the observed temperature increases. Nice work in coining the phrase anyway.
Ken – I saw Prof Bob Carter at a talk in Sydney last week. We know all the arguments but it was very good. He really brought home the point that all this climate hysteria is madness, just madness…
Richard Lindzen puts it best: “The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations.”
Indeed.
Tamas
I think I understand my unhappiness with the UAH data now. The problem is that it’s too short a time frame to establish long term trends, but it does have the same short term variability as other temperature measures. It’s also not statistically significantly different from the other data that I’ve looked at, in terms of the size and direction of the trend.
A correct plot of this data would be on a much longer time frame, and with an axis in proportion to the variability of the data. Like this one: http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/f/1249594878/by_year.png which clearly demonstrates the proportional change in temperature over a thousand year period. You can clearly see that the present day is warmer than the mediaevel warming period, and that there is an apparent accelleration of warming in the present day. The deep statistics also suggest that there are positive feedback mechanisms acting in the present day as well.
Solipsism is the philosophical refusal to believe the veracity of your experience of reality. In this scientific sense, it means that you refuse to believe evidence like these statistical methods (which you have certainly disparaged earlier in this conversation). Your attitude to a lot of the published data also suggests a solipsistic attitude – which is why you can only bring yourself to use the UAH data, which is unfortunately inadequate for the task (although it does support the other data which you don’t believe in perfectly adequately).
kdkd – Yes, the UAH data only goes back to December 1978, but satellites are the most accurate instruments we have to measure global temperatures and we simply didn’t have them before then.
The amount of warming they show is pretty minimal compared to the scare stories being bandied about in the global warming debate. And 30+ years is still a reasonable timeframe to draw conclusions from.
Also, the graph you link to above looks like the Mann Hockey-Stick. Is it? What is the source of data?
Finally, rapid climate changes have happened in the past. The current climate seems to be very steady in any case, but seeing as we don’t know what caused past changes it seems too simplistic to attribute the tiny amount of recent warming to human CO2 emissions (which, by the way, are only 3-4% of total CO2 emissions).
Tamas,
I really hope people don’t take you seriously. If this subject wasn’t so grave, you’d be funny. Anyway there’s no statistically significant difference for the UAH data and the IPCC data that I’ve been using. That would tend to suggest the hockey stick controversy is a beat up. Here’s a conclusion from the enquiry about it:
“It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies.”
I see that since 1850 there has been a roughly 1 degree rise in temprerature which is roughly a 5% increase in temperature. If your temperature rose by 5% you’d be very sick. But of course presumably you also think that it’s absurd to treat the earth as if it were a living system.
kdkd – two points:
1) While I try to be light hearted about global warming hysteria, I am in fact deeply worried about the outbreak of apocalyptic madness that has broken out in the world with this issue. In any case, you admit that you are using the thoroughly discredited Mann Hockey-stick data. Interesting.
2) You say that “since 1850 there has been a roughly 1 degree rise in temprerature which is roughly a 5% increase in temperature”.
Wrong. Absolute zero is -273C, so a 1 degree increase since 1850 equates to a 0.3% rise in temperature. So yes, I think your statement is absurd because a 0.3% change in my temperature is less than the error term on normal human body temperature and less than what I’d experience from drinking a coffee or a beer.
Tamas #439
Been out of the cage playing in kdkd’s sandpit. Suggest you check out Climatekaroke Satge 3 – interesting stuff emerging.
Will not break my agreement with kdkd and claim premature results or conclusions, but one thing is for sure: IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 “Radiative Forcing Components” is highly misleading – and creates the impression that AG forcings are 13 times Solar forcings – rendering Solar insignificant in the current warming for the average reader.
I see Dr Glikson’s been at it again.
Tamas, your stupidity and ignorance knows know bounds. Relative temperature change should be measured from a the “normal range” not from absolute zero. My mind boggles that you profess to have an understanding of this stuff, but you make such elementary logical errors.
Or to put it another way, if your tempearture rose 0.3 percent relative to absolute zero you would still be very sick . Thankyou for so spectucluarly shooting yourself in the foot Tamas, it warms the cockles.
Kdkd #441.
Your rudeness often interferes with your ability to string an argument together.
This is from the Wikipedia page on Celsius: “What is often confused about the Celsius measurement is that it follows an interval system but not a ratio system or it follows a relative scale not an absolute scale. This is put simply by illustrating that while 10 °C and 20 °C have the same interval difference as 20 °C and 30 °C the temperature 20 °C is not twice the air heat energy as 10 °C. As this example shows degrees Celsius is a useful interval measurement does not possess the characteristics of ratio measures like weight or distance”
Do you now understand why you are completely and utterly wrong when you say Earth’s temperature has gone up by 5% since 1850? Care to apologise for your rudeness given your error? Didn’t think so.
Now over the course of a solar cycle the Sun’s energy output varies by 0.1% and we have no idea how much it has changed in total since 1850. Meantime, the air-heat energy of Earth’s atmosphere, expressed in temperature, has increase by 0.3% in 150 years. Obviously without the Sun’s energy we would be about the same temperature as open-space, around -270C.
Think this solar variation and earth’s temperature might be linked? And then of course there is the Svensmark Cosmoclimatology theory of climate change. It posits that “During the last 100 years cosmic rays became scarcer because unusually vigorous action by the Sun batted away many of them. Fewer cosmic rays meant fewer clouds—and a warmer world”.
And now that we have a quieter Sun we are seeing more clouds and cooling. What a coincidence!
So before you go off half-cocked and call me an idiot again, take a good hard look at yourself and try and answer the points I have made.
Tamas, Your semantic twiddling does nothing to shore up your argument (re using celcius c.f.kelvin). Perhaps I should have expressed myself more specifically. On the other hand I wasn’t expecting to be so massively misrepresented.
The rest of your comment is largely twaddle. We’re not observing any cooling, and the cosmic ray stuff is a beat up, examining statistical noise as if it’s signal.
As I said before the reason I’m so rude to you is that I’m just hoping you’ll get the hint and go away. Your arguments are bankrupt, and your reasoning is imbecilic.
kdkd – Your rudeness is mostly dull. It’s sometimes irritating and sometimes funny because it shows you must really lack conviction in your argument if you have to resort to attacking me rather than my arguments. But mostly I just find you a bore when you resort to being rude.
Thanks for admiting you should have expressed yourself more specifically. I note you offered no apology for the abuse you returned regarding my correction to your lack of specificity.
Now, let’s address some facts: we are experiencing cooling. The slope of a linear regression line on the UAH data from 1998 until today is negative. Um, that means it’s cooling kdkd. Meantime CO2 is increasing. Weird huh?
And care to explain why the cosmic ray stuff is a beat up? Or do you want me to just accept all your unsupported assertions?
Finally, you say my arguments are “twiddling” yet you are the one that resorts to using the completely debunked Mann Hockey-Stick to try and prove that the world is heating to hell. How pathetic.
Ken – I’ve been browsing climatekaraoke. It does look interesting. Thanks. I’ll be sure to keep following.
Tamas. You are most amusing. I am glad I wore my corset today, as otherwise I fear I would have split my sides laughing.
Your assertions don’t fit the data in any way, shape or form. I wasted 5 minutes of my life demonstrating this especially for you at your special page on the climate karaoke: http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiot (heading: Hypothesis 2. The sattelite data shows clear warming since 1998.)
The conclusion is clear. The UAH data since 1998 is too short a time frame to definitively establish a trend. And the complete UAH data set demonstrates a definite warming trend, and statistically the magnitude of the warming trend is indistinguishable from the “discredited” mann hockey stick data. Gory details at the link above, transparrently expressed with full open access to data.
If you showed the slightest sign of being responsive to feedback, or any kind of acknowledgement of reality, I would recant on my opinion that you are some kind of mentally subnormal imbecile with a tenuous grasp of reality. How pathetic indeed.
Re cosmic rays:
via Wikipedia: “A recent study concluded that the influence of cosmic rays on cloud cover is about a factor of 100 lower than needed to explain the observed changes in clouds or to be a significant contributor to present-day climate change”
Pierce, J.R. and P.J. Adams (2009). “Can cosmic rays affect cloud condensation nuclei by altering new particle formation rates?”. Geophysical Research Letters 36: L09820.
kdkd – right, so an 11 year cooling trend is too short for meaningful analysis but the 20 year warming trend before 1998 is ok? What about the 30 year cooling trend before the mid 70′s? Is that statistically meaningful? How can that be explained again?
Keep it simple kdkd – the slope of the linear regression line of the UAH data from 1998 till today is negative. You can contort the numbers all you want but you can’t get around that fact. Please also explain why with ~130 months of data since 1998 we can’t get statistically meaningful numbers.
Wikipedia is clearly biased on global warming anyway but you are a fool if you think the hockey stick hasn’t been discredited.
Finally, we are testing the cosmic ray theory right now because solar cycle 24 is very, very weak. That’s why the planet is cooling. Cooling kdkd. Not warming.
Just a quick entry as a first attempt.
kdkd – There’s no need to resort to personal criticism, as you’re doing sterling work otherwise. It belittles you and your cogent arguments to stoop to insults. I know you’ve spent several months now providing data that Tamas completely ignores, but that is simply his methodology.
It doesn’t matter what facts you provide to Tamas, it simply does not compute with him.
With Tamas I’m constantly reminded of an old Monty Python sketch (I think, but may have been an offshoot) whereby a reporter is trying to tell a retired British army major that “the war is over”. A fact that the major is simply incapable of digesting.
Tamas – You might have some credibility in this debate if you provided some real facts, or more specifically actual links to websites (as both kdkd and Ken Lambert have done) to back up your claims.
If you simply keep repeating points, with no corroborating rebuttal data, that have previously been reported as incorrect, or false, or meaningless – via scientific data – then you are not contributing to a debate.
I’m sorry, but you just aren’t.
I have read most of the cage match, and understood some, but you seem to be proud of your ignorance of scientific facts, and seem to just resort to the same disproved points about volcanoes, sun spot cycles, plate tectonics etc… etc… every post
If you are going to resort to such fallacies, then please provide real data / sites to back up your claims. Otherwise what you are posting is just “urban myth”.
Tamas
There’s no statistical contortions in what I did there at all – it’s all spelled out openly and transparrently with incontravertable evidence. It’s all emminently straightforward.
Let me spell it out for you. You’re wrong. Your conclusions are incorrect. They have no grounding in reality at all. There is no 11 year cooling trend [1] The UAH data is statistically indistinguishable from the IPCC data.
Tamas, give up. Go talk to the faeries by yourself, don’t inflict your delusions on anyone else.
[1] You really do need to smooth the mean over 12 months to fully account for seasonal variation when exaining long-term trends, otherwise annual variability will mask the longer term trend over such a short time-frame.
Tamas, just to confirm you are a deluded fool I ran some analysis on the UAI data, month-by month. Here’s a quick precis:
full range: Clear warming trend. Uncontroversial.
1998 onwards: No warming or cooling trend detectable. This indicates that despite your assertion, there is no cooling trend detectable with a “simple linear regression”. This is entirely consistent with my previous conclusion. However in this case it’s not due to the small number of data points, its because within year variation exceeds the between year variation.
So now that you have so thoroughly shot yourself in both feet, would you like to start on your kneecaps next.
Please bear in mind that the majority of the readers following this little conversation will be laughing along, with me and at you.
Of course, I can publish the full analysis of the UAI month by month data set on the climate karaoke on request.
Boys
Go have a look at the full story here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/24/a-comphrehensive-comparison-of-giss-and-uah-global-temperature-data/
Tamas is right as usual about the UAH data showing a cooling trend since 1998. The trend lines shown on the graphs are for the whole 1979 – 2009 period – not portions within that period.
Frankly the UAH data I would interpret as pretty flat 1979-1996, a sharp jump for the 1997-98 ENSO and flat or falling 1998-2009. The 1997-98 ENSO has dragged the whole data set unto an upward trend. Note that Australia in 2009 is back to 1980 Temps and Antarctica is on a definite 30 year cooling trend with the southern ocean SST on a flat or slight cooling trend.
And as we know kdkd (after worldwide MWP searches) that AO and ENSO are ‘internal’ effects which will not sustain longer term climate forcing – which has to be ‘external’.
kdkd – I thought you were paying attention to the climatekaroke and not pleasuring thyself with pathetic abuse of Tamas – get back to work…
Good grief Ken, I had you placed higher up the scale of climate solipsists than an utterly florid delusional. Please explain where on this graph there is a cooling trend demonstrated by the data? http://i41.tinypic.com/34ryski.jpg (from the watsupwiththat.com page).
The straightforward statistics show that you’re both completely wrong. Get used to it, it’s a common theme.
Ken,
Stick to interpreting the trend lines with statistics. The 17th century french impresionist method you seem to prefer (viz “Frankly the UAH data I would interpret as pretty flat…”) is error prone, and will lead to misleading conclusions.
I will post the full analysis to http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiotic in due course.
Kdkd #450:
It is nonsense to smooth the monthly UAH temperatures to an annual figure. To quote WM Briggs:
“The real temperature is the real temperature is the real temperature, so to smooth is to create something that is not the real temperature but a departure from the real temperature. There is no earthly reason to smooth actual observations”.
I hope you haven’t been smoothing the UAH temperature data when looking for a correlation with CO2. That would be very naughty. To quote Briggs again “{if you} start smoothing series and then calculate the correlation between the two smoothed series… You will always find that the correlation between the two smoothed series is larger than between the non-smoothed series. Further, the more smoothing, the higher the correlation.”
(the link to his article is here: http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=735)
Please tell me you haven’t done this kdkd.
A linear regression line on the monthly UAH data from 1998 is negative. That is a fact kdkd. My excel spreadsheet isn’t malfunctioning. Your contorted statistical analysis is though.
Tamas,
Your level of ignorance is astounding. I’ve done both – regression smoothed (makes perfect sense under the right circumstances). In either case it makes no difference in this case. Let me spell it out for you.
A regression of temperature anomaly against time does not detect a stastically significant trend. The linear regression does not have a negative slope. This is a fact that I have clearly and incontravertably demonstrated at http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiotic. This is not remotely contraversial and is especially easy to show.
I think with this display of ignorance you have reallly shot yourself in both knees rather neatly. What next? Are you going to go for self-castration or are you going straight for the decapitation?
Moron.
Just to make it absolutely clear, the page at http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiotic uses the raw UAH data, and demonstrates the exact oposite of what Tamas asserts is the case.
“So while the coeffieicient is apparently negative, in fact it is not significantly different than zero. The reason for this is that month-by-month variability exceeds year-on-year varability.”
QED
The natural variation is greater than any trend. Do something simple like a least squares curve fit – worked for me 30 years ago.
Yr counting angels on pin heads kdkd.
Ken,
Don’t cross post. I explained on the karaoke that you are statistically illiterate, and making things up.
To avoid cross posting, but to keep other readers aware, there’s a detailed exposition describing Ken and Tamas dishonesty at http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiotic
This really is like shooting fish in a barrel, except no matter how sever the wounds the fish refuse to die. Ken and Tamas the undead zombie fish!
I always find it interesting that those opposed to the idea of AGW always use 1998 as their starting point for any questioning of the science. Why don’t they use 1997, or 1999. Oh, that’s right, 1998 was a record year, due to a strong El Nino, and any global temperature is therefore below that one off peak. Hence their fictitious ‘cooling trend’ is based on a deliberate deception – that ‘single outlier’ as Kieren states – rather than real science.
Tamas, you have actually finally provided some links!!
Tamas, kdkd
kdkd is such an immature control freak – now he wants to control cross-posting relevant data to related blogs…
Here is a novel statistical argument – Temp anomaly is just like a ‘random walk’ thru space-time…
See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/12/is-global-temperature-a-random-walk/
Love it…
Translation: “here’s a statsical argument that helps me pretend my wishful thinking is some how grounded in a reality based view”. I addressed this on the karaoke.
The zombie fish are trying to move the goalposts while forgetting that a. they are dead. and b. they’re stuck in an admittedly holey barrel.
Off to the coast for the weekend to check the temp and level of the sea.
Tamas – can you post your UAH excel curve fit somewhere, so I can have a look.
kdkd – less commentary and bold asssertion and more facts please. We all know that there are lies, damn lies and statistics.
The zombie fish in a barrel speak!
I wouldn’t have to deride you opinions so much if you actually paid attention to the facts as they stood, rather than cherry picking parts of dubuous relevance and/or truth in order to engage in baseless inflation of uncertainty.
So there are statistical lies, it seems to be your stock in trade. You can smell blood by the way, it’s yours.
kdkd #457 – you say on climatekaraoke that “while the coeffieicient is apparently negative, in fact it is not significantly different than zero. The reason for this is that month-by-month variability exceeds year-on-year varability”
It is indeed very apparent that the slope is negative and this therefore represents cooling. You can’t have it both ways kdkd. The entire data set shows month-on-month variability greater than year on year variability, so if you reject the cooling trend as not significant then you must also reject the 31 year warming trend as not significant.
And by the way, if anyone else is reading this blog they will note that you are hysterical and rude while Ken and I are calm and polite.
Ken – not sure where I could post the UAH curve fit analysis. I am just using the =slope(x,y) function in excel on the data range and then multiplying by the number of months to get a trend.
So the slope since 2001 is -.001074 x 103 months = a trend cooling of -0.11C.
A question for KDKD. Even if you think the cooling is insignificant, why isn’t the world warming up? Human CO2 emissions this decade have been higher than ever and the IPCC says this will heat the world significantly. But it isn’t. Why?
Tamas
Go and read a basic statistics book (http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Statistics-Larry-Gonick/dp/0062731025 is actually quite good), then come back when you have even an elementary understanding of the subject. The combination of your pre-conceptions and the lack of self-awareness of your total ignorance means there’s absolutely no point in discussing this with you.
Quick precis, to avoid wasting further electrons: There’s absolutely nothing of the analysis in posts #466 and #467 that can be considered remotely correct or valid.
kdkd – once again, lots of attitude but not many facts to bring to the debate.
I am well aware that the regression line doesn’t have a very good fit on the data, but what can you do? All we are looking for is the trend and the trend shows cooling.
Now if I’m wrong then a genious such as yourself should be able to explain why I am wrong in simple, plain English. Care to give it a try?
Tamas. Here’s one to get into your thick skull.
Every time you’re presented with a fucking fact you fucking ignore it or pretend it’s somehow not valid. Until you change that attitude you can get fucked.
I already explained it in simple english. You weren’t listening.
“I am well aware that the regression line doesn’t have a very good fit on the data, but what can you do? All we are looking for is the trend and the trend shows cooling.”
Nope, in simple english, what you do is see if the gradient is significantly different from zero. In this case it isn’t. After that you have to look at the data in the broader context to determine if this is due to too little information or due to their being no trend. In this case the data shows that it’s clearly and unambiguously the former. Your assertion that it’s the latter is contrary every other bit of information contained with in the broader context.
Bzzt, you lose.
kdkd – go wash your mouth out with soap and then tell me the ‘facts’ that you refer to.
Take a look at your post and imagine what any casual reader of this blog would think of your “debating skills”. You need to learn that reasonable people can disagree.
I remain uncovinced by your arguments. Please explain why the trend in the last 10 years of temperature data show “dangerous global warming”.
I submit that you can’t explain that and therefore you become hysterical.
kdkd #473. It looks like you have calmed down and tried an actual argument. I accept that the trend is close to zero, but it is still negative. For the sake of argument I will pretend that a small cooling trend is irrelevant and say that there is no real trend either way.
Hmm… but the IPCC and the alrmists say that there should be a strong warming trend because of all the CO2 we are emitting. Where is the warming trend kdkd? Where is it hiding?
Tamas: it’s not still negative, it’s indistinguishable from zero. This is beyond argument.
A strong warming trend is observable across a 2 decade or so time frame. That also is unequivocal.
I stand by my previous words by the way. Get with reality or get out.
kdkd #475. So I did a quick calculation and the trend based on the past two decades (7/1989 – 7/2009) is +.31C. Keep in mind that the trend for the past three decades is only 0.38C.
So what we are really talking about here is a slight warming trend of .28C that occured in the 1990′s (again, calculated with a simple linear regression from 7/89 – 7/99). Was that all caused by man made CO2 (ie, the 3% of total CO2 emissions that humans account for)?
And what about the very slight cooling trend from 1979 to 1989? A quick look at the numbers shows cooling of -.02C.
Sure, sure, it’s again close to zero – but it’s not the strong, consistent and dangerous warming we are told is going to ruin the world.
Your entire case rests on a 10 year warming trend that occured in the 1990s. That is a pretty weak basis for a radical transformation of the economy, our energy supplies and all the other alarmist demands like the ceasation of aviation, banning outdoor heaters and so on.
Now, please try and remain calm while you refute my numbers. Or just get angry and abusive and basically forfeit the debate. I’m guessing you’ll do the latter because you simply can’t do the former.
Hear, Hear Tamas
Thanks for the view of your UAH trend lines. Your conclusions from the UAH data are similar to mine.
One of my themes over the recent months has been that the whole edifice of AGW is built on the last 25-30 years of temp anomaly data – the last 10 of which have not been warming.
I have been playing in kdkd’s sandpit for quite a while now and he has a MO which is showing a strong pattern. From his expletive meltdown in #470, and abuse of his opponents (mainly you) he shows the maturity of a pubescent teenager.
kdkd’s MO is to assert expertise in statistics – produce numbers which not being statisticians we cannot check -make definite conclusions from his numbers – berate and abuse any objection or raising of legitimate doubt or contrary evidence – get personal with abuse when challenged or the facts don’t match his version.
Tamas, have a look at this paper:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/12/is-global-temperature-a-random-walk/
Also have a look at PB climatekaraoke – TimeSeries. Another statistician (Stubborn Mule) is having a nice debate about kdkd’s statistics.
Ken #477 – thanks for the article link. I love Anthony Watts and his site – I read it all the time.
I have long thought that the temperature data we are seeing is essentially a random walk. I have said before that the alarmist reading of the temperature data is like confidently calling heads 5 times in a row to prove you have some special insight on a coin flip. There is a 1/32 chance you get it right and some people will then believe you. Probably you’ll just look like an idiot.
Turns out the alarmists were “right” on the data for about 10 years in the 1990′s but now the temperature is flat (actually, slightly cooling) and they are starting to look very silly and very hysterical.
The public is waking up to this apocalyptic nonsense and I am very close to certain that the global warming scare will be in the dustbin in a couple of years. The warmists have a lot invested in this scare so expect them to spectacularly contort their arguments as reality discredits them. But reality always wins.
Finally, I like your reading of kdkd’s MO. I’m completely unfazed by his abuse and when it’s all done and dusted I hope he learns to be a little more civil. Here’s hoping.
kdkd #475 – on the temperature trend since 2001 you say that “it’s not… negative, it’s indistinguishable from zero”
No kdkd, it’s negative and I won’t let you get around that one. It may be close to zero and not a particularly strong trend (although it is about 1/3 as strong as the warming trend in the 90′s), but it is negative. If it were “indistinguishable from zero” then it would be, erm, zero – not minus 0.11.
You also consistently avoid the point that the trend, according to the warmy-alasmists, should be strong and positive. Why isn’t it? Where is this global warming kdkd? Answer the question please.
Tamas,
Your ignorance and stupidity does not fundamentally alter statistical theory.
And yes it is a strong and positive trend, again masked by your ignorance.
Ken:
Stubborn’s discussion doesn’t materially alter my prior findings at all – he’s talking about statistical subtlties that explain why I’ve mostly avoided looking at the effect of time in the analysis.
More wishful thinking, and attempts by dead holey zombie fish in a barrel to move goalpoasts that they can’t reach.
The random walk stuff is interesting, as it shows the minimum amount of time in the data in which a trend can be detected. You achieve that with smoothing across different times. If you can get to 50 year smoothing without detecting a definite trend using that method, then you’re right it it a pure random walk.
Why don’t you try it?
Perhaps I should perform another regression adding an extra variable representing tamas stupidity. It would be a random number with a particular skeweness. What I could do is test how skewed Tamas’ stupidity would have to be in order for any trend to be undetectable.
kdkd #483. Perhaps you should look at the correlation between you rudeness and your inability to string together an argument. I think you will find a strong, positive relationship.
Tamas, very funny. Note in my post I refered to modeling your stupidity with respect to the data. You refered to modeling my (justifiable) rudeness with my argument. The data is objective, your attitude to my argument is not QED, I win.
So I think I will estimate your stupidity on the Karaoke by treating it as a skewed normally distributed variable. This will enable us to quantify exactly how hard you have to squint to be able to make your utterly inaccurate presentation of the data … watch this space
I’m guessing that in order for you to make your utterly wrong conclusions you have to have your eyes virtually shut. But the data will tell all
Actually scratch that, I can’t find a way of modelling Tamas’ stupidity without violating all of the rules underlying statistical analysis.
Conclusion: Tamas stupidity with respect to climate change data is so great he’s actually trying to look at the data with his eyes SHUT.
Good luck with that, and don’t get run over on any zebra crossings!
kdkd #486 – So much abuse, so few facts.
You still haven’t answered my central question from above. How does the most recent 10 years of temperature data show “dangerous global warming”?
Why hasn’t the temperature continued to increase along with atmospheric CO2?
All your statistical contortions just can’t come up with a simple, logical answer to that questions can they?
Tamas
You can’t show dangerous global warming using the last 10 years of data. The sensitivity of the data doesn’t allow it.
You’re a hopeless case and you should save your energy for something useful.
Why do you need to constrain yourself to 10 years when you know that there is too much noise in the system to demonstrate a relationship at such a short time span? That’s just moronic use of the data to demonstrate a falsity underlying a not-so-hidden agenda.
Give up. We’re over your idiocy. Save your energy for some kind of positive contribution to something totally unrelated to climate change. It’s your argument that’s illogical, and your abuse of our intelligence far outweighs my verbal abuse of your idiotic position.
kdkd #488 – please explain how “the sensitivity of the data doesn’t allow” a conclusion of dangerous global warming to be drawn. What does that mean? Plain English please.
#489 – Let’s look at 160 years of data then. What do we get? Hmm… about 1.1C of warming since the little Ice Age ended (care to explain that little climate anomaly?)
Is that a crisis kdkd? 1.1C of warming in 160 years means we have to completely transform our society?
Ok, let’s work backwards for a second. You say that only idiots like me deny that CO2 drove the warming from the 1970’s to the late 90’s…. but, ahh, what was driving the warming prior to the 1970′s? Oops, that’s right, it cooled from the 40′s-70′s.
Hmm, ok then, so why did the world warm from the 10′s – 40′s? Was CO2 driving the warming then? If so, why haven’t we seen much more warming since we’ve really started horking the stuff into the atmosphere?
And – how infuriating is this – while we’re starting to crank up the CO2 emissions from 1880 – 1910 – dammit – it cooled again!
You must be confused now because from 1850 – 1880, when we emitted basically no CO2, it warmed.
See a rough 30-year pattern here kdkd? Care to explain it? Why doesn’t it fit with human CO2 emissions?
You can label me a moron or whatever but you just can’t answer the simple questions, can you? So much certainty and yet so little ability to rationally explain it all. Damn, that must be frustrating for you.
Here’s a tip for you buddy: “Natural variability”. Shhh…. Don’t tell anyone. They’ll get all angry with you for not “believing”.
Looking at post #485 makes me wonder why I have spent so much time playing with kdkd – the kiddie is reduced to pulling faces.
Ken,
Obscure statistical joke. Didn’t work out, although I’ve worked out a way to calculate it now. All we do is add normally distributed random noise to the co2_mean signal and regress on the noise added variable rather than pure co2. Here’s the gist:
If I assume that tamas stupidity is non-directional and the probability of his errors of reasoning will likely result in overestimating catastrophic warming, or underestimating catastrophic warming, then his stupidity has a value of 2 or 3. However, I suppose that because his errors are only in one direction we have to double it and so Tamas stupidity has a value of between 4 or 6. I think that these values correspond to orders of magnitude of stupidity.
Tamas,
I’ve said it again. You’re statistically illiterate. Go waste your time elsewhere. Your gibbering is meaningless. Again I refer you to post #470. Or a quote from Malcom turnbull to a different climate solipsist: “How come everyone is a fuckwit except you”.
This must be some strange paralell reality where close attention to the data and the underlying physical variables are “hysteria” wheras uninformed speculation, and ignorance are the sign of solid reasoning and an unimpeachable case.
So Tamas,
Here’s a clear description of what you’re doing when you look at this data.
If you see “signal” in the data, you claim it is noise.
If you see “noise” in the data, you claim it is signal.
At no point do you ever try to examine the data as a whole, despite the fact that hockey stick controversy or otherwise, there’s a clear and unequivocal trend showing accellerating warming.
Dead, electively blind, zombie fish in a barrel.
kdkd # 495. you see, when you calm down you can actually make a reasonable argument. You make a good point when you say that “If you see “signal” in the data, you claim it is noise. If you see “noise” in the data, you claim it is signal.”
Ok, I would respond by saying that the little ice age ended around 1850 and it has been warming since then, so we are on a general trend upwards. You cannot possiblty claim that the little ice age ended because of human activity.
During this general warming trend, however, there have been periods of cooling and warming. They seem to be pretty random and not in any way correlated with CO2 emissions.
So you must explain why the world warmed up so much from 1850 – 1945 and since 1945 has only warmed by around 0.4C.
On what basis do you say that CO2 is the primary driver of warming since 1945 when it could not possibly have been responsible for the warming from 1850-1945?
co2 is clearly the primary driver because:
a. The very solid theory of chemical bonds predicts it
b. After “accounting” for the “noise” in the climate system the only explanatory driver to predict the accelleration of warming in the late 20th century/early 21st century is co2.
so given a. and b. you have a very solid logical relationship that provides a causal theory.
c. This is unambiguous enough that there’s little point in debating it as in these nearly 500 comments, and such a debate detracts from useful things that can be done (on a geopolitical scale, not a individual discussion scale), so people who attempt to unnecessarily prolong the debate deserve derision.
There you go. Arse backwards zombie fish in a barrel with their eyes shut.
kdkd #497
1. Huh? You mean that CO2′s greenhouse properties are warming the planet to hell? But, but, allow me to quote:
“SPPI’s authoritative Monthly CO2 Report for July 2009 announces the publication of a major peer-reviewed paper by Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, demonstrating by direct measurement that outgoing long-wave radiation is escaping to space far faster than the UN predicts, and proving that the UN has exaggerated global warming 6-fold.
Lindzen’s paper on outgoing long-wave radiation shows that the “global warming” scare is over. Thanks to recent peer-reviewed papers that have not been mentioned in the mainstream news media, we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we now why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate.
This month’s CO2 Report provides the latest real-world scientific data about the climate–
The IPCC assumes CO2 concentration will reach 836 ppmv by 2100, but, for almost eight years, CO2 concentration has headed straight for only 570 ppmv by 2100. This alone halves all of the IPCC’s temperature projections.
Since 1980 temperature has risen at only 2.5 °F (1.5 °C)/century, not the 7 F° (3.9 C°) the IPCC imagines.
Sea level rose just 8 inches in the 20th century and has been rising at just 1 ft/century since 1993. Sea level has scarcely risen since 2006. Also, Pacific atolls are not being drowned by the sea, as some have suggested.
Arctic sea-ice extent is about the same as it has been at this time of year in the past decade. In the Antarctic, sea ice extent – on a 30-year rising trend – reached a record high in 2007. Global sea ice extent shows little trend for 30 years.
Hurricane and tropical-cyclone activity is at its lowest since satellite measurement began.
b. Once again, you refuse to answer why it warmed from 1850-1945.
c. Assertions, claims, opinions. No facts.
Tamas,
Your incoherent ramblings from the echo chamber of climate change solipsism suffer from a number of problems.
Firstly you refer to a peer reviewed paper, but fail to give the actual reference. I’d be happy to read the paper if only you did so. However, it looks suspect to me.
Secondly I’m not sure where you get the 3.9°C figure from. It sounds spurious. According to my recollection of the IPCC projections we should have seen warming around about the 1°C level by about 2009 (which is what we have observed), not a fourfold increase Interestingly this 4x exaggeration is within the range that we estimate your stupidity using quantitative methods).
Thirdly, you are again looking at short term noise in the system with your sea level stuff rather than long term signal. I’m sure that you can find other examples of such patterns in the data at other points in the time series if you look. Just because such patterns are at the end of the time series doesn’t make them some how special.
Fourthly, the arctic sea ice data is mis-reporting. Why don’t you look at the age of the sea ice rather than the extent? Answer: because it doesn’t fit your not-so-hidden agenda.
Fifthly, the hurricane data is another example of where confounding short term pseudo-patterns with long term trends are a bankrupt reading of the data. I did hear something the other day about fewer but more intense cyclones being predicted by global climate models though, but I couldn’t give a citation.
Sixthly, b. Warming occured between 1850 and 1945 because co2 levels were rising at the time. Significantly. This was the transition stage between the age of coal and the age of oil.
Seventhly, c. Does this mean that you want me to use different rude words like “arsehole”, “retard”, and other less printable things.
Eightly, It’s strange how you’re happy to present opinion as if it’s data, yet my clear separation of data and opinion is somehow unacceptable. I suspect it’s something to do with your not-so-hidden-agenda.
Ninthly, The IPCC assumes continuing exponential growth of co2 emissions. Suddenly you believe in linear models having denied their validity to date, give me a break!
I give up, you’re beyond help.
Tamas
You know when you have kdkd on the run when he spouts infantile abuse in place of rebuttal with facts or at least reasoned argument.
kdkd #499: The link to the report is here:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monthly_report/sppi_monthly_co2_report_july.html
Thanks Ken. kdkd’s level of abuse is rising because deep down he knows that the idea of humans controling the climate system via the CO2 dial is absurd. One day he’ll realise it and be as enlightened as us.
Err, Ken, you may smell blood, but I’m afraid it’s yours.
Tamas,
That’s not a peer reviewed report by normal scientific standards. Also that executive summary contains contradictory material that supports the idea that co2 warming is still occuring but is being masked by other factors.
Again, it’s cherry picking everything except the main signal, and distorting a bunch other people’s findings to attempt to discredit them. Nothing new here, nothing to see, please move along.
Tamas,
Why do you never consider the long term trend in your arguments? Presumably it’s because there’s no evidence to support your assertions in the long term trend there.
There are a number of problems with the sicence and public policy report. Including factual inaccuracy, poor quality graphing, failure to give proper references supporting the assertions, failure to examine longer term trends, and finally that they are a well known group of astroturfers with funding from discredited sources.
Kdkd #503. What the? I “never consider the long term trend in my argument”??
Take a look at #490. I have been banging on about the trend since 1850 – 1945 for ages. Finally in post #499 (6b) you say “Warming occurred between 1850 and 1945 because co2 levels were rising at the time. Significantly. This was the transition stage between the age of coal and the age of oil”
Bwahahahah . . . that’s hilarious. Care to back that up with some data? CO2 emissions were tiny from 1850-1945.
Atmospheric CO2 increased from about 260ppm-270ppm between 1750-1850. Get that? CO2 was increasing during the depths of the little ice age.
Then from 1850 – 1945 CO2 went from 270ppm to about 310ppm. This is when the majority of the 1.1C of warming since 1850 occurred – all because of 40ppm? (that’s an increase of 0.00004!). But since 1945 CO2 has gone up to 385ppm (a shocking 0.00038 of the atmosphere) and we’ve only had about 0.4C of warming.
Hmmm…. Your numbers just don’t add up. Maybe you should just chill out and stop worrying about the end of the world dude.
Tamas,
co2 emissions were increasing between 1850 and 1945, much smaller than since then but still significant. That’s the cause of the warming then. End of story. Your eyes-shut approach to the evidence not only doesn’t add up, it’s delusional.
kdkd #505. That’s a big assertion buddy. So the little ice age ended because CO2 began to increase? Why did it wait for 100 years to warm up after CO2 started increasing?
And why has the warming since 1945 (when CO2 concentrations were much higher) been less than the warming before 1945 when CO2 concentrations were lower?
Care to explain any of that? This logical argument stuff can be tough but you should give it a try.
err Tamas,
You’re clearly not looking at the data properly, presumably blinded by the desire to prove your point. Go and look at the second graph on the page http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiot – from the IPCC data. It would appear that your assertion is entirely incorrect.
Give up. This looking at the data properly business totally demolishes your assertions before the first hurdle.
“That’s a big assertion buddy. So the little ice age ended because CO2 began to increase? Why did it wait for 100 years to warm up after CO2 started increasing?”
The logic of this statement eludes me. Again you don’t look at short term variation to understand this data, you look at long term trends.
Tamas,
I’m really bored of your discussion, it contributes nothing. The dialogue we’re having on the climate karaoke is much more interesting, as it constantly refers back to the data in a quantitative and empirical manner. Here, you chery pick, I rebut, and you pretend that my rebutal is not relevant, or worse, you pretend that it doesn’t exist at all, for example post #499. You’re running to stay still, and clearly have nothing of substance to say.
kdkd has very flexible definitions of ‘short term’.
When it suits him – 100 years is short term.
When it suits him – 25-30 years is long term and significant.
When it suits him – 7-10 years is delusional.
What do you smoke there in ‘the Gong’ kdkd?
Is is a ‘Gong Bong’ you’re using for inspiration kdkd?
er, kdkd – if I’m wrong it’s only because I’m overstating the total warming since 1850. It’s more like 0.8C in 160 years (ahhhh!!!), although the absolute change has been as much as 1.1C (from a low around 1910 to a peak in 1998).
And all due to CO2 eh? And you just can’t explain those cooling periods while CO2 has been increasing, can you (1880-1910, 1945-1975)?
I know you think I should give up, but I think you should keep trying. Don’t give up kdkd. You’ll understand eventually.
How tedious. “All due to co2″ – what a way to mis-state the position. The main driver, yes, all, no.
1ºC is about what the models in the 80s and 90s suggested should be what is happening. That’s serious warming of significant concern, especially as co2 is rising unchecked. So now somehow magically the IPCC data supports your position, amazing!
Ken, I see you’re avoiding the climate karaoke, as the detailed discussion of the data in a theoretically correct manner (rather than this ad-hoc cherry picking in here) isn’t going your way at all.
You must be on the phenobarbitone up your way
kdkd
You obviously did not see climate karaoke last night before throwing off – or is it tossing off!!
I posted some “causation” data rather that “correlation” data for the education of Stubborn Mule – a thoughtful soul who seems to be interested in a genuine inquiry into AGW – in contrast to yourself who gets his jollys throwing infantile abuse.
Actually Ken, I keep my uncivility restricted to this forum. I posted some detail why your causation reasoning is of limited relevance in reply (although you are correct it is of some academic interest).
This isn’t really a serious forum, it’s a place for the misguided to have something that passes for a debate centered around misinformation and the exaggeration of doubt. As I said, the Karaoke is much more interesting.
kdkd
Assume you include yourself amongst the misguided. Still hanging around though – not really able to put Tmas and yours truly off their game.
Facts and reason will prevail.
By the way – you might get a little surprise in the karaoke when we investigate in further depth. You keep avoiding the terms “Solar” and “11 year cycle”.
I certainly am misguided hanging around here with you losers (mainly aimed at tamas, I have a bit more respect for Ken)
I have a lot of difficulty to see how the 11 year solar cycle can mask the > 100 year trend that appears to be caused by rising co2 levels, so I fail to see where the surprise can come from.
kdkd
You have also ignored the 900AD – 2005AD Solar forcing graph from Stage III which shows a very strong 100-120 year cycle (peak-peak or trough-trough).
It is still strong until about 1900 and then fuzzes a bit up to 2000.
Please explain?
Just a quick note to Tamas. Using such a dodgy site as The Science and Public Policy Institute does not add anything to your arguments. The SPPI was only set up to deny the existence of climate change, and thus it does not publish real science. It definitely does not publish reputable peer-reviewed science. It simply publishes multitudes of pseudo-scientific gibberish to con spirited amateurs such as your good self. Have you read any of Monkton’s posts in there? Pure rubbish.
Ken,
No I haven’t ignored that. It’s generally accounted for by the model I constructed – that’s why we concentrate a lot on the residuals – the error in prediction – in oder to control (in the experimental sense) for these kind of things. The 120 year solar cycle is not visible in the residual plots (i.e see the bottom right graph at http://github.com/singingfish/Climate-Karaoke/raw/b567a7aaf94747e6ebadd93ceb242b7be40f2abe/validataion.png) – the inaccuacy of the model becomes apparent only with increasing co2 concentration over a period of time of a complete 120 year solar cycle.
Grasping at straws. And you’re not locked out of the karaoke, you just need to re-login.
kdkd #515 “I keep my uncivility restricted to this forum.”
I wonder if that’s because you use a pseudonym here and your real name in climatekaraoke?
#513 “1ºC is about what the models in the 80s and 90s suggested should be what is happening. That’s serious warming of significant concern”.
You just make this up as you go along, don’t you.
If 1C warming is of significant concern then why hasn’t the world collapsed from the warming it’s experienced over the past 160 years?
And did the models in tyhe 80′s and 90′s predict the past 10 years of cooling?
Tamas,
Get a grip. Your expertise is so far from expert it’s hilarious. If you didn’t spend so much time venerating what the astroturfers had to say as gospel and pretending that all the real science was of questionable validity and really meant the ooposite of what it actually said, then you’d have half a chance on having a real informed basis for your opinions. As it is you are utterly ignorant.
And I don’t see you posting on the karaoke even though you have permission to do so. Presumably because this is you have nothing of actual substance to say and deep down you know that you’r opinions are a very dim reflection of reality as understood by the consensus.
kdkd – I never claimed to be an expert. I just know bullshit when I see it. You can’t explain the coolings of 1880-1910 & 1945-1975 but all warming is due to CO2. Right…
So what cause the medieval and Roman warming periods? And why is our planet still only 0.4C warmer than it was in 1945?
So many questions, so few answers, yet so much abuse.
And mate, be brave an insult me using your real name. Go on.
Tamas
You’re a moron. Straw man: “all warming is due to co2″. Hahaha. My name is Kieren and I am 110% convinced that Tamas “uninformed opinions trump scientific understanding” Calderwood is a fool and would do himself good justice if he went away and shut up because he has nothing interesting to say. Anyway what’s the importance of my name. It’s easy for anyone sad enough to be interested to work it out all by themselves. It’s not anonymity, it’s an attempt to control the google juice against a name that’s really fairly distinctive.
You don’t need to explain 100% of the variability of a system to establish a robust trend. Claiming otherwise is utterly idiotic. It does require an understanding of statistics to appreciate this, and clearly this is something that you lack. Either that, or you’re working on some other agenda that you’re not telling us about.
So you’ve spent plenty of time making a fool of yourself, a good time to quit before you do yourself any more damage.
Nice post on proper scientific procedures versus the moronicity preferred by Tamas here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/resolving-technical-issues-in-science/
And another little number here regarding the hockey stick controversy: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/a-correction-with-repercussions/
From the end of the post:
“Unfortunately, while the dispute has been used in the public arena to score political points, e.g. to discredit the IPCC process and to question all of the relevant climate science, the significance of this dispute for the bigger picture has been wildly blown out of proportion (see here for a previous discussion). We hope that after this new correction, the discussion can move on to a more productive level. The key issue is how we can improve reconstructions of past large-scale climate variability – of which by now almost a dozen exist. We should not lose sight of the fact that the debate here is about a few tenths of a degree – a much smaller change than is projected for the next century. It is also important to remember one principal point: Conclusions on whether recent warmth is likely to have been unprecedented in the past millennium, or the recent extent of human-caused warming, are based on the accumulation of evidence from many different analyses and are rarely impacted by a technical dispute about any one paper such as this.”
Aah the sweet sound of silence from Tamas. He’ll pop back up after a pause and claim it’s because he’s been busy, but in fact he knows deep down it’s because he’s irrelevant and delusional.
kdkd – yep, I have been to three cities in 4 days so it’s been busy. But I do enjoy loging in to check up on the latest abuse from you.
You seem to know statistics but very little about physics. It’s nice to see you concede that not all warming is due to CO2. But you must realise that there are countless natural factors that influence the climate system and you have no idea what they are. Your statistical analysis cannot capturethose factors because you have no clue what they are.
And please explain how you statistically account for the cooling periods mentioned above while CO2 was increasing.
Finally, do you actually read the stuff you use to “rebut” me? From #526 “We should not lose sight of the fact that the debate here is about a few tenths of a degree”
Ahh… yeah. Kinda the point I have been making for a few months here.
But I love the following bit: “a much smaller change than is projected for the next century.”
Hmm…. “Projected”. All your doom and gloom is about the projections. Just that none of them are panning out, so one day you’ll be very embarrased about how you fell for this scam.
Or you could just abuse me again. Yawn.
Tamas:
Yawn,
Come back when you understand regression modeling. I don’t know where you get the idea that the projections aren’t panning out. Must be some selective blindness on your part. It’s pretty much looking worse than expected at this stage by many accounts. For things that generally move on a geological time scale, but in this case are moving rather quicker (a time scale of somewhere between half a lifetime to a whole lifetime to detect large definitive effects), all the evidence is rather strong.
You can make the abuse end by going away by the way. At this stage you have nobody to blame except yourself.
kdkd – so “worse than expected” is 0.4C of warming in the past 65 years and no warming for the past 10 years? Gosh. Scary.
And I guess you don’t bother reading much because past climate changes – natural ones – have occured much quicker than the current, ahh, flatline of temperatures.
In 1830 Thomas Babington Macaulay asked “On what principle is it that, when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us”?
The doomsayers have always been with us and they have always been wrong. How does it feel to be one of them?
OK, I give up.
Delusion, oversimplification and ignorance win the argument.
Enjoy your hollow victory, and remember to wrap up warm for summer time.
Tamas
You can find written accounts of the social apocalypse back to ancient Egyptian times. It’s a common theme in history.
Anyway it’s clearly too easy to find uncertainty and doubt in the climate change data, especially if you don’t look at it too closely, or reserve your attention for only the bits that confirm your expectations. So long as you only pay attention to one or two things, especially global temperature averages (a somewhat meaningless figure, but a place where it’s easy to generate “debate”), and then selectively only pay attention to the bits that appear to intuitively sew doubt into the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, while ignoring the parts that require actual knowledge of how to interrogate data properly, then indeed, it is very easy to conclude that there’s nothing to worry about.
So given the above, there’s clearly nothing to worry about. Black is white, war is peace, fucking is virginity, and only the simple explanations that don’t require any deep examination of the data have any credibility. In fact the deeper you go into the data, the more suspect your conclusions will be. Therefore you’re right, there’s nothing to worry about, business as usual it is. Well done for your proof, it should do you proud.
kdkd on Tamas:
“So long as you only pay attention to one or two things, especially global temperature averages (a somewhat meaningless figure, but a place where it’s easy to generate “debate”)”
Looks like a capitulation kdkd – does this mean that global warming, you know – temperatures increasing around the globe; is disconnected from global temperature averages – (a somewhat meaningless figure)?
This thought pattern must be inspired by “Animal Farm”. Four legs good – two legs bad.
I misjudged you – Maoist with Stalinist tendencies is a better description.
Ken,
The capitulation is that Tamas’ belief system is too biased, and selective to be able to have a rational discussion, so I give up. Therefore he wins, and there’s nothing to be concerned about with respect to climate change, so long as you don’t look too hard anyway.
The rest of your comment doesn’t actually make any sense. Global temperature is not “disconnected”, it’s a “very small part of the story”, and excessive attention to that diverts attention from other strong evidence. Again you’re guilty of jumping to conclusions and over-extending them.
Animal Farm is irrelevant. 1984 maybe (rewriting the lexicon, and banning certain forms of thought etc.). I suggest you have a look at yourself, and your ideological lens, as the stalin/mao comment is more of an observation on how you think than on what’s observable.
I detect a pattern in the Monbiot/Pilmer discussion very similar to the one here.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/plimers-homework-assignment/
Misdirection: check. Claims of supurious relevance: check. Selective answering of questions: check. Selective attention to the actual evidence: check.
But as we see on this forum, these techniques win the day. Simplicity and selective attention win the race versus a proper attention to the data as a whole. There’s nothing to worry about. Stoke up your coal fireplace and fill your suburban adventure vehicle with petrol willy nilly!
kdkd #534
You are right – 1984 would be a better Orwellian example of your thought patterns.
How are you going on Hadley data?
Did a thought experiment myself a few days ago – modelling the CO2 GHG effect as a passive insulator of the atmosphere – which is what the greenhouse effect really is.
This is like addeding a thicker doona to the Earth – or adding an extra Onkaparinga to your bed.
Thicker insulation simply slows down heat transfer by increasing the thermal resistance, therefore raising the equilibrium temperature of the Solar driven system – and tracking the cyclical variations by a lag factor.
This is a clue to the cyclical residuals Temp-CO2 we were seeing.
If the ‘Insulator’ model is close to reality, then you can rule out a run-away greenhouse – as it is a pasive system which tends to equilibrium.
Remember you read it here first.
Re #536
Carrying the analogy further (hopefully without mis-spellings), if you add another blanket to your bed you increase the insulation factor.
For a given room temperature T1, you increase the temperature under the bedclothes T2, increasing the T1-T2 differential required to achieve the same heat energy transfer from your body to the room ie. assuming the heat generated by your body is constant for this example.
A new warmer equilibium temperature T2 is established, with the greater T2-T1 differential required to drive the same heat energy through the higher thermal insulator (the extra blanket).
That is why you don’t get a runaway greenhouse in your bed by adding an extra blanket.
err, co2 isn’t a passive insulator of the atmosphere. It’s an active absorber of heat from an external source. Your starting premises are utterly incorrect.
Hadley data will have to wait. My list of things to do has grown somewhat, and it’s a lot of effort to get that data into something useful. It will happen though.
“err, co2 isn’t a passive insulator of the atmosphere. It’s an active absorber of heat from an external source. Your starting premises are utterly incorrect.”
For a non-engineer you are very definite viz; “utterly incorrect” – such juvenile certainty when you really don’t know or are guessing.
If CO2 absorbs heat it also re-radiates heat. It has always been in the atmosphere at some level so if it behaved purely like a one-way ‘active absorber’ of heat then we would have a continuous warming component throughout time. Yet nobody is claiming that CO2 has done any warming before 1750AD.
Maybe you should read up on the greenhouse effect.
Err, possibly I’m being a bit thick here, but “Yet nobody is claiming that CO2 has done any warming before 1750AD.” sounds pretty wrong to me. c02 was constant (in the current epoch) before 1750, this is not the same as ‘hasn’t done any warming’.
So that’s your starting premise shot again …
Again you’re right. A body in a bed is 37ºC, so the air temperature inside the bed will never exceed 37ºC no matter how many doonas pile up.
On the other hand, the sun’s surface is 6000°C, so the earth will never exceed this temperature no matter how many doonas you pile onto this particular closed system.
Oh, wait …
Wrong: your body’s internal temp is 37 degC, in bed your extremities will cool and the air close around will cool if the insulation factor of your ‘doona’ is not high enough as the room temperature drops. It is all about differential T2-T1. A thicker doona will raise the differential by slowing down the heat transfer rate.
Wrong: You will get to 6000 degC if you sit near the surface of the sun. It is 152 million kilometres away, so its radiant energy is dispersed evenly over an imaginary sphere of diameter 304 million km at the plane of the earth which faces the sun with a circular disc of diameter about 8000 km. The Earth gets that portion of the sun’s energy flux ie. 1.7E-10′s worth.
Wrong: we are talking about ‘radiative forcings’ (Fig 2.4 IPCC 2007) which are the ‘differences’ in forcings 2005AD vs 1750AD. AGW theorists propose that CO2 was not causing any ‘forcing’ prior to 1750AD because the concentration was pretty steady (ie. 260-280ppm for most of the Holocene prior to 1750). Remember the log function. F.CO2 = K x ln (CO2a/CO2b). If CO2a = CO2b then ln (1) = 0 Yes??
No net radiative forcing from CO2 prior to 1750AD. ie the system was only being ‘forced’ by the Incoming Solar variation and the occasional volcano which you have extensively data entried.
So much to do – so little time…..
So essentially you just proved that the greenhouse effect has nothing at all to do with insulation. They’re quite different things.
Reductio ad absurdam[1] has shot your starting premise dead in the water.
The only thing you have to say about data in the present day requires that you ignore the co2 elephant in the room … err atmosphere. Where’s that magical negative feedback djin that we need to pull out of the box to make your argument at all relevant?
But sorry I digress. As well as the whole 1984 approach Tamas prefers, and wins the “debate” with, we can also go with fiddling around the edges of detail in areas of somewhat questionable relevance to pretend there might be some variable of large magnitude that has been overlooked in the present day. This also wins the argument versus considered inspectin of relevant data, so well done. Better write to the pollys to tell the to stop wasting their time.
err… there’s something amis with my last sentence; can’t quite put my finger on what it is …
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
kdkd #532 – You say that “So long as you only pay attention to one or two things, especially global temperature averages (a somewhat meaningless figure, but a place where it’s easy to generate “debate”), …it is very easy to conclude that there’s nothing to worry about.”
Bwahahaha!! I have repeadedly pointed out that the crisis of global warming requires some, um, global warming. This warming can be measured by looking at global average temperature – making it the MOST meaningful figure in the entire debate.
Temperatures are up 0.4C in 65 years. Oh. My. God. 0.4C. 65 years. We’re doomed, doomed I tell you!
kdkd – Here’s another climate event for you to explain. 12,900 years ago Europe cooled down to Siberian temperatures within a decade. These conditions lasted for over 1,300 years. Then, also within a decade, the world warmed up again and all the history of civilisation as we know it began.
So what caused this temperature fluctuation if CO2 was constant? Hmm?? Do you think we see a lot of natural variability in the climate system? Think we should adapt to the variability or should we attempt to control it?
Tamas,
As I said, your scientific illiteracy, and ability to hone in on specific bits of the data of questionable relevance to the present day are far superior to data driven material about the present day that the climate doom sayers are coming up with.
Well done, with this approach you comprehensively win the “debate”. Happy?
Of course the other thing that makes your argument so rock solid is the “black is white” approach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
kdkd – You simply refuse to answer questions and think that abusing me can mask your inability to do so. It’s pretty pathetic.
Just give it a try. Explain why the global average temperature is irrelevant to global warming. Also explain past sudden climate change events. if you can do that you might be able to sway me. Abusing me explains nothing.
And take a look at the Y-axis scale on that instrumental temperature record: 1C. Rescale it to a 5C or 10C range and see if it looks as scary. Basic data interpretation dude.
It anyway supports my argument that we’ve seen only 0.4C of warming in 65 years.
Cue: hysterical abuse from kdkd because he can’t answer simple questions.
Tamas,
Again, you overstate and jump to conclusions. I didn’t say global temperature was irellevant, I said “of limited usefulness”.
Also the global mean masks local variability. This makes the changes in global mean quite small for what are in fact quite significant temperature changes on more local scales and when considering minumum and maximum temperatures.
But other than that your approach is so clearly superior in this kind of discussion, that I can’t help but declare you the victor in this “debate”. Nothing to worry about, please move along.
kdkd – 549.
1) Global Warming is about global warming – ie; the global average temperature. This temperature record is not of “limited usefulness”. It is key to the debate.
2) Your second paragraph is absurd. Increases in global CO2 concentrations cannot effect different regions differently. If the global mean “masks local variability” then this surely would imply that local warming is balanced (“masked”) by local cooling. How does this local cooling fit your hypothesis? Surely global CO2 increases warm the planet everywhere?
And yes, I do think that I have comprehensively beaten you in this debate. Particularly because you come up with such weird “arguments”.
The reason you wind the debate is the constant search for simple explanations in the fog of a complex system. Your scientific illiteracy, and lack of appreciation for complexity enhances your position and makes it all the more stronger.
err win the debate.
well in fact some regions will be more sensitive to changes in co2 concentration than others, but I’ll let that go seeing you have trounced me so hard with your alternate reality where rhetoric, selective attention to the evidence and oversimplification win the race.
You won the “debate”. Stop replying and go and celebrate. Possibly by going to buy a new wooly suit to combat the cooling we’re all experiencing.
Game, set and cagematch Tamas! The kdkd kiddie just cannot even contribute to my thought experiment about CO2 as insulator/absorber/radiator without juvenile potshotting.
Ken
No, your premise is wrong. But in this game, wrong premises win the debate.
Game set and match to you. Well done!
I’ll have a look at the hadley data within the next couple of months to see if it differes significantly from the IPCC data, but given that it requires transforming a 5 gigabyte file into something rather smaller, it’s a significant task.
Meanwhile my newest gig is ensuring that the teachers of the next generation can evaluate research findings properly, so I have a series of tight deadlines to meet again.
So you win. Well done. Hope you’re happy. It doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the evidence you present. It’s to do with the psychological response to the quality of your argument. These are two different things. But you win anyway. Well done.
Ken and Tamas
I wouldn’t have been so rude in this disucssion if you hadn’t engaged in the following techniques of desparation:
* constant moving of goalpoasts
* constant set up of arguments with false premises
* quibbling with solid research findings
* pretending that vague speculations were somehow more robust than these
* constantly overextending the conclusions of others to misrepresent their position
* pretence that parts of the available data don’t exist at all.
But all of these techniques “work” to “win” the “debate”. Thus demonstrating why the policy vaccuum of the last 30 years developed. Well done.
kdkd – I always become very suspicious of people who tell me that I “lack [an] appreciation for complexity”.
What exactly does that mean? Does it mean that your answer is so complex that I can’t possibly understand it? It was Albert Einstein that said “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.
And allow me to address your above points.
1) Ken and I have been clear from the start. The goalpost is that the AGW hypothesis lacks evidence, there are many competing explanations that are much better and anyway the world has not warmed in the way the AGW hypothesis posits.
2) You have never specifically pointed out any of my arguments based on a false premise. Please give examples for this statement.
3) Um… quibbling with research findings is called “debate”.
4) Again, specifics please. Our arguments have been hard rather than vague. In fact, you are often very vague (and abusive).
5) Sigh – examples please?
6) Huh? We have constantly referred to the data. UAH, the surface station record, etc.
kdkd – good luck with your endeavours but I would characterise your debating style thus:
1) Abusive
2) Evasive – many direct questions go unanswered.
3) Jargon filled – A tendency to hide behind overly-complex answers and statistical jargon because the core argument is lacking.
4) Appeals to authority – a constant reference to supposed experts rather than expressing rational argument yourself.
It seems you want to believe in all this apocalyptic nonsense kdkd, despite any arguments Ken and I make showing how the data don’t support the AGW hypothesis. But I guess that’s why we win the debate.
Ken – well done partner. We have vanquished kdkd. My first beer tonight will toast you. Maybe the second as well…
Tamas,
Put simply, complexity is the bit of mathematics to which calculus does not apply.
I’m finished her, you won. Well done. Doesn’t make you right, but you won.
Here’s my replies to your points.
1. So you say. Doesn’t make you right.
2. Yes I have. Frequently
3. It does need to be grounded in reality to be valid.
4 and 5. as 2.
6. Only where it suits you over very short time scales, or during parts of history where the drivers of climate change have been very difficult.
And for the obligatory personal attack bit:
1. You abuse the use of my time by not paying attention, see 2, 4 and 5 above.
2. You’re massively evasive through constant goalpost moving (the hockey stick is discredited to the point of uselessness and so on)
3. You think it’s jargon because you’re scientifically and statistically illiterate.
4. Appeals to vested interests. Anyone except AGW proponents, and the quality of their evidence be damned.
It was not nice “debating” you. May all your delusions continue to give you comfort.
Tamas:
kdkd just cannot resist the last word. Your #557 post is an excellent summary of the kdkd style of debate. His use of Orwellian newspeak jargon (‘false premises’, ‘intellectually dishonest’, ‘statistically illiterate’, ‘vested interests’), perfectly described.
This debate is about the data, and LOSU (level of scientific understanding). The data is king – if somewhat contradictory – must be explained.
The LOSU is “high to low” by IPCC’s own admission. I think we have shown in this debate that the LOSU is the killer issue. If theory diverges from the data – look at the LOSU.
When dealing with university academics – walk softly and carry a big stick.
Happy kdkd to karaoke with you when you are through with perverting a generation of teachers (as if that profession needs another Maoist-Stalinist theoretician)
How’s that for abuse?
Tamas, I will be having a big Aussie red for you tonite. Cheers!!
err
care to explain what’s orwellian about any of:
’false premises’, ‘intellectually dishonest’, ’statistically illiterate’, ‘vested interests’
also, please justify the use of the term “Maoist-Stalinist”.
The LOSU of the effect of co2 on the retention of heat in the atmosphere is actually rather high. Because there are other areas described as low level of SU, this doesn’t affect that. But never mind. Happy fantasy.
This is quite a cool tool:
http://www.climatewizard.org/
Oh, I forgot the kdkd favourite: “delusional”
“The LOSU of the effect of co2 on the retention of heat in the atmosphere is actually rather high.”
Pray tell kdkd – obviously you have not been absorbing any of that understanding?
The level of scientific understanding of how co2 affects the atmosphere is rather high.
To counter this effect a large and hitherto unknown negative feedback mechanism would have to be discovered. Presumably it would be from one of the areas of low scientific understanding that this effect would emerge.
Granted, there is a possibility that such a negative feedback mechanism might emerge, but at this stage there’s absolutely no evidence that one is. In fact we’re seeing the emergence of a number of likely positive feedback mechanisms.
So you either optimistically hope that the ~ 1-5% chance that this magic negative feedback djini appears out of the bottle, or you accept that there’s a ~ 80% chance that positive feedback mechanisms are already enhancing the effects of global warming.
If you were a bookie (or an insurance company) I bet you’d be pretty clear on what side of the fence you would be staking your money.
Still no justification of the term “orwellian” or “stalinist”. The explanation above is a good example of delusional thinking. Why take the 1% chance when the 80% chance already seems done and dusted?
kdkd #564
Your conclusion that the cyclic residuals Temp vs CO2 are evidence of ‘positive’ feedbacks is still based on the NH (northern hemisphere) IPCC Temp data. Yes?
Not on the UAH data nor the global Hadley data yet to be analysed.
You gave up on UAH and conceded Tamas’ victory.
Your MO is quick to conclusion and quick to abuse with derogation when others oppose or are unconvinced by the AGW dogma. Maoist chanting – cultural revolution style. Stalinist – because the first one to stop applauding you will be shot.
Ken:
Eyeball of residuals analysis: The hemispheric differences will be have to be really huge to make a difference between NH/SH, so again you’re pitching at the 1% when the 80% is sitting there. It’s about trends, not about data points. We expect the difference to be smaller in the SH due to the buffer effect of Antarctica, but this is highly unlikely to eliminate the trend.
The UAH data is in an inappropriately short time frame to assess trends properly, although it is in broad agreement with the IPCC data. I concede to Tamas as it’s impossible to discuss it rationally with him.
Conclusion: your MO is to pitch for the 1% and ignore the 80%. I’m a bit amazed that I’m “quick to conclusion” when you consistently overstate[1] both my and your own conclusions.
Hadley will be interesting, but I believe it’s a subset of the IPCC data, so there shouldn’t be any surprises there. I am prepared to be corrected when I eventually get to it, but it’s a big job.
[1] well actually overstate your own conclusions, understate my conclusions that you don’t like, and overstate things that I’ve said quite carefully to in such a way as to distort the meaning and make the apparent conclusion erroneous.
Lets wait for the Hadley analysis.
The karaoke story so far is based on statistical correlation. Roughly 55/45% CO2/Solar forcing over the last 100 years, and roughly 70/30 over the last 30 years with interesting cyclical residuals which follow roughly an 11 year cycle.
The 900AD-1750AD period is unexamined in karaoke, but clearly the MWP and LIA are Solar forced events (if only by default of any other feasible forcing).
Given that the only source of external heat for the Earth system is Solar, then its variations are a significant factor. CO2 absorption/insulation/re-radiation is driven by incoming Solar.
I am working (and speculating) on causation. As often said – correlation is not causation.
One thing is clear, the IPCC has (most probably deliberately and knowingly) understated the Solar (natural) forcing component in its AR4 report in order to exaggerate the role of CO2 and thus panic the public and policymakers into a “technically illiterate’ green agenda of black hole renewables which will impoverish everyone except the promoters and the small elite who build such schemes.
Ken:
The tin foil hat argument is not a good look (“most probably deliberately and knowingly” hahaha).
Technically the model in climate karaoke uses regression. This is related to but not the same thing as correlation.
I did indeed examine the 900AD- 1750 AD period is examined in the karaoke. I’m disappointed that you haven’t been paying attention. To summarise, the findings:
* The model was most inaccurate in the present day which leads to suggestions of positive feedback mechanisms.
* The second most inaccurate part of the model was during the little ice age where we have evidence of a significantly smaller negative feedback mechanism.
* The model predicts temperature anomaly much more accurately in the mediaevel warming period than it does in the present day, which suggests that feedback mechanisms were not in operation then, and that the sun was an important driver of this period of time, more so than in the present day.
Despite your lack of attention and tin foil hat arguments, I’m feeling magnanimous. Therefore, here’s what we’ll do until the Hadley data is in:
1. We declare a draw for now, with the odds still favouring AGW (the 1%/80% argument is powerful).
2. Once the Hadley data is in, we can look at the regression model for a global, northern hemisphere, and southern hemisphere, and selected lattitude bands across the globe. (The work is in extracting useful vertical summaries of the data, not in the subsequent modeling)
Agreed? Good.
oops horizontal summaries – i.e. by bands of lattitude – i.e. polar/temperate/subtropical/tropical
Explain these feedback mechanisms – remember you are talking to an engineer with distant past controls experience.
Don’t get the ‘tin foil hat’ jibe – is this a Kiera View expression?
Possible feedback mechanisms:
Fossil methane production from tundra melt, decrease albedo from arctic ice melt. There are others but I can’t remember them at the moment.
You wear a tin foil hat to prevent “them” from being able to read your thoughts
Then Snow White, the feedbacks must be at a maximum over the most recent past 10 years and this should be measurable in the troposphere where the UAH and RSS play.
Trouble is – no warming over the last 10 years, when the forcings from CO2 and their “feedbacks” are at their theoretical maxima.
A draw? 1/80? more like 55/45? or 70/30? old son.
A very good point Ken – why is the world not warming when we have so many positive feedback factors that are meant to be boosting global warming?
The only possible explanation is that natural factors are countering this warming. Yet kdkd advocates CO2 as the primary factor in the climate system.
How can this be kdkd?
and #573 is a perfect example of how it’s impossible to discuss this rationally with Tamas, as his statements bare absolutely no relationship to the observed data.
Tamas mind 1, reality 0.
Ken, #572 is incorrect. There is no evidence to suggest a change in the direction, slope and magnitude of the trend. Unless you use methods that attempt to cherry pick the data, or are otherwise invalid of course.
Climatic phenomena have generally operated on geological time scales through the history of the planet. CO2 pollution seems to be greatly speeding this up. However the minimum meaningful unit of analysis is still of the region of half a life time, or a full lifetime. So your 10 years here or there are a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. You can see this quite clearly at http://www.climatewizard.org/
By the way, if you put your tin foil hat on wrong, it can amplify your thoughts and make them easier to read: people.csail.mit.edu /rahimi/helmet/
Tamas,
I would be absolutely fascinated if you would explain this: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/03/2674961.htm
A great opportunity to bolster your case.
kdkd “However the minimum meaningful unit of analysis is still of the region of half a life time, or a full lifetime.”
So whose criteria are these? I think you are making this up as the argument suits.
Half a lifetime for a historical Aboriginal (LE 35 years) is about 17.5 years.
Another explanation for the lack of temperature rise is that direct Solar has made up a significant potion of the observed 20th century rise, and that direct Solar is now dropping off.
If Solar was insignificant (as the IPCC would have us believe), then its drop-off would also have insignificant effect on the march of AGW temperature rise.
So the Solar drop-off is causing a flattening or slight cooling, indicating that AGW could just be keeping us from cooling faster – a positive benefit of releasing all that CO2 plant food into the environment.
Keep warm now…
#577
Geological time is generally measured in millions of years. Climatic phenomena in tens of thousands of years. So a phenomenon moving much faster than this (tens to hundreds of years) is obviously somewhat different, and if it is human caused (which the consensus says it is, based on data rather than on ideology *cough*) then we ought to do something about a potentially dangerous pertubation.
Also the regression model from the IPCC data indicates that the effect of co2 is about double the solar effect. This is of course much cruder than the IPCC’s modeling[1]. Also please explain why the correlation between the solar figures and the co2 concentration is 0.77 – highly unlikely due to chance.
The IPCC doesn’t call solar insignificant, that’s another overextension and distortion of findings.
Talking to you guys reminds me of my days looking after patients with Korsakof’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsakoff%27s_syndrome, stuck in the past and unable to assimilate new information.
[1] The IPCC process is generally seen as too conservative and tends to understante the problem due to political issues. Interesting how you think there’s a fraud of massive scale that causes the exact opposite. Better check the tin foil hat!
Why its just Solar leaving its impression in that nice warm CO2 doona….Snow White.
Interestingly IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 shows CO2 forcing as 1.66 W/sq.m and the sum of all the AG forcings as 1.6 W/sq.m and ‘Natural” forcings (Solar) at 0.12 W/sq.m. It references these forcings as 2005AD relative to 1750AD.
The same chart produced in the Summary for Policymakers (Rudd & Wong types), *deletes* any reference to “2005AD relative to 1750AD”.
This is deliberately misleading, as the layman would only conclude that CO2 forcings were 13 times Natural (Solar) forcings ie. insignificant.
As you know from the raw data – Solar forcings have been in the range of 0.3 – 0.6 W/sq.m for a large part of the 20th century up until 2005.
Now I would describe it as co2 enhancing the effect of the sun further. It’s not an insulator, so the analogy is misleading.
I would imagine the reference was deleted due to it not making a constructive contribution to the policy environment.
Why don’t you ask an expert about it?
Hint: You can wear your tinfoil hat inside your beanie to avoid stigma.
kdkd #574 – your response is a perfect examle of your evasiveness. You simply refuse to address the point and hurl abuse instead.
#576 – the ABC article is a crock. Why are Arctic sea ice levels at normal levels? And why would CO2 particularly warm the arctic and not other areas of Earth? What, CO2 gets concentrated in the extreme North somehow?
#578 You say “Geological time is generally measured in millions of years. Climatic phenomena in tens of thousands of years. So a phenomenon moving much faster than this (tens to hundreds of years) is obviously somewhat different”.
What’s moving so fast? we’ve had 0.4C of warming in 64 years. The world has been warming very slightly since the little ice age ended in 1850. What we are experiencing is completely normal and has occured countless times before.
And you also say global warming “is human caused (which the consensus says it is, based on data rather than on ideology *cough*)”.
Yeah, right. The “ideology” isn’t coming from the skeptics mate. We are just pointing out that the theory is wrong.
kdkd: “I would imagine the reference was deleted due to it not making a constructive contribution to the policy environment.
OH WHAT SHARP TEETH YOU HAVE, GRANDMA?
Why don’t you ask an expert about it?
HAD DR GLIKSON IN THE CAGE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT BUT HE WAS PUT TO FLIGHT. HE SAID THAT 0.2-0.4 DEGC TEMP CHANGES IN THE HISTORICAL PAST HAD ‘ENDED CIVILIZATIONS’. SO WE MUST BE ENDING SOON – BUT IN THE PAST THE SUN MUST HAVE DONE IT.
Hint: You can wear your tinfoil hat inside your beanie to avoid stigma.”
IF I STAND NEXT TO YOU AND YOUR PUSHBIKE – IT WILL GO WITH YOUR SANDALS AND SOCKS.
Tamas:
So you’re claiming that the theory of chemical bonds is subjective ideology? Good stuff.
Your response is clear confabulation. You win because the inside of your mind has primacy over everything else.
Ken.
Reasonable response. We probably have the technological capacity to deal with larger rises in temperature than 0.2-0.4 these days, but you wouldn’t want to chance a rise of an order of magnitude greater than that for sure. (the business as usual scenario exceeds 2-4ºC course).
I only wear sandals with socks if they’re my silver sandals and red socks and I”m fairly confident that nobody I know is going to see me.
Tamas: #574 is a perfect illustration that I’ve given up on you. Nothing evasive about it at all.
Tamas, can I just ask you were you source your information?
I only ask as you rarely provide sources for your claims, and I get the impression it could be “the man in the pub” for all the evidence you actually provide.
Most of your claims seem to be factually incorrect, and are often already disproved in here, or other fora.
#584 for example – “#576 – the ABC article is a crock. Why are Arctic sea ice levels at normal levels?”
Couple of quick points:-
1) You are aware of the difference between sea ise and land ice aren’t you?
2) And er, no. They are most emphatically not “at normal levels”.
Tamas, please check out NSIDC data, http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/, and read what they actually report:-
“It is now unlikely that 2009 will see a record low extent, but the minimum summer ice extent will still be much lower than the 1979 to 2000 average.”
What part of “much lower …. than average” do you interpret as “normal”??
Seriously, I am researching the literature about the exact mechanism which CO2 operates in the atmosphere along with other GHG including methane and water vapour.
It is not just a heat absorber because at some point an equilibrium temperature is reached with a constant level of GHG, because the heat re-radiated by long wave radiation at night eventually balances the Solar heat gained during the day.
I look it as a ‘black box’ problem. There is a lot of complex interactions going on inside the ‘black box’ of the Earth’s atmosphere-ocean-geological system, but step outside and you have a 8400 km diameter spinning ball – averaging 153 million km from a radiant heat source – the Sun.
If you turn the knob up or down on the Sun or move closer, or wobble your axis, then you will be exposed to variable levels of radiant heat.
Ken,
All that sounds fair enough. There’s an interesting article in this Week’s nature about understanding state-changes in poorly understood complex systems too. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7260/full/nature08227.html
Can someone please tell me why my comments never get past the censors / adjudicators?
It’s not as if I’m close to some of the language already allowed through.
Sarcasm, yes. Rudeness, no.
kdkd:
Thanks – had a look at your link – will study it more.
For an AGW worker turned sceptic have a look at:
http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=2894
Ken,
It’s difficult to take Dr Khandekar seriously as he states that “since about mid 1998 the temperature is slowly but surely declining”.
To be as liberal as possible with the data, the evidence for temperature decline since 1998 is at best patchy, and at worst non-existent. This and a number of other rather incoherent statements, and the push-poll type questions delivered by the interviewer make me extremely suspicious of the whole thing.
The nature paper on the other hand is excellent reading as is the audio at http://feeds.nature.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/~r/nature/podcast/current/~5/ZxkA3nVJMdg/nature-2009-09-03.mp3
Hmm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-warming-reverses-arctic-cooling
Credible source, not contaminated by excessive AGW or Sceptic zeal? check.
Utterly, utterly at odds with both Dr Khandekar’s statements and Tamas blindsight? check.
kdkd #588- “the evidence for temperature decline since 1998 is at best patchy, and at worst non-existent”.
Hmm… ok, but isn’t it supposed to be WARMING? Why isn’t it? More CO2, lots of feedback amplifiers…. but no warming. In fact, as you admit, there’s even some “patchy” evidence for cooling. Not really consistent with the AGW hypothesis is it?
Cue: abuse from kdkd, evasion of argument.
Ken #585. “a 8400 km diameter spinning ball”. Earth’s radius is 6,378 (equatorial) so diameter would be 12,756. Small point, but just thought I’d correct it.
Tamas:
are you evading #589: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-warming-reverses-arctic-cooling ?
Tamas:
patchy evidence for not warming is about as far as you can stretch the data, except it’s not consistent “not warming” just a flattening of a trend for a particular piece of temperature data. Don’t go overextending again.
Tamas:
You’re right – I got the Earth diameter wrong – I used to think in miles and the figure 8000 stuck in there (circumference of roughly 25000 miles). Thank God kdkd never saw the error. After being out by 1000 fold+, I guess he still isn’t too hot on number challenges.
kdkd:
Your Scientific American just needs to go south and do the same research in Antarctica. Let’s face it the Arctic is a cheap date. With far less than 10% of the world’s ice – floating on the ocean – it has a record of dramatic melts and freezes.
There is evidence that Arctic warming coincides with Antarctic cooling which is what seems to be happening right now.
Anyhow, I thought AGW meant ‘global warming’ not regional warming.
Remember we have already shown that ENSO and other oscillations are transitory and cannot sustain a longer term temperature trend.
kdkd:
“To be as liberal as possible with the data, the evidence for temperature decline since 1998 is at best patchy, and at worst non-existent. This and a number of other rather incoherent statements, and the push-poll type questions delivered by the interviewer make me extremely suspicious of the whole thing”
I hope there is not a smear looming about ‘big oil’ behind Dr Khandekar’s opinion. The Canadian think tank does not seem remotely connected with the usual suspects. Or could there be a bit of ethnocentrism (NSWspeak for racism) when dealing with a non-white expert?
Ken #595
I merely comented about the incoherence and non-evidence based basis of some of Dr Khandekar’s opinion. Don’t try to make my comment into something it wasn’t.
Now explain what the antarctic has to do with the arctic and why we should consider them on an even footting. That smells like a spurious assumption designed to maintain your position and evidence be damned to me. In other words #594 seems incoherent and smells of desperation.
kdkd #596
All you have to do is explain why CO2 and other GHG generated in the heavily industrialized coal burning areas of the northern hemisphere (USA, CHINA, INDIA, Northern Europe, Russia) seems to mix around the planet – I don’t see NH CO2 and SH CO2 numbers quoted as different from each other.
And if that is the well mixed case, why then would warming from the CO2 GHG effect have a greater forcing in the Arctic than the Antarctic?
The only feedback effect which sounds feasible is the reduced reflection of direct solar by reduced ice and more ocean – which is another Solar induced effect which does not need CO2 or Methane to make it work.
#597
Ken, new levels of incoherence.
Paragraph 1: This doesn’t seem to makes any sense. Your point is either obscure to the point of incomprehensible. Perhaps this is a (poor quality) deliberate attempt to manufacture uncertainty?
Paragraph 2: Because of the buffer effect of so much ice in the antarctic, I would have thought this was obvious. You’ve certainly explained the mechanism before.
Paragraph 3: Your reductionist thinking betrays you. It’s a positive feedback effect of the interaction between co2 and solar. Melt methane and increased forest fires are other positive feedback effects.
Your story is unraveling, or is it that your unraveled story is becoming tangled?
“Obscure, incomprehensible, manufacture, reductionist, unravelled, tangled”
New adjectives to add to kdkd’s lexicon of slur and diversion from answering real facts and explaining real data.
Reduced ice and more ocean is a product of warming whether by direct solar or CO2 effects. You can have it with or without CO2 or Methane as probably happened in previous Arctic warmings – along with Atlantic oscillations etc.
Did your Scientific American say that the Arctic was 0.8 degC warmer than now in the MWP? In that case Erik the Red made his move at the right time.
Ken: #599 does nothing to help your argument.
Here’s another one for your records: “Warming Arctic’s global impacts outstrip predictions”
http://www.panda.org/wwf_news/?173262/Warming-Arctics-global-impacts-outstrip-predictions
That’ll be outstripping predictions based on an AGW scenario by the way. Perhaps you will have to appeal to conspiracy theory again in order to provide a rebuttal?
We know basd on the physical chemistry of ice that many (but not all) changes to the antarctic will be undetectable until a lot of that ice is gone. Hopefully that’s many centuries in the future (although it has happened in the past during the age of the dinosaurs). So I don’t see your antarctic versus arctic argument is at all relevant.
kdkd#600
Looks like the Arctic data is strangely sparser since 2003. Apparently due to the closure of many of the longer serving stations.
Check this out and with it the trail of comments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/09/arctic-temperatures-what-hockey-stick/
Maybe you should cross reference this with Hadley.
Also have a look at the U-Tube graphic – I can’t see much difference in the winter or summer ice extents – but it could of course be thinner ice – for the skating on…
re #601
We did determine that the wattsupwiththat website does have a tendency to misuse the data to maximise uncertainty where no such thing exists. See the random walk discussion at http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Idiot
The mean age of winter arctic ice is certainly a lot younger than it was in the early 21st century. This may well be example of an increasing perturbation in a complex system under stress.
kdkd:
Check this site with lots of world weather station data. I have looked through a lot of them – and many in the Arctic and am finding it hard to see and trend over the last 40-70 years in some cases.
He excludes urban sites to eliminate the heat island effect.
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm#The%20Antarctic%20Scientific%20Bases
Obvious why Mr Daly’s golf has gone walkabout..
KL#603 correction: “and am finding it hard to see *any* trend over the last 40-70 years in some cases”
Ken #603
“I have looked through a lot of them – and many in the Arctic and am finding it hard to see and trend over the last 40-70 years in some cases.”
You expect to be able to assess a large number of noisy data sets by eyeball? That’s not going to work. To be valid you have to assess this stuff statistically. One’s eyeball and its corresponding connection to the brain is too sensitive to biases both obvious and non-obvious for your methodology work in this situation.
When I get to the hadley data eventually you’ll have your answer.
kdkd #605
Here is the very up to data paper which demolishes the alarmist claims of dramatics in the Arctic being the ‘canary in the mine’ of AGW.
It suggests: “The Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation multi-decadal variability is
suggested as a major cause of Arctic temperature variation.”
This is of course a ‘regional’ effect and we have already established that ENSO and Ocean Circulation Oscillations are not external forcings and cannot sustain a long term temperature trend.
Looks a bit like your cyclical or sinsusoidal residuals…
Ref:
http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf
5. Summary
[20] Our analysis suggests that the ratio of the Arctic to
global temperature change varies on multi-decadal time
scale. The commonly held assumption of a factor of 2–3
for the Arctic amplification has been valid only for the
current warming period 1970–2008. The Arctic region did
warm considerably faster during the 1910–1940 warming
compared to the current 1970–2008 warming rate (Table 1).
During the cooling from 1940–1970 the Arctic amplification
was extremely high, between 9 and 13. The Atlantic
Ocean thermohaline circulation multi-decadal variability is
suggested as a major cause of Arctic temperature variation.
Further analyses of long coupled model runs will be critical
to resolve the influence of the ocean thermohaline circulation
and other natural climate variations on Arctic climate
and to determine whether natural climate variability will
make the Arctic more or less vulnerable to anthropogenic
global warming.
[21] Acknowledgments. The reported research (LA-UR-09-02452)
was partially supported by Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Directed
Research and Development Project entitled ‘‘Flash Before the Storm’’ and
partially by the Joint DECC, Defra and MoD Integrated Climate
Programme DECC/Defra (GA01101), MoD (CBC/2B/0417 Annex C5).
We thank Jerry North and anonymous reviewers for their comments that led
to a considerable improvement of the manuscript.
So we know the arctic effect is being caused by the sun or the greenhouse effect or both. No controversy there. Also it’s quite possible for changes on greenhouse effect to have an effect on drivers of climate patterns such as ocean currents. There’s some evidence that it’s having an effect on ENSO already.
Now the residuals aren’t sinusoidal. Over the last 30-40 years they’re increasing a lot, then decreasing suddenly, then increasing even more, over three distinct cycles. This looks like the pertubations of a complex system under stress to me[1]. Also the residuals are global to the northern hemispere, not the arctic. It will be interesting to see the specificaly arctic effect when I get to it.
[1] As described in this paper mentioned previously http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7260/full/nature08227.html
kdkd#607
This is the conclusion of the Scientific American article which sparked this latest Cage Match round:
Quote: “Without greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, a true ice age might have been expected as a 21,000-year wobble in Earth’s tilt relative to the sun that shifts the intensity of sunlight. That cooling trend wouldn’t have reversed naturally for at least another 4,000 years. Yet, despite this decline, Arctic temperatures have soared and the most likely culprit is the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning, forest clearing and other human activity, Kaufmann and his colleagues wrote.
“The most recent 10-year interval (1999–2008) was the warmest of the past 200 decades,” they wrote. “Temperatures were about 1.4 degrees C higher than the projected values based on the linear cooling trend and were even more anomalous than previously documented.”
Of course, summer temperatures when the warming portion of the wobble cycle peaked roughly 7,500 years ago were at least 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer than 20th-century average temperatures. Nonetheless, this current, countercyclical warming trend will likely continue—potentially exceeding that earlier warming—unless greenhouse gas levels begin to come back down. In the meantime, polar denizens adapted for the cooler climate can blame humanity for a balmier Arctic.” endquote
The quoted paper from my #606 post comes to quite a different conclusion. The Arctic current warming is not “counter-cyclical” at all!!
Another round to the sensible sceptics.
Come in Tamas and sink the slipper into the kdkd kiddie.
Ken, you appear in #606 to have posted something that supports the scientific american article. You don’t explain your Rorschach ink ink blot method of climate science terribly well. Hint, in order to explain what’s going on inside your mind properly you have to give us the complete and probably gory details.
The Los Alamos article simply seems to be rather more specific on the dynamics that have been observed in the arctic, and not contradicting the scientific american article at all.
Nonsense:
This is what your Scientific American says:
“Yet, despite this decline, Arctic temperatures have soared and the most likely culprit is the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning, forest clearing and other human activity, Kaufmann and his colleagues wrote.
“The most recent 10-year interval (1999–2008) was the warmest of the past 200 decades,” they wrote. “Temperatures were about 1.4 degrees C higher than the projected values based on the linear cooling trend and were even more anomalous than previously documented.””
This is what the GRL paper says *(WITH MY COMMENTS)*:
Our analysis suggests that the ratio of the Arctic to
global temperature change varies on multi-decadal time
scale.
The commonly held assumption of a factor of 2–3
for the Arctic amplification has been valid only for the
current warming period 1970–2008.
The Arctic region did warm considerably faster during the 1910–1940 warming
compared to the current 1970–2008 warming rate (Table 1).
(WHEN CO2 & GREENHOUSE GASES AND THEORETICAL GHG FORCING WERE A LOT LOWER THAN LATER IN THE 20TH CENTURY)
During the cooling from 1940–1970 the Arctic amplification
was extremely high, between 9 and 13.
(IT COOLED A LOT FASTER THAN THE REST OF THE GLOBE)
The Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation multi-decadal variability is
suggested as a major cause of Arctic temperature variation.
(NOT DIRECT CO2 & GHG FORCING)
Further analyses of long coupled model runs will be critical
to resolve the influence of the ocean thermohaline circulation
and other natural climate variations on Arctic climate
and to determine *whether natural climate variability* will
make the Arctic more or less vulnerable to anthropogenic
global warming.
(THE RESEARCH IS STILL TO BE DONE ON WHETHER OR NOT THE ARCTIC IS MORE OR LESS VULNERABLE THAN THE REST OF THE PLANET TO AGW)
And you have the cheek to suggest that the above two stories are pretty much the same.
You must be a contortionist with a small head and a large anus.
Nice work Ken – kdkd get’s floored once again. I also love his comment from #602: “We did determine that the wattsupwiththat website does have a tendency to misuse the data to maximise uncertainty where no such thing exists. ”
Love it kdkd.
“We” did no such thing. Anthony Watts has shown that the US surface temperature record is unreliable and his website raises a lot of questions about AGW.
I just love how you say there is absolutely no uncertainty on this issue. You may have no interest in questioning the AGW hypothesis but just read what Ken has posted above and anyone with a drop of curiosity would be asking questions.
Anyway kdkd – time for some abuse from you I guess…
An excellent article by Henrik Svensmark on why the Earth is currently cooling. Who would have thought that solar activity is the prime driver of the climate?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-a-cooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/
Tamas #612
“The earth is currently cooling” has the status of a hypothesis. To establish its truth you will need to demonstrate that the long term cooling trend is greater than the short term variability. Good luck with that.
I have issues with the watts up with that article. Here’s a quote:
“In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years. His explanation was a natural change in the North Atlantic circulation, not in solar activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a comeback.”
Two issues from this single paragraph:
1. “cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years”. This does not appear to be a ‘warming has stopped’ argument, but that the long term upward trend is currently undetectable. It would appear that the wattsupwiththat spin is yet again overstating the case.
2. “natural variations in climate are making a comeback”. I was unaware that for AGW to be true requires that natural variations in the climate must cease, and that the only observable effect should be warming. This logical premise seems to be absurd. Is there a non-absurd interpretation that contradicts mine which I am too stupid to notice?
Again I can’t recommend http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7260/full/nature08227.html enough. Tamas, I’ll send you a copy.
Ken #610
You appear to be confusing the way that energy circulates in the geosphere with the way that energy inputs into geosphere. The thermohaline is the former, and so will react to the latter in a dynamic manner.
The thermohaline circulation is a complex (and probably chaotic) system. I read the two articles differently to you. Not that co2 warming is insignificant, but that it suggests that the 1910-1940 and 1970- peaks suggest an oscillation period in this system, and that increasing co2 is causing a perturbation.
Perhaps I will resist the temptation to refer to Ken’s small head and Tamas’ even smaller anus? oops
Scientific American:
“Yet, despite this decline, Arctic temperatures have soared and the most likely culprit is the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning, forest clearing and other human activity, Kaufmann and his colleagues wrote.”
GRL Paper:
“The Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation multi-decadal variability is
suggested as a major cause of Arctic temperature variation.
AND
Further analyses of long coupled model runs will be critical
to resolve the influence of the ocean thermohaline circulation
and other natural climate variations on Arctic climate
and to determine *whether natural climate variability* will
make the Arctic more or less vulnerable to anthropogenic
global warming.”
Anyone who can find equivalence or any similarity at all in the above conclusions is either bad, mad or Clive Hamilton.
kdkd #613
The Svensmark article is a newspaper piece not written in a science journal or academic paper. ‘Making a comeback’ is an expression of speech not a scientific explanation.
If we trawled through all your loose, reckless and abusive expressions over the last 300 posts we could fill a small volume.
Kiera View Press – are you interested?
Ken #615
You are assuming that the thermohaline and AGW explanations are mutually exclusive. This is a false assumption.
Another example of starting the race by shooting yourself in the foot.
As for #616. The careless use of words marks the article as an excellent example of piss poor science journalism.
Oh, I add another kdkd-ism to the lexicon: “false assumption”.
When is *natural climate variability* equivalent of *the most likely culprit is the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning, forest clearing and other human activity* kdkd?
Nitey-nite….
False assumption is a perfectly valid scientific description. Are you suggesting that we should take some kind of anti-science view where all assumptions are regarded as equally valid? That’s a bit post-modernist, even for me. Anyway there you go attacking the messenger to distract from the message (again). Presumably this is because you are aware that your reasoning is spurious, but you are unable to admit this.
And yes, at some scale humans are part of the natural system, so a closer examination of what we mean by the word natural in this context is probably appropriate. However, I suspect that this isn’t what you meant. (it is an example of a more appropriate post-modernism though).
Following on from #619 I think that what you are trying to do instead of clarifying what we mean by “natural” is to set up some false dichotomy.
These tortured arguments of yours are tiresome, and as their starting points are inevitably based on poorly thought out, illogical starting premises. Instead of engaging in the futility of developing them further, I suggest that you try reading a good statistics book or early 90s environmental science textbook instead.
A nice description of the MO of some climate contrarians: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/sep/14/climate-change-denial
A somewhat accurate quote: “There is nothing unusual about Professor Plimer. Most of the prominent climate change deniers who are not employed solely by the fossil fuel industry have a similar profile: men whose professional careers are about to end or have ended already. Attacking climate science looks like a guaranteed formula for achieving the public recognition they have either lost or never possessed. Such people will keep emerging for as long as the media are credulous enough to take them seriously.”
kdkd #614 & KL#610
“The thermohaline circulation is a complex (and probably chaotic) system. I read the two articles differently to you. Not that co2 warming is insignificant, but that it suggests that the 1910-1940 and 1970- peaks suggest an oscillation period in this system, and that increasing co2 is causing a perturbation.”
Where does the GRL paper state that CO2 forcing is the driver of the observed oscillation or perturbation in Arctic temperatures?
Ken #622, it doesn’t explore what causes the change to the thermohaline in the paper.
However, as you have clearly indicated previously we need to find an external source which drive the change to the thermohaline. According to the statistical analysis that I have done, the effect of co2 concentration accounts for roughly the double the observed increase in temperature anomaly than does solar since about 1840. Therefore we can estimate the two drivers of changes to the thermohaline according to the following model:
f(thermohaline) = 1(f(co2)) + 0.5(f(solar))
where the functions are regression coefficients on the right hand side, and some way of obtaining a single digit summary of the thermohaline on the left hand side.
You on the other hand seem to be contradicting your prior position and suggesting that the changes to the thermohaline are spontaneous.
actually they’re not regression coefficients, they are regression coefficients with the relative magnitude of the two effect sizes removed so that we can present the formula in a way that exclusively shows the effect size and nothing else.
and that should be a “single number summary of the thermohaline” of course.
kdkd #623
“However, as you have clearly indicated previously we need to find an external source which drive the change to the thermohaline. ”
No we don’t.
The GRL paper is explicit: “The Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation multi-decadal variability is suggested as a major cause of Arctic temperature variation.”
My understanding is that this is similar to ENSO – a cyclical perturbation which is not driven by forcings external to the Earth.
My understanding of “Your” research with my data assistance and guidance is that regression analysis works by fitting a linear relationship to two variables on an X-Y graph, and looking at the pattern of mismatch (the residuals). Without a linear relationship there is poor or no correlation, and if the residuals are cyclic then some up and down cycle is involved which is non-linear.
If CO2 goes steadily up and Temp Anomaly goes up and down – then we must look for other factors (Solar cycles perhaps?) or closed system chaotic effects, randon walks, ENSO, Atlantic Oscillation ie: “”thermohaline circulation multi-decadal variability”"
ie; Natural Variability – driven by ….natural variables….natural…nature …get it??
KL#626
“My understanding is that this is similar to ENSO – a cyclical perturbation which is not driven by forcings external to the Earth.”
And if future research subsequently shows that ENSO and ATO are driven by external forcings of a cyclical nature – what cyclical driver could it possibly be?? Why maybe the Sun…… Snow White??
Just in case you missed the practical:
Ken Lambert writes: From the ratbaggery of Clive Hamilton to the Woodstock pinings of Ian McHugh, the Hazelwood protest is another example of the mindless green agenda which will consign Australia to a dark, cold poverty.
There are only three feasible non-GHG producing alternatives to coal fired central electricity generation in Australia in the next 20 years — Nuclear, Geothermal and Hydro. The fourth is Gas — less, but still producing CO2 — a plant food and trace GHG. And as I have said before several times; CCS is BS. Forget your windmills, PV Solar, tides, fumaroles and power towers. They just won’t replace 83 percent of current electricity load generated by coal.
A few quiet scientists are working on geothermal at 50-70MW a pop — you need lots of them and the technology is still experimental. Geothermal sites are a long way from loads but very high voltage DC is mooted to be feasible for transmission. Hot rock geothermal runs 24/7.
Nuclear is mature and could be deployed in 10-15 years with our own enrichment and storage facilities — if we start a crash program next week. It runs 24/7 close to the load, but we will probably end up buying our technology from the Chinese who don’t tolerate Green ratbags running their energy future. More hydro needs more mountains, water and dams — all in short supply in Australia.
So there it is, Clive, Ian — either Three Mile Island — cadmium and mercury laden brine from hot granite … or more dams in the bush.
Ken #627
I refer you to the post you made in #352 (page 8 of comments)
“Even the CSIRO Mark 2 climate model agrees that *external forcing* must have been involved in the hemispheric events of the MWP and LIA” …
So let me get this straight. We’re clearly in a warming period greater than or equal to the MWP, the regression model done on the Climate Karaoke clearly shows that co2 is causing double the amount of warming than the sun, but you claim that while the changes in ocean circulation postulated by the MWP must be caused by external forcing, the present day changes are either spontaneous or caused by the sun?
Dude, I think you just accidentally shot off your whole leg.
p.s. it’s easy to get published on the letters page in areas outside your expertise, I’ve done it in several different areas over the past few years
Ken #627
I refer you to the post you made in #352 (page 8 of comments)
“Even the CSIRO Mark 2 climate model agrees that *external forcing* must have been involved in the hemispheric events of the MWP and LIA” …
So let me get this straight. We’re clearly in a warming period greater than or equal to the MWP, the regression model done on the Climate Karaoke clearly shows that co2 is causing double the amount of warming than the sun, but you claim that while the changes in ocean circulation postulated by the MWP must be caused by external forcing, the present day changes are either spontaneous or caused by the sun?
Dude, I think you just accidentally shot off your whole leg.
p.s. it’s easy to get published on the crikey letters page in areas outside your expertise, I’ve done it in several different areas over the past few years
also Ken #627
It should be obvious to anyone without an axe diametrically opposed to the available evidence that the climate system is made up of very many different cyclic and non-cyclic components. And as we showed in #629 you have dug out research in the past that shows that these cyclic components can be affected by external forces (which is fairly obvious anyway…)
This was the conclusion of my post #352
quote:
Repeat Conclusion: “While a number of characteristics of the MWP and the LIA could have been partially caused by natural processes within the climatic system, the inability of the model to reproduce the observed hemispheric mean temperature anomalies associated with these events indicates that external forcing must have been involved. Essentially the unforced climatic system is unable to sustain the generation of long-term climatic anomalies.”
Chris – note that the other papers I quoted are widely dispersed – South Africa, NZ and Argentina in the SH and China in the NH, plus the well documented European MWP. The evidence is that the MWP was global and caused by *external forcing*.
endquote
You have got it completely wrong.
The ‘hemispheric events’ of the MWP and LIA were ‘global’ events – not regional events.
The above paper made the point that; ‘Essentially the unforced climatic system is unable to sustain the generation of long-term climatic anomalies’, which is precisely what I have been saying in #623.
My point is that ENSO and ATO exist without external forcing and ATO seems to be the main cause of the Arctic temperature variability since direct Temp measurements began, according to the GRL paper.
This does not mean that ‘external forcing by CO2 or Solar would not overlay the ‘natural variations’ and cause a longer term Temperature trend.
Your karaoke still only uses NH temperatures, ignores UAH and RSS and still waiting for Hadley.
Better get to it …Dude
what I have been saying in #623 – sorry in #626
Ken,
Where’s your evidence that current warming is a regional phenomenon? Quality sources please, not any of this wattsupwiththat crap and its ilk.
Another question for you. What happened to the antarctic during the MWP? Pretty static as far as we know eh? That leaves your position crublier than Larsen B.
I think you’ve been caught confabulating again. The problem with confabulation is the confabulator lacks insight to be aware of what they’re doing …
Now if you go and look at the 50 year trend data for southern hemisphere countries at http://www.climatewizard.org/ you’ll see that the current warming trend is global. Based on measured data too, not shonky reconstructions.
kdkd 5, ken nil … better get that self inflicted bloody stump dealt with before the anaemia sets in.
Ken
Just a correction on your perception of the Karaoke. We clearly demonstrated that there is no statistically significant difference between the UAH data and the IPCC data.
You can tea leaf read all you like, but the important thing here is that as we can not demonstrate a statistically significant difference we can use the IPCC data as a good estimate of the UAH and vice-versa. Obviously it’s better to use the IPCC data as it has a longer time-frame.
Looks like you’re aiming perilously close to your remaining knee there son.
This sounding like a re-run of the old kdkd shuffle. Abuse, distortion, silly walks, straw men.
“Where’s your evidence that current warming is a regional phenomenon? Quality sources please, not any of this wattsupwiththat crap and its ilk.”
I never said that the current warming was only ‘regional’. I quoted the GRL paper on the Arctic in response to your Scientific American claim that the Arctic Temp anomaly was an amplifier of CO2 & GHG global warming. It seems that it is not; and the Arctic is a bad canary in the mine of climate change.
The Antarctic was unihabited and thermometer deficient in the MWP – what is your point?
I think my crap is whupping your warmist religious crap.
Why don’t you get Dr Glikson back in the cage so Tamas can hold a leg while I carve and visa versa.
I think we are back to cognitive dissonance – you accuse me of exactly the felony you are committing yourself.
kdkd #635
I thought the UAH data showed cooling for the last 10 years or so, and your ‘linear statistical curve fit’ was challenged by the data and Tamas’ excel analysis.
We then went into the old – 10 years bad, 30 years good bit – except in leap years when 15 years is long enough.
One thing is becoming clear – hanging on to your linear curve fitting is manifestly inappropriate when dealing with cyclical and chaotic systems.
You can’t stand this simple truth: “If CO2 goes steadily up and Temp Anomaly goes up and down – then we must look for other factors”.
Ken #636 is remarkably content and data free, you’re sounding desperate and trying to cover up your self-contradiction again.
#637 The UAH data shows no cooling – attempting to claim otherwise is ludicrous. Tamas’ excel “analysis” was merely an exercise in descriptive statistics with an inappropriately scaled y axis. The statistical analysis is rather more informative and demolishes the climate loony position.
You’re right, using linear methods for non-linear systems is merely informative, not predictive. It’s the accuracy of the fit that’s interesting in these cases not the actual predictions. But we already know your statistical literacy is poor enough that you can’t distinguish between information and misinformation. On the other hand you do have an eye for some interesting bits of the literature (although a bit of snthesis would be good…)
The end of #637 doesn’t make sense and smells of scientific double standards (lazy standards for you, impossible standards for me, but we established previously, this is your MO).
Finally you’ll be interested in this. http://harryrclarke.posterous.com/3965913
Let’s mention the UAH data again.
I think you and Tamas are confused. The UAH data shows no cooling trend, compared to the IPCC and Hadley data (http://www.climatewizard.org/ summarises land portion of the Hadley data nicely) the warming signal of the UAH data is substantially weaker (although not statistically significant from the IPCC data). Why would this be? Well let’s examine two hypothesis.
1. All the other data is wrong and the UAH data is showing cooling. Well as well as that UAH data does not show cooling, the rest of this argument smells of conspiracy theory and psychotic denial. The “urban heat island effect” so beloved of climate delusionists is in fact small, and controlled for statistically (although the climate delusionists will try to claim that statistical control is invalid despite its extensive use in all areas of statistics, with some success in areas like public health I might add).
2. The altenative hypotheis is from Crikey comments the other day, Matt Thomas:
“Satellites don’t measure surface temperature; they measure temperature across large cross-sections of the stratosphere and upper troposphere. That is then processed to generate an estimate of lower troposphere temperature. This is not the same as direct surface temperature measurements, for which there are several global average indexes of high statistical quality, the best of which are Hadley HadCRU and NASA GISS. ”
Now you’ve got to ask yourself, which of these hypotheses seem better grounded in the data, and more plausible?
kdkd #639
Heat Island effects can be simply dealt with. Take them out of the data sets.
Please explain how else can you ‘deal with them statistically?’
Hansen’s NASA/GISS fingerprints are all over the IPCC Reports – whenever you trace down the IPCC’s original research papers they all heavily cross-reference to NASA/GISS and Hansen authored or co-authored work. Hansen is a noisy promoter of AGW alarmism. The original AGW science daisy chain – intolerant of uncertainty and contraverting evidence.
I would take more notice of less noisy scientists.
I have identified many, many research papers over the past months in this Cage March which contravert the alarmist positions. You have not demolished any of them.
The GRL paper on the Arctic has been misunderstood and distorted by you. It clearly shows that the Arctic Temp Anomaly is NOT the litmus test of purported CO2 driven rapidly rising temperatures as claimed by AGW alarmists.
My central point remains rock solid. The role of human released CO2 and other GHG must be separated out from ‘natural’ factors, its scale accurately determined, and sensible measures taken if necessary – along the lines of Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan.
#640 hehe
“My central point remains rock solid. The role of human released CO2 and other GHG must be separated out from ‘natural’ factors, its scale accurately determined, and sensible measures taken if necessary – along the lines of Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan.”
Well the karaoke shows how that’s done. I refer you to the following formula:
Anomaly = 1(f(co2)) + 0.5(f(solar)) + error + intercept
That’s rock solid. Looks like that’s one argument shot. The Hadley data is in broad agreement (see climatewizard.org). The signal (the two regression terms) significantly exceed the error, and the order of magnitude of the two effects is roughly correct (the 0.1 figure from the ipcc is an irritating distraction, just because it isn’t equal to 0.5 in this formula doesn’t make 0.5 equal 1).
Urban heat island effect.
Consensus: small enough to be insignificant – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island#Relation_to_global_warming
IPCC unreliability:
Actually they collect data from many many sources. Systematic bias in this collection would be incredible, and is hard for the non-paranoid to believe, especially given the conservative process the IPCC represents.
Now for your homework. On a spreadsheet
1. List the papers that you’ve cited. author and web address would be best.
2. Summarise why each demolishes the AGW position. This can be a list of concepts.
3. Upload it to the climate karaoke.
Then we can have some more fun.
Meanwhile you’ve shot off both your legs, and you’re on shaky ground (probably Larsen B).
And the “today is just like the MWP” argument is demolished in an incredibly long thread with a discussion very similar to this one except without the added entertainment of over the top insults here: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/not-alike/
How are you only going to get off that ice berg now? oops
Ken:
This should help you get started with your homework assignment: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=percentage
An ETS is the worst possible way, to reduce co2 emissions. The former Howard govt, did not need one, to phase out incandescent light bulbs. We don’t need one now, to phase out, electric hot water systems, or anything else, that might actually reduce co2 emissions.
kdkd #647
Distortion and wishful thinking:
The karaoke showed (by your own hand) that the last 100 years was roughly 55% CO2 and 45% Solar. Where did you get the 1.0 and 0.5 proportions?
This was all based on the IPCC Northern Hemisphere Temp Anomaly (NASA/GISS) and IPCC 2007 forcing reconstructions for Solar and the log formula for CO2 forcing. ie. F.CO2 = 5.35 ln(CO2a/CO2b). You have yet to use a Global set of Temp Anomalies to show Global warming.
I am reading comments on your http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=percentage that the 5.35 number could be as low as 0.414.
The climate sensitivity of 0.22 – 0.27 degC per W/sq.m of CO2 forcing has been calculated by using AGW theory by Fitzpatrick – and he concludes that the IPCC projections are exaggerated – and drastic moves to cut GHG will have small effect by 2060. Plenty of time to institute my 10 point plan.
Suggest you have another look at Fitzpatrick’s paper here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/08/how-sensitive-is-the-earth%e2%80%99s-climate/
And his response to comments here:
The key point is: what will happen in the next 50 years? A relatively straightforward (and simple) curve fit analysis suggests that warming may continue, but at much less than the IPCC projected rate. Please look at the accuracy of the 1972 to 2008 model projection, and then compare with the accuracy of GCM projections since at least 2000 (Lucia has many relevant posts on this subject); the GCM’s consistently predict more warming than actually happened. Do you honestly think that the prediction accuracy of the model I showed will change from good to poor starting in 2009, and the GCM’s will suddenly become more accurate? If so, what change(s) in the sun/oceans/atmosphere do you think is(are) happening right now that will make the curve fit model less accurate than it was for 1972 to 2008, and make the GCM’s more accurate?
Ken #651
You’re right I misreported the proportions on the regression model. However it remains that co2 is by far the most important determinant of temperature anomaly according to this model, as omitting co2 from the model causes a substantial deterioration in quality of fit using a statistic called the Akaike information criterion.
(i.e. not just variance explained for which by itself it explains 80% of the variance of anomaly)
You’re right there’s a well known and respected climate scientist who suggests that his new modelling data may buy us 20 years (e.g. see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/sep/16/global-temperature-cooling)
Meanwhile you assert that the NH is irellevant to the SH, will not refer to evidence that does not support this, and keep bringing up the canard that is antarctica (meanwhile ignoring ice shelf collapse there). Do you honestly think that the SH effect is of the magnitude required to bring the whole AGW theory crumbling down? Smells like wishful thinking.
Now if you’re serious about your research questions, you’ll go and do your homework. Otherwise you’re just another delusional timewaster like mr wattsupwiththat.
#652
IU am so glad that I am right and you have ‘misreported’.
I never asserted that the NH is irrelevant to the SH. I did say that the SH with much greater areas of ocean and 90% of the world’s ice would logically attenuate the ‘Global’ Temperature anomaly, leading to a different correlation when run through your statistical analysis.
After all, no-one is claiming that CO2 has different levels in the NH to the SH and applies a different forcing in each hemisphere, so if there is a difference in the alleged heat-up effect in the NH compared with the SH, the land masses, oceans and ice must have an impact on Temperatures measured in each.
We could also extpect the direct Solar forcing would not be any different NH to SH because each half the spinning globe is equally exposed to the Sun over an annual cycle.
As you know East Antarctica is 4 times bigger than West Antarctica, and if the whole holds 90% of the Planet’s ice then in proportion 0.8 x 0.9 = 0.72 or roughly 70% of the planet’s ice is in East Antarctica – which is cooling for the last 30 years.
West Antarctica is warming and the loss of an ice shelf is not unprecedented in this part of the frozen world. Part of (dare I say it) a ‘natural’ cycle.
Notice you have gone quiet on the Fitzpatrick paper, which used the AGW assumptions about CO2 forcing and the relative effect of Solar, and still comes up with a hindcast and forecast to 2060 which is not all that alarming.
Plenty of time to get going with the nuclear, electric transport, geothermal, solar (even PV solar in remote areas), wind in stable non-parrot hurting quantities; in fact all the bits of my 10 point plan.
Ken #653
All good confabulation. Do nothing until it’s too late, she’ll be right.
Forget antarctica, it’s irellevant until it’s too late. Have a look at http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm, then confine your speculations on antarctica to the dustbin where they belong.
You’re calling that thing by fitzpatrick a “paper”. What a joke. Come back with credible sources, of which wattsupwiththat is not one. That entire site is merely a piece of polemic with scientific pretensions.
So are you going to do your homework or are you wasting my time?
“That entire site is merely a piece of polemic with scientific pretensions.”
Read the George Monbiot piece – could be loosely described as scientific – thought the ‘wattsupwiththat’ was much more so. I think your treatment of this mildly sceptical site as indicative of your traditional academic leftist bias.
Never said we do nothing – go back and read my 10 point plan.
I would start crash programming nuclear tomorrow, get all public transport vehicles onto electric and gas to reduce our dependency on imported oil, get on with the geothermal experiments; put up the occasional windmill to keep the Greens on side; get the power ships and nuclear storage/reprocessing facility in the SA desert underway.
For existing coal fired, I would investigate running the CO2 into large toroidal greenhouses (about 5km long) and/or into large lakes of green slime and also have a hard look at biomass.
Don’t you love a man with a plan?
Ken #655
Don’t confuse the idea of journalistic balance with proper scientific skepticism. Just because the watsupwiththat polemics try very hard to see the other side to the story doesn’t mean that the other side is actually there. We demonstrated that a couple of times, so I don’t see the point of continuing to waste my time with it.
Showing up your “one set of rigid standards for AGW proponents, one incredibly sloppy set of standards for those attempting to sow uncertainty and confusion” bias there. Academic leftist bias, ha! you sound more like a conspiracy nut every day, nice.
I don’t really understand why the crash program has to be nuclear which has a long history of needing very high subsidy and ignoring unsolved problems. Is that anti-environmentalist right wing bias I hear? Couldn’t be, could it? Really we need a more generaly global warming/peak oil manhattan project.
You’re refusing to do your homework aren’t you … you are wasting my time. I reckon that you keep up this refusal to do a systematic evaluation of your source and you’ll end up forfeiting the argument.
p.s. Crikey letters this week shows that Tamas has really earned his position as the Crikey village idiot.
Ken:
Actually the Monboit piece you roundly criticize for being part of the dominant global academic left wing conspiracy against an oporessed minority (for the hard of thinking, note the sarcasm) is one of the least rabid things he’s had to say for the last few years. And in this case he is entirely correct. Although the new evidence he refers to suggests we may have bought some time (around 20 years in a system with lags of around ~ 100 years) the delusionists uncritical assumption that this evidence means that the whole theory is wrong is yet another example of misquoting and over-extending conclusions.
So for the research agenda we must accept that the consensus is that urgent and immediate action is required to avert what is 90% likely to be a disaster. Note that this is not quite the 95% usually required as a minimum p value in statistics, but this is not classical inferrential statistics that we are doing here. The tendency for the political process to insert a great deal of inertia into the whole process just increases the urgency and the desirability of laggards to falling in with the consensus.
You want to refute this statement of position, you get on with your homework and provide a *systematic* summary of the literature you believe brings the whole edifice crashing down. Otherwise you lose and join the other side.
Meanwhile, let’s use a better plan than Ken’s somewhat obvious yet somewhat biased to the status quo:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7262/full/461342a.html
Still too slow, but hopefully the deus ex machina will come.
This video/transcript: http://www.gregcraven.org/en/the-videos is also a nice decision making framework for climate change. Perhaps Tamas would like to take off his moron goggles and have a look at it.
#650
Hear Hear Geoffrey Ross Fawthrop – good to have you in the cage.
Cheers
Ken Lambert
kdkd #656
Have a read of this excerpt from Crikey reprint of my piece, and tell me where my numbers and points are wrong:
“There are only three feasible non-GHG producing alternatives to coal fired central electricity generation in Australia in the next 20 years — Nuclear, Geothermal and Hydro. The fourth is Gas — less, but still producing CO2 — a plant food and trace GHG. And as I have said before several times; CCS is BS. Forget your windmills, PV Solar, tides, fumaroles and power towers. They just won’t replace 83 percent of current electricity load generated by coal.
A few quiet scientists are working on geothermal at 50-70MW a pop — you need lots of them and the technology is still experimental. Geothermal sites are a long way from loads but very high voltage DC is mooted to be feasible for transmission. Hot rock geothermal runs 24/7.
Nuclear is mature and could be deployed in 10-15 years with our own enrichment and storage facilities — if we start a crash program next week. It runs 24/7 close to the load, but we will probably end up buying our technology from the Chinese who don’t tolerate Green ratbags running their energy future. More hydro needs more mountains, water and dams — all in short supply in Australia.
So there it is, Clive, Ian (kdkd too!) — either Three Mile Island — cadmium and mercury laden brine from hot granite … or more dams in the bush.”
Ken: #661
I’m broadly in agreement with everything except the nuclear button there. You forgot one item – efficiency. Do you know why Japan has had so much trouble with it’s Kyoto targets? Because it’s the most energy efficient national economy. By comparison in Australia our efficiency is utterly utterly miserable, so there’s a load of low hanging fruit. So if you stop ignoring efficiency and optimisation, solar thermal, wind and solar-thermal mitigated coal as a stop gap get back into the mix and can be deployed much much faster and at a comparable price to the nuclear option, without the political problems.
I’m guessing the reason you have the hots for nuclear is that engineers and politicians always love the big ticket centralised items. You mob need to start thinking outside your usual box. Much the same reasons you want to denigrate every bit of politics with a green hue. But that leads to problems too – ignoring the efficiency elephant in the room for one (40% reduction in energy usage is quite possible there).
I presume by refusing to acknowledge that you have climate change skeptic homework to do that you are conceding your arguments on that score are facile and bankrupt.
I reckon you could take this graphic published in crikey today (http://media.crikey.com.au/Media/images/IceProjection-43eeaae1-3897-4d90-87a3-f2a0f918f828.gif), and relabel the y axis as 1/climate sceptic delusion magnitude and present it as an excellent summary of Ken’s and Tamas’ (especially Tamas) position on AGW and how far at odds it is with the evidence.
kdkd #662
Happy to allow all the energy efficiency gains you can make – let’s have some real numbers. Don’t forget we are being asked for up to 40% reductions by 2020. With a ‘normal’ growth rate of 2-3% uncompounded this gives a 20-30% increase in energy use over the next 10 years. Take 40% off current and we are being asked for a real reduction of 60-70% of current use by 2020. Fantasy.
Just run some numbers by me and explain how to do this with the GFC still rumbling and the Mandarin Candidate and his Wong Minister spending borrowed money to stimulate the purchase of dodgy Chinese pink batts and flat screen TV’s.
Having some knowledge of the building and running of central generation plants – most of the Green agenda is ‘black hole’ renewables and parrot pulping windmills 100m high with football field sized blade sweeps imparting low frequency gut busting vibrations to Chinese submarines off the coast. All to get 2MW per one each of these puppies. You need 500 of them to get the nominal output of a 1000 MW coal fired plant which has a 90% availability. Your windmills are lucky to get 35% availability.
By the way – the Arctic ice machine – the AMO did it – don’t you remember your last drubbing with Arctic science??
Ken #664
You appear to have a maladaptive response to the fact that successfully resolving climate change problems looks remote here (even on your far too relaxed schedule – procrastination is what governments will try to get away with, and this is a governance problem). You’re firmly stuck in the denial phase.
Efficiency gains of 40% to 80% are generally what you see when efficiency is taken seriously, generally dependent on initial conditions. You can look up many case studies. What it requires is that efficiency is taken seriously. That requires a major shift in australian attitudes to energy use, which won’t happen without serious leadership. Which we lack.
I’m concerned that your negativity to renewables is kneejerk seeing as you ignored efficiency until reminded. As you rightly point out, there are serious technological issues in getting renewables on board, which is why all this stuff should have been going on 30 years ago or more. My impression is that solar thermal could get going pretty quickly though, and that coal should be phased out in favour of co-generation with gas as an interim measure.
By the way, the AMO must be driven by an external force, as you established. That graph looks awfully like a major perturbation to me – of the kind mentioned in the Nature paper from a couple of weeks ago. We know that co2 is the major driver of climate change at the moment, so that would be the obvious candidate perturbation agent. Your alternative account was incoherent and paranoid enough to be a joke.
I take it from totally ignoring your homework assignment that you are resigned to failure in your futile quest to rewrite climate change theory.
Actually if you look at the black line, at http://www.crikey.com.au/Media/images/IceProjection-43eeaae1-3897-4d90-87a3-f2a0f918f828.gif it looks awfully like the residuals from the karoke model. I did quite a lot there to try to understand why those residuals were like they were, and the only credible explanation is the beginning of positive feedback from the additional CO2 in the atmosphere.
I mean the knee jerk solipsism and anti-green sentiment can take you so far, but as far as a coherent story of the current trend and trajectory of the climate system, goes the only sensible explanation that fits the wide range of scientific theory available to us is that co2 is causing accelerating global warming.
kdkd #666 (the number of the beast)
Were these the residuals on the 11 year cycle, the 22 year cycle, the 41 year cycle or the 120 year cycle??
You are still clinging to the NH temp anomalies of IPCC NASA/GISS, when global sets (Hadley) and satellite RSS and UAH are available. The Argobuoys (out floating around for 5 years now) are apparently showing no warming and slight cooling.
If they were showing warming I am sure the AGW alarmists would be shouting it from the rafters – 5 years data or not.
You just have to explain where is the heat going if the oceans are not warming?
And NO…NO…NO…. the AMO and ENSO are not proven to be driven by external forcing – the GRL paper and others in the Cage Posts show that regional oscillations do not sustain a long term temperature trend ie. they go up and down with no net long term effect.
That does not mean that CO2 GHG and Solar external forcing cannot be overlaying these oscillations and lifting the long term Temp anomaly trend.
You got to think of two separate things at once – might be difficult for you and the Hugh Jackman’s of this world who can’t separate world poverty from climate change.
Obviously Hugh needs to check whether there was any world poverty before 1850 when AGW started all this shit happening for the poor. Maybe he needs to check out the 17th and 18th centuries when the poor were…. poor and…. cold.
Ken #667
That whole comment, especially at the beginning is so much grasping at straws and willfully misreading and misreprerepresenting existing findings, that it doesn’t even dignify a reasoned response. You so want to pretend that your point of view has a valid starting premise you can’t see what’s staring everyone else in the face.
So where’s your homework? I guess that your lack of response to that means that you lose.
DING DING. Ken on the floor knocked out by his own strike, and Tamas curled up in the corner drooling into his own delusions. Nice doing business with you, where’s my prize?
p.s. I’ll have a look at the hadley data when I get a few hours to pick at it, but we already can see the last 50 years to date and how it doesn’t at all contradict the IPCC data at http://www.climatewizard.org/
ken #667
Your terminal comment is such an amazing non-sequitur it deserves to be pointed out and laughed at with special derision.
kdkd #668, #669
As soon as numbers are mentioned – you run a mile. Ever since you had a go at bar heaters – the real world of degC and W/sq.m and MW and all that engineering stuff just freaks that soft science academic brain.
Better to talk in expansive generalizations, statistical correlations and apply cognitive dissonance and chant from the little watermelon coloured school book.
Tamas quote numbers which don’t fit the theory – he is abused, ridiculed and must be delusional. His excel spread sheet of UAH data still stands without one data point being proved wrong.
None of the main points of technical papers I have quoted over the last 5 months have been disproved or seriously impaired by any of your rantings and foot stamping.
I thought the Hugh Jackman reference was rather amusing. After all, what we need is more celebrity song and dance persons running ETS and climate change policy… worldwide.
Why not Bono for Biomass, Blanchett for Batts (pink), Sting for Solar, Winfrey for Windmills, and Hugh for Hot Rocks…..and Jane Fonda for Fumaroles..
Ken #670
More content-free posturing. You don’t understand what the residuals mean so you have a meaningless chant which you mistakenly think bolsters your case.
If you want to prove that the technical papers are valid criticisms of AGW you will post them together in a format where they are easily evaluated together, and there fore can be treated systematically. If you don’t to this you lose by proxy by refusing to present the results of your research systematically.
Tamas’ excel slieght of hand was nonsense. Your inability to see this is yet more delusional posturing.
Now put up or shut up.
kdkd#671
Setting me ‘homework’ is your transparent ruse to buy time for your long due Hadley analysis.
And the residuals: I seem to remember they were running on an 11 year cyclical period – a point studiously ignored by you.
And you even conceded that IPCC projections are exaggerated – buying us 20 years more time to take some sensible measures (including efficiency measures of all sorts – even melamine laced Chinese pink batts).
Meanwhile this farcical celebrity charade at the UN 1 day conference in New York where half-arsed countries fall over themselves to become victims of that nasty ol’ CO2 so they can cash in on the guilt money on offer from the developed world.
When sea levels are chasing you at 2-3mm per year (and nil in recent years by some measures), you move at a slow walking pace to 3mm higher ground. And on your Indian and Pacific ocean paradisos – you move to a new island – maybe New Zealand – just like the Maori did 1000 years ago.
Ken, if you look at the data, you see that the cyclic effects are much smaller than the long term trend. But you don’t really look at the data do you? The residuals I refer to occur over a 30-40 year period.
I don’t need to buy time to look at the hadley, I’ll do it when I have the available resources, meanwhile you can use climatewizard, but you’ve been studiously ignoring that too. Is there a pattern here? What has Ken got to hide?
Meanwhile quid pro pro with your homework or your forfeit the debate. Avoiding this systematic presentation of your supposed evidence is merely another example of a climate contrarian performing Gish Gallop ( http://wordie.org/words/gish%20gallop )
So again put up or shut up.
The IPCC projections aren’t exaggerated, that’s another deliberate misrepresentaion. The correct way of putting this is that new modeling evidence coming to light suggests that the rate of warming may slow for 20 years or so before increasing back to the rather alarmingly high levels we saw in the 1990s.
My editorial on this that if true, it buys us some time from the appalling policy vaccuums of the last 30 years.
See, more posturing. And anyway it’s modelling data. You only seem to want to accept modeled projections when it suits you. And then totally overstate your case. While you may think overstating your case, which you do consistently is a useful thing to do, it actually means your opinions are rendered worthless, as it shows your lack of scientific understanding.
Kdkd #674. You say ”new modeling evidence coming to light suggests that the rate of warming may slow for 20 years or so before increasing back to the rather alarmingly high levels we saw in the 1990s”.
So for the next two decades, while human CO2 production reaches its highest levels ever, the warming will slow (according to new modeling “evidence” – whatever that is).
You have just conceded that CO2 is not the primary driver of climate. If you can’t see that then you can’t think logically, at least not on this issue.
Tamas: Your linear and deluded mind can’t cope. I suggest you get back in the corner and drool like you were before. Well done at winning the Crikey village idiot prize!
Tamas#675
Great comment in Crikey today Tamas. Did you like mine?
kdkd’s reference to a 20 year reprieve from warming:
“You’re right there’s a well known and respected climate scientist who suggests that his new modelling data may buy us 20 years (e.g. see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/sep/16/global-temperature-cooling)”
The trouble with the kdkd kiddie is that he is devoid of humour. Comes from having his head up his arse most of the time I guess.
capitus extractus kdkd….!!
Yet more of the same old guff in the crikey comments section. I’m guessing that what’s going on is it’s dark up Ken’s backside, so Tamas can’t actually see the data from there. And the view from up Tamas’ backside is so disconcerting that Ken has developed a paranoia about reds under the bed.
Ken also seems to indicate that humor is only amusing if it has an approved General McArthy style bias in order to flush out the pervasive communist dictator influence in society.
Ken – loved your comment. Won’t start on Rundle, Jackman, Bono…. hehe..
So true about the poor and cold ways of the past. Or, sorry, the poor and cold ways of the future that kdkd etc want to take us…
Actually Tamas, you may not have noticed that you’re Crikey’s running joke now. Ken, people are less wise to, but if he keeps current form up, he’s not far off.
And Tamas, remember the economic modeling strongly indicates that the costs of doing something about climate change are much smaller than the costs of not doing anything. That’s the lie on your poor cold future dealt with. What is your motivation? It’s got to be abject stupidity.
More communist propoganda from that well known hotbed of Maoists, Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461447b.html
More material that puts the lie on Ken and Tamas’ drivel.
kdkd #682
Thought I would be reading this week’s Nature report that Antarctica is melting more ice and 5 years of observations by the BAS (British Antarctic Survey) confirmed previously unknown glacier melting. More grist to the AGW mill.
If my memory serves me right, this is not what was reported about Antarctica about 6 months ago by both the Australian and British teams on the spot. Ian Allison (Head of the AAS) was quite controversially reported in the WE Australian saying that ice and temperatures were stable for the last 30 years.
But as we know only 5 years of observations are not admissable evidence in this forum (ie. the Argobuoys) according to the statistically significant kdkd.
Tough titties kdkd – you almost had a positive sighting of AGW.
Ken, given we have 90% sightings of AGW and 10% confabulation, I guess you’re nearly right. How are things in lala reds-under-the-beds land anyway?
Anyway Antarctica is irrelevant until it’s far too late, as we know, due to it’s high enthalpy of melting. For an advance look at Antarctica in 100 years time, look at Greenland now instead.
The reason your 5 year time frames don’t work is that they confound internal noise with trend. You overstate your case every time, good to see another example of one rule for us, another rule for them coming from the psychotic camp.
Also, nice evasion. Let’s weigh up the evidence.
Asked to put evidence into a more systematic format as quid pro pro. Refuses. Obviously something to hide. kd 1 ken 0
Comments on completely different paper than that pointed out to him. Fails to. Obviously hiding something via evasion. kd 1 ken 0.
Constant insinuation that the whole AGW hypothesis is some kind of communist plot. Obviously some kind of right wing paranoid maniac. kd 0, ken minus 1.
final score. kd 2, ken -1, kd wins, ken complains of the communist sympathies of the ref.
I guess you lose. Tamas loses by not inhabiting the same reality, but that means he wins in his. Better go put yourself out of your misery guys.
kdkd #685
Will get to the systematic ‘book on the intelligent sceptic when you get to Hadley. I run two companies and employ people during the day – not paddle around a campus in a duffel coat, sandals and socks touting for interested students.
Speaking of the original Maoist….. Mao; the plan for 40% reduction in GHG in the next 11 years has some striking comparisons with the ‘Great Leap Forward’ where Mao declared that every hamlet will have a steel smelter and make steel.
Same fervent chanting from IPCC 2007, same besotted kiddies bursting to do good, same ludricrous schemes (to make every backyard a solar black hole or windmill), same wilful disregard of the numbers involved (83% of electricity now generated by coal), and the impact on the existing economy (impoverishing those who have to pay 2-3 times more for energy from a low wage).
Mao caused the starvation of millions of peasants who were removed from food growing – while their tools were melted into useless pig iron.
The Wong minister seems to have that Maoist steel – a snarling, spitting warmist revolutionary who if given her head by the Mandarin Candidate would force the wearying voter into an ETS winter.
kdkd# 685 “Comments on completely different paper than that pointed out to him. Fails to. Obviously hiding something via evasion. kd 1 ken 0.”
Actually, I have a brief look at the Nature paper you referred – and thought it pretty bland.
The one I expected was well reported in the media and would have warmed the warmist heart – so my pre-emptive strike had the desired effect – kdkd just queered the pitch for the kiddies ready to chant for the BAS.
Ken #686
I suggest that you keep your assumptions as to what keeps me busy to yourself, or would you like me to presume that you sexually harass your secretary, or perhaps the office boy?
Book for the intelligent sceptic my arse. I asked for a list of papers and key points as previously. That’s not a very big job, but one that only you can do, seeing as you place such value on your research.
Other than that, nice paranoid rant. Perhaps restrict yourself to examining the facts, rather than this bizzare communist obsession of yours, straight out of the 1950s.
as for #687, we’ve observed that you and tamas always try to drive conclusions far beyond what’s justified. The news piece you refer to is of interest, but is just one piece in the jigsaw puzzle. You seem to be implying that this piece of news is a key part of the AGW edifice. All it is is yet another bit of data, which all taken together makes your position untenable and idiotic.
Now get on with your homework.
Ken – don’t you love how kdkd just makes numbers up? He says 90% of evidence points to AGW and the other 10% is “confabulations”. No evidence on where this number comes from. He just says it’s 90% and that’s that. I guess the temperature data is part of that 10% confab.
And your comparison to the great leap forward is spot on. The complete detachment from reality of the “solutions” to this “problem” is beyond a joke. 80% reductions in CO2 by 2050? That would give us about the same per capita emissions as we had in 1880. And what a wonderful life people lived back in the late 19th century – no TV, no pesky cars, no aviation. Wonderful.
By the way kdkd, I’ve been the running joke in the Crikey comments section for a long time, thank you.
Tamas, #689
Your capacity to ignore the vast majority of the evidence is amazing. I guess the defeatist attitude towards the necessity to adapting to a less fossil fuel intense economy is really a cause of your psychotic denial rather than a symptom.
KL #686, kdkd #688
“I run two companies and employ people during the day – not paddle around a campus in a duffel coat, sandals and socks touting for interested students.”
No ‘flashing’ connotation intended here at all kdkd. “touting for interested students” was meant purely in the intellectual sense.
Of course if the cap does fit – wear it!!
By the way my office secretary is 57 years old and very plain – so you’re wrong again.
Dusty Solar Panels:
A mate of mine has made the topical point that PV solar panels lose up to 50% of their efficiency when coated in dust.
For those who want to put 140km square of solar panels arrays in the desert to power all Australia – you will need a cleaning device (lots of people with sqeeges) and lots of water to wash them after every dust storm or wait for the next decent rain.
That could be months (or years) – meanwhile you run at up to half power until the cleaners arrive.
Ken #691
I was just engaging in stereotyping, and trying to show how it is ludicrous to do so.
#692
See, more negativity that breeds denial and psychosis. Your perspective is wrong. To paraphrase JFK (another well known communist) “Ask not why this isn’t going to work, ask how you can help make it work”. To which the answer here is efficiency, materials research, and optimised distributed systems. Those simple steps should solve 80% of your supposedly insurmountable problems. I reckon the remaining 20% is encouraging a culture where people are less greedy for instant gratification.
Given your engineering background maybe you should start researching those bits of the market so you get first mover advantage (in Australia where we’re terribly backward anyway).
kdkd #690. What evidence are you talking about? We have some computer models that predict disaster. Computer models are not evidence. We have a increasing CO2 and a very small increase in temperature. There is no evidence connecting the two. Computer models conclude that all the warming is coming from CO2, except that it’s not warming anymore.
The AGW case has no evidence kdkd. Or if it does, please report to Ken and I exactly what that evidence is. Be specific. Don’t just tell us that there are mountains of peer reviewed blah blah blah.
Tamas,
It’s ok, don’t you worry your pretty little head. There is no evidence for AGW, and when the communist scientists purely interested extending their lucrative funding publish things that are called evidence it’s based on scientific fraud. You’d better get your sorry arse to Copenhagen to enlighten them all that they’ve been conned.
But seriously. Tamas, your claims are entirely at odds with the mainstream. If you want half a chance of anyone taking you seriously, you will present your complete corpus of so called evidence systematically (I reckon in a spreadsheet will do), so that it can be subject to a critical evaluation. Failure to do this means that you remain a partisan misguided idiot with nothing to say but a particular brand of psychotic denial.
kdkd #695. Those who posit a hypothesis must provide the evidence to support it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I am not proposing a theory so I don’t need to supply evidence. I am saying the AGW theory is wrong and that there is very little evidence that supports it. I am saying there a far better explanations for global warming than the AGW CO2 based hypothesis.
Now, thanks for your comments about my prettiness, but could you be a little specific and list, say, the top 5 supporting facts that are evidence for the AGW hypothesis. Given the vast amount of evidence you allude to this should not be difficult.
Get to it mate – I await your response with interest.
Tamas,
No, you’re proposing a theory at serious odds with the majority of the scientific community. Among other things you imply that the validity of the theory of chemical bonds does not apply at a very large scale, and I think that this is the weakest point in your argument.
You appear to think that you have amassed some evidence that brings this large body of scientific evidence into question (see the IPCCs reviews for a very conservative take on this evidence, or Heat by George Monbiot as a good introduction to the topic from a less conservative perspective).
Therefore the onus is on you to systematically present the evidence that you think brings this whole body of evidence into question. Bear in mind that the evidence for AGW is especially coherent compared to other bodies of knowledge where uncertainty, complexity and unmeasurability are important factors.
Good luck or good riddance.
kdkd – I asked you to specifically present the top five facts that are evidence for global warming. You cannot do even this simple task and you ask me to believe your arguments. That is rather pathetic.
And when have I said anything about chemical bonds? I accept CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I accept that more of it will warm the world a bit. I do not accept that it is the primary driver of the climate system. I think the effects of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere (currently 0.00038) are dwarfed by other natural factors.
You refer to “this whole body of evidence”. You say that this evidence is “especially coherent”. Yet you cannot specifically reproduce any of it. Your arguments is therefore somewhat flawed.
So c’mon, what’s the evidence kdkd?
Tamas,
You may not have been talking about chemical bonds, but if your point of view is correct, it calls into the question the theory of chemical bonds and suggests that it does not apply on a very large scale.
Let me repeat. You are out of step with the scientific community’s attitude to the evidence. Therefore the onus is on you to systematically present the reasons why you are correct and the community is wrong. Failure to do so suggests that you have little real confidence in your point of view, and that your stated position is merely bluster and bravado.
Meanwhile, you can go and read the IPCC report to ascertain a general statement of my position, any variations of my position on that are essentially minor.
So again, put up, or shut up. Systematically, present your evidence as a whole, so it can be dealt with systematically. I will regard another refusal to do so as a strong statement of lack of confidence in your position.
kdkd – “You are out of step with the scientific community’s attitude”.
This is an argument from authority. It cannot be reasoned with. It is not based on logic.
Your inability to recite ANY evidence for the AGW theory is pathetic. Indeed, it shows a total lack of confidence in YOUR position.
Meantime, the world just refuses to warm in line with your theory. That reality must be starting to bug you.
kdkd – by the way, all I have to do is show that the AGW theory is wrong. I don’t have to propose my own theory. The temperature record is evidence to show AGW is wrong.
It’s a bit like you saying that everyone believes in God. If I do not believe in God then I must show evidence to prove He does not exist. My lack of evidence against God therefore proves I am wrong.
Can you see why I am not convinced by your argument?
Tamas,
OK that’s fine. You have a 1 trick pony. You think that the temperature evidence is wrong, and that this “evidence” is all that is required to disprove the scientific consensus.
So let’s find 5 writings that challenge this position. Shouldn’t be too hard…
Indeed, we get a few of this variety from http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=percentage
I’ll post the 5 most obvious debunkings one by one, and you can explain why each one is mistaken.
1. It’s cooling. Well, no it isn’t http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm
2. Global warming stopped in ’98. No it didn’t http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
3. It’s an artefact of urban heat island effects. Bullshit. http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm
4. The hockey stick is wrong. Wishful thinking.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
5. Co2 isn’t really important. AKA Climate psychotics are illiterate in the field of chemistry.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-effect.htm
There you go tamas, it took me all of a few minutes to find some popular science writing that thoroughly debunks your position. Now if I thought you weren’t a time wasting moron with an axe to grind I would dig out more credible peer reviewed sources, but we both know that your moronic denial is so entrenched that I would be wasting my time.
Re #701
I see from the nature of Tamas’ argument that the whole “debate” is a matter akin to religious faith for him, and therefore the scientific evidence is unimportant.
For Ken it’s an identification of AGW with the global communist conspiracy which is to be repelled at all costs, so also a matter of religious faith.
For the americans delusionists, it’s either a matter of religious faith in the second coming of armageddon, or a desire to keep making pots of money of fossil fuels, or in many cases, both.
Great company you’re keeping there guys!
Tamas #700
HAHA, it’s fun seeing you tie yourself in very narrow minded knots.
Well using the mass of an existing body of knowledge and interpreting it in a conservative manner, a la IPCC process, is exactly how the scientific process works. In fact this scientific progress drives the technological changes that you are so fond of, and so concerned that doing something about climate change will stop or reverse.
Claiming that citing the end results of this scientific process is some kind of invalid argument from authority is solipsistic nonsense. It’s like you’re claiming we have to start at ground zero every time to contradict your point of view, which is clearly absurd. So we conclude that to maintain your point of view, you have to take your own statements as an article of faith, and these articles are unassaiable by existing evidence.
So I start with the extensive and conservative consensus driven IPCC process. You start with a single thing you consider as evidence and repeat it ad nauseam no matter how at odds with the real evidence it is. When pointed to real contradictory evidence, you pretend that it’s valid to ignore it for a wide variety of highly suspect reasons.
Ken will claim that the IPCC process is invalid with a slightly more sophisticated argument, but the more rope we give him, the more we see that he’s really more obsessed with his personal politics and the reds under the beds, and all that crap (with a nice slice of anti-intellectual, manufacturing industry is all that really matters bullshit sprinkled on top).
So in your lala land, you win because for you it’s a matter of unassailable faith. For everybody else you’re a deluded fool. Well done, it is clear to anyone except you that your position is logically bankrupt, and that you can only maintain it through extensive self deception.
kdkd #700+
Your posts are akin to the sound of one hand clapping. Everything to avoid the most important central fact – global temperatures are not following the IPCC script.
Of course communism and all its leftist variants – the Trots, Maoists, Stalinists, are a fading light, but the torch has been passed to the Greens.
Anything to do with liberal capitalism is fair game for the Greens and AGW is the ideal stick with which to beat it.
That AGW attracts feminists, lesbians, celebrity entertainers and idealistic kiddies is no surprise – they all are bursting to do good and save the world and have their 15 minutes of fame.
Older, wiser, skeptical heads who tend to be experienced in the applied sciences usually regard the above characters as a sort of Green froth floating on the vast river of capitalist production.
kdkd #703-#707.
That is just gold. Your 5 points of “evidence” say nothing about why CO2 is the primary driver of the climate system. They are all just attempted rebuttals to the skeptical questions we ask about the AGW hypothesis.
This is just not good enough. Please post the primary evidence showing human CO2 production is causing dangerous global warming.
Face it mate – you have no such evidence. I ask you for it and you evade, abuse, dodge, duck… too funny.
Ken #711 – Agreed. When the celebs are on to something, it’s always wrong. Leonardo diCaprio and kdkd are in complete agreement. Says it all, really.
Tamas #712
See, you’re not capable of rational discussion of this subject. Your one trick pony is dead, became a skeleton and has crumbled to dust but you maintain the delusion that it’s powerful pack horse that can take you the only place you want to go.
Ken #711 Your reds under the bed paranoia is getting the better of you.
You’re both deluded fools who can’t see beyond the end of your own nose.
Ken: your #711 response was entirely predictable. I said:
… “the more rope we give him, the more we see that he’s really more obsessed with his personal politics and the reds under the beds, and all that crap (with a nice slice of anti-intellectual, manufacturing industry is all that really matters bullshit sprinkled on top).”
and your considered response entirely met expectations:
“Of course communism and all its leftist variants – the Trots, Maoists, Stalinists, are a fading light, but the torch has been passed to the Greens.
Anything to do with liberal capitalism is fair game for the Greens and AGW is the ideal stick with which to beat it.
That AGW attracts feminists, lesbians, celebrity entertainers and idealistic kiddies is no surprise – they all are bursting to do good and save the world and have their 15 minutes of fame.”
Very good. It’s all about politics and ideology for you and nothing about scientific evidence, unless you can find some tenuous evidence that allows you to engage in contradictory confabulation.
Tamas #712
Your MO is to take things back to such scientific fundamentals that they are a given in the scientific community and are not discussed. In the 19th century Arrhenius discovered that CO2 transmits visible light but absorbs strongly in the infrared and near-infrared. This then leads to strong conclusions, which are outlined in many places, such as http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/attribution-of-20th-century-climate-change-to-cosub2sub/
So the reasons you don’t get the right answers is you ignore the fundamentals and pretend that they need to be restated every time the discussion starts. That’s how you maintain your deluded state.
kdkd #714
You left out my best sentence:
“Older, wiser, skeptical heads who tend to be experienced in the applied sciences usually regard the above characters as a sort of Green froth floating on the vast river of capitalist production.”
Tamas is carving while I am holding a leg. Onya Tamas..
Ken
Your so called best sentence is just a bit of self-agrandisement. I ignored it because it was rhetorical twaddle. Care to explain why Pilmer won’t respond to his critics in a systematic and verifiable manner, but will merely engage in the same style of bullshit?
I think you’ve just accidentally sliced off your own leg there.
Ken,
You’re ideological blinkers are on so tight you’ve accidentally blinded yourself.
Ken
You know, although my politics lean to the left, and I see the way that many in the right wing use lies, fear and envy as political tools (SIEVX anyone?), it doesn’t mean that I hang my ideology on my sleeve, or dismiss the entire political movement out of hand. If Ken was a wise head, he would be suspicious of green policics, given his existing political ideology but he wouldn’t a-priori dismiss it out of hand and use the language bigotry to do so.
So Ken, in this instance, you lose for being a close minded jerk. Better check under your bed again, they’re probably still out to get you.
kdkd – as I predicted, you again cite no evidence that CO2 is the primary driver of the climate system. You just say that you can’t be bothered to go back to the fundamentals.
You then call Ken and I deluded.
Show us the evidence that CO2 drives the climate system kdkd.
The way it works is like this:
I say the world is a sphere.
As evidence I cite the following:
- the horizon of vision grows wider and wider the higher we are
- the tops of towers and mountains at a distance become visible before the bases
- the hull of a ship disappears first as it sails away
- as we go from the poles towards the equator, new stars become visible
- the shadow of the earth seen on the moon during an eclipse is circular
- since 1519 the earth has been regularly circumnavigated.
That the Earth is a sphere is pretty basic so I cite some pretty basic evidence.
You cannot do anything remotely similar for the AGW hypothesis, yet you fervently believe in it and call we who don’t fools.
Who is wearing the blinkers kdkd?
Tamas,
If you’re that interested in the fundamentals, go read some text books. It’s not my job to educate you on the fundamentals. I have better things to do with my time. The information is easy to get hold of, it’s just that it’s easier for you to maintain your delusions.
I love the way that Tamas’ core assumption is that he’s not the one out of step with reality. Yet another technique with which to maintain the delusion.
Tamas, #720 is an astonishing non-sequitir. That has nohing to do with the argument.
GHG and co2 by the same can have the same treatment applied I suppose:
1. GHG has increased during the industrial period.
2. The theory of chemical bonds shows that GHG transmits light and absorbs infra red.
3. This causes temperature rise which can be observed in the lab, and in the geosphere
4. The relationship of increasing temperature rise and GHG is confirmed through the use of observations and models.
5. err.
6. That’s it
Somehow you suggest this is contentious and open to question, when in fact it has been repeatedly demonstrated in many different ways that it is not.
End of story. We have Tamas staring into the abyss of solipsism and Ken in the cess pool of bigotry. What graves are you going to dig for yourselves next?
kdkd 723 – Congratulations on finally attempting to lay out the evidence for AGW.
I’ll take your four points in turn.
1. True
2. True
3. Not proven. Correlation is not causation kdkd. There is no evidence to show that CO2 is the primary driver of climate and is causing the observed temperature rise.
4. Not true. Human CO2 has been increasing faster than ever in the past 10 years yet warming has stopped. Observations therefore falsify the AGW theory. Also, from the 1940′s to the 1970′s human CO2 production rapidly increased yet the climate system cooled. Again, observations falsify the theory.
The computer models are therefore wrong and CO2 driven AGW is false.
I know it is tough for you to accept because of the amount you have invested in your belief, but reality always wins and screaming at Ken and me because we are pointing this stuff out doesn’t change reality.
Not that Ken or I give a damn about your abuse, but whatever…
Tamas
3. Your understanding of establishing causation with statistics is bogus. Correlation + logic = causation. You can quantify 1 and 2 to show unequivocally strong causation via modelling.
4. We’ve talked about it ad nauseam. You’re wrong, this is one of the core tenets of your delusion. Again your poor understanding of the difference between trend and variation means you don’t understand the nature of your delusion.
The end. The abyss is getting darker Tamas, he’s coming to get you. Better scream the same drivel louder!!!
Prediction: with his goldfish memory and convincedness of the unassailable of philosophicsl solipsism we’ll get Tamas repeated record pretending all the other stuff we’ve established beyond reasonable doubt using scientific method are somehow not true, or contaminated with deliberate bias. However a serious (rather than delusional) look at the scientific literature shows no such thing.
kdkd #715
Had a look at your site from #715 – Gavin whoever wrote:
“Estimated time series of forcings can be found on the GISS website. As estimated by Hansen et al, 2005 (see figure), the total forcing from 1750 to 2000 is about 1.7 W/m2 (it is slightly smaller for 1850 to 2000, but that difference is a minor issue). The biggest warming factors are CO2 (1.5 W/m2), CH4 (0.6 W/m2, including indirect effects), CFCs (0.3), N2O (0.15), O3 (0.3), black carbon (0.8), and solar (0.3), and the important cooling factors are sulphate and nitrate aerosols (~-2.1, including direct and indriect effects), and land use (-0.15). Each of these terms has uncertainty associated with it (a lot for aerosol effects, less for the GHGs). So CO2’s role compared to the net forcing is about 85% of the effect, but 37% compared to all warming effects. All well-mixed greenhouse gases are 64% of warming effects, and all anthropogenic forcings (everything except solar, volcanic effects have very small trends) are ~80% of the forcings (and are strongly positive). Even if solar trends were doubled, it would still only be less than half of the effect of CO2, and barely a fifth of the total greenhouse gas forcing. If we take account of the uncertainties, the CO2 attribution compared to all warming effects could vary from 30 to 40% perhaps. The headline number therefore depends very much on what you assume.
Recently, Roger Pielke Sr. came up with a (rather improbably precise) value of 26.5% for the CO2 contribution. This was predicated on the enhanced methane forcing mentioned above (though he didn’t remove the ozone effect, which was inconsistent), an unjustified downgrading of the CO2 forcing (from 1.4 to 1.1 W/m2), the addition of an estimated albedo change from remote sensing (but there is no way to assess whether that was either already included (due to aerosol effects), or is a feedback rather than a forcing). A more appropriate re-calculation would give numbers more like those discussed above (i.e. around 30 to 40%).”
Roger Pielke Sr responded later to the above and some discussion ensued which resulted in an “agree to disagree”. Who is right?
One thing is clear – there is no direct measurement of the magnitude of infrared absorption of heat by C02 in the atmosphere as of the above paper timing (2006).
“As estimated by Hansen et al, 2005 (see figure), the total forcing from 1750 to 2000 is about 1.7 W/m2 (it is slightly smaller for 1850 to 2000, but that difference is a minor issue).”
As usual the primary source for nearly all the AGW theory is Hansen of Nasa/GISS.
The above statement is misleading. What is being quoted here is the instantaneous forcing at the year 2005. The forcing will be different for the year 2004, and for 2003 and for 2002 and so on back to 1900 for the century considered in this discussion.
Presumably the CO2 and other GHG forcings will drop off each year as one goes back 100 years, and the total heat added to the Earth system will be the sum of the energy integral over the time period t1 – t2.
correction; 2nd last para:
“What is being quoted here is the instantaneous forcing at the year 2000. The forcing will be different for the year 1999, and for 1998 and for 1997 and so on back to 1900 for the century considered in this discussion”
Ken,
#727
Overly long copy and paste post to say very little. Conclusion: The anthropogenic forcing of the climate is positive and co2 is the most important component.
You appear to be summarising and misunderstanding the technical discussion of two respected climate scientists talking about detail that however you look at it contradicts your opinion.
Two can play at the copy and paste game. You’ve shown you only want to play cheap shots, and don’t want to do any serious work to support your position. By refusing to do your homework, you lost the “debate” and are welcome to the cesspool of your rancid ideology.
Two can play at the excesive quoting form an online article game.
The below explains why Tamas will be unable to bring himself out of the abyss, from the same source as the previous 4 comments. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/attribution-of-20th-century-climate-change-to-cosub2sub/
“One such question is the percentage of 20th Century warming that can be attributed to CO2 increases. This appears straightforward, but it might be rather surprising to readers that this has neither an obvious definition, nor a precise answer. I will therefore try to explain why.
…
Is there any way to calculate an attribution of the warming factors robustly so that the attributions don’t depend on arbitrary redefinitions? Unfortunately no. So we are stuck with an attribution based on the total forcings that can exceed 100%, or an attribution based on warming factors that is not robust to definitional changes. This is the prime reason why this simple-minded calculation is not discussed in the literature very often. In contrast, there is a rich literature of more sophisticated attribution studies that look at patterns of response to various forcings.
…
The understanding of the physics of greenhouse gases and the accumulation of evidence for GHG-driven climate change is now overwhelming – and much of that information has not yet made it into formal attribution studies – thus scientists on the whole are more sure of the attribution than is reflected in those papers. This is not to say that formal attribution per se is not relevant – it is, especially for dealing with the issue of natural variability, and assessing our ability to correctly explain recent changes as part of an evaluation of future projections. It’s just that precisely knowing the percentage is less important than knowing that that the observed climate change was highly unlikely to be natural.”
Here you go Tamas
Your position on climate change is roughly that “everything must be continually doubted and nothing can ever be known” (with few notable exceptions in your case where you uncritically accept misrepresented climate change data).
More extensive deconstruction of Tamas’ method with the help of the late great Bertrand Russel here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/12/how-to-be-a-real-sceptic/
Ken’s solipsism is modulated by confabulation and ideological blindness, so the article doesn’t apply quite as much to his drivel. But at least we’ve uncovered his main motivation now – he’s a hater and can’t see the end of his nose due to the red mist.
Oh look Ken, an insider’s description of the conspiratorial communist IPCC process from a new insider. Certainly confirms your worst paranoid theories (*cough*). Oh no that’s your narrow minded ideology confirming your paranoia. You must be in your own positive feedback loop there.
“I’m a first-time participant as a lead author in the IPCC process. I’ve been to three author meetings so far, and I’ve found that there is a culture of very open and critical discussion of the science, with no top-down interference whatsoever. We write what we agree on after thorough discussion. I asked around the room amongst the authors of our chapter who has been a lead author before, and it turns out that it’s the first time for all of us. None of us feels any need to stick to some “party line” or defend what the IPCC (i.e. a different group of people) wrote in the last report. The idea promoted by some sceptics that the IPCC is some kind of closed-shop organisation is completely wrong. The IPCC is simply a process where a large bunch of scientists, chosen for their demonstrated expertise based on their publication record, get together to assess the published scientific literature as best as they can.”
Another one that clearly demonstrates the nonsense of the zombie fish in a barrel, in response to http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/12/how-to-be-a-real-sceptic/comment-page-4/#comment-7250
You appear to have completely misunderstood the point of the post. The point was to demonstrate that nobody has any problem with scepticism ‘per se’ – what there is a problem with is simple contrarianism disguised as ‘scepticism’. Nobody is asking you to trustingly believe anything just because we say so. The scientific consensus on this issue has arisen because of an increasing body of evidence (the clear signs of global warming (oceans, land, ice), the radiative properties of the undoubtedly anthropogenic changes in atmospheric composition, the match of numerous diagnostics between model results and observations – only if anthropogenic effects are included). There are continuing uncertainties in many aspects of the science (related to aerosols, or the exact value of the climate sensitivity etc.), but they do not negate the likelihood of continued warming if GHG levels continue to rise. I agree that this might seem an ‘extraordinary claim’ – but there are clear physical principles to support this, including experimental data, observations and modelling – something clearly not true for homeopathy or Feng Shui. The test of any scientific theory is its ability to make predictions – model projections made in 1988 did a good job of matching the subsequent temperature evolution, models predicted the cooling to be expected due to Mount Pinatubo, they have correctly hindcast the cooling of the stratosphere, the warming of the oceans, and the temperature evolution of the 20th century. I would indeed find this (and much more evidence that we could get into) pretty extraordinary if it was in fact not a good approximation to what is happening in the real world. There is never absolutely proof in Earth science, but the balance of evidence is certainly heavily weighted to the reality of human induced global warming
kdkd #729 #730
“Recently, Roger Pielke Sr. came up with a (rather improbably precise) value of 26.5% for the CO2 contribution. This was predicated on the enhanced methane forcing mentioned above (though he didn’t remove the ozone effect, which was inconsistent), an unjustified downgrading of the CO2 forcing (from 1.4 to 1.1 W/m2), the addition of an estimated albedo change from remote sensing (but there is no way to assess whether that was either already included (due to aerosol effects), or is a feedback rather than a forcing). A more appropriate re-calculation would give numbers more like those discussed above (i.e. around 30 to 40%).”
I am glad that Roger Pielke Sr. is a ‘respected climate scientist’ according to kdkd.
He just happens to disagree that CO2 (at 26.5%) is the ‘major driver’ of climate change or AGW.
“A more appropriate re-calculation would give numbers more like those discussed above (i.e. around 30 to 40%).”
Even Gavin whoever cannot claim that 30-40% is the ‘major driver’.
“It’s just that precisely knowing the percentage is less important than knowing that that the observed climate change was highly unlikely to be natural.”
So then we fall back to the statistical argument that the percentage does not really matter because it is “less important than knowing that that the observed climate change was highly unlikely to be natural”.
So CO2 is not a majority, it might be 26.5-40% but is highly likely to be guilty of ‘unnatural acts’.
And this is the pissweak science on which we are being asked to base a massive change to our energy economy.
Now there is a rancid sick joke.
Sorry ken, “the largest component”.
There corrected for you. Now go and wallow in your rancid ideology.
There’s nothing pissweak about estimating components of complex systems. You’re trying to set up false expectations and failing.
kdkd #731
Green Mist please kdkd – not red mist any more. Your rants are taking on more of a ‘frothing at the mouth’ look trying to label me and Tamas with leftist chants and abuse.
I am sure the readers of this Cage Match who look back over my dozens of posts can judge for themselves who has the more scientific and real number content and analysis.
And as I will repeat for the nth time – I have never claimed that increasing CO2 played no role in warming or cooling the planet.
My position remains rock solid – the contribution of CO2 and other GHG must be quantified accurately, and sensible measures taken to reduce, leave alone, or increase CO2 emissions (if we start cooling rapidly) based on sober analysis of the temperature data – not Green driven ratbaggery, or celebrity struck politicians, or snarling spitting Wong ministers.
Ken #737
Well you have been trying to play up the most execrable parts of right wing ideology.
Your position is a rock solid ever shrinking iceberg. You’ll never get the “accurate quantification” you desire, and as you cling to this poor excuse of an argument you’re set adrift while hoodwinked by the greenhouse mafia’s propoganda.
Anyway, it’s clear that you’re not serious about a real debate. You’ve refused to present your evidence systematically, and ignored much of the systematic evidence that I presented on the karaoke. Your posturing is worthless ideologically driven time wasting.
Ken and Tamas are in good company here. Tamas opinions like these guys are based on outright lies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/sep/28/co2-is-green-tv-advert
Ken’s perspective requires that we lie about the amount of certainty required, which to anyone who has followed the science in the field is utter nonsense.
Well done guys, you’re in the pockets of people who don’t care about you here, they just care about getting more of your cash without changing the way they do business and bugger the consequences. Bet you’re proud of yourselves.
kdkd #738, 739
Your manufactured ‘homework’ exercise for me is just a poorly disguised ruse for you to avoid using a ‘global’ set of temperature data (Hadley) in the Karaoke.
I had to point out to you that the IPCC 2007 reconstructions of forcings and temperatures were only northern hemisphere (NH) data. That is how much you knew about the data you were Karaoke-ing.
And now you are posing the karoake as some sort of scientific evidence when you can’t even explain the cyclical nature of the residuals when attempting to linearize variables in ‘complex systems’ – or chaotic systems.
Your pathetic attempts to link me and Tamas to dark forces such as the ‘greenhouse mafia’ coal and oil interests are tiresome and boring.
Your whole act is contrived to obscure one giant fact – the global temperature data is not following the IPCC script and no amount of kdkd huffing and puffing will make it so.
Ken: #740
No your smokescreen of the hadley stuff is pathetic. Your pretence that your politicial ideology is more important than the science is pathetic, your pretence that the southern hemisphere is going to make a substantial difference to the AGW hypothesis is pathetic.
And to top it all off your final statement there tht the IPCC data is wrong is a lie.
Well done of the proof of the bankruptness of your own argument you useless time waster.
Ken #740
Get this into your terminally thick ideologically driven head.
The cyclical component of the residuals in the Karaoke model are what we scientists call “small’ and “constant”. The residuals at the end of the series are what we scientists call “large” and “increasing”. This is what leads to the indication of positive feedback mechanisms. These different components are clearly independent of each other. You are implying that they are some how contingent on each other where no such relationship exists. Caught out lying about the data *again*
It appears that you just called yourself out on your piss poor understanding of what the data analysis means.
Now do your homework. If you don’t consolidate your the list of references you have peppered around in your misguided posturings into something systematic that can be reviewed as a whole, then you you have no chance of retrieving your legs which you appear to have already sawn off several times.
kdkd#742
“If you don’t consolidate your the list of references you have peppered around in your misguided posturings into something systematic that can be reviewed as a whole, then you you have no chance of retrieving your legs which you appear to have already sawn off several times.”
Those references are still worrying you aren’t they kdkd?
The Thaliacians, global MWP and LIA, UAH, IPCC Solar forcing, the Arctic, the Antarctic, the Argobuoys – all those confusing and confounding pieces of data which contradict all the AGW alarmism.
How many times can kdkd pronounce my legs sawn or hacked off?
Just like the Kennedy’s – we keep shooting them – but they keep coming.
Ken #743
No your list references are not worrying me at all. I want you to put them all together in one place so that it’s easy to demonstrate that your analysis is actually superficial and ideologically motivated. Of course if I’m wrong, it will actually help you reinforce your case better. But you know, given your use of lies and your misuse of ideology, I guess you’ll find some other way to dodge it.
So you take my point that your “cyclical residuals” furfy was based on statistical illiteracy and telling lies about the data.
I think we established that you’re actually a long dead zombie fish in a barrel quite a while ago. Your argument has been dead quite a while, but seeing as you can’t tell the difference between red politics and green politics, you’re probably too stupid to realise the futility of your position too.
Happy homework!
kdkd #744
Watermelon politics kdkd. Green on the outside – pink inside.
Liberal imperialist would be a better description of my political views kdkd. Never been a big fan of totalitarianism of the left, right or theological types, particularly when run by the lower orders.
AGW orthodoxy has remarkable similarities with ideological extremists of every colour – intolerance of dissent or doubt, argument from authority, intimidatory chanting in place of reasoned debate, cognitive dissonance.
I seem to remember that the time series of the cyclical residulas was on approx 11 year cycle – anyone for Solar??
KL#745
By the way – how do I ideologically motivate a researcher in China or Argentina or South Africa or New Zealand to produce a research paper (obtained from the web remotely in my travels) which does not support AGW??
Are you back on the Gong Bong??
Ken #745
Your red tinted glasses have green frames then. Get over yourself and your pompus right-is-might ideology that blinds you. We absolutely can’t take you seriously unless you get over that brand of bullshit.
Let me spell it out for you. The solar cycle signal on the residuals is MUCH MUCH SMALLER than the CO2 signal. This would be obvious to anyone who actually bothered to look at the graph (bottom right graph at http://xrl.us/bfpewb referred to and ignored by Ken umpteen times previously). Why are you hanging on to this idea when you’re so clearly wrong. I guess it’s because you’re incapable of interpreting the data properly. Either that or it’s deliberate lies.
#746
You’re doing a particularly convoluted job of cherry picking and misinterpretation. I don’t credit you with any powers beyond that. Prove me wrong by doing your homework or forefit the “debate”.
So choice, homework to expose your lies and poor comprehension, or no homework and continue to delude yourself that your case is strong. Which will it be?
More propoganda from the well known mouthpiece of the party, the World Bank:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/30/2701313.htm
Looks like you’re an extremist getting left behind by your own mob Ken.
kdkd #745
If youhave resolved to bring karoake plots into the Cage Match, then please explain
Temp Anomaly vs CO2 concentration (predictor variable plot).
Temp Anomaly peaks at about 340ppm, then drops, then peaks again at about 355ppm then drops, then peaks at about 380ppm (present time). Looks a bit like a cycle kdkd.
Just explain how CO2 continually rises and CO2 forcing
viz. F.CO2 = 5.35 ln(CO2a/CO2b) keeps increasing, and Temp Anomaly goes up and down by what appears to scale to about 0.2-0.3 degC.
Keep it simple for our viewers kdkd.
Ken #749
What’s important is the residual plots. The error of prediction is most biased (and increasing), and underestimates the temperature anomaly when co2 is at its highest levels. It consistently underestimates anomaly when co2 is high, indicating that co2 is having an additional effect on anomaly above and beyond a linear effect.
We can tell that solar and the residuals are unrelated because the pattern displayed on this graph does not mirror the pattern on the bottom right hand side residuals plot of the previous graph. Therefore we conclude that we have a positive feedback effect occuring, which is coroborated by current melting activity in the arctic, and fire severity in the tropics, Western Usa and Australia.
kdkd #750
I can’t claim any expertise in statistical analysis so take this in layman’s terms which the viewers might understand.
You are taking the NH Temp Anomaly – CO2 plot and subtracting a linear trend curve (upwardly sloping straight line) from it, and seeing an increasing divergence of the differences as time sequence progresses toward the present, and CO2 rises toward the present value of about 387 ppmv.
From about 340ppmv upward (1980-ish) the plot shows a cyclical NH Temp-CO2 pattern (on a rising trend) so if you subtract a rising linear trend line – you are still left with a cyclical residual of increasing amplitude.
Is this what you call the ‘error of prediction’?
.
kdkd – just to refresh your memory on the Karoake from August, when you seemed more co-operative and ready to beat Hadley into shape – I even appear to be right about something in here:
(PS I have edited your name to protect the innocent)
Quote:
“Ken,
The non random distribution of the residuals at the higher co2 concentrations (which is also the end of the time series) is very very significant from a practical point of view, and we can use this information to draw strong conclusions. The fact that they also oscillate at this point is interesting, but much less significant, due to the reasons given above.”
The residuals are negative cyclical Yes?
The negative could be explained by the fact that you have used only NH Temperatures with steeper trend (3.27 times steeper than the SH trend – and the non-linear ice factor.
The cyclical roughly follows the 11 year Solar cycle which is supposed to deliver approx 0.35W/sq.m (0.1% variation of 341W/sq.m incoming Solar Insolation over the surface of the Earth).
VIZ: (F.incoming solar at about 341W/sq.m) = (F.reflected by cloud and surface albedo at about 102 W/sq.m) + (F. outgoing longwave radiation at about 239 W/sq.m): Eqan 1
Any of the above three broad terms of the Earth’s energy balance Eqan can have variations which will produce a net heating or cooling.
“F.outgoing” is longwave radiation is where CO2 and other GHG plays the absorbing role. We know about “F.incoming” Solar variation as above, and your modelling has not considered “F.reflected” – by aerosols (cloud ) and surface albedo.
Now tell me which of the three broad terms would have cyclical variations on an 11 year cycle? Could be all three?
kdkd said
at 11:06 pm on Aug 19, 2009
Yes, there’s a fair bit of code to write to make that data into something amenable to this type of analysis, but it’s doable, but it’ll take me a week or so to get around to it …
kenlambert said
at 11:07 pm on Aug 19, 2009
If you are going to say “CO2 feedbacks” then explain why Temp goes up AND down against the steadily rising CO2 – positive feedbacks would reinforce an UP direction in Temp only – YES? (ignoring seasonal variation of course)
kdkd said
at 7:35 am on Aug 20, 2009
Ken, you’re right, temperature is always variable, it has short term variation as well as the long term trend. But when we PREDICT temperature from co2 and other factors, the residual (what’s left over, the error) is always negative – that is the model is consistently UNDERESTIMATING temperature at the highest co2 concentrations. So this is indeed strong evidence that “positive feedbacks would reinforce an UP direction in Temp only”.
You can’t eliminate the noise from any system, you have to live with it, so it’s unreasonable to expect zero random error. Here we see significant random error, but we also see substantial systematic error as well, and it’s the latter that allows us to draw conclusions.
kdkd said
at 7:38 am on Aug 20, 2009
So the cyclical nature of the residuals are a separate thing from them being smaller. But they still don’t alter the fact that they’re persistently underestimating anomaly.
I would expect this tendency to be damped in the southern hemisphere. I suppose once I can beat the hadley data into shape we can look at this, but it will take a bit of time to do. endquote
Ken #751
Roughly. Because you’re so expert at twisting my words, I’ll have to be careful here.
We use the solar forcing variable and co2 variable to predict the temperature anomaly. Once we get the line of best fit, we can assess the difference between the predicted and observed value across the equation.
So while the line of best fit predicts better than chance, the error is not randomly distributed at all points along the line, which is a required assumption to be able to make accurate predictions.
However, the pattern of error can inform us about the data. And we see that the error of prediction consistently increases with the higher level of co2. In fact the consistent larger error is always negative – the model is under-estimating temperature anomaly.
Now for part two of this, I used solar alone to predict anomaly over 1000 years (due to lack of co2 data over 1000 years). This model had small negative residuals during the MWP, larger positive residuals during the LIA and very much larger negative residuals during the present day. This in itself is strong evidence of the importance of co2.
Next, we relate part two with part 1. In part 1 we accounted for some of the error by adding co2 into the equation, but we still have a large non-random error. So co2 alone, or any of the other predictors we’ve examined (solar, volcanic, ENSO etc) are do not have a large enough magnitude to cause the error.
Given that our findings are consistent with the predictions for climate change were in the 1980s or early 90s (precocious arctic warming, positive feedback effects to kick in), and the observation of positive feedbacks that I referred to in #750 and previously ad nauseam, we end concluding that youse climate nay-sayers need to have an awful lot of denial to believe there isn’t a problem.
Finally, looking at the NIH data fragment the trend is not statistically significantly different from the IPCC data, and you can see by looking at the graphical presentations of global temperature measurements, that they are very unlikely to be significantly different from the IPCC data.
Anyway, this has been covered many many times in these 750 posts. Is your Korsakov’s syndrome playing up, or are you diverting from the fact that you still have homework to do.
Prediction: Tamas will be back in a week or two for another delusional rant, pretending that is case wasn’t entirely demolished last time he was here. But we do know that it’s a religious matter for him rather than a scientific manner.
No kdkd, I am expert at quoting exactly what you have said and I am happy for you to accurately quote anything of mine. There is a lot of effort gone into the Karoake on both our parts – so it should be aired. Note how your bellicosity is quickly brought back to the field when confronted with your earlier versions of the same arguments.
Who was it who said that ‘consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds’ – no doubt someone with a tiny brain himself.
kdkd: “So the cyclical nature of the residuals are a separate thing from them being smaller. But they still don’t alter the fact that they’re persistently underestimating anomaly.
I would expect this tendency to be damped in the southern hemisphere. I suppose once I can beat the hadley data into shape we can look at this, but it will take a bit of time to do.” endquote
Now you have had enough time to do the above – and see whether the SH “damps down” the Global Temp Anomaly to find out if your ‘underprediction of Temp by CO2′ really exists – and what this cyclical Temp response is all about.
Methane is a significant player which has been ignored in the Karoake, along with cloudiness – two effects which could have interesting relationships to CO2 and Solar.
Ken
Perhaps you’re more expert at selective quoting rather than out and out misquoting (that’s Tamas’ speciality). I’ll reserve judgement on that though.
So the Hadley data. 52 megabytes of raw data as downloaded. You can either find me a programmer to get it into the right format, and I’ll run the existing R code straight away. Other than that you’ve got to wait until I have time to muddle through it myself. So either hire half a day of computer programmer, give me some more suitable equivalent data for the polar, temperate, subtropical and tropical regions of the globe.
Or wait.
Methane production increases with increased biological activity, plus there are large frozen methane reserves in the arctic. It has 20 times the greenhouse activity of co2, but is only in the atmosphere for 4 years (c.f ~ 100 years for co2), but degrades to co2 after that time. There are sufficient quantities of methane stored in the biosphere to dwarf human co2 emissions, even once the methane has converted to co2. Human emissions may be causing increased emissions of this fossil methane, so it’s a strong contender for a positive feedback mechanism.
that should be “or give me some more suitable” …
kdkd #756
Aren’t you glad I resisted the temptation to sink the slipper in.
We await Hadley with splendid anticipation.
Ken – have you been keeping up with the latest on the Hockey Stick controversy?
It seems the warmers have engaged in scientific fraud of the worst kind – again.
Here’s and excellent article on it from Canada’s Financial Post by Ross McKitrick (http://www.financialpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=2056988)
Once again, if the science is so strong why do they need to make stuff up?
Tamas,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/
Sorry to dash your hopes. Now shut up and get back to your abyss. If the delusionist case is so strong, why do they need to make stuff up?
No kdkd, I don’t think I will shut up. The realclimate response is pathetic and does not answer any of the specific questions raised by Mcintyre. An excellent response to the realclimate piece is here:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/how-to-read-rc/
The sceptics just keep showing that the “science” behind this scare is bunk. Oh, and the world just keeps refusing to warm up.
Here’s a question for you kdkd: When will the world resume its warming trend? Will we start to see higher temperatures this year? Next year? within 10 years?
Please give me an indication of what timeframe we can expect for the resumption of terrifying warming.
Hmm… but I’ll bet you won’t.
Aah Tamas, nice delusionist rant there. Here’s my favourite of the delusionst cabal so far: http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/, although I suspect the author may not be entirely serious.
Anyway although you state that the “response is pathetic and does not answer any of the specific questions raised by Mcintyre” the realclimate post in fact demonstrates that the whole thing is yet again based on false premises, just as is your followup question. The key is that McIntyre’s argument rests on the idea that the whole hockey stick is based on a single set of tree reconstructions for temperature proxys. The RC post clearly demonstrates that this is false. End of story.
You also fail to back up your argument with the facts that you claim. Generally you is a standard that you always require of other people in this kind of discussion (more double standards, nice). Actually you require that people repeat themselves endlessly starting from first principles each time due to your goldfish memory for things you don’t agree with. Fortunately for you you only have one (false) thing to say, so we can remember that easily enough. But if you claim to bring new stuff to the table, and you don’t summarise what it is, it shows you have something to hide, or you don’t really understand your position properly.
The time is long past to be polite to delusionists such as yourself and McIntyre. The correct thing to do to point out to other people that your position has no merits is to point out that your whole position is either based on flawed ideology, or imbecility. So which is it going to be Tamas, are you an ideologue like Ken and McIntyre, or are you just an idiot with a religious conviction about climate change? Your comments to date suggest the latter.
So again, shut up and get back to your abyss of solipsism.
kdkd, Tamas lives in an alternate universe where the Iraq war is a triumph, John Howard was the greatest political leader we’ve ever had, and the election victories of Rudd and Obama some sort of dreadful mistake. His love for war and killing suggests he’s eagerly awaiting the mayhem likely to ensue from climate change. You may as well engage in intellectual conversation with a rabid dog. Ken, meanwhile, has been outed from his closet as a full-blown delusionist, although to be fair it’s possible that he retains a tenuous relationship to the real world in some of its manifestations.
As I write I hear Malcolm Turnbull on the radio noting that climate change action is required for reasons of prudent risk management, if nothing else. Fair call. I remember the scene in what may be Tamas’s favorite movie Dirty Harry where Clint Eastwood asks the suspect whether he feels lucky in relation to the number of cartridges left in the revolver. Tamas and Ken feel sure, on the basis of wishful thinking, the revolver is empty. The trouble is they shout for everybody else to make the same choice.
I notice that the noconsensus rebuttal of the real climate post uses liberal use of untruths (that’s a polite way of saying “lies”) and misrepresentation of the data in order to provide it’s conclusion.
Looks like there are quite a few gullible people standing at the abyss there with you Tamas.
Harold #763
Nice one.
I like to keep Tamas as a whipping boy. He seems to like it.
And having given ken enough rope, he’s given himself at least a nasty rope burn. The problem is with a rope burn like that around the neck is that it would have been fatal if he wasn’t already a zombie under the control of the right-wing-greenhouse-mafia
I see Tamas is getting a whipping elsewhere too: http://tbp.mattandrews.id.au/2009/09/15/crikeys-resident-climate-denialist/
kdkd #760
I extracted this from your http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/ thread: Note the response from your mate Gavin whoever, to PaulC
PaulC says:
1 October 2009 at 12:33 PM
Gavin.
Thank you for your response – I hope you know that I have the utmost respect for your work but this chap McIntyre (who seems to me to have an unbelievably large ego) repeatedly cites instances where he cannot get the data or the methodology used. I think we have a really strong argument on Climate Change thanks to all the work you and your colleagues have done so why don’t we give him what he wants and ask him to ‘put up or shut up’?
Poor Gavin – he expects the world to meet in Copenhagen and make massive changes to the energy economy of the planet all based on AGW science which is admitted by the defenders as something like:
“Now the code isn’t particularly pretty but it worked and so in response to that pressure, they put the whole thing online. Finally the secrets were going to be exposed! Except that….. people looked over it briefly, there was one formatting error found, there were some half-hearted attempts to look at it…. and nothing. McIntyre et al got bored and went off to find another windmill to tilt at. And people still complain that the data and the code aren’t available.”
In other words – we are the keepers of the knowledge and it works; but when it is revealed to be ‘not pretty’ and ‘only one error was found’ the skeptics are supposed to cop it sweet and decipher it themselves and are just politically motivated nuisances.
Thank you Gavin. You have just proved the arrogance and poverty of AGW science – more like the medieval roman catholic church keeping the knowledge and damning heretics than pursuit of science.
Harold #763
Harold my old darling; have you been resting? How are those numbers going from several months ago – still working on them??
Tamas #759
Great link Tamas – looks like we are running tree rings around the kdkd kiddie and his resurrected mate.
kdkd #765
Just get on with Hadley and be thankful I have not put the boot into the inconsistencies of your Karoake responses and recent bellicose assertions.
Ken,
You seem to be happy to request other people make an effort, but beyond mumblings about communist conspiracies, you don’t seem to be willing to put any real effort in yourself. I guess you’re just a blowhard.
kdkd#771
I seem to remember locating number of original papers on the MWP and other climate research issues and not just parroting ‘realclimate’ or other AGW booster sites. I have certainly used WUWT, which is a mildly skeptical site (Fitzpatrick’s paper could not be called denialist when he bases it on the CO2 log equation).
This latest punch-up over the Russian tree rings shows how fragile the AGW consensus really is.
When you scratch the surface, you find the same daisy chain of researchers like Hansen, Briffa etc quoted ad infinitum by AGW evangelists as immutable authorities just like Moses or Jesus Christ.
And when their methods are challenged and (after prolonged extraction) found to be ‘not pretty’ – the chants of abuse by AGW evangelicals against the questioners is deafening.
The latest punch up over the russian tree rings shows the lengths to which the delusionists will lie about the data. The realclimate post clearly shows that the “analysis” is based on false premises.
Realclimate is rather well grounded to the scientific data, being written as it is by a range of experts in the field. Unlike for example wattsupwiththat where scientific method is variously abused and ignored. The tree ring delusionist rant is an example of another abuse of scientific method, and given that the exposition contains lies about the nature of the data (in a scientific context, lies are usually described as scientific fraud – you decide whether McIntyre is being scientific enough to get the layman’s label or the technical one).
Realclimate neither overstate their conclusions, nor exaggerate doubt or the lack of it, unlike the delusionist camp. Don’t believe me? A careful reading will show this to be the case. The delusionists on the other hand set up false premises, and make a range of wild claims, which are universally subsequently shown to be false and/or exaggerated.
You peppered some references around about the MWP and other things a while ago. I seem to recall that you were basically overstating your case, and trying to imply uncertainty in the present day where none exists. You were asked to summarise this group of papers systematically so that they can undergo a proper critical review. You refused. Therefore you are wasting our time until you prove otherwise.
The remainder of your post #772 is the usual right wing paranoid rant which does your case no good at all.
Harold #763! Nice to hear from you. Well, sort of. Completely off topic as usual but allow me to retort.
Please link to any quotes I have written about Obama or Rudd. Oops, can’t find any?
I also love how my support for the removal of Saddam Hussein becomes a love for killing and war. Can I therefore surmise that you have a love for nasty thug dictators who commit genocide?
Now a question for Harold and kdkd: When will the world resume its warming trend? Please give us an indication. 1 year? 5 years? 20 years? Maybe 1,000 years?
Ken #772: It took McIntyre 10 years to get Briffa to release his data. And Hadley’s Climate research Unit refuse to release their temperature data even after FOI requests. Their latest excuse is that it’s been lost. What. A. Joke.
Tamas
Nice response moon.
You appear to be claiming that the global climate is cooling. To put this more precicely, you’re claiming that short term variability exceeds the magnitude of the long term trend in a strong downward manner.
Does the data indeed demonstrate this? No it doesn’t. Far from it.
Tamas Calderwood in his eagerness to launch his knockout killer blow has fired his starting pistol and accidentally shot himself through his BRAIN. Don’t worry Tamas, there’s nothing left in there for you to damage, it’s all dripped out of your nose and into the abyss!
Perhaps you should see if you can catch any fish in that abyss of yours Tamas.
nice misspelling of moron too
kdkd & Tamas
“Ken #772: It took McIntyre 10 years to get Briffa to release his data. And Hadley’s Climate research Unit refuse to release their temperature data even after FOI requests. Their latest excuse is that it’s been lost. What. A. Joke.”
I did not know that. kdkd – perhaps we better look at your Hadley download and see what sort of a load it is.
What portion of the Hadley global Temp dataset was not released Tamas?
This is important to the kdkd-KL Karaoke, because kdkd will be using it to ‘damp down’ the NH Temp anomaly he has been using to date – which he claims ‘over-estimates’ the CO2 predictor.
This is a vital point in the results of the kdkd statistical regression analysis.
Note the kdkd use of the royal ‘we’ as if there is a chorus of august scientists backing him – when in fact he is a taxpayer employed dill-etante hiding out in a 2nd rate provincial university.
Ken: #777 demonstrates that you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Tamas is talking about some tree ring data that was recently released in order to be able to join the instrumental record to the proxy record. McIntyre’s methodology on this score is entirely disingenuous, and should be ignored due to strong subjective components of his methodology.
The instrumental record from Hadley is available. This graph summarises things perfectly well for our purposes. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif The trends are essentally obvious, and visual comparison with the IPCC data is easy
Easy conclusion:
Due to presence of the antarctic ice mass with very high enthalpy of melting, any positive feedback mechanisms aren’t there, or are not measurable through temperature averages.
Clear evidence of the same positive feedback in the northern hemisphere that we see from the IPCC data.
So Ken, your turn to contribute something meaningless to this so called discussion. See if you can out-vacuous Tamas, seeing as that’s your preferred direction. Either that or could we have some of the right wing paranoia, I’ve been enjoying that.
Ken – Hadley have refused to release the underlying temperature station records of their temperature index.
Here is a good article explaining the controversy:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTBiMTRlMDQxNzEyMmRhZjU3ZmYzODI5MGY4ZWI5OWM=&w=MA==
The warmers are too afraid to have their work checked because they know it’s all a crock.
And isn’t kdkd being even more belligerent and rude than usual? I take it as a sign of frustration because it’s slowly dawning on him that there is no global warming.
kdkd: You state that I am saying “short term variability exceeds the magnitude of the long term trend in a strong downward manner.”
Ahh… what? I am saying the world hasn’t warmed for 10 years despite record human CO2 production. Make sense now buddy? Try using clear, simple English in your response so Ken and I can understand you.
Tamas,
The scientific credentials of the posts you refer to are unsurpassed. The latest conspiracy nut rantings from the national review are especially entertaining.
The general understanding is that all of Tamas opinions on climate change are worthless as they have no grounding in reality. So the only thing left to do is to take the piss out of him.
Anyway, Ken’s questions about the Hadley data set are answered. Generally consistent with the IPCC data.
Tamas takes refuge with the tin foil hat brigage, and wonders how far down the abyss he has to get to retrieve his brains, which as we noted before have oozed out through his nose. Presumable they had enough of the delusions they were forced to endure.
ooh look. The Cato Institute from where the national review article emenates is essentially funded by the tobacco and oil industry. What a great source to get independent scientific analysis from. What nice company you’re keeping there Tamas. Better go wash your hands.
Tamas.
Here’s some clear simple english for you: Definite warming trend, mostly accellerating over the past 40 years. Absolutely no evidence for cooling trend over the same period. End of story.
Now what spectacular paranoid non-sequitur are we going to get now I wonder?
kdkd – so why won’t Hadley release the underlying data? Do you think that’s good science?
And your post 782 is gold. The warming trend has accelerated over the past 40 years? The world cooled from the 40′s until the 70′s, warmed a bit until the late 90′s and then flatlined and even cooled a bit. Don’t go DENYING the temperature data kdkd!!
Tamas,
There are a range of reasons why absolutely raw data won’t be released to the public. For the research I’m doing at the moment, the reason is confidentiality. With the Hadley data I expect the problem is logistical. Raw data over a 160 year period is going to be messy. Better to release the cleaned up stuff regularly and in a timely manner. Oh, that’s what they do. Is your paranoid mind suggesting some dishonesty there? I’d go and wash your empty cerebral cavity out with soap if so, that kind of paranoia does your argument immesurable damage.
The cooling from the 40s to the 70s is reasonably well understood to be due to factors independent of co2. The so-called “flatline or maybe cooling” you’re describing is no different to any of the little humps on the hadley graph (I count 17 of them since 1860). Short term variation on top of long term trend. Again end of story. You should really stop trying to make something of that which it isn’t. You’re also pretinding that precipitous slope between 1970 and the present day isn’t there.
That’s extremely dishonest of you. Naughty, go stare down your abyss in search of your escaped brain, and only come back when you’re prepared to say sorry.
What a joke kdkd. Science is about allowing others to replicate your results. Their refusal to release the data means they are hiding something and you know it.
And I love how you can contort you arguments. What exactly are the factors that caused the 30 year cooling from the 40′s to the 70′s again?
Tamas,
I think you are confused. Perhaps it’s the contortions you perform that are making you have some kind of out of body experience. So can you explain how you would release 160 years of raw data in many different formats, and how this would be a good use of funds? Or would it be more effective to release the very lightly processed data so people can replclicate from that. What you’re asking for is pointless bureaucracy, as nobody would have the resources to look at the full dataset. There are a number of mathematical techniques that can be used to detect fraud from processed data. If you’re so convinced of your paranoia you should perhaps use these techniques.
My understanding is that the slight unregulated industrial pollution is what caused the slight cooling between 1940 and 1960, but then the global warming signal started to exceed the other factors, as pollution became more well regulated.
Of course in your blind desire to see everything except what’s under your nose, you don’t bother to examine the magnitude of the effects that you claim. Your reasoning is a joke, and your position makes you look paranoid and foolish.
better go look for that brain of yours before some animal eats it …
kdkd & Tamas:
Thanks for the article link Tamas. Is it true that big tobacco finances Cato?? (Well I have never seen small tobacco so they could not be doing it).
This is an interesting extract from the National review Article entitled:
“The Dog Ate Global Warming
Roger Pielke Jr., an esteemed professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, then requested the raw data from Jones. Jones responded:
Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e., quality controlled and homogenized) data.
The statement about “data storage” is balderdash. They got the records from somewhere. The files went onto a computer. All of the original data could easily fit on the 9-inch tape drives common in the mid-1980s. I had all of the world’s surface barometric pressure data on one such tape in 1979.”
Seems to me that Jones has a case to answer. What can be so complicated about a bloody temperature record? Location, Time, Date, Temperature (wet & dry bulb if you like).
Had a look at your Hadcrut graphs kdkd. They show a clear temperature downturn in the most recent part – last 10 years or so – particularly in the SH.
Given that the IPCC is saying that heating has occurred at 1.3-1.6W/sq.m. for all that 10 year period, with CO2 at record levels – where has all the heat gone kdkd?
So Ken
Perhaps I am being too eager to see no cooling. If so, you should be able to clearly point out where on the terminal part of the graph the local variability exceeds the long term trend? Or perhaps it doesn’t and you’re too eager to see cooling, and all we can say at the moment is that we need a longer time period than just the last few years to evaluate the trend.
Oops there goes your leg again. You’re going to have trouble finding new skin to sew it back on with there.
Tell you what, why don’t you phone the Hadley Centre up and ask them why they don’t release the raw raw data, rather than idly speculating in a futile attempt to score points. Rather than relying on some tobacconist’s paranoid ravings that is.
ps. nice comment from a former sceptic in Crikey yesterday. You should read it delusion-boys.
kdkd #788
How does ‘local variability’ apply to a ‘global’ temperature graph?
Presumably there are thousands of individual temperature readings taken to make up the Hadley NH, SH and global graphs. You are the statistics expert – does not the error decrease with increasing sample size?
I have never read anything to remotely indicate that CO2 and other GHG are not well mixed enough to produce significant local effects. In other words a molecule of CO2 released in Bendigo could end up floating over Bombay or Buenos Aires due to the atmospheric circulations around the globe.
Regarding Hadley – I might just give them a call. In my experience, venerated institutions which gain increasing notability and respectability have an increased probability of hiding manifold sins and wickedness.
Ken #789
“How does ‘local variability’ apply to a ‘global’ temperature graph?”. Clearly you don’t understand the difference between weather and climate.
Perhaps the communists have rotted your brain such that this intellectual feat is beyond you. The remainder of your comment is similarly nonsensical, and indicates desperation.
Ken #789 again
“Regarding Hadley – I might just give them a call. In my experience, venerated institutions which gain increasing notability and respectability have an increased probability of hiding manifold sins and wickedness”
This statemet would apply equally if not more to the oil and coal industry, and their track record of employing dubuious consultants (many with origins in the original tobacco health denial industry) would suggest that they are really not to be trusted, rather than just tarred with a faint insinuation from a paranoid anti-communist.
kdkd #788
“If so, you should be able to clearly point out where on the terminal part of the graph the local variability exceeds the long term trend?”
These are SH and NH and Global Temp graphs. I would have thought thousands of data points from all over the planet would not fit the definition of ‘local variability’.
I have never defended any perfidious player in the coal, oil, tobacco, finance, banking or any other area. You should read some of my Crikey stuff on the finance spivs who gave us the GFC and the cretins who run the Super industry.
By the way, I wear Italian shoes (not sandals) with my socks which implies no endorsement of the Italian Prime Minister.
Ken,
Well you don’t like where you put the goal posts, so you try to move them. Tough titties, you don’t get to do that.
Large scale average temperatures. In this case Northern and Southern hemisphere. We see the warming trend is reduced in antarctica due to the large mass of ice and the large enthalpy of melting, but it doesn’t do anything to alter the overall conclusion. Unequivocal warming trend. Some variability on short time scales that masks the over all trend leads you to try to misinterpret the term “local variability” (local in time – what kind of idiot are you that the meaning is not obvious from the context).
So if you’re so impartial, why have you swallowed the greenhouse mafia’s propaganda so wholeheartedly, but reserve suspicion for the people who are paid to understand the data and all its nuance. Answer: false impartiality. You’re busted. Go home in disgrace.
(local in time – what kind of idiot are you that the meaning is not obvious from the context).
I have never heard of time being described as ‘local’ in anything but an airline lounge – not a graph of global temperatures verses year.
What a laughable dissembly of drivel to disguise the fact that the that last 10 years has been cooling despite record amounts of IPCC heat being added to the planet.
Where did all the heat go kdkd? The atmosphere can’t hold much – he oceans are cooling according to the Argobuoys (and deep oceans will take hundreds of years to warm 1-2 degC), so the only candidate is melting ice.
The Arctic is governed by the AMO – a regional perturbation; and the Antarctic is getting cooler overall – with global ice hardly changed in the last 30 years.
Oh Ken, you’re sounding more like Tamas every day.
Let me put it in terms that you can understand. Or at least fail to avoid through desperate picking at straws.
Longer term trends visible on the chart at: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif. Broadly speaking the clearly visible trends are:
1. 1850 to 1920. roughly constant
2. 1920-1940, temperature increasing
3. 1940-1980, roughly constant
4. 1980- present, temperature increasing.
Superimposed on these trends are small lumps and bumps of what we scientists might call “local” variability. That’s points close to each other on the x axis, which happens to be the time axis, so it’s “local in time”. These 17 odd (from my count) lumps and bumps are short term variability, compared to longer term signal.
So does the bump at the end of the chart sufficiently large to suggest the trend is no longer operating? Well it’s smaller than many of the others of these small bumps in variability. Therefore the long term trend exceeds the short term variability, so you hypothesis that “we are seeing cooling” is not supported.
In less scientific terms, “you lose sucker”. It’s warmer than it’s ever been since the dawn of civilisation, and you’re shit out of luck. Get real Ken.
There you go Ken:
http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Hadley
I thought you were supposed to obtain data for this stuff, I stumbled across the easiest data set for me to use with the existing Karaoke stuff.
Executive summary: no surprises. No evidence to support your increasingly contorted looking position.
Now give me your homework or admit that you’re wrong and misguided.
Oh look, real climate have done a treatment on the “warming has paused or reversed” idea. Given this is the most scientifically respectable source among the blogs, it’s worth listening to. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/ Here’s some quotes for you:
“This discussion focuses on just a short time period – starting 1998 or later – covering at most 11 years. Even under conditions of anthropogenic global warming (which would contribute a temperature rise of about 0.2 ºC over this period) a flat period or even cooling trend over such a short time span is nothing special and has happened repeatedly before (see 1987-1996).”
“It is highly questionable whether this “pause” is even real. It does show up to some extent (no cooling, but reduced 10-year warming trend) in the Hadley Center data, but it does not show in the GISS data, see Figure 1. There, the past ten 10-year trends (i.e. 1990-1999, 1991-2000 and so on) have all been between 0.17 and 0.34 ºC per decade, close to or above the expected anthropogenic trend, with the most recent one (1999-2008) equal to 0.19 ºC per decade – just as predicted by IPCC as response to anthropogenic forcing.”
“Even the highly “cherry-picked” 11-year period starting with the warm 1998 and ending with the cold 2008 still shows a warming trend of 0.11 ºC per decade (which may surprise some lay people who tend to connect the end points, rather than include all ten data points into a proper trend calculation”
Then there’s stuff on energy budgets that will interest Ken.
kdkd #796, #797
You have to get off this ‘realclimate’ teat kdkd. Hansen/GISS is probably the least reliable without use of the satellites.
Had a quick look at the Karaoke – Temp-CO2 plots suggests that saturation is occuring at about 375ppmv for all three plots – NH, SH and Global.
Will leave you to interpret the ‘residuals’.
As I said many times – the Antacrtic is the biggest knob on the planet’s thermostat.
Ken,
It’s rather odd how you will use spurious sources with poor scientific credentials to try to back up your weird points of view, but that you have to dismiss the writings of people working in the field. As we clearly established in #791 you’re giving false credence to the greenhous mafia and their allies, and writing off the real science for reasons of crackpot conspiracy theory.
Time to give up Ken. You’re KO’d and repeatedly self amputating.
Ken #798
“Temp-CO2 plots suggests that saturation is occuring at about 375ppmv for all three plots”
Justify this. Why are you sure that the direction in trend has changed. What evidence are you using to justify this?
My guess is that your evidence is based on wishful thinking.
kdkd #800
How many of my bits can you amputate kdkd?
What is your preliminary analysis of the ‘residuals’ kdkd?
Should we have included Methane in the analysis, because as you rightly point out it can come from industry, farting cows and natural sources?
Ken,
You blinked and missed it. Positive feedback observable globlaly from the arctic effect, but not exclusively in the southern hemisphere. Broadly very similar to the IPCC data. Sorry, you’re out of luck. Time to pack your bags and go home.
Go find some methane data if you’re so keen. But remember methane is part of the feedback mechanism, it’s not directly caused by producing CO2 by burning fossil fuel.
“Positive feedback observable globlaly from the arctic effect, but not exclusively in the southern hemisphere. Broadly very similar to the IPCC data.”
Not so fast kdkd.
Explain exactly what the above means. Hw does your CO2 predict Temp anomaly on a global basis?
Of course your analysis might look exactly the same if you chose as your variable the “GDP of China” or the “number of airconditioners in Vietnam” since 1975 instead of the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Err, Ken
Co2 is the best fit with the hadley data for all the same reasons it was for the IPCC data. Go back and review, the gross features of the two data sets are basically indistinguishable (with the clarification that the southern hemisphere masks but far from obliterates the hypothesised positive feedback signal ).
What’s the theoretical reason for the number of AC units in vietnam, or chinese GDP to predict temperature anomaly. Is there some sound theoretical basis for this? If so, we can consider it otherwise well stay with the rather well understood Arrhenius effect.
Solipsism is not a constructuve position for scientific understanding, so don’t try to play that card or you’ll end up with your brains escaping out of your nose to get away from you like Tamas.
Meanwhile you totally avoided justifying your statement ““Temp-CO2 plots suggests that saturation is occuring at about 375ppmv for all three plots” presumably this is because you made an assertion with no justification at all.
Looks like you’re getting your bags packed for you then.
Tamas, do forgive me for making unpardonable assumptions. Of course you’ve had changes of heart about the rectitude of the Iraq invasion, faced with the far greater magnitude of death, destruction and disaster visited upon the population since the invasion. Of course you realise the injustice visited on Dr Haneef was an appalling miscarriage of justice. Of course you are a mere seeker of truth regarding the world’s climate. Pig’s ar*e you are. One question: what will it take for you to admit error? The next strong el nino will yield a higher global temperature than 1998. Can we expect a mea culpa about all the ‘cooling since 1998′ nonsense?
Oh, sorry, an oxymoron. Tamas Calderwood and admission of error are logically incompatible concepts. No, of course we’ll then get the ‘cooling since 20..’ line. What a crock!
Yeah, there is a cyclical residual in the NH which is less distinct in the SH or Global data.
““Temp-CO2 plots suggests that saturation is occuring at about 375ppmv for all three plots”
Why – well CO2 is going up while temperature is peaking and turning down – (upper right graph of Temp-CO2 on NH, SH and GLOBAL). The peak is around 375ppmv.
And you still have not explained ‘positive feedback’. I always thought positive feedback caused the Temp to go UP – not go UP and DOWN.
“(with the clarification that the southern hemisphere masks but far from obliterates the hypothesised positive feedback signal ).” – so you can’t see it in the data but because you believe in it – it must be there – but being ‘masked’.
What a crock of sh*t.
Keep your explanation simple for the viewers.
Oh, I forgot, was there not something interesting in the Stage 1 (or 3) Karaoke about the plot of Solar vs CO2. Or Solar vs Log CO2 ratio??
Would like to see that in the Hadley set.
Ken #807
Find it and be specific. Gross-features wise, the hadley and ipcc data are indistinguishable though, so don’t expect surprises.
#806
“What a crock of sh*t.”
You have indeed provided a nice summary of the state of your argument for the viewers in simple, easy to understand language. When are you going to get the idea of the difference between short term variability and long term trend? What evidence do you have to say that the current “bump on the chart” is long term trend rather than short term variability. Here, I’ll answer that for you: you can’t as there is none, and plenty of evidence pointing to the opposite.
Here’s a nice one from the Guardian today summarisisng Ken’s position:
“There is a section of society that stubbornly refuses to “believe” in anthropogenic climate change, despite a near avalanche of evidence urging them to “believe” otherwise. Their faith in the status quo of the fossil-fuelled economy is immovable, it seems. The evidence before them suggesting otherwise is a challenge to their own belief that a free-market, libertarian approach to life is the best way forward. And because they don’t like the smell of the solutions being proposed (by all means, let’s have that debate – urgently), climate science is, therefore, judged to be a fraud, a conspiracy, a big lie being perpetuated by a left-wing cabal led by a cackling Al Gore or malevolent James Hansen. It would be laughable, if it wasn’t so serious an issue.
It’s a situation where an ideologically fuelled belief is allowed to trump an evidence-based belief. It’s a world guided by empiricism versus a world prejudiced by emotion.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/oct/06/turin-shroud-climate-change )
This statement: “Yeah, there is a cyclical residual in the NH which is less distinct in the SH or Global data” doesn’t make sense. Time to go read the intermediate level statistics books on regression Ken.
kdkd #808, #809
You just avoiding the elephant in the room kdkd.
If you look at the Hadley Charts – the Temperatures upwardly cross their baseline around 1980. So the whole phenonema of CO2 driven AGW is really based on about 25-30 years of experience.
The last 10 years of Temp flat or falling – moreso in the SH.
So we have 15-20 years rising, and 10 years flat or falling.
Now you tell me and the viewers what part of the last 25-30 years is long term and what part is a short term ‘bump’.
Your Guardian quote is just another smear. I have never argued that changes in CO2 and other GHG play no role in the earth’s climate – just that the role has been exaggerated by warmist fanatics to whip up a frenzy of activism.
This activism is a fertile field for the Greenies and has attracted leftist agitators bereft of a cause after the collapse of the Soviet empire.
And furthermore – in all the research I have read – there seems to be no direct measurement of extra forcing (heat up power in W/sq.m) by CO2 and GHG in the atmosphere. As far as I can determine the whole forcing scenario is inferred from theoretical models.
Hence this is why the direct measurement of tropospheric temperatures by satellite (such as UAH and RSS) is important and shows much smaller temperature rises which linked to the Argo buoy program provide difficult to explain temperature measurements for the AGW alarmists.
Ken, Fascinating.
By my estimate of visually looking at the graphs at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif , I see two periods of roughly flat trend line (probably slightly positive if we did it statistically), and Two periods of a rapid warming trend. And no periods of substantial cooling.
Let’s examine your logic a bit more closely. The bump in the graph at the end of the time series at present looks roughly the same size and consistencey across NH, SH and global as the bump at around 1980. Are you teling me that around 1980 that global temperature averages static and cooling.
So now while you go back to packing your own bags, you can consider the illogical lengths you need to go to in order to maintain your position.
And the guardian smear as you put it is a good bit milder than the smears that you use when promulgating your right wing paranoia.
Where are these long term satellite and sea surface temperature series which contradict both the hadley and IPCC data series? We already established that the short time range UAH data is not significantly different to the IPCC data, so you’re argument there is shot. Do you really need your SST misdirection demolished as well, or are you just going to shut up while packing your bags?
If you want to take longer term sections of the Hadley graphs – you can transpose the sections for all three NH, SH and Global from 1910 – 1940 (30 years) and see a similar steepness in the temperature rise to the 1980-present sections. In fact the 1930-1940 period is showing a steeper rise than any of the recent portions.
It then dropped off sharply and did not reach the same levels again until 1980.
What was the main driver of warming from 1910-1940 kdkd??
Ken,
You are aware that the industrial revolution had commenced well before 1910, and was rather energy inefficient and coal intensive. Perhaps you are not accounting for that, and trying to claim AGW only started in 1980. Anyhow, I see you have conceeded that your position that warming has ceased or reversed in the present day is well and truly demolished.
I would describe the “blip” centered on 1940 the largest of the bumps. It shows that there can be quite large local (in time – der brain) variability without affecting the overall trend. Certainly the blip in the present day is much smaller than this, and it will be interesting to see how things pan out. However your attempt to establish a position that we suddenly have strong negative feedback mechanisms operating or that AGW has stopped is clearly going to be a very difficult position for you to maintain coherently.
How is that bag packing going?
Ken, I am quite aware there is an elephant in the room, however you seem to be blisfully unaware that it is sitting on your head. Perhaps this is why you are having trouble packing.
kdkd – if the industrial revolution started “well before 1910″, why did it cool from 1880-1910?
Why was the warming from 1910-1940 as rapid as that from 1980-2000 when CO2 emissions were far lower?
One other question kdkd: do you support nuclear power? You answer to that question will be very interesting.
Tamas:
1. Are you saying that the climates response to warming factors should be uniform and linear under all circumstances? In order to properly defend this position you’ll need to justify it scientifically. It’s generally recognised that lags in the system, emergence from a cool period and other factors kept the lid on global warming for quite a while.
2. There is a logarithmic relationship between CO2 concentration and warming, and the fact that there will have been non AGW factors acting on the climate, so I’m not terribly surprised about this. Again do you have some scientific reason to expect totally predictable linearity?
3. No terribly well formed opinion on nuclear energy. Clearly a better option than coal, but renewables should be invested in more aggressively than nuclear (for which there is a shortage of expertise, which are expensive to build and have long build times).
This whole expectation of perfect linearity is probably the main place where your opinion diverges from reality, and probably the point where your brain decided to excape out of your nose to get away from you.
kdkd – weak response – I think your done…
Lets wait 10 years and check the temperature then, and in the meantime institute:
Ken Lambert’s 10 Point Plan to Save Planet Earth:
In descending order of conservatism:
1) Reduce consumption of petrol and diesel by switching to gas.
2) Encourage electric public transport – train and light rail – free and frequent as possible.
3) Encourage line haul road transport onto electric rail by tax concessions or differential taxation.
4) Encourage viable renewables such as solar hot water, geothermal, hydro, maybe wind, possibly solar-thermal with tax concessions.
5) Encourage electric car technology, particularly viable potential technologies such as ultra-fast recharging of batteries and battery exchange systems with tax concessions
6) Encourage energy conservation by insulation, energy saving lighting, thermally efficient design, water storage systems etc
7) Start a crash program of building nuclear power plants of viable scale (maxi and mini) using perhaps Dr Wang Fang’s pebble bed ‘non-melt downable’ reactor technology from China; as close to major loads as possible. Run electric rail and grid systems with nuclear power as soon as available.
9) Examine the feasibility of ‘power ships’ carrying multiple mini-nuclear plants to supply power local decentralized coastal grids and export locations. Ships could discharge spent fuel and fuel up at the dedicated port/reprocessing facility. Export energy not uranium.
10) Pump coal fired flue gases rich in CO2 into long skinny greenhouses and grow forests of salad greens for the greater and greener good.
Ken #818
“kdkd – weak response – I think your done…”
Nice job on psychological projection there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection). I think you indeed are done, and you certainly have nothing useful to say to counter my examination of the data. For example you don’t show why my response is either weak, or more importantly, why it is weaker than your piss-weak original response.
The remainder is your repeated 10 point plan. It’s a start, although it’s not particularly interesting. Try thinking up some radical way of speeding up the cost-competitiveness of renewables for a more interesting 10 point plan. Or are you too obsessed with your conspiracy theory to be able to think clearly enough to do this?
kdkd #817 #818
Thanks for the free psychoanalysis. For a moment there I saw glimpses of Signalman Freud of the Viennese Railway.
Good to see you lecturing Tamas about something he or I never claimed – linearity of response.
You are the exponent of trying to fit Temps onto linear trend lines.
It clearly is not working very well with cyclical chaotic systems.
Would like to see your matrix with the Hadley data as in Karaoke Stage III with correlation coefficients for the Temp-CO2, Temp – LogCO2, Temp-Solar, CO2-Solar and LogCO2 – Solar. Perhaps a split in time 1860-1910, 1910-1940, 1940-1980, 1980-present would be very interesting. All of course in NH, SH, Global.
Amused to see you also lecturing Tamas about the log function relationship between CO2 and heat up power (forcing).
I think I introduced you to that log CO2 theoretical relationship in Post #250 (or something), trying to beat it into your doubting thick head.
At least my teaching has produced a small result there, but I doubt if you yet know a Watt from a Wot, a Joule from a Jewel, or your a*sehole from a hole in the ground.
Ken,
Tamas was implying that responses should be linear and entirely predictable. It’s one of his straw men. Your concentration on small bumps in the long term trend implies something similar. My interest in where the lack of fit provides information about the long term trend, but I’m constantly unable to develop this further due to you and Tamas concentrating on short term noise. You’re also perseverating over the small short term cyclic phenomena, and ignoring the big picture of the long term trends. Perseveration and projection … neurological symptoms and symptoms of psychological neuroticism. You’ll do anything to ignore the bits of the data that don’t meet your biases – that’s the elephant on the room sitting on your head …
Glad you found the psychoanalysis useful. I’ll waive my usual fee.
The gross features of the hadley data are indistunguishable from the IPCC data, so I don’t know what you think the graphics will buy you to bolster your argument. Still it’s pretty easy for me to do it.
Here you go, correlation plot. http://github.com/singingfish/Climate-Karaoke/raw/master/hadley_cormatrix.png
Don’t know what you think that you can prove with this. Presumably you’ll try to conflate uncertainty by claiming that there’s some reason that because the IPCC and hadley data don’t totally agree, then the whole AGW theory is wrong. That’s your MO, find spurious minutae, and then try to magnify it out of all proportion while the elephant on your head slowly suffocates you, causing anoxia that makes you arguments ever more spurious.
kdkd #822
Are you trying to prempt the charge that IPCC is looking dodgy against Hadley?
You should wait for me to make it. Your nervousness about the results is showing.
Ken,
It’s rather hard for the IPCC data to look dodgy against the hadley seeing as (I repeat again), the gross features of the two data sets are indistinguishable. Your lashing out at the slightest thing here, is showing that you’re getting a bit desperate. I’m just trying to pre-empt your next act of desparation. Again, your MO: “find spurious minutae, and then try to magnify it out of all proportion while the elephant on your head slowly suffocates you”
kdkd#822 etc
Thank you for supplying the matrix. Pray tell us your interpretation. Keep in mind the Stage 1 and III results which lead to the 55/45 CO2GHG/Solar split.
Ken,
The gross features of the Hadley data are indistinguishable from the gross features of the IPCC data (roughly 70% agreement with the IPCC data, no significant difference between Southern and Northern hemisphere, and the IPCC). Also bear in mind that current solar activity suggests that we should be seeing cooling at the moment, but due to the rapid increase in CO2 emissions this is in fact not happening.
Also bear in mind that increased methane emissions are a direct byproduct of the co2 emissions through two routes. Firstly, adding fertiliser (a fossil fuel product) to agricultural land simplifies the ecosystem, and as a result of this, causes the methane production to increase. Secondly the increased temperature caused by co2 production causes increased methane production in peat bogs (a very large carbon sink) and the melting of permafrost.
So I’m a bit baffled as to why you would think the hadley data would contradict the IPCC data substantially, aside from that we can see some of the effect of the big block of ice at the bottom of the planet (which is something that will slow down runaway warming, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it like you seem to want to).
kdkd #826
Stage 1 Karaoke Results: (Solar taken from the IPCC source reconstruction)
Temp(IPCC) vs Solar: 0.68
Temp(IPCC) vs CO2mean: 0.90
Temp(IPCC) vs CO2 logdiff: 0.91
Solar vs CO2mean : 0.77
Hadley Results:
Temp (HadGlobal) vs Solar: 0.77
Temp (HadGlobal) vs CO2mean : 0.88
Temp (HadGlobal) vs CO2logdiff: 0.83
Temp (HadGlobal) vs Temp (IPCC): 0.83
Solar vs CO2mean: 0.78
Now tell us what proportions of the Hadley Temp Anomaly are contributed by CO2 and Solar.
If you are game enough to split the Hadley time series into blocks as suggested you might then show how the proportions of Solar and CO2 forcings have changed since 1860. ie say 1860 – 1910, 1910 – 1940, 1940-1980, 1980-2009.
Ken,
Hadley northern hemisphere. co2: 69%, solar 31%
Southern hemisphere: co2: 75%, solar: 25%
Global: co2: 72%, solar: 28%
Statistically these aren’t distinguishable from each other, but it’s interesting that they all have equal or greater co2 component than the IPCC data.
Interesting idea with splitting the time series into blocks. Not sure how much loss of statistical power will be, and how that would reduce the meaningfulness of the data.
Answers to Ken’s latest exercise:
1. pre 1910: co2 and solar effect is roughly even. Model is an OK fit, less than the present day
2. 1910-1940: solar: 25%, co2, 75% model is a good fit – as good as the present day
3. 1941-1980: solar: 20%, 80% (the model fits very poorly during this time – this is when the postulated pollution effect is very large)
4. 1981+ solar: 7%, co2:93% Model is a good fit, as good as the present day.
Ken. Time to concede or to do your homework as set previously.
kdkd #828 #830
Did you use exactly the same method for determining these proportions as the UPCC data from 1830 back in August?
Sorry “IPCC data”
Ken,
Indeed I did. Using the global hadley data which is missing a chunk of the arctic.
kdkd #833,
Can’t quite understand how your proportions for the NH IPCC data (1830 – present) were 55/45 CO2:Solar; and your proportions for Hadley Global (1860-present) are 72/28 CO2:Solar and Hadley NH 69:31.
Would not have thought that the 1830-1860 period would have had much influence on the proportions.
Ken,
That’s just the way the dice fall. The IPCC data you’re so suspicious of attributes more importance to solar across the time period. 1981-2005, the IPCC data proportions are nearly 77% loaded to co2 being the driver, and solar being 23%, whereas in the 1840-1910, it’s the other way round.
I don’t really understand the reason, but it’s outside the scope of my scientific understanding. I suspect that the IPCC data is better curated for the purpose of analysis of climate data.
kdkd #835
Karaoke Stage III: August 2:
“As for the contribution of solar and CO2 …
Probably the easiest way to do this is to run the regression on standardised scores and look at the coefficient. Now for every standard deviation that co2_mean increases, anomaly increases by 0.86 standard deviations. For every standard deviation that solar increases, anomaly increases by 0.66 standard deviations. So the effect of co2 between 1830 and the start of the 21st century is 23% greater than that of solar forcing.”
Is this the method used to get the Hadley ratios?
If so – how do these relate to the correlation coefficients?
Intrigued by your comment on the Arctic having ‘a chunk’ missing from Hadley. Can you explain?
Also, are your ratios based on log.diffCO2 or CO2 concentration vs Solar.
Also what has happened to your negative residuals with Hadley? You claimed that CO2 was underestimating the Temp Anomaly for the IPCC NH data – suggesting an extra heating mechanism via positive feedback.
Yes I used exactly the same method to get the Hadley ratios as the IPCC ratios.
I’m not sure of the exact algorithm that R uses to do the multiple regression, but the basic procedure is to take one variable, use it to predict the anomaly, then use the leftovers (the residuals) to see how much more the prediction prediction improves when you regress the second variable against the residuals. This is then combined to get a overall regression equation. The basic idea is of the “partial regression coefficient” – the effect of variable a on variable b with the effect of variable c partialed out.
We know from the AIC statistic that co2 is the most important contributor to the model, followed by the effect of solar. The AIC looks at the goodness of fit of the model with each predictor removed, and for the data for the whole time series, co2 is most important than solar for every dataset.
I used straight co2, but having tested it early on in the game,using the log of co2 doesn’t make any practical difference for the regression. The log co2 is important for energy budget calculations though which is a different thing.
We see the same (but slightly smaller due to hadley not having the arctic data included) suggestion of positive feedback effect with the northern hemisphere and global hadley data, but not the southern hemisphere as with the IPCC data.
That the hadley has arctic data missing was something mentioned in the last realclimate article that I posted.
Here’s one from the hotbed of communist propoganda, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1882/3863
“The paper concludes that it is increasingly unlikely any global agreement will deliver the radical reversal in emission trends required for stabilization at 450 ppmv carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Similarly, the current framing of climate change cannot be reconciled with the rates of mitigation necessary to stabilize at 550 ppmv CO2e and even an optimistic interpretation suggests stabilization much below 650 ppmv CO2e is improbable.”
kdkd #837
So how does that relate to the correlation coefficients – 0.77, 0.78, 0.83, 0.88 etc.?
In other words if the correlation coeff is very similar for a and c, and b and c – does that mean that a and b are having the same effect on c?
Also if the CO2 mean is the best predictor of temperature then the log.diff relationship is brought into serious question. Maybe we should look for a variable which is linear with CO2 – direct waste heat perhaps, or GDP of China.
I am sure this has been considered – but I have never seen it quantified anywhere – but if the heat island effect increases temperatures around populated areas it must be from the waste heat and land use effects which would add heat to the atmosphere day and night, which might be linear with energy use which might be linear with CO2 release.
Just back from a couple of days of field work ensuring we know how to manage our dotages in an efficient and effective manner.
1. I’ll try and do a statistical theory speil on the climate karaoke some time tomorrow.
2. Not really, in terms of calculating energy budgets the log of co2 increase is the critical factor. For a naive linear regression it doesn’t really matter. I’ll again put this in a statistical theory post.
3. Urban heat island effects have been shown to be pretty irrelevant in detecting AGW related effects, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island#Relation_to_global_warming has a summary. You’d expect urban heat island effects to be mainly diurnal – for example the coastal onshore breeze is comes up much more quickly in urban areas than rural areas as the immediate coast heats up more quickly, but by the morning it’s back down to a normal temperature.
kdkd #841
I had a look at Wiki and the Waste Heat flux effect globally is supposed to be only about 1% of the GHG effect although interestingly; around 0.3 – 0.6W/sq.m in the US and Europe due to heavy urbanization. This compares with around 0.3-0.5 W/sq.m for Solar – a similar order of magnitude. This effect must show up in US and Europe overall surface temperatures.
This is not the urban heat island effect. From your Wiki reference – the UHI effect is supposed not significant because the released heat from human activities mixes rapidly with the surrounds and the macro overcomes the micro so that the ‘hot spots’ are minor.
This does not alter the fact that the waste heat is added to the atmosphere and must add to overall regional temperatures.
I don’t know how IPCC and Hadley temperatures are gathered and processed, but I would assume that they are weighed on a equal area surface grid of the globe, so that the sparse temperature data points from the oceans and unpopulated areas are equated with a similarly sparsed up set from the heavily monitored areas.
This would obviously mean that many temperature readings might be taken in say a 10 mile x 10 mile grid area in the USA, and maybe only one reading in a 10 mile x 10 mile area in Patagonia. How you statistically equate those data points for a global set is your area of expertise.
There you go Ken, a quick and dirty statistical theory primer:
http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Statistics
The improved coverage in more populated areas will result in better estimates of temperature anomaly. From when I looked at the raw hadley data there are very large areas of blank in the arctic.
Noticed a dishonest and scientifically illiterate column from Piers Ackerman in the daily Telegraph yesterday. What a dickhead.
I notice Tamas has disappeared. Presumably he’s off trying to work out how to continue his psychotic levels of delusion.
kdkd #843
You are in for more fun.
Robin Williams from ABC Science Show is advertising the next Ockham’s Razor (Sunday 8.45am) with Ian Plimer answering his critics.
Well that will be fun and interesting. In order to succeed, Pilmer will either have to recant his views, or alternatively explain and clarify every mistake in the book (including pure dishonesty parrotted from other sources) which are summarised here: http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91
If he fails (and it’s a big ask) he’ll just expose himself as a faded geology prof being deliberatly obtuse and apparently dishonest outside his area of expertise.
err, that should of course be renounce his views.
kdkd #various
Ben Sandilands in today’s Crikey:
“Any doubts about industrial activity changing the atmosphere ought to be answered by this image (below) of ship tracks off the west coast of the US captured by NASA’s Terra satellite on October 5.
These are different in composition, and larger and more enduring than jet contrails.
Although first recognised as being formed by the exhaust plumes of ships in 1965, when they were detected by early cloud cover monitoring satellites, they are now being seen by some researchers as answering one of the many puzzles about the causes of anthropogenic global warming.
And with a twist. Ship tracks cool the atmosphere by blocking incoming solar radiation … good … and inhibit rainfall … bad, very bad.
The theory advanced by the GISS and other atmospheric researchers is that the northern hemisphere, being populated by more shipping and more sulphate emitting industry, shows a lesser rate of warming than the southern hemisphere because of a differential caused by these larger sized reflective particles, which fall out of the atmosphere more rapidly than carbon dioxide.”
kdkd, I thought both Hadley and IPCC data showed that the NH had warmed more and faster than the SH – borne out by all the Karaoke.
GISS is a main source for IPCC data.
And I also thought that all that sulphate emitting industry was on the wane after 1980 when its cooling effects subsided ie; the cooling of 1940 – 1980 was mainly caused by heavy sulphate pollution.
Ya just can’t trust Hansen/GISS not to play both sides of the street.
Ken,
I don’t know, it just looks like more evidence to show that it’s all rather complicated to me. It’s also rather difficult to trust the writings of journalists (and weathermen coincidentally) on climate change, as they usually lack the scientific background to do the topic justice.
kdkd # 848
Looks like you need a dose of Tamas to keep your spirits up.
Hi Ken – I will be very interested to listen to Plimer on the ABC.
Hi kdkd – your comment in Crikey didn’t make much sense. If, as you state, 1998 was the warmest year and 02′ 03′ and 05 war all warmer than 2009… um… isn’t that a cooling trend?
Your denial of the temperature data is excruciating.
If you want I can teach you how to read a graph. It’s pretty easy. Let me know.
Oh dear Tamas. Your statistical illiteracy, preference of the magic of psychotic denial over scientific method really makes you look like a fool. Well done for displaying your ignorance and confirming yourself for a fool, again.
ps. I found an excellent book in the library today – a non-technical explanation of the IPCC’s fourth report: http://www.amazon.com/Dire-Predictions-Understanding-Global-Warming/dp/0756639956 . Seeing as you clearly lack the ability to interpret the scientific details properly, I recommend that you read this book so that you can educate yourself appropriately.
Tamas,
You should define what you mean by a statistical trend. Please define what you mean by a trend, and please define the way that you determine whether a trend is significant in one direction or another.
Well, a linear regression on the UAH data from 2001 shows 0.1C of cooling kdkd. Now, I know that’s not significant, but then it’s not exactly dangerous global warming either, is it?
Did you like Ken and my comments in Crikey today?
Hey Tamas #853
That doesn’t actually make any sense. You appear to be out of your depth. Again please provide a rigorous definition of what you mean by a statistical trend. Please explain what determines the significance of a trend.
By using conventional statistical methods, if we make a regression model of anomaly against year since 1998, we end up with a statistical model that does not predict better than chance. I want to know what alternative method you are using that makes this not relevant.
So in order to get a statistically significant trend, we have to (using the UAH dataset) go back to 1993 (1994 for the hadley global dataset, and 1997 for the IPCC dataset), and perform a regression on temperature anomaly against year since then. The results from this are that temperature rises (on average) 0.018ºC per year between 1994 and the present day. The results are roughly the same for the hadley data.
Now for the IPCC data it’s interesting. From 1997 we see a warming trend of 0.041ºC per year.
So no detectable cooling trend, but several detectable warming trends. Tamas has some alternative robust methods he’s not telling us about or his argument just melted.
Ken:
See #855 That’s about the standard of the “debate as to whether the cooling trend is statistically significant”. On one side of the “debate” there’s the use of actual data to show unambiguously that there’s no cooling trend whatsoever. On the other side, people make things up. Case closed.
kdkd #855
So in both IPCC and Hadley datasets you include the record ENSO year of 1998, which drags up the set with a single large perturbation.
I just looked at your Hadley NH and SH Temps plotted against time and see a gentle peaking arc with Temps falling since 1998. Hard to make up what your eyes see before you.
Whether this cooling is itself a ‘bump’ which will reverse – only time will tell.
Need to get Ben Sandilands to explain his GISS reference – because if it is true then GISS’s conflict with the Hadley data and the rise of the sulfates will blow either Hadley or GISS right out of the water.
Ken #857
Well it depends whether you prefer tea leaf reading versus proper empiricism. When you perform a regression model, one of the first things you do is see if the model predicts better than chance using an F test. That is, does the variance of the regression (signal) exceed the variance of the residuals (noise). If it does, you have a regression for which valid predictions can be drawn, if not you don’t. If you can predict better than chance, you have a trend. If you can’t, you don’t.
So translated into slightly more formal language, and using correct statistical inference, your statement “this cooling is itself a ‘bump’ which will reverse – only time will tell.” means the following:
There is some short term variability in the warming trend at the present day. At present this short term variability is smaller than observed short term variability elsewhere in the time series (e.g. early 1980s). However the short term variability does not show any demonstrable trend, as the F test for the magnitude of the variance of the regression versus the variance of the residuals is not statistically significant. Therefore the model does not predict better than chance, therefore we are unable to draw any conclusions about trend over this period. If we extend the model’s time period such that we obtain a significant F statistic, in all cases we see a warming trend.
Therefore there is no evidence for cooling, and strong evidence for warming. See, more cautious and robust than the tea leaf reading approach.
I still want to hear Tamas’ alternative definition of what a trend is. I think it’s probably something to do with uncritical knee-jerk delusionist denial, but I would be happy for him to show me how he’s actually at the forefront of statistics with new and innovative techniques.
also …
“Need to get Ben Sandilands to explain his GISS reference – because if it is true then GISS’s conflict with the Hadley data and the rise of the sulfates will blow either Hadley or GISS right out of the water.”
You’re reading too much into this. Your quote above shows that you’re still grasping at straws and trying to over-extend conclusions.
The GISS and Hadley and UAH are all as consistent with each other as can be reasonably expected. I think the take home message is something we already know: The climate system is complex, with many competing factors operating at once.
However we now know that since the 1980s that co2 is responsible for between approx 70% and 90% of observed warming, which is quite different to previous decades.
Just listened to Plimer’s talk on Occam’s Razor. Worthless for the following reasons:
1. Did not address any of the many factual inaccuracies in his book. If he wanted to be taken seriously he would address these explicitly and show why he is correct. Instead he pretends the issues haven’t been raised.
2. Does not understand that the conditions suitable for the development of life are not necessarily the same as the conditions suitable for the development and continuation of human civilisation.
3. Repeats many factual inaccuracies, the two most obvious – cooling trend in the 21st ceutury. We’ve clearly demonstrated that there is no evidence for this here. The fact that he can make such an elementary error of data analysis makes my mind boggle, and.
Second factoral error was that the mediaevel warming period was warmer than today – at best the MWP was as warm as today, and most of the evidence suggests it was cooler. Plimer claimed that the MWP was 5ºC warmer than the present day. That looks like a serious misrepresentation of the data, and rings scientific fraud alarm bells to me.
4. Lapses into paranoid conspiracy theory during the talk. We’ve shown here that this approach is not constructive. Your climate delusionist argument should stand or fall on scientific grounds, not political grounds. The IPCC is indeed a political grouping as he claims. However the politicised nature of the committee means that it’s conculsions are more conservative than they would otherwise be. Plimer is claiming it’s been overtaken by some radical green agenda.
Conclusion. There’s no merit in this talk and no merit in Plimer’s book.
kdkd – you are being disingenuous about the temperature record since 2000/2001 or even 1998. Since 1998 there is no warming and since 2001 there is a slight cooling trend.
I agree that the variability of the data means the “fit” of any trend line doesn’t have much significance. However if the trend was the other way you would surely point to it as proof of man-made global warming.
What had caused this cessation of global warming kdkd?
Tamas #861
You couldn’t be further off the mark if you tried. I’ve done my absolute best to find a cooling trend for you that is statistically significant, but am unable to do so. So unless you have some method that you have not described that will assess the significance of trends, then your position is flat out incorrect.
So our robust and honest conclusion unless you come up with some new evidence, statistical or measurement based is that the trend for recent years is indistinguishable from zero, but the most recent detectable trend shows a warming consistent with the magnitude predicted by the IPCC
So someone is being dishonest or delusional with the data, and it’s Tamas. So how come you think that the usual rules of scientific investigation don’t apply here Tamas? Dishonesty or stupidity, you choose.
So Tamas,
This will help with your scientific illiteracy. You said:
“I agree that the variability of the data means the “fit” of any trend line doesn’t have much significance.”
So statistical significance is like being pregnant. It either is or isn’t – you can’t be a bit pregnant, and you can’t be a bit statistically significant [1]. Either it’s not significant (which means that the parameter of interest equals zero) or it is (and the parameter is not equal to zero). Your hypothesis is that the warming trend (your parameter of interest) is less than zero. However we fail to find any evidence at all to support this hypothesis, and strong evidence to support a warming trend.
[1] Actually you can, but my attempts to relax the p value to find you a significant negative coefficient have resulted in failure, I’ve only been able to find positive trends that approach significance in the time frame you want.
kdkd #859
What????
If GISS is now saying to Sandilands that now the SH is warming faster than the NH – there is a fundamental and serious conflict of data with “The GISS and Hadley and UAH (are) all as consistent with each other as can be reasonably expected” …… and WHICH SHOWED THAT THE NH IS WARMING FASTER AND MORE THAN THE SH.
This is due to that big ice block at the south pole, larger oceans, less land, less prople, industry and agriculture in the SH – all the stuff we Karaoked!!!!
Dont try to kid the viewers that:
“I think the take home message is something we already know: The climate system is complex, with many competing factors operating at once.”
This GISS revelation (if true) turns on its head all the prior GISS data!!!!
It re-asserts the effect of sulphates in cooling action – something which was on the wane and only worked (conveniently) to explain the 1940-80 cooling – after which pollution controls supposedly reduced the effect.
It puts the new GISS data in conflict with old GISS, Hadley and UAH Temp data- and seriously harms the credibility of all the IPCC theory which relied on the old GISS data.
HELLO??
Ken #864
You clearly have some problem with the concept of statistical significance. The differences between the datasets are smaller than the similarities. Therefore for the kind of broad overview analysis of the data that I’ve done, we see clearly that each dataset gives us the same message which is of accelerating global warming caused mainly by co2.
Your confabulations are getting very very err … confabulated. You seem to be trying to sew uncertainty without any actual clearly formed conclusion. I’m having a great deal of trouble understanding what you are actually trying to say, although it is pretty clear that your starting premise is incorrect, again.
Here’s a more sensible take on this quote of yours:
“This GISS revelation (if true) turns on its head all the prior GISS data!!!!”
The GISS *ahem* revelation shows that as well as some fairly large positive feedback effects that we suspect (e.g. arctic melt, increased methane production from biological and sub-fossil sources, increased fire frequency and intensity), this finding suggests a concurrent and almost certainly much smaller negative feedback effect relating to sulphate aerosols in the lower atmosphere.
See if you stop trying to jump to conclusions, it’s much much easier to develop an understanding of what’s going on.
This trying to constantly smear the IPCC is yet more example of the use of crackpot conspiracy theory as a polemical technique. If there’s any merit in what you’re suggesting it will stand on the scientific argument alone. That you have to constantly smear and appeal to ideology to try to make your point suggests that your stance is not scientifically sustainable. I’ve clearly showed how your scientific argument is pretty piss poor in this instance anyway.
Ken
Also bear in mind that the “cooling” between 1940 and 1980 that you refer to does not exist. There is no statistically significant trend detectable during this period, although if you were playing fast and loose with your p values, you’d say that the northern hemisphere cooled on average 0.003ºC over this time period, but any such trend is totally undetectable for the global data or the southern hemisphere.
In any case to demonstrate a cooling trend during this period you have to use lie about the statistics, and cherry pick the data that you use.
So we’ve now comprehensively demonstrated that the cooling trends that you and Tamas constantly refer to DO NOT EXIST, and require that you break the normal rules of scientific reporting and lie about the data.
Well done for exposing yourselves as frauds and/or stupid.
kdkd #865, 866
Incredible!
The new GISS revelation has just *reversed* the relationship between NH and SH warming – and kdkd goes off to speculate about the composition of the warming and cooling effects in order to make the new GISS consistent with the AGW mantra.
Incredible!!
Forget the Hadley data which kdkd has just laboriously analysed (right up to 2009?) which shows the NH and SH and Global effects and all the explanation about the moderating effects of the SH and why it is not warming as quickly – forget all that – just accept the new GISS doctrine – four legs good – two legs bad…
OR new GISS good…old GISS bad….. repeat…
new GISS good …old GISS bad.
Repeat after me ……
Incredible!!!
Ken,
Please point to where the order of magnitude of the effects that you postulate are discussed. Is it clearly stated that this supposed new, revelatory cooling effect is much larger than the warming effect?
Or are you playing with lies again?
There’s something incredible going on here, but it seems to be the contortions you will attempt to support your argument.
Also nice to see you totally ignoring the lack of the statistical significance of the cooling effects you hypothesise. At least your silence implies that you agree this part of your position is indefensible.
Nice to see Tamas and Ken both getting a thorough thrashing in today’s Crikey. I wanter what part of their zombie toolbox they’ll try to pull this time.
kdkd #869,870
Maybe Ben Sandilands could expand on the GISS data bombshell which he hurled into the debate last Wednesday.
If GISS is right that the Southern Hemisphere is warming faster than the Northern Hemisphere, then all of the Hadley data, the UAH satellite data and the old NASA/GISS data is put in serious doubt. Each of those datasets show unequivocally that the NH has warmed faster and further than the SH.
Cop that son….none of your statistical jabbering will get around that point.
Ken #871
You’re confabulation is well and truely busted in this graph: http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/forcings.gif and you know it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have totally ignored my question to you. See if you can answer it: “Please point to where the order of magnitude of the effects that you postulate are discussed. Is it clearly stated that this supposed new, revelatory cooling effect is much larger than the warming effect?”
You can’t justify youself so you go on the solipsistic attack instead. You’re busted delusion boy, stop wasting your time.
kdkd #872
I am not postulating any heating or cooling effects around the Sandilands GISS relevation.
I simply accurately reported the Crikey Sandilands piece.
Now it is up to him to expand on the GISS researcher data he quoted.
If he got it wrong, there is no skin off my case – just don’t ever run Ben Sandilands again as a pundit on climate change – Crikey – hear that!!
Ken,
He didn’t exactly get it wrong, but he didn’t exactly get it right either did he? The moral of the story is don’t trust journalists or mining geologists to report on climate science unless there’s very good evidence that they’re paying very very close attention to the underlying science. The only really good journos I can think of on that score are both pretty political – Al Gore and George Monbiot.
Face it, the delusionist case is so weak that if journos in that camp actually paid attention to the science with the detail required, their case would collapse before their very eyes.
kdkd #874
How would you know if he got it right or wrong? He needs to produce the original GISS researcher’s paper or written piece.
Then we can all evaluate it on its merits.
Over to you Ben Sandilands and your GISS researcher.
Hmm, I lost a post here. I’m not going to type it up again. But just for the record what Ken has in #875 is a false impasse.
There’s a way to detect good quality science journalism (references cited, conclusions stated carefully) and Sandiland’s piece has neither of these qualities. His journalistic background is also from a political economy rag (the Bulletin RIP), again displaying his lack of scientific cred. Perhaps he should write a clarification for the newsletter.
kdkd #876
Need a dose of Tamas to break this impasse.
“False impasse” – priceless. I will add this to the kdkd lexicon of meaninglessnesses.
I have posted Crikey for input from Sandilands but he seems to have retreated back to aviation for his jollies.
So Ben Sandilands – if you have and bang left in this GISS bombshell – speak now or forever hold your piece on climate issues.
Ken #877
“Meaningless” eh? Not really. Impasse – unable to continue. False impasse – you claim it’s an impasse, but that’s just because you’ve taken an uncritical and over-extended reading of Sandiland’s piece.
Ken #877
If you need to appeal to the return of delusion boy in order to bolster your case, you know it’s in trouble.
Posted to you via airport wireless. Yes, I’m geting on my biannual aeroplane flight on 350 day. Pissed off or what.
kdkd #879
Since there appears to be saturation in the Temp vs CO2 plot at a CO2 level of about 375ppmv – I doubt if trying for 350 will make much difference.
Hope you are planting a tree to make up for your aeroplane flight.
Remember Nobel Prize winner Freeman Dyson calculated that planting 1 trillion trees would pull out of the atmosphere all the CO2 ever released by humankind.
Ken #880
Still pretending that the pause in explicit warming trend in the present day is somehow statistical significant I see. Too bad your science is badly out there. Perhaps Tamas is Delusion Boy and you are his sidekick – Communist Paranoia Man.
Dyson whom you are fond of has said: “My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have”.
This is not an argument that makes lies or delusion acceptable.
Ken #880
“there appears to be saturation in the Temp vs CO2 plot at a CO2 level of about 375ppmv – I doubt if trying for 350 will make much difference.”
What delusional nonsense. You can really tell that you’re fooling yourself here if you look at the plots. You’d see slowing to an asymptote. Can you see that in the many charts that have been presented. Only with a good bit of self deception.
Busted again dude. Better go save some right-thinking people from the commie scourge. Don’t forget to put your undies on over your trousers though.
Video describing the lovely people that Ken, Tamas and the other climate loonys who pop up on this forum from time to time are associating themselves with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0-gX7aUKk
kdkd #883
You are riding for a fall kdkd. Trust you saw the Weekend Australian Article of last Saturday. Pretty much as I predicted – the “brains trust” concluded that the Hansen-Gore story was a gross exaggeration in order to “scare people sh*tless”.
Lots of interesting conclusions though – will expand later tonight if I have time.
Ken #884
Hahaha more deluded nonsense.
News in this week: Plimer caught plagiarising off the web for his piece of shit book. Definitive work in PNAS showing that the current arctic observations are caused by humans. More and more evidence showing your position is unsustainable and deluded.
And you point at a grubby rag with an obsession with tits and arse, and the climate science credibility of Tamas and suggest that “I” (that is entire climate science cannon) are heading for a fall.
Perhaps some of delusion boys’s special powers are being rubbed off on you, communist paranoia man!
More bad news for delusion boy and captain paranoia. The Associated Press gave climate datasets to independent statisticians blind (i.e. they wern’t told what the data was) and were asked to assess trends.
Conclusions: The same as mine.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_sc/us_sci_global_cooling
kdkd #884
“And you point at a grubby rag with an obsession with tits and arse, and the climate science credibility of Tamas and suggest that “I” (that is entire climate science cannon) are heading for a fall.”
Obviously I should read my Weekend Australian more carefully – completely missed the ‘tits and arse’. Pray tell me which pages I am missing!!
I am glad that “the current arctic observations are caused by humans” – polar bears aren’t that good at reading temperatures, but I am pretty sure they would know more about their adventures between ice floes than Al Gore.
Good to see Barnaby Joyce calling for a TV debate between the protagonists. I would think that a couple of nights 7.30 to 10.30pm (Kerry O’Brien & Robin Williams – Science Show special) could be devoted by the National Broadcaster for the most important issue of our age.
(Drop a few crap comedies for a couple of nights)
Of course, Plimer, Flannery, Carter, Karoly, Glikson, Kinnemonth etc should be there – with you, Tamas and me.
kdkd #887
By the way I noticed that silver tongued socialist Philip Adams doing an advert for “The Australian”. Tits and arse and all.
He must have got that purr…. from that Rolls Royce he famously owned – the one with the stinkingly capitalist wet carpet in the boot….
This was the British disease era…when the bolshies in Britain used to make 4 cars per man per year…..
Any vestiges of credibility that Pilmer had have been shot given that he clearly plagiarised for his book. http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/plimer_the_plagiarist.php
I only read the Australian online usually, and while the T&A aren’t really obvious in the paper, the online stuff is pretty grubby. Maybe it’s spillover from the Tele.
In other news “Arctic warmest in 2000 years” /news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8236797.stm
Some more bad journalism there (see next sentence), but this piece is reasonable. 100 years ago the arctic was warmer 2000 years ago. In the present day the Arctic is warmer. And the PNAS article shows this has human thumbprints all over it.
There you go…..
“It pretty much depends on when you start,” wrote John Christy, the Alabama atmospheric scientist who collects the satellite data that skeptics use. He said in an e-mail that looking back 31 years, temperatures have gone up nearly three-quarters of a degree Fahrenheit (four-tenths of a degree Celsius). The last dozen years have been flat, and temperatures over the last eight years have declined a bit, he wrote.
Nice cherry pick there ken. Pick 1997 there’s a warming trend. Pick 1999 there’s a warming trend. Pick any other date except 1998 in fact and there’s a warming trend. If you start assessing the statistical significance you need to go back to 1994 to find a significant warming trend.
So what was your point again? This is actually the poor man’s resampling statistics. The main thing you need to do is not pick the single date that supports your claim, but look at the data holistically.
Busted again.
kdkd #891
We would argue that the Satellite data is the most accurate as it cannot be so easily corrupted by sampling error and local effects. After all the USA ground stations have a heat flux of 0.3 – 0.5 W/sq.m. of continental waste heat to contend with.
Flat, slightly warming, slightly cooling – what matters is:
1) Is it unprecedented in human history? and
2) Is is a cause for drastic action?
Hey captain paranoia. Get this into your skull. I’ll say it loud so you might remember.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SATTELLITE DATA AND THE GROUND DATA IS NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT.
Got it?
Doubt it, the voices in your head telling you it’s a commie conspiracy are shouting louder.
Answers to 1 and 2. Yes and yes. Discussion ended. I see you’ve come around to my point of view despite the voices.
kdkd #894
Hey, Maoist statistician from small regional university: The Answers are No and No!!
Statistical massaging has little to do with real world numbers. 0.4 degC rise in 30 years and 0.7 degC rise in 150 years is the magnitude of the warming.
Not unprecented in human history. Remember Dr Glikson’s 0.2 – 0.4 degC changes “have ended civilizations” or so he says.
Alarmist nonsense will result in panic responses and poor solutions.
155 litres/minute of SO2 pumped into the stratosphere costing $50 million is all that is necessary to offset any warming if it becomes a nuisance acording to the US’s smartest brains.
Ken,
Right wing ellitist businsess man from some part of the boondocks in Queensland. Your grasp of the science and history is tenuous I see.
Your grasp of the assessment of unintended consequences is also iffy too.
Nice job captain paranoia. Every time you open your mouth you demonstrate that your opinion is an exercise in wishful thinking, and shoehorning increasingly uncoperative data into your ludicrous point of view.
Ahh… kdkd. Ken makes a point that you fail to counter: No data set shows any “dangerous” global warming for about 10 years. yet you carry on about the “crisis” of global warming. Odd, to say the least.
And even better is the cost/benefit of the solutions you propose. Ken points out we could solve the whole problem for $50m p.a. What’s your solution, and how much will it cost?
In terms of environmental impact, tose $50m give you the effect of two Pinatubos a year in perpetuity. Unintended consequences anyone? There are known unknowns, and unknown unknowns involved with that one.
0.7ºC to date is perfectly within the predicted range estimated by the models for dangerous global warming. In fact there’s plenty of evidence to show that dangerous warming is already occuring in the arctic, and in some tropical areas.
Nice to see delusion boy back, less bombastic than before but just as deluded.
kdkd #898
Meanwhile back in the real world, I would have thought that a nice natural volcanic effect would warm the hearts of the Green Left and speaking of green – the USA’s best brains made the point that that most greenhouses run CO2 boosting up to 1400ppm to increase plant growth by about 70%.
Reminds me of Dr Chris Schoneveld’s little Google experiment which proved the systemic bias of the Media toward AGW alarmism.
Mr Statistics – on the probabilities alone there must be some benefit from higher levels of CO2 to something living somewhere on the planet. Just you never ever hear of it.
Just as you never hear of the fiasco over the temperature measurements from the Argo Buoys – nor the established fact that most of the Arctic warming is cyclically driven by the AMO (as we laboriously established some weeks ago).
Our USA’s best brains made the point that plants struggle to survive in the cold at low levels of CO2 and that your PV Solar panels are a black hole and contribute to global warming due to their black surfaces – who would have thought…….
Ken #899
This must be some definition of the real world that I was previously unfamiliar with.
The point is that all the data, despite the efforts of deluded fools such as yourself points to increased greenhouse gas emissions as being bad for our present way of life.
Your excercises in wishful thinking expose you as a fool and a fraud. Well done at reaching the same nadir as delusion boy.
kdkd #various
For a good review of the comparison of Temp anomaly datasets have a look at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/19/comparing-the-four-global-temperature-data-sets/
Looks like a plateau over tha last 10-12 years when the purported heating effects of CO2 have never been higher; ie Heat Up Power = 5.35 ln(CO2a/CO2b) W/sq.m.
Ken #901.
Well we know that Mr Watts, a weatherman has accepted money from the Heartland institute (formerly paid tobacco apologists, now often funded by the likes of Exxon to spread misinformation). So not a trustworthy source, and the conclusions in that article are weak, and broadly in agreeement with what you’re desperately trying to ignore.
“Short term, less than thirty years, temperature series are not the place to seek evidence of human induced global warming.”
The simple fact of the matter is that we can demonstrate this in simple steps:
step 1. We expect about 0.1ºC warming per decade.
step 2. The standard deviation of the temperature over a 10 year period is somewhat greater than this[1]. This is the normal behaviour of *weather* as a part of the climate system. Do you get the difference yet?
step 3. Therefore we won’t be able to determine a statistically significant trend over such a short period of time.
More perseveration. I reckon delusion boy’s radioactive emissions have gone to your head!
[1] This is a lie to simplify the discussion. We actually want an increasing trend greater than roughly 2.6 standard deviations from the mean to show statistical significance).
kdkd #902
“Short term, less than thirty years, temperature series are not the place to seek evidence of human induced global warming.”
I take it that you are in agreement with the above statement – or am I mistaken??
Ken, #903
You’ve apparently been trying to claim otherwise for some time. Tamas certainly has. Good to see a delusionist blog also getting with the programme.
kdkd #904
So let me get this crystal clear….you are claiming that the last 30 years or so of Temp Anomaly measurements cannot be used as evidence of human induced global warming, and the reason is that the statistical error in the results is too large to distinguish ‘climate change’ from ‘natural weather variability’.
Am I correct?
Ken
Where did the 30 years come from? Seems like you’re trying to set up a straw man there.
kdkd Quote: So not a trustworthy source, and the conclusions in that article are weak, and broadly in agreeement with what you’re desperately trying to ignore.
“Short term, less than thirty years, temperature series are not the place to seek evidence of human induced global warming.” endquote
From your Post #902 kdkd!!
How do I interpret the above quotation? Broadly in agreement with what am I trying to ignore…what is that? Perhaps the proposition that ‘conclusions cannot be drawn from Temp-time series data less that thirty years’. Is that what I am trying to ignore?
And if it is … then I must be wrong according to you. And if I am wrong, then the proposition that ‘conclusions cannot be drawn from Temp-time series data less that thirty years’, must be right?
Agree??
30 years is a reasonable start for a time period. Bare minimum in the present day we need 15 years and that’s not terribly informative, so 30 year minimum with 5-10 year moving averages is probably good (10 is better). Half a lifetime to a lifetime is an appropriate scale for looking at this kind of stuff, as I’ve said before.
Watts is discredited due to a close association with the rent seekers. You kept claiming that we can detect significant trends over a much shorter period than this, so I’m suspicious of your motivations too. Maybe you’ve changed your mind. Excuse my suspicion, but I think you deserve it.
kdkd#908
So your time span measure of statistical significance is a human lifetime.
The recent glacial cycles are 100,000-120,000 years with 15000-20000 year interglacials (warm periods).
So what is the scientific basis of measuring the significance of climate change in human lifetimes?
I don’t know what Watt’s connections are – nor are they relevant to the information presented on his website. It seems to have won a ‘best science blog award 2008′ from no doubt a big oil, big tobacco, Indian slaying ku klux clan loving think tank.
Your contribution is pure smear, devoid of analysis or facts.
Ken #909
This discussion is specifically to deal with your malapropism that it’s been cooling since 1998. This is too short a time frame. You need 15 years minimum, 30 years is sensible, and longer is better. It’s related to the context of the problem.
We’re going through this boring repetition because of your deliberate desire to misread the meaning and extent of trend data. Stop trying to turn it around to look like the faulty thinking comes from elsewhere. You and tamas are the originators, and your original claims do not stand up to the least bit of scruitny.
kdkd #910
So now we are down to 10 years too short, 15 years minimum. Seems a self serving time frame unrelated to the issues of Population and Sample Size.
Risking my undergraduate statistical knowledge – what is the Population of Temp measurements? What is the Sample Size?
15 years of measurements would be 1.5 times 10 years of measurements.
If 10 is not enough, which textbook tells you that 15 is just sufficient?
Ken #911
The idea of the population of measurements is rather complex for a global data set, as each value is based on a composite of figures. Then there’s seasonal variation, measurement coverage across different parts of the globe and so on. I’m sure the details are interesting, but for the current purposes they’re not terribly important.
So we just do things empirically, and look for the minimum time that a statistically significant trend is detectable and determine the magnitude and direction of the trend. It’s just exploratory statistical work that orients one to the nature of the problem at hand.
You and Tamas lead us down this particular blind alley because you kept insisting that there has been a cooling trend since some particular cherry picked date. Regardless of the details, this is shown to be a false argument, which which you should not waste our time. Broad-brush style, using some fairly basic descriptive stats techniques, we see that half a lifetime or a lifetime is a good period with which to estimate the effects of human induced climate change. And at this stage we clearly see from multiple angles that the effects are human caused too.
So you seem to be sufficiently desperate that you lead us down this blind alley and then try to start claiming that there’s some kind of wonderful view at the end rather than the brick wall that’s really there. Must be the effect of being a zombie and a fish that’s doing that.
kdkd #912
You are showing some unhealthy obsession with the idea of *cooling* – going to extreme lengths to stamp it out and enforce AGW purity.
It still must be bugging you kdkd that you resort to such childish jeers and smears as to make the Cage Match a lexicon of kdkd jabber.
Of course 160 years of data is better than 30 years is better than 15 years is better than 10 years – so your self-serving drafting of a line at 15 years is both illogical and unscientific.
Time for Tamas to cuff and whip into you with some real data, which you seem to enjoy at the end of a hard week. Take care with the plastic bag over the head – you could do yourself an injury if the CO2 level spikes above 1500ppm.
Ken # 913:
“is both illogical and unscientific.”
No it’s both logical and scientific as I explained clearly in words that a high school maths student could understand. And you are who is prolonging this pointless discussion. You clearly have nothing to add.
kdkd #913
“Broad-brush style, using some fairly basic descriptive stats techniques, we see that half a lifetime or a lifetime is a good period with which to estimate the effects of human induced climate change. And at this stage we clearly see from multiple angles that the effects are human caused too.”
Well we agree on one thing – the above is high school level ‘science’. Select an assumption which suits your desired conclusion and happily present that conclusion as good.
Ken #914
I’m having real trouble understanding the point you’re trying to make. Do you have some alternative method for assessing the size, duration and direction of a trend for this data set. If so, please share, if not, please shut up as my quick and dirty method is the best we’ve got. In any case, we see that Tamas’ and your assertion that there has been cooling since [some cherry picked date] is totally wrong. Perhaps your objection is that the fallacy of your reasoning has been clearly demonstrated.
kdkd #916
Yes, there is an alternative method. Just look at the raw data of Temp Anomaly vs time and observe how it diverges from the AGW alarmist scenarios proposed by Hansen et al.. If 0.4 degC rise in 30 years is divided into ‘weather variability’ and ‘climate change’ – what proportions do you come up with?
Ken
More confabulation
We see decadal variation of about 0.1ºC increase per year and within decade variation of 01ºC per year. Resolving the short term variability and long term variability then needs to be done statistically. The scenario still matches your so called alarmist scenario above.
And give me the source for 04ºC in 30 years, I’m not accepting blind assertion from you.
kdkd – UAH shows a trend increase of 0.38C over 30 years and 0.1C of cooling since 2001.
I also want to know how you feel about the latest opinion polls showing that belief in AGW is collapsing in Australia, US, UK.
It seems Lincoln’s old adage that “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time” is now being applied to AGW. The people are no longer fooled.
Well, some people are – like you. But wise old men like Ken and me have seen through this rubbish for some time. We forgive you though because of your youth and inexperience.
Anyway – my postings will continue to be light for another couple of weeks as work is killing me right now.
Tamas.
“kdkd – UAH shows a trend increase of 0.38C over 30 years and 0.1C of cooling since 2001.”
The supposed cooling since 2001 is *NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT. IT IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM ZERO. THIS IS ENTIRELY WHAT WE WOULD EXPECT TO SEE IN A SERIOUS GLOBAL WARMING SCENARIO*. CLEAR? There’s nothing different about the UAH trend between 2001 and now and the UAH trend between say 1993 and 1997, which was part of the warming trend you cited.
“I also want to know how you feel about the latest opinion polls showing that belief in AGW is collapsing in Australia, US, UK.”
I think collapse is too strong a word for it. We’ll see how that looks in another 12 months. As you clearly demonstrate, people don’t think terribly clearly about things with statistical properties very clearly. A slab of (good quality) beer says that in 12 months after this El Niño event has been underway for a while the opinion polls will be back to where they were or more.
“It seems Lincoln’s old adage that “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time” is now being applied to AGW. The people are no longer fooled.
Well, some people are – like you. But wise old men like Ken and me have seen through this rubbish for some time. We forgive you though because of your youth and inexperience.”
Translation: I am a delusional fool pulling Ken along for the ride. I probably have a financial interest in the status quo that I’m keeping quiet about, and I lack the imagination to envisage the alternatives.”
Take it easy with the work. Consider downshifting your lifestyle for both environmental and personal health reasons
Ahh kdkd – I have a financial interest now? It’s a conspiracy!!
I can tell you right now that I have no financial interests in any anti AGW industries or anything like that. Really, such accusations are pathetic.
Also, suppose I accept that the cooling from 2001 isn’t statistically significant. Why hasn’t it been warming? Human CO2 production is at record levels. What has been stopping the world from warming?
Anyway – I’ll accept your wager for that slab of fine beer. Let me be clear on the bet: 1 year from now opinion polls in the US, UK and Australia will show that belief in and concern over global warming is lower than today.
Do you agree with that?
Ken, I’ll share kdkd’s fine beers with you when I receive them from him in a year.
Tamas,
Maybe you have no financial interest in the status quo. Maybe you perceive some indirect economic interest in the status quo that pollutes your world view, who knows. I wonder what you do for a living … I suspect you’re some kind of scientifically illiterate economist.
Personaly I’m very dubious of an economic system that assumes the infinite exploitation of resources is possible, and where the thermodynamic efficiency of the underlying economy is a secondary or tertiary concern.
So, assuming that you accept that there’s no cooling since 2001, the extent and the magnitude of the warming trends for the last century or so shows that we can only detect any trend at all from raw data using minimum 15 year time periods, and to be honest that’s pushing it. This is because as I explained before, the month to month and year to year variability is about the same as the decadal trends. Something very dramatic would have to happen to change this. Based on existing data there’s a chance that we might see the dramatic shift in the warming direction that you demand, but the chances of a dramatic shift in the cooling direction are very slim indeed. Perhaps the erruption of a supervolcano would do it, I don’t know.
kdkd #922
Or the dribbling of 155 litres/min of SO2 into the stratosphere at an annual cost of about $50million if the ‘warming’ starts looking AG.
Tamas #921
Look forward to sharing kdkd’s beers (full strength of course).
The place to look for heating is the energy balance of the Earth and the storage in the oceans.
All the stuff on this I have read show conflicting data – some warming some cooling, with a big unknown in the clouds and their ability to reflect the roughly 102W/sq.m which bounces off the Earth.
The Argobuoy story is a shocker. It seems a lot (number unstated) of the 3000 odd buoys were reading too cool, so they were removed from the record, and the results then ‘corrected’ by trailing copper wire records (which tend to read ‘warm’),
and research vessel ‘bucket’ samples.
I would love to hear how you measure the temperature of a ‘bucket’ of water brought to the surface without affecting its temperature.
Ken:
You can provide me with a second case of beer when the time comes too if you like.
All the stuff I have read and the data I have analysed shows that the sun and co2 (or equivalents) are the drivers of the heat balance of the planet, with a minor role payed by clouds and other aerosols, and the occasioinal large perturbation provided by seismic events.
the Argo Buoy programme has been running since 2004. I’d expect with a large and ambitious programme like that, for there to be many teething problems, and that it will take some time to a. get stable well calibrated measurements, and b. for these decadal trends as observed by other instrumental records to provide sufficient data to assess long term trends in oceanographic variables.
More delusional sewing of doubt for dubious purposes with a side order of paranoia. As an engineer you ought to know better about scale up and depoyment of measurement systems in hostile environments …
Ken,
The so2 solution is the equivalent of 2 pinatubos a year in perpetuity, or until whenever we decarbonise the economy. As I said before would you like a side order of unintended consequences with that?
kdkd #925,926
The Energy balance equation was dealt with in Karaoke and other posts, but worth revisiting.
It is pretty simple:
TSI incoming at top of atmosphere (divided by 4) = 341 W/sq.m +/- 0.1-0.2% (or more); which equals:
F. reflected by clouds etc = 102 W/sq.m +/- (unknown %)
+
F. absorbed (GHG etc) and re-radiated by infra-red longwave radiation = 239 W/sq.m +/- ? (+1.6 W/sq.m purported CO2 & GHG heat-up)
Ya don’t need to be an engineer or mathematical genius to see that a very small percentage variation (say 0.2 – 1%) in any of the above three main terms will amount to the 1-2 W/sq.m order of magnitude of uncertainty, which will wipe out the purported 1.6 W/sq.m of ‘imbalance’.
The S02 doping of the stratosphere would shine up the F.reflected term. A 1% increase in reflection would be 1 W/sq.m and 2% would be 2 W/sq.m – rubbing out the purported 1.6W/sq.m. of CO2 GHG heat-up.
The behaviour of clouds and water vapour is poorly understood (low LOSU according to the IPCC).
No honest climate scientist is claiming to measure any of the above terms with the accuracy needed to have the error and uncertainty terms significantly less that the purported imbalance of 1.6 W/sq.m. The error any uncertainty is probably a lot more that 1.6W/sq.m when the terms are summed.
Puts all these fractious arguments about statistical massaging of heating or cooling trends in the shade doesn’t it?
Ken,
Your energy balance stuff looks nice and quantitative. Let’s assume that your figures and scientific reasoning are reasonable.
Now please explain why the observations don’t match your theory.
p.s. I haven’t done any “statistical massaging” of heating and cooling trends. I’ve just demonstrated the minimum time periods that any long term trends are observable in. You seem to be implying some kind of statistical fraud where none in fact exists.
Ken
Also I see you ignoring the elephant in the room of the unintended consequences of the equivalent of two pinatubos a year injected into the atmosphere in perpetuity. The blindness of the “tech fix solves all” evangelist I see …
kdkd #928
The Economist seems to tolerate a skeptical agreement with Tamas and myself. You know how difficult it is to get a letter published in the Economist. Its letters page this week contains a letter from retd professor of physics Horst-Joachim Luedecke:
http://216.35.68.215/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14743441
(It has sent AGW jihadist blog sites into a frenzy).
It quotes the Mojib Latif research from University of Kiel. Monbiot hoped to head this cooling prediction off at the pass (as you parrotted some posts back) by claiming that good old global warming will be resumed after multi-decadal (more than 20 year) cooling period.
But as you now have excruciatingly squealed; more than 15 years is not just noise.
More importantly though is the laboriously established fact that long term trends cannot be sustained by even large regional oscillations such as the ENSO and AMO (or NAO).
Interestingly enough, an internal artefact such as the ENSO, AMO or NAO can shut down this global 1.6 W/sq.m heat-up power for 20 years or more, without showing a temperature increase.
Simple question – where is all the ‘heat imbalance’ going over that significant period without showing a global temperature increase on planet Earth?
Ken #930
Looks like the letter from Horst-Joachim Luedecke is another in a long line from the deluded old man who should know better. Joining the ranks of people like you, David Bellamy and many others.
Without CO2 we should have seen substantial cooling over the past 30 years. So if those cooling drivers become strong enough to mask the co2 effect for a little while, I really don’t see how this affects the AGW theory.
Now show me where in the data that “an internal artefact such as the ENSO, AMO or NAO can shut down this global 1.6 W/sq.m heat-up power for 20″ has stopped this during a time of rapid increase in co2 emissions. Actually we’ve shown that unregulated particulate pollution can do this. Show me where the process has been reversed.
You can’t your arguments stinks like a foetid cerebral abscess. This must be the cause of your delusions. Better get to the doctor and get it drained before it causes the organs you’re actually using to shut down (because you’re clearly not using your brain for much more than making up fictional arguments).
Oooooh nasty……reminds me of the chanting Red Guard driving older professors onto the streets and dragging them into re-education camps.
Hold on kdkd…your bible – IPCC 2007 Fig 2.4 shows a balance of +1.6W/sq.m of heat-up power net of all the other heating and cooling forcings.
CO2 does actually +1.66 W/sq.m – and all the other forcings a net -0.06 W/sq.m giving a net heat-up power of +1.6W/sq.m and going up with the log function equation as CO2 concentration increases yearly.
So without the purported CO2 forcing we would have seen -0.06 W/sq.m – almost no forcing at all, according to IPCC 2007.
So your assertion that;…. “Without CO2 we should have seen substantial cooling over the past 30 years. So if those cooling drivers become strong enough to mask the co2 effect for a little while, I really don’t see how this affects the AGW theory.” is PLAIN WRONG according to the good book – IPCC 2007 Fig 2.4.
You had to agree that ENSO and AMO and NAO cannot generate their own heat – there have to be external drivers.
So to rub-out the heating, you have now enlisted ‘enhanced particulate pollution’ cooling forcings even though these ARE ALREADY ACCOUNTED FOR in Fig 2.4 of IPCC 2007.
I rest my case kdkd – skewered by the good book itself.
Ken,
Whatever. You’re clutching at straws and trying to sew uncertainty where none exists.
Give up old man. Your time is past, let the next generation clean up your mess after you
Kdkd #931 – you also say that “Without CO2 we should have seen substantial cooling over the past 30 years”.
Um, ok – what was driving this cooling? It must be a natural factor like, I dunno, the sun or something? You need to explain what was driving the cooling to argue that it was reversed by human CO2 driven warming.
So come on, man up – what was it?
Tamas,
It’s the sun. Solar output is down compared to recent history.
kdkd #935
Nooooooooo! Not the Sun kdkd, according to IPCC 2007 Fig 2.4. The Sun and all other forcings add up to -0.06 W/sq.m – so it is already taken account of in the summation of all the non-CO2 GHG forcings. (Solar shown as a puny +0.12 W/sq.m in the table).
If you disagree with the IPCC Fig 2.4, then of course you are challenging the scientific basis of AGW theory as revealed by the IPCC.
Ken,
By itself solar activity would have resulted in cooling. However we see no such thing. Forget the IPCC forcing estimates that’s a complex model, and I’m talking simple model right now. Don’t believe me, check the graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png
Noooooo! Sorry!
Have a look at: http://climatekaraoke.pbworks.com/Stage-3
It shows a Solar forcing graph up to year 2000 with the last 50 years or so in the +0.4 – 0.5 W/sq.m range – and not dropping off over the last 30 years at all!
It also shows a reconstruction of the TSI (Total Solar Insolation) at the top of the atmosphere as between 1367-1368 W/sq.m – with the peak at year 2000 – not dropping off over the last 30 years at all.
Of course the person who presented the above data in the “Karaoke” could be a complete pratt and not know what he/she is talking about.
Ken
That’s a forcing model, it’s not solar input. The independent effect of solar input (not accounting for atmospheric effects) is that we expect decrease in energy supplied to the troposphere.
While willing to express cynicism about models when it suits you, at present you appear to be relying on the output of a model to make your erroneous point.
Nooooooooooo! Sorry!
The Karoake shows *BOTH* F.Solar (forcing) and the TSI at the top of the atmosphere in separate graphs …..sunshine. Neither show a drop off in the last 30 years as you claim.
The Wikipedia graph you quoted in #937 shows the 11 year cyclical variation in TSI which is about 1 W/sq.m divided by 4 when it is applied to the surface of the Earth ie; about a 0.25W/sq.m ripple on an 11 year cycle already well discussed in the karaoke threads. THIS IS NOT EVIDENCE OF A 30 YEAR DROP-OFF IN SOLAR TSI OR FORCING ENERGY INPUT TO THE EARTH SYSTEM.
As you well know, the graphs further down the said Wiki page show the 10Be Solar reconstructions and the sunspot activity numbers which show rising slopes to high levels (10Be) or plateau at high levels (sunspots) over the last 50 years.
Son, one day I’ll tell you the story over a beer or two about the old bull and the young bullshitter…
Ken,
As usual your point is obscure. There’s really no difference between talking about forcing and temperature change, it’s just that they are different units describing the same underlying phenomenon. Which units you use depends on the end goal. My goal is to try to explain the climate change data to people with limited scientific skills. Your goal seems to be to sew confusion and doubt for your own political purposes.
Please explain how your theorising relates to the observed data. AKA put up or shut up.
Indeed you’re right, we should only really be observing some kind of cooling effect since the turn of the century. So one of the reasons that we can’t observe a warming trend in recent years is due to the effect of solar irradiance confounding the effect of greenhouse gasses. The data I’ve collected is patchy for the most recent dates as well, so my models don’t really illuminate this stuff very well.
Ken, Tamas,
Do you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. Compared to your right wing conspiracy theory nut tea leaf reading, the empirical evidence of a coalition of organisations dedicated to slowing climate progress is rather more easy to demonstrate.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/global_climate_change_lobby/key-findings
Now is the right time to admit your position is wrong and stupid.
kdkd
In my posts #936, #938, #940, your errors and misfires have been identified and exposed. Like your bar heaters in the past, as soon as a Watt is mentioned – your attempts at explaining the heat-up and cooling issues dissolve into childish accusations of obscurity on my part. You claimed a 30 year drop in TSI and Solar forcing and I have demolished that claim.
Your response: “Whatever” – another piece of Gen Z ghettospeak.
Even the most non-technical of laymen viewer could follow my arguments, and the hoisting of yours on your own petard.
Your latest effort in Post #941 is a case in point.
kdkd: “So one of the reasons that we can’t observe a warming trend in recent years is due to the effect of solar irradiance confounding the effect of greenhouse gasses”
This is extraordinary. After weeks of your arguing that a ‘warming’ trend exists right up to the present day according to your statistical analysis; now you concede that “we can’t observe a warming trend in recent years due to the effect of solar irradiance confounding the effect of greenhouse gasses”.
Another win for KL and Tamas and the forces of reading the actual data.
And what is the implication of “the effect of solar irradiance confounding the effect of greenhouse gasses”.
Well if you take your Wiki graph of the variations of TSI over the 11 year cycle (5 declining years most recently), this equates to about 0.25 W/sq.m peak to trough drop in F.solar forcing at the Earth’s surface. (about 1 W/sq.m TSI)
If 0.25 W/sq.m reduction in solar forcing is enough to ‘confound’ CO2 GHG warming and ‘stop the warming trend’, then the effect of CO2 GHG must be of magnitude around 0.25 W/sq.m.
But as we all know, the IPCC number on anthropogenic (human induced) forcing (mainly CO2 GHG) is +1.6 W/sq.m and rising yearly. 0.25 is a lot less that 1.6 isn’t it kdkd?
Which adds weight to my consistent argument that the effect of CO2 GHG has been exaggerated by the IPCC and deliberately distorted in its “Notes for Policymakers” to scare sh*tless the Rudds and Wongs of this world into hasty and ill-conceived ETS and CPRS schemes.
And on a personal note; your childish abuse and hyperbolic smearing of both Tamas and myself has brought upon me an attack of the “Paul Keatings”.
That dark knight of invective had two apposite sayings: ‘the devil is in the details’ and ‘I want to do you slowly’.
kdkd….after all these months….. I am enjoying ‘doing you slowly’.
Ken
Your MO is to bang on about the same old crap until you confuse people with your obscure points and needless shifting of units from one to another for no reason except to sew confustion. So let me summarise for you.
Despite the number of electrons that you waste, it makes no difference because (and this is the important bit). The prior predictions and observed data clearly demonstrate that we are on a course for dangerous human caused global warming.
So pissing around with units, models deliberately stated in a way as to be confusing, honing in on relatively unimportant minutae makes no difference to this observed date.
You sir are a bullshitter par excellence. You’ve done yourself quickly many times on this forum – your lack of insight into the stupidity of your position is amazing.
It was also good to see your rather weird and pointless comment from Crikey on thursday being shown to be a total waste of space on friday by the way. Confabulation and drawing conclusions without evidence to do so are also things that you do. Give up old man. Move on. You are wrong, and sewing needess confusion is a dangerous position for this important problem. You have been warned.
kdkd #944 #945
You are a nasty little pratt aren’t you?
When your attempts at numbers and units and claims about important issues such as “a 30 year drop in TSI and Solar forcing” are shown to be wrong USING YOUR OWN KARAOKE DATA, you cut up very rough indeed.
The viewers could only conclude that you have no understanding of energy and temperature issues vital to the AGW debate, because I have nailed you every time you tried to expound on the standard AGW mantra.
By the way, one ‘sows’ seeds (and doubt) and ‘sews’ one’s lips together.
Something you should consider…. along with retrospecive abortion.
#946
correction: “retrospective abortion”
Oh dear Ken,
I said my off the cuff remark of 30 years was incorrect, it’s closer to 10.
On the other hand your paranoid political drivel, littany of errors and other nonsense is really tiresome, and you diminish any part of your discussion that might have some relevance. And you’ve never fessed up to your errors.
Confabulation and perseveration. Why are you bothering. You know you’re wrong but you keep ploughing the same furrow, and pointing to the same stones pretending that there’s some relevance there. Give up. If you don’t want to be part of the solution, at least stop trying to prolong the problem. Your time has passed. We’ve moved on from the exaggeration of doubt – right now your mob have moved on to pretending that we should delay instead.
Funny isn’t it viewers?
When kdkd makes the claim that why ‘we can’t observe a warming trend in recent years due to the effect of solar irradiance confounding the effect of greenhouse gasses’ and gets proven wrong with his own published data (by me) – his explanation is now that the 30 years was an ‘off the cuff remark’ and the number should have been 10 years.
This is amid all his quibbling about whether 15 years was long enough to be statistically significant and denial that 10 years was long enough to establish a heating or cooling trend, and all the statistical theorising to impress the punters….
Heating by CO2 GHG forcing imbalance is a vital part of AGW theory. Cooling is very hard to explain for AGW theorists. That is why the AGW bloggers go berserk when ‘cooling’ is mentioned. They know it doesn’t fit the scripted alarmist message.
But for you, a major boo-boo is just an ‘off the cuff’ remark.
You are making it up as you go along son, and been found out – your credibility to contribute is shot – so you are the one who needs self-examination and a little re-education in a better class school – one which teaches rigor, consistency and…………..honesty.
And the change in solar input over the past decade is one example of why the trend magnitude varies over short periods of time. And so why certainty only develops over longer periods.
Over extending your claims again ken? Bad habit there, better give it up.
Ken, you’ve never fessed up your incredible quantity of errors. This diminishes the value of your opinions remarkably. The two or tree occasions I’ve made an error in this rather long and pointless conversation I’ve fessed up immediately. Because unlike you I have nothing to hide.
For example, your constant harping on about forcing statistics (yes, that too is a statistical model, but you seem blissfully unaware of that fact) you’ve repeatedly ignored requests to relate it to the temperature anomaly. I’m guessing that’s because you’re trying to make some kind of point out of obstinate pride, but deep down you know that your favourite forcing model is meerly a layer of obsufucation over the fact that the IPCC models’ problems are in the oposite direction to what you want – their models underestimate the amount of observed warming, and we’ve got less time to deal with this problem than we thought.
Again, if you don’t want to be part of the solution, at least stop contributing to being part of the problem. You’re a blog scientist [1], and your constant over-extension of limited data shows that you really know very little about the conservative cautious process underlying proper science.
[1] http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/
kdkd #951,2,3
Wow – verbal dribble in 3 posts.
Perhaps you could list my ‘incredible quantity of errors’ which you or others have proven. I can’t think of any – unless you include a few uncorrected typos.
Forcing statistics vs Temp anomaly: Well even *you* now agree that temperatures are not increasing which implies that the net forcings are summing to zero.
Now you tried to explain that, by falsely claiming that Solar forcing was dropping off over the last 30 years and that Solar forcing decline was being more than offset by posititive CO2 GHG forcing.
Well Solar forcing has fallen slightly (about 0.25W/sq.m) over the last 5 years – but from a high base plateauing after a rise over the last 50 years. (10Be and Sunspot evidence and your IPCC derived karaoke numbers show this).
The typical energy balance relationship for the Earth system is:
F.incoming (341 W/sq.m Solar) = F.reflected (102 W/sq.m) + F.re-radiated by long wave (239 W/sq.m)
The IPCC finds a net +1.6 W/sq.m imbalance on the right hand side of this equation, mainly from CO2 GHG absorbing but not re-rediated in the F.re-radiated term.
This means that 341 comes in and 339.4 goes out (at 2005 balance date for IPCC 2007).
Clearly if there is no net heat gain (and no temperature increase), then the system must be re-balanced and this can be done by changing any or all of the three terms of the above equation.
The F.incoming has dropped fractionally by 0.25 W/sq.m over the last 5 years to 340.75 W/sq.m so the right hand side must be also approx 340.75 W/sq.m.
F.reflection could have gone up (Ben Sandiland’s ship trails), but would have to have increased greatly in a short time. The IPCC Fig 2.4 shows direct and cloud albedo at
-1.2 W/sq.m with med-low LOSU. To offset the purported CO2 GHG forcing it would have to rise to about -2.8 W/sq.m – not impossible but unlikely in 5-10 years, especially when this factor is supposed to be reducing by the last 30 years of pollution controls.
Which leaves us with F.re-radiated by long wave where the sub-term F.CO2 GHG lurks.
F.re-radiated must go up by +1.6 – 0.25 (solar drop off) – Delta F.reflected (increase), and the only significant term this can come from is F. CO2 GHG.
In summary, unless you can ascribe 1.35 W/sq.m to the F.reflected terms by increase in direct and cloud albedo, then it must come out of the F. CO2 GHG term. This means that F. CO2 GHG could be anything from 0 – 1.35 W/sq.m, with the 1.35 only being possible if the F. reflected has more than doubled – highly unlikely.
The upshot of that for there to be no temperature increase – the CO2 GHG forcing must be closer to zero.
Clear enough relationship between forcing and temperature for you old son??
Ken,
Your first obvious error here of rather high magnitude. You state:
“Well even *you* now agree that temperatures are not increasing”
Your limited scientific literacy clearly shows that you can’t tell the difference between this statement and “any trend is undetectable over short time periods”. You can find all your other mistakes by looking for replies to your posts with phrases like “false premises” and “over extend your conclusions”. Also your politically inspired paranoid conspiracy theory drivel is another error of enormous magnitude.
Meanwhile your tedious repetetive harping on about forcings is not good enough. Give me a quantitative model (which you already have) with temperature explicitly included in the equation. (Which you’re refusing to do).
kdkd #954
Oh ….is that what you wanted —you should have been more specific.
Converting to energy balance terms (Joules):
Delta F x Ae x t = Ke x Me x Delta Te + Ki x Delta Mi + error….. Eqan 1.01
Delta F = Forcing imbalance (W/sq.m)
Ae = surface area of Earth (sq.m)
t = time period considered (seconds)
Ke = specific heat of Earth/Atmosphere/Ocean system heated or cooled (J/kG-deg C)
Me = mass of Earth/Atmosphere/Ocean system heated or cooled
Delta Te = change in Earth/Atmosphere/Ocean Temp (deg C)
Ki = latent heat of water ice (J/kG)
Delta Mi = change in mass of ice melted or frozen (kG)
error = error (you like error terms don’t you)
There you go…..analyse that…
Ken,
Good. So you’ve got a model there. It looks to me like you can take the existing annual anomaly data, and the IPCC forcing estimates, and plug it into the model so that you can estimate the amount of certainty guaranteed by the forcing model you’re fond of. This is your baby not mine, get to it. I’m not sure the statement of the formula is precise enough for you to be able to do this (your k/kg/ºC term is actually three terms for example), but theoretically you can deal with this by improving the logic of the model prior to getting on with the algebra.
Good luck, looking forward to the results.
Might want to put your working onto a page in the karaoke rather than here mind you.
kdkd #956, 957
This is for you – not me.
“Give me a quantitative model (which you already have) with temperature explicitly included in the equation. (Which you’re refusing to do)”
I can already give you an answer to the equation.
If Delta F = 0, Then Delta Te and Delta Ti both equal zero.
No warming or cooling = no forcing imbalance.
There is the interesting trivial result that ice could be melting or freezing without temperature increase or decrease (ie the Delta Te term only is zero). In reality it is difficult to imagine how a global forcing imbalance could be channelled only into the small portion of the Earth covered by ice without warming or cooling the vast majority of the surface not covered by ice.
Correction *Delta Mi* not *Delta Ti*.
Ken,
So plug the parameters into your model using observed data. You’re trying to claim that your model shows in some kind of profound way that the IPCC corrections are wrong in a too radical way.
You’ve come some way towards showing how to demonstrate this from an empirical point of view. Next you’ve got to show how the observed data demonstrates your case.
Or are you a know nothing blow hard with a restricted repetoire in pretending the data is actaully more uncertain that it is with a political rather than scientific agenda?
Oops, did I just call out the real state of afairs? I’ve clearly demonstrated how the data shows that there’s real serious concern here with other work in the Karaoke. If you believe that my model is somehow not an accurate summary of the real state of affairs you’d better show how, clearly with real data plugged into your model.
AKA Put Up or Shut Sp. I guess we’ll see you do neither because you’re not serious about this, you just like pushing the line of paranoid right wing solipsistic drivel.
Hmm, garbled sentence from me:
“You’re trying to claim that your model shows in some kind of profound way that the IPCC corrections are wrong in a too radical way.”
Should be something like:
“Ken claims that the IPCC’s models are too radical. They overstate the warming.”
All the evidence I’ve seen recently suggests that the IPCC models are too conservative and the problems are bigger than we thought. So time to do your maths homework boy and try to prove me wrong!
So having refused to systematically reprise your previous claims of literature that backs your claims, you’re now going to refuse to do your maths homework.
Looks like I “win” the “debate” here because while you’re good at reprising a few well worn tracks of your own making, but won’t actually put the yards into relating them to real data.
More articles that expose Ken and Tamas’ imbecility.
Unprescedented disappearence of the the Kilamanjaro glacier: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/30/0906029106.abstract . This glacier survived the medieval warming period by the way.
It happens that the models predict that the biggest early evidence for severe global warming will be at lattitude or at altitude.
Ken’s claim is that it’s all to do with a polar current, and nothing to do with AGW. Tamas claims the melting isn’t even significant. So here we go. This must be either not happening or due to the polar current as well …
There you go Ken, a way to avoid your maths homework – you can give us some bizarre confabulation about the Kilimanjaro glacier instead. Over to you losers.
“All the evidence I’ve seen recently suggests that the IPCC models are too conservative and the problems are bigger than we thought. So time to do your maths homework boy and try to prove me wrong!”
Oh kdkd, how do you resolve the above statement with your previous statement:
“Without CO2 we should have seen substantial cooling over the past 30 years.”
Looks like CO2 is saving us from a cold future and keeping up the plant growth – hardly “problems are bigger than we thought”.
Regarding my energy balance equation: I would need some accurate information on cloud albedo and direct albedo to work out the F.reflected term and some decent measurements on longwave radiation for the F.re-radiated term to get the energy balance accurate enough to be meaningful.
Can’t find either in the literature so far on the limited time I have available from employing people and producting things.
Suggest you give this vital world beating research to a bright young thing (brighter that you) doing a Master’s or PHD thesis at the Uni of Kieren View. Maybe the Rudd kiddie could front with a research grant for the purpose.
Notice how the skeptics are being attacked by the Mandarin Candidate for political grandstanding purposes, and a range of AGW alarmists in the Four Corners show tonite.
My mate Prof Karoly was almost fogging his hornrims and frothing at the mouth. He of the ’20% of climate models show cooling’ two bob each way fame.
It just shows that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, and the alarmists have cried wolf once too often.
The robust common sense of the Australian public are smelling rats in the AGW alarmist ranks.
kdkd #962
I would not trust stuff edited by Jim Hansen. The best information I recall on the Kilimanjaro glacier is that very dry conditions sublimate the snow by evaporation at sub-zero temperatures and lack of replacement snowfall is the main reason for the reduction. Possible nothing to do with warming as that region of Africa might be getting cooler and drier.
Ken #961
Yes, you’re scientifically illiterate and don’t understand the inherrent conservatism in the process. There’s nothing illogical about what I’ve said unless the reader habitually tales conclusions far further than warranted. I see you refuse to do the hard yards to back your arguments as well, as predicted.
Ken #962
Bizzaire confabulation with added paranoia. PNAS is obviously worthless. Good work.
You lose sucker! See ya!
kdkd #965
As the Americans showed in Vietnam; declaring victory and going home is a sure sign that you have fled the field ….and lost.
To you this is a statistical game of numbers – correlation but not causation.
You just have to face tha brutal fact that on every issue that involves a number …quantification….and hard data….your case has collapsed by internal inconsistency of just plain error.
It is pretty clear that you don’t understand the causal factors or theory behind the forcing and energy numbers involved.
Suggest that Sophie Black conduct a Crikey poll on the winner of the famous Climate Change Cage Match.
Let the viewers decide.
So here we have (excuse my sarcasm) slight cooling in africa as measured by the climate change delusionals favourite data set, the satellite data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Temperature_Trends,_1979-2005.jpg
Orange means cooling yes? Oops.
Ken, at one point I thought your contribution was misguided but may have some value. But the political paranoia, denial and delusion has just become too strong. Show me how your model relates to the observed anomaly and the uncertainty, or admit that it’s just a ruse to pretend that there’s more uncertainty than actually required.
Also I doubt anyone is left apart from you and me reading this drivel. You’re wasting my time. Go away.
Also this cartoon may help you understand the link between correlation and causation: http://xkcd.com/552/ Check the text when you mouse over the graphic. You seem to be suggesting that while correlations are measurable, they tell us nothing about the mechanisms underlying the association. Solipsistic bullshit, you’re again called out on your scientific illiteracy.
Ken #963
Pretty iffy post here.
You refer to an error that I corrected as if I hadn’t corrected it. Without co2 we should have seen something of cooling trend in recent years might be a better way to put it. This is confirmed, and why the IPCC’s models match the lower range of the observations reasonably well. What was the point you were trying to make again. Was it that given a scientific inch you’ll consistently try to pretend it’s a scientific mile? Ah yes, your MO illustrated in action again.
Then you go on to explain that your model is unverifiable, so you can’t actually explain what it means in terms of observed data. Yeah right, the sociobiologists have a name for these, they call them “just so stories”. Your position clearly has a serious lack of rigour.
Then you finish off with a bit of political paranoia again and then harp on about this two bob each way thing. Another example of overextending the position. This ain’t newtonian mechanics mate, this is on the edge of what mathematics can properly interrogate. It’s a bit like trying to use a metre ruler to measure the perimiter of a fjord with precision. Not possible. You just have to decide when the estimates are good enough. For you that answer is never. Given this you may as well give up now.
Please please stop wasting my time, and if you don’t want to acknowledge the untenability of your position, just keep your mouth shut instead.
kdkd #969
You can always count on the intolerance of the left. Whether its the soft centred ‘keep the bastards honest’ types manhandling women for a bottle of red – or the hard core, screaming abuse and trying to drown out the voices of skepicism – ya just can’t stand ideological difference.
There is another parallel – AGW alarmist religionists apeing the medieval Roman Catholic Church and casting an inquisition on those who depart from the dogma.
Ken #970
More paranoid political drivel! Remember your paranoid diatribe against communist lesbians seizing the climate change agenda a few weeks ago? There’s the stench of hypocrisy here.
Anyway, we’ve clearly established that you make some claims that theoretically might be substantiable if you were able to do the maths. But you can’t do the maths because the data is too complex for the kind of mathematics you have in mind. So you fall back to being a (paranoid deluded) oppressed victim of a left wing conspiracy.
Well done, 10 points for creativity!
kdkd #967
I suspect you will find that one of those very pale white African pixels is sitting right over Kilimanjaro glacier which has been shrinking since 1830 or thereabouts. Read about the drying climate in a blog somewhere – can’t recall if it was WUWT or one of yours.
kdkd#971
“Anyway, we’ve clearly established that you make some claims that theoretically might be substantiable if you were able to do the maths. But you can’t do the maths because the data is too complex for the kind of mathematics you have in mind.”
The RHS of the Forcing balance equation is made up of F.reflected (102W/sq.m) and F.re-radiated (239 W/sq.m)
I would very seriously doubt that F.reflected can be measured at an error of less than +/-2% (2W/sq.m) or F.re-radiated and less than +/-1% (2.4W/sq.m).
This gives us the *Delta F* (forcing imbalance) using the IPCC value of +1.6 +/- 4.4W/sq.m. Even the IPCC places wide error bars on the F.reflected (low LOSU).
So you tell me how I plug this into the LHS of the energy balance equation 1.01, and get anything but a wide range of + or – Temp anomaly (Delta Te) given that Ke and Ki are constants.
Ken #973
No, you need to demonsrate directly how this relates to the *observed temperature anomaly*. In other words you need to show how your *theoretical model* applies to the *observed data*. If you don’t do this, all you’re contributing is hot air.
Ken #972
Torturous arguments. So basically what you’re saying given that there are multiple pieces of evidence that the earth is on a rather serious warming trajectory is that, this is in fact not the case, and each bit of evidence is completely independent of each other bit of evidence. In the arctic it’s a polar current and nothing to do with co2. For this particular mid lattitude glacier it’s sublimation, and nothing to do with co2. Increased frequency and intensity of forest fires, again, independnet, and nothing to do with warming. Feedback effects, what feedback effects? That would imply interdependence and we can’t have that!
So more solipsistic irrational nonsense. If you hadn’t sawn both your legs off earlier your impressive contortions would be neat to watch.
kdkd #974
Oh…. its easy to show that. Forcing is up when the temp goes up….Forcing is down when the temp goes down.
At present there seems to be no detectable trend, but if anything it has been cooling slightly…so forcing is zero or slightly negative….unless of course you can store heat all over on the planet without a temperature signal.
So if Solar has dropped off slightly in the last 5 years, then the only other candidates for a drop-off in forcing are CO2 GHG or big increase in cloud and direct albedo, or both.
And that is my contention…CO2 GHG forcing has been exaggerated by the AGW alarmists, or reflection by clouds and direct albedo is much larger than all the ‘experts’ thought.
That’s why my mate Prof Karoly was almost fogging his hornrims and frothing at the mouth.
Ken #975
Now that’s an incomprehensible each way bet – “At present there seems to be no detectable trend, but if anything it has been cooling slightly…so forcing is zero or slightly negative” it’s either 0 or it isn’t, it can’t be zero and a bit negative at the same time. Plus we have the evidence of a detectable warming trend when you extend the time scale to something a bit more appropriate. So there’s precisely no evidence backing your assertion there. If it’s “easy to show that” then you need to do so. Quantitatively.
Anyway, you’ve explained *qualitatively* what you expect to see. Now to demonstrate that you’re not a bullshit artist par excellence you have to combine the *observed* temperature anomaly with your theoretical model and use this to demonstrate that AGW is not the concern that a large community of scientists and observers think it is.
Bets are on as to whether you achieve this by post #1000 – that’s a 24 post window of delay and obsufucation to make your task easier.
kdkd #976
Poor attempt at confusion kdkd. I never said that forcing could be zero *and* slightly negative at the same time. I said it could be zero *or* slightly negative if Temp is cooling slightly.
Perfectly consistent – as are all the other 400 odd posts in my stable.
You seem to confuse also the contents of the kdkd lexicon of idiotic childish abuse with my supposed ‘errors’. You must exist in a world where truth is judged by the loudness of your squawks. A parallel universe indeed……
I am sure the sober judgement of the viewers would easily decide who has made the most consistent and logical case day after day – month after month.
Tamas would no doubt know the winner, but you need to get some supporters back like darling Harold or Stubborn Mule (seemed quite intelligent) to vote for you.
kdkd #976
Back to the numbers:
With the IPCC’s best brains showing *low* LOSU for a major term in the forcing balance equation ie. F.reflected (at aro 102 W/sq.m), and some uncertainty surrounding the accuracy of measurement of the F.re-radiated term associated with CO2 GHG, how would the big brain of kdkd propose I proceed to obtain the accuracy required of both terms to make a meaningful temperature prodiction?
Please consider that I have at my disposal 1 hour per day and an internet connection thru Google.
Ken #978
It’s really quite simple. You guess an upper limit and a lower limit and you plug those parameter estimates into the equation separately, and evaluate the outcomes separately to give an estimated confidence limit based on what you think the real value of the parameter is. You’re at liberty to pull the upper and lower limits from any where you like (guesstimate). Just be careful not to let your own biases contaminate the values of the upper and lower guesstimates too much.
We also know that there is no solid quantitative evidence to suggest that a slight cooling is happening, although there is a non zero probability (but still pretty low by my reckoning) that a cooling trend may manifest at some point in the near future. However we already know that the most recent siginficant trend is positive (i.e. warming). So the warming parameter estimate for near term data is either zero due to no warming with a low probability of a cooling trend manifesting in the near future. Alternatively we can interpret the data such that there is insufficient statistical power to detect any trend in the very recent past, which is the most empirically valid conclusion we can make at present.
21 left.
kdkd #979
Sounds reasonably sensible for a change kdkd – have you sent in a night watchman?
Perhaps you could give me a worked example.
ken #980
This is the bit I don’t have a good grasp of. How to turn the energy balance equation into a predicted temperature anomaly. I wonder if you could do some high school algebra to get that bit working. Will sleep on it.
The NOV7-8 Weekend Australian’s pages 1 and 2 article and graphic on sea level rise around Australia contains fascinating variations.
The latest year (12 months to June) shows an annual rise of -0.1 to +0.3mm from Tasmania to Cape Ferguson in North Queensland on the East Coast.
Around the West Coast it ranges from +0.8 at Esperance to +0.2 at Broome and +0.4mm at Darwin.
The Annual averages for the whole 16-19 year period are wide ranging; from about 8.0mm on the West Coast to about 2.0mm on the East Coast.
These are extraordinary differences in the long term results with the West Coast rise about 4 times the East Coast rise. Even more extraordinary is the reduction in the last year from long term average of 8mm to under 1mm on the West Coast and 2mm to under 0.3mm on the East Coast.
The very fine printed note at the bottom of the graphic states: “Net relative sea level trend after vertical movements in the observing platform and the inverted barometric pressure effect taken into account”.
The result for Port Kembla was +0.1mm in the last year. The CSIRO’s current global estimate is 3.3mm per year.
The article then quotes:”The CSIRO’s John Church considered one of the world’s leading authorities on sea level rise told the WE Australian yesterday he remained convinced waters along the eastern seaboard were rising in line with global averages. He noted that the BOM’s gauge results for Port Kembla as published here did not include the effect of barometric pressure, which if included would lift the increase to 3.1mm, not much less than the agreed global estimates”.
Hello John? The fine print says that the effect of “barometric pressure” is already taken into account in *all* the Australian results (both long term and last year), which presumably include Port Kembla.
So what then are we to make of the latest year results from 15 Australian measuring stations which all show under 1.0mm of sea level rise, some as low as zero and -0.1mm?
Do we add 3.0mm to all of these as well, so that John Church can feel convinced that all of Australia is in line with global averages?
Something is seriously wrong here – either the WE Australian has cocked up its reporting and graphic or the CSIRO man has made it all up.
If the dramatic reduction in sea level rise is real, then it would be in line with global flat or falling temperatures over the last 8-10 years.
Ken #982
The moral of the story is to not trust the Australian’s science reporting. That’s a horrible editorial mistake, and means we can’t assess the meaning of the article without going back to something closer to the primary sources.
because either the oz’ editor should have picked up the CSIRO mistake, or has made a horrible mistake themselves. Either way they need to be taken out the back and shot.
metaphorically speaking of course
kdkd #983,4,5
Viewers take note – kdkd…… for once I agree with you.
Ken
OK, relating the theoretical model (forcing) to the observational model (temperature) is hard. Let’s check the IPCC figure that we’ve been constantly referring to. It’s available here among other places: http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-2-20.jpg
There are 9 items in this model. The two components with the longest largest warming effect, and the largest warming effect are the two components with the “high” level of scientific understanding. This means that for a reasonably short (years) period t1 to t2 the effect per unit can be regarded as roughly constant.
Moving to the medium level of understanding items, they’re a good bit smaller in effect, and have quite variable life in the atmosphere, so this component is non constant between t1 and t2, but could be relatively stable.
Finally there are quite a few low level of understanding items, and with the exception of 1 item which is of relatively short duration are quite large in effect but are highly variable over short periods of time. So these are not at all constant between t1 and t2, although they could average out to something roughly constant but also difficult to control due to their inherrent short term variability.
So it’s all pretty complex, but claiming that we must value all points of view equally because we can’t characterise the parameters accurately because of the level of scientific understanding is a pretty iffy argument. As it stands the high LOSU items are large value warming constants, and the low LOSU items are lower magnitude, more variable over time, and mix warming and cooling items. They have fundamentally different characteristics that mean it would be very hard for them to control the anthropogenic effects.
Still interested in relating the theoretical forcing model to the anomaly model, but realistically I don’t think it’s terribly achievable. So we rely on the theoretical model to give us things to predict, but we have to validate it with observational data only. Which we’ve done and shown that co2 is the most important driver of the current long term temperature anomaly.
In spades.
kdkd #988
“Which we’ve done and shown that co2 is the most important driver of the current long term temperature anomaly.”
What do you regard at ‘long term’ kdkd?
The sea level rise data stages a timely arrival into the debate.
I agree with you that the WE AUS reporting of such an obvious disparity in the data for Australia is woeful.
Rising sea levels have to be explained in terms of thermal expansion (warming water), melting land ice, and thermal lags in the oceans and possible undersea volcanic heating. Thermal lags seem to range from 10 – 800 years in stuff I have read.
It seems extraordinary that 16-19 year average annual rises of 2mm – 8mm around the Australian (East to West) coast, could drop in the latest year to less than 1mm.
15 stations all set up with special gear to measure this level accurately and we get conflicting BS like this — not good enough.
Need full explanation of the whole dataset. Seems very unlikely that both could be right given the thermal lags in the oceans.
I will try to contact the WE Aus reporters for a clarification of the issue and the John Church quotation.
Mine are not the only pair of eyebrows raised on this issue – my email is getting some attention.
Long term – as I’ve said before half a life time to a lifetime. This is why the policy problem is so hard, and why the delusional arguments seem superficially attractive.
Ken,
Here’s a bare faced common sense view of the tides stuff from a very naive, haven’t thought about it very hard point of view:
The tidal range is ±1m on the eastern seaboard. Therefore to be clearly perceptible, sea level rise will have to be high from baseline, otherwise the tidal range and all the other variables you noted (volcanic is almost certainly insignificant on a global scale) will swamp the signal. I know physics people can control for noise in some circumstances rather more neatly than I can in my field, so we can be liberal. But still I’m thinking rises of 1-10cm will be necessary for a clear trend to be perceptible by the man on the Clapham omnibus.
kdkd #991
Well presumably thats what the 15 specialist stations with fancy equipment around the Australian Coast are designed to do—-get some sort of average over a year in all conditions of wind, tide, land rise, storms, barometric pressure variations etc…
Seawater is not very compressible, so I would have thought that barometric pressure would be a negligible effect, however would stand corrected by an expert. It seems to me that if water gets pushed down somewhere it will pop up somewhere else having no net effect on level if in the same sized bathtub.
It would only rise if its volume is increasing in the same sized bathtub. It the bathtub is changing shape and volume, then a combined effect could occur.’
Sea level rise is one of the basic features of AGW theory, as evidenced by the huge recent scare about inundation of 700,000 properties around Australia.
Well you can see that heat and air pressure has a non-uniform global impact on sea level from for example this page: http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/Sea_level_1997_98/sea_level_1997_98.html
Here’s a good example of the lack of consensus in a scientific community
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/only-0-45-of-physicists-sign-denier-petition/
That’s an awful lot of people hoodwinked by the lesbian communist conspiracy
Something that has confused me about Tamas’ gibberish is his claims that an appeal to authority is somehow invalid. The way he puts it, this suggests that every time you make a claim you have to justify it from first principles.
However I have discovered that this “appeal to authority” argument he claims is in fact the “appeal to irrelevant authority”. So Tamas claim is in fact that one can’t use the evidence as presented by climate scientists working in the field, as these are in fact of no relevance to the argument and must not be trusted.
Black is white, war is peace, fucking is virginity. And Tamas is a foremost authority on climate science. There’s another cover he can’t duck behind now …
kdkd #994
Nice bit of research kdkd. Actually 0.45% of 47000 members of the American Physical Society is about 220 individuals. If you took the proportion of that society who work in climate related science – it would most likely be a small percentage. If you then took those who were brave enough to expose their contrary views in a public petition -it would probably be a small percentage of the first small percentage.
So your 0.45% might be a decent number after all.
If I added up all the names on papers quoted through the 950 posts on this blog – there would probably be several hundred by now – maybe 500ish. 220 would not be a small number amongst those.
And if I took out Hansen and all the NASA/GISS daisy chain who connect to Hansen – the ‘thousands’ of AGW scientists would deflate like a Peacock souffle.
220 would probably outnumber the ‘independent’ AGW supporting scientists ie those who are *not* sucking data or references from the NASA/GISS teat.
Was it Einstein who said that it only takes one sound contraverting experiment for a whole theory to collapse??
The number of sgnatories who had ever worked in climate science was 1.
The number of scientists (as opposed to Watts) who seriously doubt climate change, as opposed to just being people youve cited is also likely pretty low. You use their work in an attempt to support your argument. This is not the same as them supporting your argument.
Finally your blanket dismissal of Hansen et.al is a pretty scary bit of ideology that you ought to examine more closely.
Ken,
I think you need to scroll down that post at http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/only-0-45-of-physicists-sign-denier-petition/ for information about who instigated the petition, and a demographic profile of the delusionals who signed it. Your “argument” makes little sense in that context
kdkd 997 998
I will leave you Post #1000 – Sophie will give you a prize no doubt.
I have never doubted climate change. Climate is a moving feast and has always changed in the past – sometimes rapidly and disruptively.
I doubt the AGW alarmism and exaggeration fostered by zealots like Hansen and local acolytes.
The latest information on sea level rise is a good example of scare tactics and crying wolf which the public is starting to ignore.
Whatever Australia does – it is absolutely clear that with less than 1.5% of world CO2 GHG emissions – the effect will be negligible. Do the log sum on the decadal rise of about 10-15 ppmv and take Australia’s portion as about 0.2ppmv. The contribution is negligible – yet the Rudd kiddle is trying to big note himself and lead the world.
The politics of gesture – of which the Mandarin Candidate is a master.
Gosh we almost agree about something, again. The only substantive contribution australia can make is leadership. How to decarbonise an energy intensive economy quickly? How to move the national culture from profligacy to efficiency? How to deal with powerful vested interests through strong policy levers. Yep, Australia could provide a model to the world. So the piss weak proposet CPRS is a joke and a missed opportunity from this perspective.
Your evidence of alarmism and exaggeration is pretty poor, based on sloppy epistemology, a strong ideological motivation and cherry picking data and sources with a mixture of selective blindness and selective attention.
I wonder if we can end this conversation at post 1000, or perhaps Tamas could oblige and end it at 1001 by claiming something spurious based on illiteracy and delusion again.
kdkd #1000
There are 1001 sensible ways to reduce energy use and improve efficiency at the micro and macro level.
Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan is a positive contribution using real solutions and proven technologies to reduce fossil fuel use.
If you look at the numbers – CCS is BS. Geothermal is still experimental and not easy to scale up quickly. Solar-thermal has some potential but still small scale experimental.
China, Sweden, UK and several other nations are crash programming nuclear using our uranium.
Can you imagine a greater piece of international hyprocrisy than selling uranium to the rest of the world but banning the use of it in Australia, because it might hurt us. So we – the great treaty observers of the world – don’t care if it hurts others in poorly regulated third world countries.
Will report on the sea level controversy – my questions to some of the players are so far getting the silent treatment – just like Ben Sandilands and his GISS report follow-up.
Well we almost agree again. Especially as there are apparently these interesting set and forget nuclear reactors suitable for town size deployments that are meltdown and proliferation proof coming online. But there’s no single solution. The solution is to do everything we can to get off burning coal and oil and venting it into the atmosphere, as quickly as possible[1]. The 30 years of policy failure and deliberate actions of the fossil mafia have lost a major opportunity. Much the same as with the lack of preparations for peak oil [2]. There’s a slim chance we haven’t run out of time on either, but there’s no time left to pretend there’s any significant uncertainty about the underlying science.
But the urgency of the problem means strong leadership and a rapid cultural change required. There’s no point in saying “here’s the solution”. The Australian attitude to energy use is profligate, and that culture is the number one barrier to effective action.
[1] Yes CCS is a dud for conventional coal power plants. However, syngas production plus Peridotite rock to absorb the co2 may be useful.
[2] Here I have inside information in the oil industry about the conspiracy of silence within the exploration industry. No loony left greenie information sources shaping this knowledge.
kdkd #995. My point about appealing to authority is not that you have to argue everything from first principles, just that you can’t shut down the debate by saying that the “scientists” say so therefore there’s no point in rationally explaining something.
For example – the world has cooled since 2001 and this contradicts the climate change hypothesis.
Instead of arguing the logic many just say that these facts are insignificant, and besides, the mountains of climate-scare science act as some kind of trump-card against a fact that is inconsistent with the hypothesis.
Since Socrates and the Athenians we have learnt to question everything. But not anymore. We can’t question global warming.
That’s what makes it feel like a religion. Heretics are abused and treated as outcasts. The WORD (science) cannot be questioned.
It is also the reason why the global warming movement is on the brink of collapse. People are waking up to it – thus the terrible opinion poll numbers in Australia, US, UK etc.
Tamas
You’re confused. Appeal to inappropriate authority is the problem. Claiming that AGW is supported or otherwise because of the claims of (for example) a quantum physicist would clearly be an appeal to inappropraite authority.
“For example – the world has cooled since 2001 and this contradicts the climate change hypothesis.”
This claim of yours is demonstrably false, and I have done this in multiple ways.
The rest of your post is empty rhetoric based on these two initial false claims. So it’s fine to make your argument so long as you’re clear that it’s not rooted in an evidence based view.
kdkd #1440
“For example – the world has cooled since 2001 and this contradicts the climate change hypothesis.”
This claim of yours is demonstrably false, and I have done this in multiple ways.”
Perhaps kdkd you could give us a brief summary of all the ways you have proven this.
By all means include your karaoke charts.
Tamas,
I don’t think there’s the need to repeat myself again. The graph here shows that there is no trend towards cooling.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/05/no_global_warming_didnt_stop_i.php
Also remember that if you substitute other global temperature data for the GISS data, the evidence is exactly the same.
Like I said, argue your case, but please prefix “this view is not based on the available evidence” so that people know that you’re talking crap.
Ahh kdkd – so now we use the Gistemp land and ocean temperature data? That would be the temperature index run by James Hansen?
If you use the UAH satellite data – the most accurate atmospheric data set – there is a trend cooling of 0.1C since 2001.
Human produced atmospheric CO2 must warm the atmosphere before it warms the oceans. But the atmosphere has been cooling. So have the oceans according to Argo.
You can’t get around that fact buddy. The evidence is unequivocal. October was 0.28C above the 30 year mean. Where is this damn global warming when you need to impose your utopian ideals upon a world that clearly thinks the whole thing is a crock?
Tamas, we’ve been through this before and I anticipated your moronicity this time.
I said:
“Also remember that if you substitute other global temperature data for the GISS data, the evidence is exactly the same.”
That means (wait for it): THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GISS DATA AND THE UAH DATA. THE UAH DATA DOES NOT SHOW ANY SIGNIFICANT COOLING TREND SINCE 2001 NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU WILL IT TO.
So I’m sorry. You’re wrong. Your opinion is not based on fact, it is based on a delusional approach to data interpretation.
kdkd #1008
Here’s the ocean heat story from a ‘warmist’ source:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?a=67
When the Argo buoys (direct temperature measurements) don’t match the AGW script, the AGW boys go off and then *infer* warming oceans by the presence of sea level rise – nothing to do with the Argo buoys at all.
Not very convincing is it kdkd?
Ken,
Well, we get back to the original paper whose conclusion that you are trying to over-extend. Here’s the conclusion from the horses mouth:
“While the current study takes advantage of a globally consistent data source, a 4.5-year period of ocean cooling is not unexpected in terms of natural fluctuations. The problem of instrumental drift and bias is quite complicated, however, (Domingues et al. 2008; Gouretski and Koltermann 2007; Wijffels et al. 2008; Willis et al. 2004, 2008a) and it remains possible that the result of the present analysis is an artifact. ”
So you’re right, your argument is half arsed and unconvincing.
For more fun you can see the agenda of the Energy and Environment journal is suspect here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_and_Environment
“The journal takes a skeptical view towards climate change. Skeptics on the journal’s editorial staff include Boehmer-Christiansen herself and anthropologist Benny Peiser. Contributors considered as climate skeptics or contrarians, have included Sallie Baliunas, Robert M. Carter, Ian Castles, Bjorn Lomborg, Patrick Michaels, Ross McKitrick, Stephen McIntyre, Garth Paltridge, Roger Pielke Jr., Fred Singer, and Willie Soon.
When asked about the publication of these papers Boehmer-Christiansen replied, “I’m following my political agenda — a bit, anyway. But isn’t that the right of the editor?”"
So if that’s the strongest argument that a politicaly motivated scientific journal can make that there’s something suspect about AGW, then its pretty piss weak.
kdkd #1011
“Sallie Baliunas, Robert M. Carter, Ian Castles, Bjorn Lomborg, Patrick Michaels, Ross McKitrick, Stephen McIntyre, Garth Paltridge, Roger Pielke Jr., Fred Singer, and Willie Soon.”
In 50 years time our grandchildren will applaud them as heroes all for debunking the AGW religion.
When you talk of 4-5 year periods of ocean cooling – you must think about the mechanism. Where does the heat energy go in that 4-5 year period? It can’t be stored in the atmosphere (1/80th the capacity of the oceans) in any significant quantity. Some could go into melting ice – but only that portion at very high latitudes.
Maybe most of it re-radiates out to space and is lost forever – which means that we are possibly not measuring the F.re-radiation accurately enough.
Warmist explanations which claim 4-5 year periods of cooling are just natural variability and imply that the CO2 GHG absorbed heat energy is just tucked away waiting to get out and resume global warming; fails to cut it in energy balance terms.
Even you could understand that after my extensive attention to your thermodynamic education.
Ken,
Your list of “heroes” appears to include some people with rather partisan or otherwise suspect thinking skills. Remember you’re claiming AGW is some political conspiracy thing. However the majority of evidence shows that it stands only on scientific merits. You brought the conspiracy nutjob theory into this discussion. I maintain that AGW stands on scientific merits alone.
You’re also missing the two elephants in the room. Your first assumption is that the sea surface temperature is independent of the subsurface temperature (the buoys only go down 90 metres from memory). Secondly you’re assuming that the global coverage of the buoys is good enough to account for 100% of stored heat in the oceans.
You may also find this article’s abstract interesting: http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-marine-120308-081105 Anny Cazenave, & William Llovel. (2010). Contemporary Sea Level Rise. Annual Review of Marine Science, 2(1).
” … We show that for the 1993–2007 time span, the sum of climate-related contributions (2.85 ± 0.35 mm year−1) is only slightly less than altimetry-based sea level rise (3.3 ± 0.4 mm year−1): 30% of the observed rate of rise is due to ocean thermal expansion and 55% results from land ice melt. Recent acceleration in glacier melting and ice mass loss from the ice sheets increases the latter contribution up to 80% for the past five years.We also review the main causes of regional variability in sea level trends: The dominant contribution results from nonuniform changes in ocean thermal expansion.”
Like I said, your evidence is piss weak, and the only way you can make it attempt to stand up to scrutiny is to closely associate yourself with the nut jobs and the rent seekers..
Kdkd #1014 – if you’re typing a blog entry on a web page and you have access to Google just a click away, why make basic errors “from memory”?
Just Google “Argo Buoy” and you can discover that the Argo buoys go down to 2 kilometers – not to 90m. Pretty easy huh?
So they cover a pretty substantial part of the ocean’s mass. Are you saying all the heat has snuck down below the 2km ocean level? Because this horrific warming isn’t above 2km in the oceans nor is it in the atmosphere.
So where is it? Where is this global warming??
The first law of thermodynamics states that a system receiving more energy than it releases will warm up (conservation of energy principle). The world has not warmed up but it is supposed to be blanketed by all this nasty CO2 that retains all that deadly heat energy. Except that, er, it’s not warming.
Tamas,
You’re still talking about a very small, disputed signal (one out of three papers detects a small and self-disputed cooling signal) in a very large complex system.
The global warming signal is significant, and easily detectable and easy to attribute to greenhouse gasses. However it is not detectable or directly attributable to greenouse gasses over very short time spans.
Unless you want to take a deluded approach to the data that is, in which case it tells you whatever the voices want it to tell you. Thats your MO, and you’re sticking to it.
kdkd #1014
“You’re also missing the two elephants in the room. Your first assumption is that the sea surface temperature is independent of the subsurface temperature (the buoys only go down 90 metres from memory). Secondly you’re assuming that the global coverage of the buoys is good enough to account for 100% of stored heat in the oceans.”
Wrong and Wrong again.
Tamas pointed out that the Argos go down 2km – not 90m kdkd. The ocean coverage with 3300 odd buoys is extensive. Have a look at the map – they are widely spread in all oceans.
Sea level rise is a product of warming in the past – having absorbed heat from what Tamas rightly shows is a global rise of about 0.7 degC in 130 years and 0.4 degC in 30 years (and falling); the oceans have warmed and expanded, and land ice has melted. There is significant thermal lag in the oceans – at least 10 years, and probably much more from what I have read. Sea levels are probably still rising from warming over the last 100+ years (or since the LIA at least).
The issue is one we have long debated – how much of the temperature rise is due to CO2 GHG and how much is due to direct and indirect Solar effects; and where is the whole energy balance at the present time. I have already shown that measurement error alone could swamp any positive forcing, due to the low LOSU of the major term; F.reflected.
The sub-1mm annual rise in sea levels for the last year around the huge coastline of Australia compared to 2-8mm annual rises in the preceding 16-19 years is very odd indeed. It seems unlikely that such a big drop would occur in so short a time, although the effects of past warming would have to peter out sometime and it is possible that the flat or cooling temps since the ENSO of 1998 have finally produced a result around the Australian coastline.
So your claim is that The Argo Buoy programme ought to be good enough to count for 100% of the heat stored in the ocean.
100%. It’s a perfect record?
And because it’s a perfect record, any short term variability shouldn’t be present and the warming signal should be monotonic?
Those are pretty big claims. Got any evidence to back it up?
Oh for goodness sake
a temperature rise of “0.4 degC in 30 years (and falling)”
Again, big claim, where’s your evidence?
Ken
So here’s your evidence for the absence of sea level rise http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/index.html (see figure towards bottom of the page). Certainly makes your case seem all the more convincing.
Oops, excuse my sarcasm.
So recently we have:
1. Making outlandinsh claims about the expected quality of data.
2. Continuing to lie that there is some significant short term cooling trend, and pretending that it contradicts the AGW theory.
3. Making outlandish claims about sea level rise.
Good job delusion boy and paranoia man. You’ll get those pesky varmit scientists yet!
kdkd #1020
The chart on the CSIRO website shows no error bars for the satellite altimetry (for clarity), and error bars for the tidal gauges of +/-5mm.
“Note that error bars have not been shown for the altimeter data (red curve) for clarity, but are about ±5 mm.”
So we are measuring 0.1 – 0.9mm or (3.1mm according to Church’s belief) with an error of +/-5mm.
This is about as useful as a third armpit!!
This is from your CSIRO web link:
“VACANCY – We are currently hiring a research scientist whose role will be to advance the science of the estimation of regional sea-level rise with a focus on (but not limited to) the South Pacific Ocean. Using analyses from global coupled models they will help design and run idealised climate simulations and help build Australia’s climate model. See CSIRO Careers web site for further information. Applications close on the 27th of November 2009.
PLEASE NOTE that the closing date for this position has been extended. There may have been some problems with our online recruitment system. If you have already submitted an application, and want to make sure that it has been received please contact Neil White.”
I might be able to stiffen them up a bit regarding producing non-conflicting data.
Do you think I should apply?
So again you’re demanding that data from noisy complex systems should be error free. Good work. Perhaps you should give them a laugh by applying for the job and handing in your manifesto.
The trend of rising sea level is pretty clear from the graph. I’m not really sure what you’re trying to claim. Exaggerating uncertainty and over extending your conclusions again I would imagine.
kdkd #1019, #1022
What it means is that Sea level could be rising annually +6mm or falling -4mm based on the tidal gauges.
How do you make public policy on that data?
To keep yourself up with Global Temps, CO2 , Sunspots and Solar Flux – add this to your favourites:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/widget/
It is showing +0.42 deg rise at September 2009.
And for followers of the Al Gore circus, check this out:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/16/gore-has-no-clue-a-few-million-degrees-here-and-there-and-pretty-soon-were-talking-about-real-temperature/
Must have got it from some movie he watched with his uncle as a kid…
ken #1023
Of course you have to ignore the long term trend and/or pretend it isn’t really there in order to claim that. The data suggest a long term rising trend, so your focusing on the point uncertainty is misleading.
#1024
wtf. a supremely uninteresting over-magnification of a simple error. This backs your position becuse of … oh yeah, because of your desperate clutching at straws.
kdkd #1025
Gore’s credentials to talk about degrees of temperature are far lower than yours to talk about bar heaters. Your errors were in the thousands, his are in the millions.
We all know Al Gore is a science midget, however his propaganda has influenced millions of people. So much so that the British High Court was involved in an action to decide if Gore’s stuff could be taught in schools as ‘science’.
The British High Court concluded that much of Gore’s inconvenient truth was inaccurate exaggerated propaganda. Convenient lies if you like.
Yet here is Gore – still poncing around the world expecting to be met by political leaders and heads of state as if he is a sort of AGW Dalai Lama.
I recall that John Howard was criticised by the chattering kiddies in the Media and popular science community when he gave Gore the big ignore.
kdkd #1018
Neither Tamas nor I would claim that the Argo Bouys would give 100% coverage to the oceans. You falsely exaggerate my derire for ‘certainty’ to hide the obvious fact that 3300 sets of data from all over the oceans would be a pretty good sample size.
I would think that a pretty good esimate of the oceans heat content and temperature could be had from these specialist pieces of gear.
And as far as the number of dud readings – with a population of 3300 one would expect a proportion to malfunction and read wrong – but that portion would most likely be randomly distributed in its errors.
If the portion which read wrong are heavily biased to read ‘too cool’, then this sounds like a defect in the design of the instrument.
Calibration in test tanks and real life water columns in cold and warm conditions would have to be extensive and the results bulletproof before you sent 3000 plus instruments off around the planet.
That is why the Willis story seems hard to believe. How come all the dud instruments read “cool”. Would not chance cause a similar number to read “warm”? You should know the answer to that Mr Statistician?
Or am I overestimating the quality of the Gen X and Y scientists and designers these days?
Ken,
via the link you showed me:
“In climate discussions, the most common error is focusing on a single piece of the puzzle while ignoring the big picture. The ocean cooling meme commits this error twofold. Firstly, it scrutinises 6 years worth of data while ignoring the last 40 years of ocean warming. Secondly, it hangs its hat on one particular reconstruction that shows cooling, while other results and independent analyses indicate slight warming.”
I don’t take this argument of yours seriously, it’s an unwelcome distraction. It’s like you’re concentrating wholeheartedly on pissing at the base of a specific tree while ignoring the fact that you’re standing in a forest.
Ken:
Being gentlemanly as I am, I haven’t harped on your earlier howler that climate change is not a human rights or social justice issue. But it does show that your ability to see the big picture is fatally comprimised by your ideological stupidity.
So stfu about in passing errors, they’re of no relevance to the debate once they’re corrected. Oh you didn’t admit that your howeler was an error because you’re blinded by your rancid ideology. Oops.
And Gore’s exaggerations of certainty pale into insignificance compared to your exaggeration of doubt.
kdkd #1027
You can’t really argue with #1027 can you Mr Statistics? That is why you are switching the attack to my *earlier howler that climate change is not a human rights or social justice issue*.
What on earth are you talking about? I can’t recall using either term in recent posts; if at all?
While we are there – no it is a hard science issue and as you know; science is blind to the domestic arrangements of the human and animal worlds.
That is why kangaroos don’t know they are Australian and coral polyps don’t know we like looking at coral reefs.
By the way I heard that the Barrier Reef has only a 50/50 chance of surviving the coming temperature rise. I would have thought the polyps would naturally spread to cooler waters – somewhere toward Wollongong perhaps.
Barrier Reef scares are hardy annuals. A few years ago there was “catastrophic” bleaching – big warming. Then it cooled and we havn’t heard of it since.
Reminds me of the famous ‘crown of thorns starfish’ which was devastating the reef 30 years ago. Dr Robert Endean had regular spots in the media warning of impending doom from the plague. Zealots in wetsuits were scouring the reef collecting the thorny creatures and turning them into either Asian delicacies or rose fertiliser.
It eventally died down after about 10 years of devastation – when the good Dr finally accepted that the critters were naturally fading away – it appears that the Reef suffered natural cycles of these plagues which were controlled by a natural predator which the Asians had been plundering. We clamped down on border protection and the Reef was saved.
And as you know – those poor countries which increase their populations without going through an industrial revolution have suffered the greatest environmental damage from devastated landscapes and polluted waterways.
Ken. You need to re-read:
“In climate discussions, the most common error is focusing on a single piece of the puzzle while ignoring the big picture. The ocean cooling meme commits this error twofold. Firstly, it scrutinises 6 years worth of data while ignoring the last 40 years of ocean warming. Secondly, it hangs its hat on one particular reconstruction that shows cooling, while other results and independent analyses indicate slight warming.”
Given that you’re determined to argue your position, the things you argue about get of smaller and smaller scope, indicating that the amount of ground you’ve had to give is MASSIVE. Ding ding. Capatain paranoia and delusion boy flee back to their imaginary cave in the fairy dust car to try and think up some other spurious argument with which to deal with those pesky scientists.
Ken #1031
So AGW won’t kill the planet, but unchecked it will have a large adverse effect on civilisation. Perhaps you can’t tell the difference.
Paul Erlich on Late Night Live last night http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2747139.htm
“We have really serious problems of hunger [on the planet], but the people writing the blogs are mostly fat”
I suspect that delusion boy and captain paranoia are both suffering from climate obesity too.
kdkd #1034
Yeah …like the people making the soft Left’s favourite movies……viz….
…Michael Moore
kdkd #1032
“In climate discussions, the most common error is focusing on a single piece of the puzzle while ignoring the big picture. The ocean cooling meme commits this error twofold. Firstly, it scrutinises 6 years worth of data while ignoring the last 40 years of ocean warming. Secondly, it hangs its hat on one particular reconstruction that shows cooling, while other results and independent analyses indicate slight warming.”
We agree again…
One cooling + one slight warming = Flat temperatures in the oceans over the last 6 years or so.
so kdkd….where has all the heat gone from the +1.6 W/sq.m of positive heat up forcing according to the IPCC 2007?
The oceans are the main storage medium.
Ken #1036
I don’t know, why don’t you ask a real expert.
Oh yeay, you won’t because according to one of your central delusions they’re all part of a huge communist conspiracy to get you back in the stone age where you belong…
kdkd #1034: Add Paul Erlich to the list of wackos you love to quote. Here he is in 1968:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..”
Bwahahahahaha!!!! aaaahahahahahahahah!!!!!! Ohh… it’s just too good. You can’t make this stuff up.
Well, global warming is the latest made-up eco-scare but who listens to kooks like Erlich anymore? ah, yeah, sorry kdkd.
Tamas,
Yeah, environmentalists have a habit of overstating their case somewhat. On the other hand, he’s not really wrong, just in the wrong time scale. Nice to see you describing one of the most respected scientists of the last 50 years as a “whacko”. You clearly know how to destroy your credibility through overt display of ignorance.
I’ve been impressed with Dimitri Orlov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Orlov). As he shows repeatedly, these kinds of projections tend to be correct but on a longer time scale than the original prediction.
And world hunger is a big problem. I guess you can’t tell the difference between it being a big problem, and not being a big problem for *you*. Good work delusion boy, you will make the universe revolve around you yet, take that Newton!
kdkd,
Erlich is “one of the most respected scientists of the last 50 years”??? Boy, science has bigger problems than I thought.
Erlich is a crank and a doomsayer. He has been proven wrong again and again.
On world hunger, you are wrong – as usual. Here is Indur Goklany in a recent letter to The Economist:
“Access to safe water, improved sanitation, crop yields and life expectancy has never been higher in the history of mankind. This is true for both the developing and developed worlds. Much of this has been enabled, directly or indirectly, by economic surpluses generated by the use of fossil fuels and other greenhouse-gas generating activities such as fertilisers, pumping water for irrigation and using farm machinery. Crop yields are higher than ever partly because of higher concentrations of CO2, without which yields would be zero.
You then submitted that global warming is causing both droughts and floods. Regardless of whether this is the case, deaths from droughts have declined by 99.9% since the 1920s, and from floods by 99% since the 1930s. In fact, since the 1920s average annual deaths from all extreme-weather events have dropped by 95% while annual death rates, which factor in population growth, have been reduced by 99%.”
I might add that billions have been lifted out of poverty in the past 30 years and humanity is richer than ever. 4 billion people now have phones, up from only a billion just 15 years ago. More children go to school than ever before, literacy is at its highest levels ever. And so on and on and on.
The world just keeps getting better kdkd. I know you like being miserable and pessimistic, but ironically enough this good news will probably make you even more miserable. So everyone’s a winner.
Tamas,
Your scientific illiteracy goes well with your view that there’s nothing more important than a dollar view of economics.
Your figures there are unverifiable. I won’t take them seriously without sourcing.
Nice head in the sand job there anyway delusion boy.
Economics is the science of allocating scarce resources. Currency is the best measure of resource value. Therefore the “dollar view of economics” is pretty, ahh, mainstream.
What specific numbers do you think are dodgy? Let me know and I’ll find some links for you.
I know it’s tough for you kdkd. A more prosperous world doesn’t fit with your doomsday predictions. But… well… bad luck. Good luck for the rest of humanity though.
Find me the original sources about the steep decline in death from natural disasters.
The dollar view of economics is clearly useful, but it does have its limits. You appear to want to be able to (selectively) ignore science because you seem to think that the dismal science is more important and can anticipate potential problems more accurately. I’m afraid that just because you don’t believe in them, it doesn’t mean the laws of ecology go away.
kdkd & Tamas
I figure I am a couple of years older that you both, and when I was a callow student Dr Paul Ehrlich and Ralph Nader were campus heroes.
I well remember Dr Ehrlich when his sideburns were dark and his youthful intensity blew away all serious opposition to his doomsday predictions. There was a particular ABC Monday Conference where Dr Ehrlich was the star turn and his opposition was a certain Dr Colin Clarke (demographer RC with 10 kids I think). The kiddies (me amongst them) all laughed at Dr Clarke as a hopeless old fart, done like a dinner by the luminous Paul Ehrlich.
Well, time has proven the hopeless old fart to be in fact Dr Paul Ehrlich – still groping for credence amongst a new generation who don’t know the history.
I hope Dr Clarke is enjoying his rehab in a high place.
And speaking of fat film makers …add Al Gore to Michael Moore in the gluttony stakes.
I believe Al gets easily distracted by a passing plate of potato pancakes.
Tamas “1040
Tamas is right as usual about the vast improvement in world hunger and deaths from droughts and floods since the early 20th century.
I would suggest that the kdkd mindset is all about pessimism and the psychological need for the threat of ‘Gores and rumours of Gores’ to get attention. Comes from the need for attracting research grants and squealing the scariest story to keep a job in ‘climate science’.
Exaggerate threats grossly, scare people sh*tless, thousands become millions, what might happen in 2000 years will happen within 50 years et.. cetera..et.. cetera.
When a couple of interested late nighters (Tamas and myself) can expose the systematic errors, exaggerations and areas of serious doubt about AGW alarmist facts, it shows how really pathetic and derivative are the paid ‘scientists’ who arrogantly and dupliciously claim that the debate is over.
When kdkd gets a bit older and wiser he will be able to do an “Ehrlich” on the Flannerys, Karolys, Gliksons and their mimics; in bedtime stories to his grandkids.
Tedious political drivel.
Elrich’s reputation as a scientist is at the top. A scientist does not a social commentator make.
Anyway you deluded right wing fascists have to go on the attack using irellevant issues as your focus, because your arguments dont’ stand on their merits…
kdkd – Check out the numbers on declining deaths from natural disasters produced by Indur Goklany who I quoted above:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/05/going-down-death-rates-due-to-extreme-weather-events/
Ken #1044. Well, I’m not exactly young anymore but I figured out your seniority when you mixed up your miles and kilometers of Earth’s radius. I’m a child of the metric system so I couldn’t possibly tell you distances in miles
Tamas #1047
This “paper” has no proper citation, merely a link to a page on the internet that isn’t there any more.
Meanwhile given the paragraph “Despite the recent spate of deadly extreme weather events – such as the 2003 European heat wave and the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in the USA – aggregate mortality and mortality rates due to extreme weather events are generally lower today than they used to be.” it seems that the argument is that there we are currently better at managing adverse circumstances than we have been in the past. But given the source of the data is impossible to find, and that the paragraph implies a developed world bias, and that the secondary source (wattsupwiththat) is known to have very poor scientific standards, I think you’re going to have to do a lot better in order to be even slightly convincing.
kdkd – so you are arguing that deaths from natural disasters have increased?
Here is a link to the article that actually works:
http://goklany.org/library/deaths%20death%20rates%20from%20extreme%20events%202007.pdf
Convinced?
Ken – very interesting stuff with these leaked emails from CRU. It’s going to take a while to digest and analyse them all but a lot of very interesting stuff is coming out and it appears to be genuine. I imagine Mann, Briffa and the rest of the gang are rather frightened right now.
I wonder if Crikey will pick up on it?
Tamas,
I meant what I said, and not what you claimed.
Your source appears to be from a right wing free-market ideologue think tank. Not as you claim a trustworthy impartial source. Find me something from a respectable institution like the WHO, or a respectable academic institution or give up.
The leaked emails are tedious and uninteresting. From what I’ve seen so far, if that’s all the mileage that the delusionals and rent seekers can get out of them, then their case is very weak indeed. Realclimate as always is the best place to read about it. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/
AGW is a complicated story. For people with a desire to maintain the pretence that the scientific consensus is somehow corrupt there will always be little things that they can magnify to a degree much larger than their real importance.
However, in terms of providing a logical and rigorous argument, the best the delusionals can do is picking around the edges, repetition of lies, and exploitation of the scientific illiteracy of poor ideologically blind fools like Tamas and Ken.
You are funny kdkd. You reject a paper because you deem it to be from a “right wing” think tank. But you have no argument against the actual numbers presented.
you also say that “right wing” think tanks are bad, but you have a list of acceptable ones more in line with your political views that you deem acceptable.
You really need to try and respond to specific arguments rather than dismissing something based on your political view. Who knows, maybe you’ll become more conservative if you do.
And these leaked emails can’t be ignored mate. There is some very interesting stuff in them.
Tamas #1051
Your right wing think tank pushes the agenda of continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry. The WHO or a department of medicine should have no such bias. As the “evidence” that you present seems to be contaminated by vested interest, I asked you to research a better (i.e. less politicised) source for the same evidence.
So once you come up with corroborating evidence from non-partisan sources, I’m happy to argue on merits.
Time to widen your repertoire from the delusional and rent seeker brigade Tamas.
Conclusion from the leaked emails: a. No evidence to suggest wide scale scientific fraud , b. while the scientific method guards against excessive politicisation of research, the scientific process is still vulnerable to this. No news here, please move along.
kdkd – who sounds like the conspiracy theorist now? Right wing think tanks aren’t all funded by the oil industry buddy.
I note that you rebut none of the data put forward. Because you cannot.
I quote Phil Jones of the CRU in 2005: “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant”.
Well, it’s 11 years now and the data is becoming more significant. Where is this damn global warming kdkd?
You must be getting frustrated.
Tamas, # 1053
Well in this case it is clearly a oil industry funded think tank. I see you’re refusing to do some proper research.
Now your 11 years assertion is false. The data is not becoming more significant. Your posturing is worthless.
You must be in some serious state of denial.
kdkd – Are you disagreeing with Phil Jones, the eminent climate scientist who said the world cooled from 1998-2005? His words are quite clear. And since 2005 the world continued to cool. That’s 11 years buddy.
Prove. Me. Wrong.
Tamas #1055
haha very funny. You’re suggesting that his use of the word “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperature in a private correspondence is some kind of indication of a statistically significant trend.
Well tough luck delusion boy, it doesn’t work like that. This supposed decline is not statistically significant, and is consistent with other parts of the temperature profile over the last half century. I suspect that the “trick” is to account for otherwise unaccounted variance. One throwaway remark in private correspondence does not invalidate a body of work.
See this is a classic example of climate delusionals having to go for “little picture thinking” because if they actually started looking at the forest rather than the trees, they’d reaslise that they were about get eaten by a very hungry bear.
kdkd – Jones was very specific: he said the world cooled from 1998-2005. Since then the data shows further cooling.
11 years of cooling is not what the models predicted mate.
I just did a quick regression on the UAH data since January 1998. It shows a trend cooling of 0.05C.
If you take it from Jan 2001 you get a decline of 0.1C.
Where’s the warming kdkd?
Tamas,
What’s the p value for the F statistic for your “quick regression”. I would imagine it’s rather large. Where’s your significant trend now? Evaporated in a puff of reality, that’s where.
And the models do predict non-monotonic warming, so sucked in delusion boy, your opinions are unrelated to reality.
kdkd – I am not saying the data fits particularly well – there is a huge amount of variability as you know. The range on the UAH data from 1978 is 1.26C. But the trend is the trend and it can’t be denied – it shows cooling, not warming since 1998.
Now this cuts both ways kdkd. The fit of the data for the entire 31 years of satellite observations is pretty poor, yet you proclaim that the 0.38C of warming it shows is significant.
Please explain that inconsistency.
Tamas #1059
In the 31 year case, the p value for the F statistic is less than 0.05, so it fits better than chance. In the case of the 11 year data set, it doesn’t, the short term variability is greater than the trend over that period of time, the noise is greater than the signal. End of story, you lose delusion boy.
There’s other jiggery pokery that you can do to show the effect of co2 on warming over decent periods of time, but I’m not going to waste my time repeating it to you because I’m sick of your nonsense.
At least you come close to admitting the basis of your delusions in that post I suppose.
In fact, what’s happened here is that Tamas has used sloppy thinking and an ad hoc approach to data analysis to try and prove a pre existing assumption of his.
On the other hand I’ve used my extensive systematic data analysis to expose his delusional approach to data analysis for what it is, ironically exactly what he and his delusional cabal accuse the scientists of: trying to force the data to fit your point of view.
Cuts both ways indeed, leaving Tamas and his cohort a bisected bloody mess on the floor.
kdkd #1050 onward………..
I can hear you voice rising to squeaky heights…………….The UEA “leaks” are not going away soon kdkd.
As one of Bolta’s correspondents said……………”this thing will run and run”.
Of course it could be a Godwin Gretch hoax, or the Hitler Diaries or some such provocation. Skeptics are biting their tongues and the backs of their hands waiting for full verification which will probably come very soon.
It seems that the ‘hackees’ are not claiming the emails are false or have been tampered with, even though the contents are extremely damaging. Unless the ‘hackees’ they can prove such fakery……the only conclusion is that the emails are genuine. And more importantly that they were not hacked but ‘whistleblown’ by an insider. I read that all the UEA passwords have been cancelled, indicating that no-one can be trusted inside the camp.
All the names are there:…….. Trenberth, Hansen, Mann, Jones, Briffa etc etc
RealClimate is trying hard to pooh pooh it all away, but this will run and run and run regardless of what the ‘hackees’ say.
How sweet it is……………
Boys
Have a look at this alleged link….
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1052&filename=1255523796.txt
And the alleged emailers have alleged that the alleged **DEBATE IS F**KING OVER**
Yeeeeeee.. hhhaaaaaaahhh.!!!!!
And who has been banging on about the energy balances not allowing for cooling if the AGW theory of constant CO2 GHG forcing via the log function is real, and other forcings such as F.reflected and F.re-radiated are accurately measured.
It seems like the alleged M. Mann is allegedly agreeing with me.
Yeeeeeee.. hhhaaaaaaahhh.!!!!!
And to make it a kdkd triple header…………..
Hundreds of billions of dollars are trying to be plunged into mitigation measures at Copenhagen, when these alleged scientists have allegedly cooked the books in multiple permutations of alleged fraud, alleged conspiracy and alleged illegality.
This is allegedly f**king priceless…..
Pretty facile tedious stuff there ken.
So your background in engineering doesn’t really equip you to deal with non-newtonian systems or complexity. Which is why you have such difficulty with this stuff.
The emails you linked to are a reasonably interesting internal conversation about some detail underlying a part of the data series. The physics is well understood, and at its basis uses newtonian mechanics. Now the laws of motion and the theory of entropy work well for small scale deterministic systems, but when complexity is introduced things get a lot harder. This is because the mathematics of calculus can’t cope well with complexity.
Your argument seems to be something like “because we can’t predict things with 100% accuracy the whole theory is suspect”. This is bullshit, and unless you’ve got the intellectual range and breadth of your fellow engineer Steve Fielding, you ought to know it.
The crux of the problem is that the observed data to date represents the early warnings of a very complex and large scale system. Demanding that we understand it as well as a small scale deterministic system is not reasonable. It’s another example of the delusional, rent seeker, paranoid camp’s straw man approach to scientific critique. Very boring captain paranoia. Your grade is E for scientific illiteracy and unrealistic expectations.
kdkd #1066
This is indeed a 1066 moment for you kdkd.
The skeptics have landed and the Kings of AGW have shot themselves in the eye, foot and everywhere else.
Your attempt at a cool appraisal is masking that horrible feeling that the AGW icons, quoted ad nauseum in the parliaments, scientific journals, and news media all over the planet have been allegedly exposed as an allegedly grubby little band of scientific shysters, allegedly conspiring to preserve protect and defend their allegedly scientific theory of dangerous anthropogenic global warming.
Ken #1067
Standard MO for you. Overstate uncertainty, and overstate your conclusions. Tin foil hat time old man.
kdkd #1068
Boys I lifted this from Bolta’s blog:
Quote:
Even alarmist Tim Flannery, confronted on Lateline with the emails of the global warming conspiracy, concedes holes in the “science is settled” argument and admits to what he didn’t before:
“We’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate…We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem… Sure for the last 10 years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend.”
And on these now-admitted uncertainties we must scrap all coal-fired generators, impose massive new taxes, shut entire industries, hand billions to the UN and change the way we live?
Endquote.
Hear Hear Tim…..
Ken #1069
What rabid perseveration. Perhaps the tinfoil hat has cooked your brain and damaged your frontal lobes. That would explain a lot.
Flannery should be more careful of his words, he’s wrong. It is possible for a professor to be wrong. There is no cooling trend. What slight trend that appears to exist by eyeballing is *not statistically significant*. Flannery is not a statistician, he would not have made this throwaway comment if he was.
kdkd #1070
Boys another choice bit of Bolta’s blog:
Quote:
Even George Monbiot, one of the fiercest media propagandists of the warming faith, admits he should have been more sceptical and says the science now needs to be rechecked:
“It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.
and….
I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely.”
End Quote
There you go kdkd, even your idol George Monbiot is recanting and seeking forgiveness of his readers.
My brain never felt better…I was so excited than the alleged Trenberth and Mann were arguing my point with each other and not coming to a dirfferent conclusion that I could hardly sleep….
This time old son…….you are f**ked and far from home.
Ken,
Care to point out where the correspondence makes you think the AGW theory has been “demolished”. Where the laws of thermodynamics are wrong? Small engineering mind syndrome mate, you can’t cope with uncertainty so it makes you go all solipsistic instead.
Monbiot was spot on by the way, and you’ve done a good job of quoting him out of context.
You’re a delusional fool, but we already knew that.
Here’s the email you need to read for your case to be at all valid (thanks George):
From: ernst.kattweizel@redcar.ac.uk
Sent: 29 October 2009
To: The Knights Carbonic
Gentlemen, the culmination of our great plan approaches fast. What the Master called “the ordering of men’s affairs by a transcendent world state, ordained by God and answerable to no man”, which we now know as Communist World Government, advances towards its climax at Copenhagen. For 185 years since the Master, known to the laity as Joseph Fourier, launched his scheme for world domination, the entire physical science community has been working towards this moment.
The early phases of the plan worked magnificently. First the Master’s initial thesis – that the release of infrared radiation is delayed by the atmosphere – had to be accepted by the scientific establishment. I will not bother you with details of the gold paid, the threats made and the blood spilt to achieve this end. But the result was the elimination of the naysayers and the disgrace or incarceration of the Master’s rivals. Within 35 years the 3rd Warden of the Grand Temple of the Knights Carbonic (our revered prophet John Tyndall) was able to “demonstrate” the Master’s thesis. Our control of physical science was by then so tight that no major objections were sustained.
More resistance was encountered (and swiftly dispatched) when we sought to install the 6th Warden (Svante Arrhenius) first as professor of physics at Stockholm University, then as rector. From this position he was able to project the Master’s second grand law – that the infrared radiation trapped in a planet’s atmosphere increases in line with the quantity of carbon dioxide the atmosphere contains. He and his followers (led by the Junior Warden Max Planck) were then able to adapt the entire canon of physical and chemical science to sustain the second law.
Then began the most hazardous task of all: our attempt to control the instrumental record. Securing the consent of the scientific establishment was a simple matter. But thermometers had by then become widely available, and amateur meteorologists were making their own readings. We needed to show a steady rise as industrialisation proceeded, but some of these unfortunates had other ideas. The global co-option of police and coroners required unprecedented resources, but so far we have been able to cover our tracks.
The over-enthusiasm of certain of the Knights Carbonic in 1998 was most regrettable. The high reading in that year has proved impossibly costly to sustain. Those of our enemies who have yet to be silenced maintain that the lower temperatures after that date provide evidence of global cooling, even though we have ensured that eight of the 10 warmest years since 1850 have occurred since 2001. From now on we will engineer a smoother progression.
Our co-option of the physical world has been just as successful. The thinning of the Arctic ice cap was a masterstroke. The ring of secret nuclear power stations around the Arctic circle, attached to giant immersion heaters, remains undetected, as do the space-based lasers dissolving the world’s glaciers.
Altering the migratory and reproductive patterns of the world’s wildlife has proved more challenging. Though we have now asserted control over the world’s biologists, there is no accounting for the unauthorised observations of farmers, gardeners, birdwatchers and other troublemakers. We have therefore been forced to drive migrating birds, fish and insects into higher latitudes, and to release several million tonnes of plant pheromones every year to accelerate flowering and fruiting. None of this is cheap, and ever more public money, secretly diverted from national accounts by compliant governments, is required to sustain it.
The co-operation of these governments requires unflagging effort. The capture of George W Bush, a late convert to the cause of Communist World Government, was made possible only by the threatened release of footage filmed by a knight at Yale, showing the future president engaged in coitus with a Ford Mustang. Most ostensibly capitalist governments remain apprised of where their real interests lie, though I note with disappointment that we have so far failed to eliminate Vaclav Klaus. Through the offices of compliant states, the Master’s third grand law has been established: world government will be established under the guise of controlling man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.
Keeping the scientific community in line remains a challenge. The national academies are becoming ever more querulous and greedy, and require higher pay-offs each year. The inexplicable events of the past month, in which the windows of all the leading scientific institutions were broken and a horse’s head turned up in James Hansen’s bed, appear to have staved off the immediate crisis, but for how much longer can we maintain the consensus? Knights Carbonic, now that the hour of our triumph is at hand, I urge you all to redouble your efforts. In the name of the Master, go forth and terrify.
Professor Ernst Kattweizel, University of Redcar. 21st Grand Warden of the Temple of the Knights Carbonic.”
Oh, this just keeps getting better doesn’t it Ken?
Here’s Briffa talking about Mann:
“I am sick to death of Mann stating his reconstruction represents the tropical area just because it contains a few (poorly temperature representative ) tropical series. He is just as capable of regressing these data again any other “target” series , such as the increasing trend of self-opinionated verbage he has produced over the last few years , and … (better say no more)”
kdkd – that feeling you are experiencing is your belief system collapsing.
Tamas
Another delusional fool snatching for scraps because that’s all you’ve got!
please explain how this causes the case for global warming to collapse? Does it show the data is wrong in entirety? Does it show the instrumental record is wrong? Does it show the second law of thermodynamics, and chemical bond theory is wrong?
Oops.
Look if scouring illegally obtained records of office politics for such minor issues and scientific chit chat is the best you can do, then you really have no case. Your belief system collapsed some time ago, but you’re too delusional to notice.
kdkd – you’re right (for once). Let’s leave the infighting behind and concentrate on what these guys actually believe. Here’s the head of the CRU Phil Jones again:
“I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office press release with Doug’s paper that said something like -half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998!
Still a way to go before 2014.”
He hopes that the “lack of warming” doesn’t persist???!!! He WANTS this horrible global warming to get back on track??!!
Confirmation bias, anyone?
You’re having a bad day kdkd. But it’s ok, Ken and I will welcome you to the skeptic fold soon. Muahahahaha!!!
Tamas,
You’re right, 1998 is an anomaly. I’m interested to see what hapens. But that’s just boring office chit chat of no relevance to the discussion.
You didn’t answer my question about where the science is proven wrong or what other bizarre claim you were making though.
Ooh I just noticed.
I said: “[Tamas is] another delusional fool snatching for scraps because that’s all you’ve got!”
Tamas said “kdkd – you’re right (for once).”
See, I knew you’d come round. Well done.
The science is proven wrong because the first law of thermodynamics states that a system receiving more energy than it emits will warm up (conservation of energy principle). The Earth is not warming up as the global warming hypothesis posits. Therefore the hypothesis is wrong.
Why isn’t the world warming mate? Why hasn’t it warmed since 1998?
Tamas,
Is that error in measurement very large? One would expect it to be very difficult to account for everything with complete accuracy in a system as complex as Gaia. Have you proven the second law of thermodynamics wrong? Because that’s what you seem to be suggesting.
Are you making unreasonable demands of complete certainty when the early warning signs are although unequivocal, are clearly not very observable by someone as privileged and stupid as you?
Oh, just delusional mantra. I veered off into not making much sense land. The part of my previous post that stands is:
“Is that error in measurement very large? One would expect it to be very difficult to account for everything with complete accuracy in a system as complex as Gaia.” Are you claiming that measurments are perfect at the moment? That apears to be your claim.
Are you making unreasonable demands of complete certainty when the early warning signs are although unequivocal, are clearly not very observable by someone as privileged and stupid as you?
I’m a statistician, not a physicist I have to read a book for the laws of thermodynamics … Tamas is on the other hand an economist, and so knows nothing about anything.
Yeah kdkd – I have studied economics and finance for the most part but I also have a little physics under my belt. But my credentials are irrelevant – you must respond to my arguments.
Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, says “We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not!”
If they can’t tell the effects of geoengineering, how can the tell the effect of reducing CO2??
And on the word of these “scientists” we are supposed to change our way of life?
Global warming may be the biggest scientific fraud ever mate. How will you feel if you are on the wrong side of history?
(Apologies to Darth Vader)
Ccchh Koouu: KDKD, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join the skeptics, and we will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy. If you only knew the POWER of the skeptics.
Ahh… this is all just too funny.
““We are not close to balancing the energy budget.”
So you’re saying this is because the laws of thermodynamics are wrong?
I think you’re watching a discussion of detailed science here and pretending it somehow contradicts the big picture. Please tell me what proportion of the energy budget remains unaccounted for, and how this will impact on the big picture.
You have early warnings that a serious problem is afoot. You chose to ignore it, but if you’re wrong, which seems likely from the early warning evidence, then there’s no going back and consequences are sever. The worst that “overreacting” will do is cause temporary economic inconvenience. If you’re wrong on the other hand, and the evidence is against you, then the consequences are catastrophic.
Game theory 101 mate. Maybe your economics rotted brain can assimilate that.
No kdkd – that’s not game theory 101 at all..
You want to crash the economy (and that’s what an ETS and 5% – 25% CO2 cuts will do) on an unproven hypothesis and an observed 0.6C of warming in the past 100 years? What kind of strategy is that?
And I am saying nothing about the laws of thermodynamics kdkd. I am saying that the top climate alarmists admit they have no idea what is happening in the climate system.
We cannot totally transform the economy, make ourselves poorer and ACT NOW on such flimsy knowledge.
Biggest. Scam. Ever.
And where’s your evidence that it will crash the economy delusion boy?
Delusion 1: The knowledge is flimsy.
Delusion 2: The alarmist economic projections should be taken seriously.
Let’s see, who does a better job of prediction, scientists or economists?
Oops, maybe you should be known as dismal delusion boy after the state of your preferred “science”.
p.s. The ETS as it will pass is awful, it does nothing, worst of both worlds solution.
There you go you delusional freaks. Climate changing faster than earlier projections: http://copenhagendiagnosis.org/executive_summary.html
Hard to argue with that without pulling out the paranoid nutjob card.
kdkd
How convenient….a major alarmist report released just before Copenhagen, and in the same week that probably the greatest scandal in Science has been revealed.
Here are the authors of the latest scare:
“Citation: The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009: Updating the world on the Latest Climate Science. I. Allison, N. L. Bindoff, R.A. Bindoff, R.A. Bindschadler, P.M. Cox, N. de Noblet, M.H. England, J.E. Francis, N. Gruber, A.M. Haywood, D.J. Karoly, G. Kaser, C. Le Quéré, T.M. Lenton, M.E. Mann, B.I. McNeil, A.J. Pitman, S. Rahmstorf, E. Rignot, H.J. Schellnhuber, S.H. Schneider, S.C. Sherwood, R.C.J. Somerville, K.Steffen, E.J. Steig, M. Visbeck, A.J. Weaver. The University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC), Sydney, Australia, 60pp”
Lets have a look for some familiar names::
Quotes:
Phil Jones warns *Michael Mann* that Steve McIntyre and Prof Ross McKittrick, two sceptics who first debunked Mann’s “hockey stick”, are now wanting to check CRU data:
“If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone … We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. ”
From Phil Jones to *Michael Mann* and others:
“PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act! ”
*Michael Mann* on removing the editor of Climate Science (achieved):
“How to deal with this is unclear, since there are a number of individuals with bona fide scientific credentials who could be used by an unscrupulous editor to ensure that anti-greenhouse science can get through the peer review process (Legates, Balling, Lindzen, Baliunas, Soon, and so on). ”
*Michael Mann* to the CRU’s Tim Osborn and Keith Briffa, on blocking sceptics’ comments on his RealClimate website:
“We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not … ”
End quotes (summary from Bolta’s blog)
I thought RealClimate was one of your favourite websites kdkd??
When youe autgors can dissociate themselves from Mann, Briffa, Jones and the coven of *ALLEGED* climate
sorry accidental post last para:
When you authors can dissociate themselves from Mann, Briffa, Jones and the coven of *ALLEGED* climate science conspirators then we will have a ‘peer reviewed’ look at their claims.
Cop this one boys:
Quote: (summary from Bolta’s blog)
IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth privately tells Mann, Santer, Wigley, Jones and leading alarmists such as Stephen H. Schneider and James Hansen that the data doesn’t show what their climate models predicted:
“… where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. … The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
endquote
Ken
That’s the psychosis speaking. A few cherry picked quotes taken out of context does not an argument make. If you weren’t so deluded to want to extend everything far beyond the conclusions that the evidence merits, then you might be able to think about this more clearly.
So now you’re conflating office politics with science. Different things dude, get over it.
There, better. Like I said, the only interpretation of the diagnosis report that doesn’t make us seriously concerned is the nutjob conspiracy theory interpretation.
Repeat after me: “Ken Lambert doesn’t understand the scientific process, doesn’t understand evidence, and will refuse to do so for the rest of his life”.
Ken #1088
Love it. Appeal to the most facile of the delusional arguments, the “It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga argument”. You sir are an idiot of the highest degree. Try some big picture thinking. Oops, you can’t that would cause your belief system to collapse, and we couldn’t have that!
You may want to read the statements from the CRU. https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate
Given the choice between beleiving the selective out of context quotes of the climate delusional conspiracy nutjobs (and their rent seeker backers), or the considered statements of a group of scientists and their managers, I know who I’d believe.
If you’ve got some political agenda to follow though you might want to believe the nutjobs.
kdkd #last 3 posts
The horrible fact is you are trying hard to megaphone abuse but you can’t hide the shock that Kevin Trenberth is a top author of the IPCC reports and is the energy balance guru…I even quoted him to you in the Karaoke.
Here’s the killer in what he says:
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
Ken, #1091 (yawn, give up won’t you!)
You’re missing the context there. It’s an isolated throwaway comment with limited meaning. You’re trying to make a mountain out of an anthill there.
And you’re disregarding the Copenhagen Diagnosis is not based on models, it’s based on validating present observations against previous IPCC models.
So my consclusion stands. You’re a paranoid nutjob whose view of the situation requires that you only attend to minutae on the egdes of the science while ignoring the big picture. That’s not abuse, it’s a robust conclusion that you provide evidence for in spades.
kdkd #1093
The great thing about private emails is that they rank with overheard conversations and wiretaps in finding truth where ‘for publication’ spin might obscure.
Which Sea Level observations would you refer to in the Australian context kdkd?
The measured (and barometric compensated) -0.1mm to 0.9mm last year or the ‘belief’ of the CSIRO that it is about 3.3mm?
The damage is done kdkd….the ‘daisy chain of peer reviewers’ has been exposed as woefully inbred and fearful of discovery to submit their data to public scrutiny.
Questions have already been asked in the Australian Senate and are on record.
Bolta is on the march.
Any scientist who has exchanged emails with the CRU gang will be under suspicion of biased peer reviewing and suppression of dissenting views, if not conspiracy to pervert the free flow of information which is essential to legitimate scientific inquiry.
Copenhagen might not be wonderful for the alarmists at all.
Ken
Isn’t “The measured (and barometric compensated) -0.1mm to 0.9mm last year or the ‘belief’ of the CSIRO that it is about 3.3mm?” sourced from a crappy newspaper article with nasty copy editing problems? Is that really the best you can do.
Oh no, avoid the scientific evidence, and what little you can pretend is fit for your purpose, wildly overextend and misinterpret …
In your paranoid delusional state, you dispute that the Copenhagen Diagnosis report shows evidence validating the IPCC models, and that the current trajectory is at the more alarming end then?
Because if that’s what you’re disputing, you’re going to have a very hard time not coming across as a paranoid nutjob. But perhaps that’s the effect that you want.
Isn’t “The measured (and barometric compensated) -0.1mm to 0.9mm last year or the ‘belief’ of the CSIRO that it is about 3.3mm?” sourced from a crappy newspaper article with nasty copy editing problems? Is that really the best you can do.
Mate, I have tried hard to find out the real figure – and so far last year’s -0.1 – 0.9mm stands uncorrected for the 15 measuring stations around the Australian coastline.
If you have the real information – let’s have it??
And don’t give us the 3.3mm +/-5mm global number – it does not relate to the Australian coastline and the error is much larger than the value.
Hey Ken,
I don’t care about the point estimate. What’s the long term trend, and the projected sea level rise by 2100?
Wood for the trees mate. You have to pick on details of limited relevance because you *know* your case will collapse if you look at the big picture. I’m not doing the science, I’m observing, so I care about the big picture, not the minutae.
kdkd #1097
What do you call long term kdkd? 15 years, 150 years or 1500 years.
Anyway…..lighten up with this:
http://www.minnesotansforglobalwarming.com/m4gw/
ken #1098
The trend period depends on the question. The kind of questions we’ve been looking at the point estimate is pretty irrelevant though.
kdkd #1099
Looks like the Arctic sea ice extent is better than 2008 and better than 2007. Looks like a cyclic range of error bars on these curves kdkd.
Yet today we hear that Temps will rise 7 degC (its usually 2 degC) and the Arctic will be ice free by 2030 (or is it 2014, or 2050 – pick a number between now and 2100):
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Ken
You’re perseverating on point estimates again, not trends. And comparing a record year with an immediately subsequent year without any contextual data is never appropriate. Find a graph showing a 30-50 year record and see if your statement is still relevant.
Wood for the trees mate. Monbiot’s humour was much funnier than the redneck bullshit you posted by the way which just contained the usual lies and misrepresentations with a side order of ignorance.
kdkd # 1099
Looks like the science ‘concensus’ is taking a few hits kdkd…..
“ONE of North Queensland’s top marine physicists has accused fellow scientists of exaggerating the threat that climate change poses to the Great Barrier Reef…
James Cook University’s Prof Peter Ridd said global warming could actually be good for the Reef. And he accused scientists of “pushing particular lines” in a bid to save their jobs and keep their funding flowing.
“There’s a lot of money at stake here,” Prof Ridd said….
“There’s large organisations in science who are pushing particular lines and … the other side of the argument is not being heard.”
And add to that the admission this week of professional alarmist Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers:
When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate…We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem… Sure for the last 10 years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend.”
(Quotes from Bolta’s blog)
kdkd #1101
Wouldn’t it be funny if the Temp Anomalies and Ice Extents really were a *random walk*.
Whatever happened to Stubborn Mule by the way. He seemed reasonably intelligent without your infantile tendencies.
Ken #1103
He’s around, you can find him here: http://www.stubbornmule.net/
And it isn’t a random walk, we established that clearly, with Stubborn’s help.
Glad you like the good cop bad cop routine. I need another god cop, but meanwhile I should find my knuckle dusters again.
So the random walk thing was an excellent example of Watt’s (of wattsupwiththat.com infamy) abuse of statistics and lack of understanding of science beyond a superficial level. Youse delusionists keep leading yourselves up blind alleys.
#1102
Flannery’s statement as we established before is wrong. It’s based on eyeballing a graph, while more rigorous techniques are required to reach a proper conclusion. If we were see the same pattern as now for another 20 years or so, then you might find a statistically significant “decline” at piddlingly small levels, but meanwhile, but there’s no evidence at all that this is likely. The best we can say is that short term variability exceeds the long term trend.
Regarding the GBR researcher quote. Find me someone who agrees with him who’s field requires a more holistic view. I checked out his publications, and bar the odd spleen vent to Energy and Environment, that political rag masquerading as a journal, it’s pretty clear that his niche is in developing the instrumental record for the reef, not understanding the system.
Your grade is F, pointless repetition, use of spurious sources (i.e. Bolt) and a general lack of quality critical thinking.
By the way, you never commented on the Copenhagen Diagnosis further. Because you can’t allow your facile views to be contaminated by the big picture, especially where models are validated by observations.
kdkd #1105
You must have a lot of Taxpayer funded time on your hands kdkd. You are an expert on the Great Barrier Reef too, and can debunk a scientist overnight (from 12.29am to 9.00am).
I will ask Bob Carter for a second opinion on Prof Ridd.
You probably are not bright enough to realize that the CRU ‘Climategate’ is opening the floodgates of suppressed dissent by scientists and researchers around the world.
Has a lot of parallels with the velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe. When the fear of the climate science police and funding oppressors is removed, the lights of free expression shine through.
Look out for more ‘outings’ of climate science gurus who will prove to have feet of clay.
There’s something about the nasal rat-tat-tat posturing of Karoly that makes me uneasy – there could be a revelation in the offing there.
kdkd #1103
Isn’t it fun reading about the machinations of Gavin’s RealClimate in the emails. How his coven of IPCC author mates conspired to suppress discussion and prevent contrary views being expressed on that blog.
Sort of like the Central Committee running the editor of Pravda.
RealClimate can only be classified as the official organ of the IPCC AGW conspiracy.
ken haha
No I’m not an expert, but I can read, and interpret what an academic’s expertise is from their publications quite quickly.
You keep overstating your case, it exposes your moronic approach to the subject quite nicely. Revelations my arse.
The latest nonsense in #1106 is not backed by the evidence. There’s a lot of nutjob braying, and a bit of damage control elsewhere, but fundamentally the situation is unchanged. A minority of delusional or rent seeking nutjobs on the right, and everyone else is either disinterested, or appropriately concerned.
Nice of you to confirm by silence that if you attended to the diagnosis, and the models being confirmed by observations that your case would instantly collapse. Concession by silence isn’t as satisfying as the real deal, but given your precipitous mental health, it will do.
kdkd #1109
So which models have predicted 10-12 years of cooling kdkd??
Oh yes, Karoly’s 25% of models – thats right.
And Flannery hasn’t got a model any more – he just doesn’t know what is going on.
And Trenberth can’t make his energy balance models fit the observations either.
And your mates on RealClimate are still claiming that the ‘science is settled’. Hello??
The citizens are getting an uneasy feeling that they are being conned.
What 10-12 years of cooling would that be? Oh you mean repeating lies makes them true?
No the models do not predict the ability of delusionals to repeat lies or for Tim Flannery to make errors in throwaway comments. The models do predict intrinsic variability within the system, and the current plateau is consistent with prior historical post-industrial observations. And despite the recent data not contributing to the warming trend (that’s the best rigourous conclusion from your POV on offer supported by the data by the way) other warming indicators continue uninterrupted.
Again, it’s little picture thinking. Glacier melts continue, and are more serious than predicted, animals continue to adjust their natural ranges, fire severity increases and so on and so forth.
What’s the magnitude of the energy balance problem? How does it relate to the big picture? You haven’t answered those either, despite being asked to on many occasions. You don’t want to because it would cause your case to collapse.
Give me a real big picture argument or give up.
I’m getting an uneasy feeling that your’e far more delusional than you first presented.
kdkd #1111
You can verify the basic numbers from reading Trenberth…its just that pesky +1.6W/sq.m which he can’t find a place for in the balance….
The typical energy balance relationship for the Earth system is:
F.incoming (341 W/sq.m Solar) = F.reflected (102 W/sq.m) + F.re-radiated by long wave (239 W/sq.m)
The IPCC finds a net +1.6 W/sq.m imbalance on the right hand side of this equation, mainly from CO2 GHG absorbing but not re-rediated in the F.re-radiated term.
This means that 341 comes in and 339.4 goes out (at 2005 balance date for IPCC 2007).
Clearly if there is no net heat gain (and no temperature increase), then the system must be re-balanced and this can be done by changing any or all of the three terms of the above equation.
The F.incoming has dropped fractionally by 0.25 W/sq.m over the last 5 years to 340.75 W/sq.m so the right hand side must be also approx 340.75 W/sq.m.
F.reflection could have gone up (Ben Sandiland’s ship trails), but would have to have increased greatly in a short time. The IPCC Fig 2.4 shows direct and cloud albedo at
-1.2 W/sq.m with med-low LOSU. To offset the purported CO2 GHG forcing it would have to rise to about -2.8 W/sq.m – not impossible but unlikely in 5-10 years, especially when this factor is supposed to be reducing by the last 30 years of pollution controls.
Which leaves us with F.re-radiated by long wave where the sub-term F.CO2 GHG lurks.
F.re-radiated must go up by +1.6 – 0.25 (solar drop off) – Delta F.reflected (increase), and the only significant term this can come from is F. CO2 GHG.
In summary, unless you can ascribe 1.35 W/sq.m to the F.reflected terms by increase in direct and cloud albedo, then it must come out of the F. CO2 GHG term. This means that F. CO2 GHG could be anything from 0 – 1.35 W/sq.m, with the 1.35 only being possible if the F. reflected has more than doubled – highly unlikely.
The upshot of that for there to be no temperature increase – the CO2 GHG forcing must be closer to zero.
Clear enough relationship between forcing and temperature for you old son??
I would blame it all on Ben Sandiland’s ship trails and undisclosed Chinese and Indian SO2.
“The upshot of that for there to be no temperature increase – the CO2 GHG forcing must be closer to zero.”
So how much closer to zero, 1%, 10%, 100%? Do the sums. How does this relate to each of the uncertainty terms for each parameter? In the absence of a better hypothesis, these should be reallocated randomly proportionate to estimated uncertainty, and then iteratively modified in order to determine where the model best fits the data.
Relate it to the evidence, temperature, ice melt, extreme weather events and so on. Provide a decent explanation for the current short time scale plateau.
You get a B- for that one, you can get your grade raised by providing the further information required to make your case properly.
kdkd #1113
Thats the 64 trillion dollar question………………you pratt.
If Kevin Trenberth (emailer), guru of the energy balances can’t get a balance which explains cooling, with a research team and lots of Govt dollars, how the hell can I do it with 1 hour per day and an internet connection??
The cooling effects of cloud and direct albedo (low LOSU) and the proposed heating effect of CO2 GHG have to be separated by accurate measurement – and those measurements no-one seems to have……… including Kevin Trenberth.
The logic of the balance is irrefutable: either the cooling effects of clouds and aerosols has been *understated* (which is likely if the Chinese, Indians, ships and others have been understating their SO2 output), or the heating effect of CO2 GHG has been *overstated* (which is likely because of the IPCC distortion of Solar etc); or BOTH.
As shown in #1112 the cooling effect of clouds and aerosols would have to be doubled to wipe out the purported CO2 GHG heating effect (on IPCC 2007 figures), which is unlikely — but not impossible.
The uncertainties of the measurement and the calibre of the scientists revealed by ‘Climategate’ means that anything is possible.
I am but a simple piano player in the whorehouse of climate science.
Ken,
Your answer is OK from a newtonian point of view. Unfortunately for you the climate is a non newtonian system.
We’ve been through this before, but as cloud and other albedo effects are short term, their contribution should be observable immediately with high variability over short time spans. CO2′s effects are long term and subject to lag, so will only be observable over longer time frames. So we’re back to dynamics here, and not the point estimates you keep using (your forcing equation is also a point estimate btw).
So next relate your forcing equation to the dynamics (changes over time), and for bonus credit, relate them to non-temperature warming indicators – i.e. glacier melting, the biodiversity effects, and the other changes to terrestrial ecosystems, extreme weather events, and anything else you can think of.
Then you’ve set your case. Not before. This obsessing about point estimates at the expense of trend evaluation is really damaging your grade, but at least you’re scraping a pass mark for now.
Ken:
p.s. I guess you’re piano playing is off key and a moonlighting job. I’m guessing that your real income comes from being an A&E man in the bordello of the fossil fuel industry.
kdkd #1115
Sorry, your point about Newtonian and non-Newtonian systems is irrelevant to the energy balance issue.
Of course the forcings are measured at an instant in time. They are expressed as power measurement units ie W/sq.m.
The energy unit is a Joule. A Watt is a Joule/second.
So if you multiply the Forcing in Watts/sq.m by the time period considered in seconds you will get the energy/sq.m and then multiply that by the surface area considered (the surface of the Earth) to get the energy in Joules.
Hence you will see energy balances expressed in PJ (PetaJoules).
So for a dynamic system you simply integrate the Forcings with respect to time and surface area.
We can agree that the area of the Earth’s surface is a constant…..so what Trenberth and Co. are doing is taking some sort of integral wrt time and wrt surface area involved and then dividing by a constant (the Earth’s surface) and time to get the average Forcing estimates over a given period of time.
Time is always involved. If you take a given period and sum all the incoming energy, and then subtract all the outgoing energy, and the result is a net positive – then you should have warming and temperature increase at the end of that period…and visa versa for cooling.
The effects of cloud albedo and CO2 are there *all the time* at some level. The fact that a cloud formation or weather system has a short individual life does not mean that the quantum of clouds over a given area over a given period will not approach some sort of measureable number.
The shading by clouds over your house over a day would be highly dynamic and variable, but would approach some average over a year.
That’s why we employ the Trenberths of this world – to work these numbers out…. not screw around with Microsoft Outlook.
(PS; I really work for Microsoft and am sucking up to that great philanthropist Bill Gates)
“There is, in fact, a climate conspiracy. It just happens to be one launched by the fossil fuel industry to obscure the truth about climate change and delay any action. And this release of emails right before the Copenhagen conference is just another salvo—and a highly effective one—in that public relations battle, redolent with the scent of the same flaks and hacks who brought you “smoking isn’t dangerous.”"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-cover-up-you-better-2009-11-24
Good company you keep Ken and Tamas.
Ken #1117
So how are you going to demonstrate that your estimates of the uncertainty are valid.
Bear in mind that earlier when we looked at the proportionate influence of solar input on temperature anomaly, in the early 20th century, it was 75%solar 25% co2, while in the late 20th century it was 75% co2, 25% solar.
Meanwhile you are yet to explain how the energy balance equations fits the non temperature observations of warming.
You’re pissing about around the edges because you *know* that the big picture shows that you’re wrong and that you’ve been duped by the real climate conspirators.
kdkd #1119
Non-temperature observations of warming …..presumably ice melt and sea level rise.
Well the thermal lag in the oceans is at least 10 years (probably a lot more), so if you stopped adding heat 10 years ago you would stop seeing temperature rise now….all things being equal. Ice melt can only happen if the temperature gradient is positive. ie. if the temperature around the ice is higher than the ice itself and be above zero.
Complex ocean circulation and air exposure can produce those conditions, so (all things being equal) warming oceans from thermal lag can keep melting ice.
Again if the oceans and air temps stabilize at a level which maintains a positive gradient, then ice would keep melting. If they cool, then ice melt could slow down or stop. Therefore the flat or slight cooling of the last 10 years could keep melting ice, due to the higher level at which temperatures have stabilized.
If the energy balance turns negative and the Earth cools, then we would expect to see ice melt slowdown, stop and then possibly reverse.
The Argo Buoys are flat or cooling so thermal expansion is probably being arrested right now.
Sea level is very difficult to measure, and I am not sure if all factors have been included.
For example, I have never seen any discussion of the natural displacement effect of the billions of tonnes of silt washed into the oceans, nor the organic matter which falls to the bottom, nor the absorption of CO2. A molecule of CO2 has a weight of 44 compared with 18 for H2O. Interesting thoughts which no doubt someone has accounted for somewhere. 1mm thickness of thalacians and dead whale spread over the area of the oceans could be worth a sum or two.
The sub-1mm rise around Australia last year is so far unexplained.
kdkd #1118
This is from your Scientific American:
“After all, one of the most “damaging” emails in question from Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., is actually mourning the paucity of Earth observation systems and data in the past decade, such as satellites (gutted by a lack of funding and launch miscues in recent years) to monitor climate change in the midst of natural variability.”
There’s proof positive that the leading energy balance guru hasn’t got the numbers….he needs more dollars to find out why the balance doesn’t work for cooling.
kdkd #1119
Previous comment from in the 1000′s is relevant..
When you talk of 4-5 year periods of ocean cooling – you must think about the mechanism. Where does the heat energy go in that 4-5 year period? It can’t be stored in the atmosphere (1/80th the capacity of the oceans) in any significant quantity. Some could go into melting ice – but only that portion at very high latitudes.
Maybe most of it re-radiates out to space and is lost forever – which means that we are possibly not measuring the F.re-radiation accurately enough.
Warmist explanations which claim 4-5 year periods of cooling are just natural variability and imply that the CO2 GHG absorbed heat energy is just tucked away waiting to get out and resume global warming; fails to cut it in energy balance terms.
Even you could understand that after my extensive attention to your thermodynamic education.
Ken #pointless repetition
Or the instrumental record doesn’t have 100% precision.
Seems rather likely given the size and complexity of the system.
You’re avoiding the real questions again as your argument would collapse with even a modicum of big picture thinking.
More useful commentary on climategate from the excellent fivethirtyeight.com (which has no climate change agenda by the way)
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/i-read-through-160000000-bytes-of.html
“Still: I don’t know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that’s literally what some of these bloggers are saying!”
Like I said, paranoid nutjobs.
kdkd #1124
You don’t get it do you kdkd??
“Sexing up” a graph to create false certainty is scientific dishonesty.
Maybe this, and ‘office politics’ are standard practice at the Uni of Kieren View.
Trenberth, Mann, Briffa and Co are people endlessly quoted in the IPCC Reports and references as *the* authorities on proof for AGW via the CO2 GHG mechanism.
Discovery of collusion to ‘sex-up’ the data, or privately disclose their doubts about the observations matching their theories has dealt a huge blow to their credibility.
There is no doubt that the ructions in the Liberal Party over the CPRS and ETS, has been fueled in recent days by these revelations of scientific ‘clay feet’ on the part of leading proponents of alarmist AGW. I believe the email traffic on this matter to politicians involved has been stupendous.
What does Tim Flannery say to a bewildered politician ringing for climate science advice? ………….. “I don’t know what’s going on mate”.
You have lost George Monbiot – one of your favourite quotees; he is ready to lop off those CRU heads who have made him look like a dill.
Ken # 1125
You don’t seem to get that these “revelations” which you vastly overstate do not bring into question the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis one little bit. To repeat the quote:
“Still: I don’t know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that’s literally what some of these bloggers are saying!”
Hasta la vista imbecile.
kdkd #1126
Your resort to childish abuse just shows how telling are the self-inflicted wounds on the ‘emailers’.
They say that the greatest freedom in the world is being taken at your word.
The ‘emailers’ have just given up that freedom – and will never again be trusted to deliver honest science.
Cheers
Ken #1127
No, childish abuse because you repeatedly don’t answer questions and have nothing substantial to say. More screws loose than the challenger space shuttle indeed.
Nice to see Tamas making a fool of himself again in the sealed section too. Little picture thinking for little minds indeed.
The insurance industry are certainly with Tamas and Ken that it’s all a scam.
http://www.thelocal.de/money/20091126-23549.html
Oops can’t keep my sarcasm in check. Not renowned for their gullibility and left wing activism the insurance industry.
kdkd – you are the gullible one mate. The insurance industry, just like the banks, will profit wonderfully from this climate-scare campaign. Here is a good rundown on Munich Re’s alarmism: http://www.climate-resistance.org/tag/crispin-tickell
And care to point out exactly how I made a fool of myself in the sealed section yesterday? Pointing out that the world is not warming like the IPCC wants it to makes me look silly?
Aah the return of delusion boy. Nice MO by the way, if it doesn’t come from a right wing think thank with a vested interest in the status quo then it’s somehow tainted. Good work, A+ for wishful thinking, and for being so credulous.
kdkd 31131
Tamas is hammering them with relentless consistency….onya Tamas…
Still struggling with #1117 and #1121 kdkd??
Maybe you should go back to my lesson on the bar heaters??
Notice that Bolta got the Trenberth email into the end of “ABC Insiders” yesterday.
Poor Kevin trenberth doesn’t realize how quoted he has become around the planet.
kdkd #1128
Latest George Monbiot piece on Professor Jones (CRU – East Anglia):
“When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.”
Have you discarded George Monbiot as one of your pin-up boys yet kdkd??
Ken #113
Yawn. Nothing to say about the science. Just a bunch more little picture thinking. Was listening to Nepalese peasants on the radio today talking about climate change’s ongoing impact on their food security. Just as the models predict.
Bored now. Happy delusions, so long fools. Keep spreading the disinformation and ignoring the evidence!
Bah
“Still struggling with #1117 and #1121 kdkd??”
But you coudldn’t establish why that negated the AGW hypothesis, so I think it’s your arguemnt that’s lacking.
kdkd #1135
IPCC Lead Author Kevin Trenberth to Mann, Wigley, Santer, Jones, Hansen and Schheider on email:
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
QED
kl #1125
“There is no doubt that the ructions in the Liberal Party over the CPRS and ETS, has been fueled in recent days by these revelations of scientific ‘clay feet’ on the part of leading proponents of alarmist AGW. I believe the email traffic on this matter to politicians involved has been stupendous.”
Premonition my boys??
Here I am …quoting myself. I will have to watch that. Malcolm Turnbull should have learnt by now that pride goeth before a fall. Never one for being less than certain, the member for Goldman Sachs (institutional avarice in action), has be disembowelled by the doubters.
Tim Flannery will have to start writing a new book – ‘The Climate Change Eaters’
Lets hope the mad monk can deliver the Senate of this wretched ETS.
Captain paranoia #1136
The only things you quod erat demonstrandumed is your ability to take quotes out of context, and that you don’t understand the science or the scientific process.
#1137
Big supporter of Tony Abbot here. He’ll help the libs continue with their implosion par excellence. I’m looking forward to a defeated ETS so that I can campaign to help the greens get a balance of power in the senate and that something less of a travesty might get up instead[1]. The only things the Libs prove is that there’s a large rump of people in the party who are as deluded as Ken, and even more scientifically illiterate. Even more in the pocket of the big polluters than the ALP.
As I said, bored now, go away.
[1] No history of political activism here, but this issue is important.
Kevin Trenberth:
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
In what context kdkd, can the above quotation be re-interpreted? Jest?? Mischief??
Here is one of the oft-quoted lead authors Kevin Trenberth talking in a private email to Mann, Wigley, Santer, Jones, Hansen and Schneider – the leading names in IPCC Reports and references on AGW.
Can anyone seriously doubt that this one sentence is a clear admission that the *lack of warming at the moment* is real, and that Trenberth et al *can’t account* for this observation in their theories and models??
You Sir, are a shot duck…
Captain Paranoia #1139
You get three clues to guide you on your way. Effect size and duration, and degree of concordance with existing models.
I’ll make it easy for you and give you the answes: Small, short and good.
It’s even easier to shoot fish in a barrel when the water’s all drained out and the fish are already in a bloody mess on its floor.
kdkd#1140
“Quack, Quack…….”
kdkd #1140
The reason I have concentrated on Trenberth’s emails is that the energy balance guru is probably the most important player in explaining the mechanism of warming.
That is why engineers who have studied thermodynamics are amongst the more skeptical of the professions when it comes to AGW.
Several prominent engineers (one being the late Emeritus Professor Lance Endersbee) former past President of the Institution of Engineers Aust (some 80,000 members) have expressed strong skeptical opinions in the journals of the profession – something the general public (nor the technically illiterate politician and journalist) never sees.
That is why Trenberth’s cry of frustration: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” is so pertinent to those trained minds which understand the energy balance implications.
The killer is the impossibility of having a continual heating power input from CO2 GHG (the log function equation F.CO2 = 5.35 ln(CO2a/CO2b) W/sq.m), and no heating or cooling of the biosphere for *any* period of time – let alone a significant 10-12 year period.
Captain paranoia #1142
This is real dotting the is and crossing the ts detailed science. It doesn’t alter the magnitude of the effect an a large enough way to contradict the AGW hypothesis.
The models and observations disagree with the rest of your drivel. Your argument has not a leg to stand on.
kdkd #1143
Are these the 25% of models which predict ‘cooling’ or the 75% which predict ‘warming’??
boring comment #1144
More facile straw men. These kinds of models are generally stochastic[1]. That means they can also predict the effect of uncertainty, and outcomes are not deterministic.
[1] Look it up in a dictionary
kdkd #1146
OK so then we can’t put any ‘deterministic’ numbers on warming at all?? Then we only have a vague feeling of warming with no hard numbers.
Well in that case why don’t we have a vague feeling of an ETS?
To paraphrase your Leftist mates:
“We will pretend to have a carbon pollution reduction scheme …..and you will pretend to have anthropogenic global warming”.
Ken #1146
You don’t half write some crap. Here’s the impact that your observations of a small number minor details have on the big picture:
None. At. All.
Get it? Stop wasting your time.
kdkd #1147
Not so fast kdkd.
I hear that ‘Climategate’ was crucial to solidifying doubts in the Liberal Party, and the demise of ETS supporter Malcolm Turnbull.
Even this week’s Economist has softened its line on climate skepticism, and published a separate extensive report on Climategate (leaving out a crucial Trenberth sentence).
The consistent drubbing you are getting at the hands of Tamas and myself in this ‘Cage Fight’ is not going unnoticed either.
tedious drivel #1148
Of course the Liberal Party are free to take a view of climate change that is not reality based. They will pay for it at the next election. That well known science journal The Economist is clearly in a good position to understand the relationship between the complex science and the way the leaked emails relate to the data (for the hard of thinking that’s sarcasm). Although if this is the article that you’re referring to it’s rife with factual inaccuracy, and its conclusions from your point of view are pretty weak ( http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14960149 )
Pertinent quote:
“None of this is evidence of fraud. Looked at broadly, the e-mails seem to show a pretty workaday picture of scientists, with frustrations and sloppinesses, disagreements, opponents badmouthed, and cultural differences bridged (for example, explaining to an American colleague not just why a particular person is a prat, but what a prat is in the first place). Some of the e-mails may, looked at in a context not currently available (those posted were a selection), add weight to previous criticisms by Mr McIntyre and others. But that, in itself, is not dramatic. Many of these issues were aired in the most recent IPCC report, though not particularly thoroughly. And the idea of anthropogenic climate change rests on a great deal more than just tree-ring records, useful as they are for providing context to the current warming.”
Presumably this consistent drubbing will be the listeners being amused at the view of you consistently punching yourself in the face.
Oh Dear…I have been mispelling ‘Pratt’.
I should have called you a ‘prat’ in line with the UK warmists.
The Economist ‘Science’ section report missed the killer Trenberth line – probably deliberately to avoid having to retreat from their mildly ‘warmist’ position.
This is what ‘The Economist’ says:
“Another e-mail seen as shocking was from Kevin Trenberth of America’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado: “Where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record.” But to take this as evidence that Dr Trenberth questions global warming seems foolish.”
*This is what Trenberth’s email says:*
“Hi all
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our
observing system is inadequate.”
*and even more interesting email:*
“From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:36:36 -0600
Cc: Tom Wigley , Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer
Mike
Here are some of the issues as I see them:
Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go? We know there is a build up of ocean heat prior to El Nino, and a discharge (and sfc T warming) during late stages of El Nino, but is the observing system sufficient to track it? Quite aside from the changes in the ocean, we know there are major changes in the storm tracks and teleconnections with ENSO, and there is a LOT more rain on land during La Nina (more drought in El Nino), so how does the albedo change overall (changes in cloud)? At the very least the extra rain on land means a lot more heat goes into evaporation rather than raising temperatures, and so that keeps land temps down: and should generate cloud. But the resulting evaporative cooling means the heat goes into atmosphere and should be radiated to space: so we should be able to track it with CERES data. The CERES data are unfortunately wonting and so too are the cloud data. The ocean data are also lacking although some of that may be related to the ocean current changes and burying heat at depth where it is not picked up. If it is sequestered at depth then it comes back to haunt us later and so we should know about it.
Kevin”
Seems like the science isn’t settled to me……..in fact it seems they don’t know quite a lot…..
Ken #1151
That’s pointless repetition there. Also you’re republishing stolen material – be careful.
The “where the heck is global warming question” is a ludicrous argument. The rest of it is detail. It’s correct to say that “Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes…” are important questions. But they’re important questions of detail. Let me explain again for your paranoia riddled brain how much difference this question makes to the big picture of anthropogenic global warming.
None. At. All.
You’ve got nothing new to say, just the same old recycled arguments using wildly overextended conclusions and a dash of paranoid delusion to support a very weak case.
Looks like me, The Economist, Bolta, every newspaper, Crikey, half the blogosphere are in the frame for ‘quoting’ emails from Climategate….are we all to be shot by the Maoist AGW mafia??
What are you suggesting kdkd….are these emails fakes?? Is the information fabricated?
No, no, no……………you are shattered by the truths uttered in private by the architects of AGW theory.
What don’t you understand about this kdkd??……..
“Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go?”………………….
“But the resulting evaporative cooling means the heat goes into atmosphere and should be radiated to space: so we should be able to track it with CERES data. The CERES data are unfortunately wonting and so too are the cloud data. The ocean data are also lacking although some of that may be related to the ocean current changes and burying heat at depth where it is not picked up. If it is sequestered at depth then it comes back to haunt us later and so we should know about it.”
The simple answer is that on 14 Oct 09, Dr Kevin Trenberth, lead author of the IPCC on AGW is confiding to his mates: (Tom Wigley , Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer;)
“Where did the heat go?”………………….
Which is exactly the same question Ken Lambert has been asking through this Cage Match……..
This is conclusive proof that the “Science is not settled”…………
Game, Set and Cage Match…..
Ken,
Paranoid rant aside, are you telling me that the content of the emails shows that the AGW hypothesis requires a complete review of the underlying theory? That appears to be your argument, but it’s not supported by the available evidence.
You’re pissing about around the edges while pretending you’ve found some major central problems. Nice work of fiction dude.
(again amused at the sight of Ken punching himslef in the face repeatedly)
kdkd #1154
“are you telling me that the content of the emails shows that the AGW hypothesis requires a complete review of the underlying theory?”
Answer: YES!
“That appears to be your argument, but it’s not supported by the available evidence.”
Answer: EXCEPT THE EVIDENCE OF OUR OWN EYES AS EXPRESSED IN THE WORDS OF DR KEVIN TRENBERTH (IPCC Lead Author) in October 2009:
“Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go?”………………….
Hey Ken, you’re going around in circles. This time I won’t give you the answers. The questions were:
1. Effect size
2. Effect duratoin
3. Divergence from models.
Your previous answer to number three was facetious nonsense and shows you don’t really understand the science of models well enough to have a valid opinion.
Your argument requires such epistimological contortions, you’re accidentally buggering yourself. Happy delusion land old man.
Oh look a possible negative feedback mechanism caused by antarctic melt … http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/10/ice_sheet_melt_carbon_sink/
Perhaps the delusional freaks can explain this without seeming insane (but I doubt it)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=1
Ken Lambert, of the game, set and cage match – NOT! – fame, I don’t think you fully understand that QED means ‘the completion of the proof’. Because it is my humble opinion that you are nowhere near proving that a few intemperate e-mails do anything to deny the overall science behind climate change.
But I digreess, did you, Tamams and KDKD catch Crikey’s clarifications today? It had a wonderful last satirical point, from Jim Gobert, which is worth sharing (briefly summarised below) :-
“I am losing track of the state of the overwhelming science disproving climate change. Consequently I made a list of the main current arguments for Crikey readers”:-
Environmentalists hate freedom and humans and want to destroy all of our society forcing us to live in caves , eating only lichen & possum droppings.
Climate change is a global communist conspiracy created by Rudd to keep Australians out of church.
Climate change must be stopped immediately… or it doesn’t count.
Rudd’s ETS is a vicious tax designed to bankrupt the ordinary Australians who voted for him but Abbott’s idea of industry paying for CO2 emissions & passing the cost onto consumers is … well, something not called a tax (its tentative name is “Roger”).
The science of climate change is so complex that it is only understood by those with absolutely no science training who are therefore unbiased — consequently , a talk back radio host warning us about as communist new world order conspiracy, carries more scientific weight than 1000 climatologists.
In the 1970s scientists all claimed that there was an imminent ice age — that peer reviewed scientific journal , the Daily Telegraph, carried the story but dodgy rags such as Nature & Scientific American didn’t , thereby proving a conspiracy.
It is an outrageous insult to call climate change skeptics “deniers” but what else you expect an atheistic rabble of Nazi , communist, do-gooder , chardonnay drinking tree huggers to say.
All the science of climate change is a disgraceful fabrication by scientists who fear losing their government grants – we know this because shock jocks & tabloid journalists , the stars of many previous cash for comments scandals, tell us so.
Over 1 billion Chinese and Indian peasants deserve to remain in poverty, dreaming of a simple fridge, because limiting Australian families to only four cars is outrageous creeping socialism.
Australia should do nothing on addressing climate change (which doesn’t exist by the way) & should wait to see what the rest of the world will do – we had this idea first so no other country can take this position
Per capita CO2 emissions are totally irrelevant — because Indians & Chinese are irresponsible enough to be born in crowded countries, especially ones where inferior gods are worshipped, they are only allowed per capita CO2 emissions one fiftieth of ours.
Climate change will double food production because plants love CO2 , the “farmers friend” — as grains such as wheat , maize, oats, new GM rice etc utilize C4 photosynthesis and are relatively unaffected by increased CO2 levels.
You’ve got to laugh sometimes guys. ;}}
Tamas, apologies for the typo, fat fingers and all that.
Yes, I was both amused and informed by that particular piece of clarification. A good summary of the arguments. The only reason I turned up here was that when other people got bored of Ken and Tamas’ nonsense Ken started crowing victory, and things got a bit out of control from there …
Adam Rope #1159
Welcome to the cage Adam Rope. Are you one of kdkd mates brought in for a little light amusement….like darling Harold? They usually don’t last long.
Or could it be……….. Rope a Dope??………….
Since kdkd is incapable of addressing Dr Kevin Trenberth’s shattering private admission of October 2009:
“Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go?”………………….
Why don’t you answer Dr Trenberth’s plea then Adam, and demonstrate your grasp of the energy balance issue??
kdkd #1157
Well, well a natural balancing mechanism to enhance absorbtion of CO2 ..who would have thought?? You should add this to the report that acidification of the ocean by CO2 absorption INCREASES the growth of carbonate shells in sea creatures. The ‘scientists’ were telling us the opposite not long ago.
Perhaps you should read this excellent summary of the history of the players in climate science from your ‘Register’:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/crugate_analysis/
Seems that Phil Jones is quite a character in this sordid story……didn’t keep the raw temperature data for lack storage space……hello??
The world is hostage to demands for hundreds of billions to be spent on stopping AGW based on data which was discarded because of lack of a few tape drives.
Throw a blanket over the people mentioned in the Climategate emails and you have the kernel of the whole IPCC science base.
All are now suspect of feeding (innocently or not) from an infected carcass – the putrid body of ‘enhanced data’ from CRU.
Even Jon Stewart is alive to the breathtaking blackness of the humour with his Daily serve..
Drivel #116x
“Since kdkd is incapable of addressing Dr Kevin Trenberth’s shattering private admission of October 2009″ Addressed and your argument is busy beating you in the head every time you bring it up. It doesn’t mean what you say it does.
The Register column is rather filled with inaccuracies and partisan commentary. I’m going to research the reasons why Lamb’s reconstruction is no longer viewed as accurate though. Essentially the Register column is written by a computer scientist with no experience of working in the natural sciences, which is why the commentary is biased its particular direction there.
You know the drill. Crowing over misrepresentations, lies and wildly overextended conclusions, or as we know know it epistomological auto-sodomy. You’ll be needing an epistomological buttbung to contain the damage you’ve done to yourself.
kdkd #1164
Amidst all your infantile anal references (problem with potty training kdkd?) and trite assertions, I am sniffing blood in the water.
The viewers (are you there Sophie?) are seeing the truth emerging about ‘Climategate’ amongst your thin but colourful tissue of warped opinion and falsehood.
The signs of hysterical ‘denial’ are clear. It is like you have woken up and found that the Gods of AGW science are……….dead.
Just answer the simple Trenberth questions:
What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go?”………………….
Ken #1165
Nice bit of freudian psychotherapy there. The blood you are sniffing is the self inflicted wounds of your over extended conclusions and wild assertions. You never really managed to answer how much heat we’re failing to account for and how this relates to the temperature record, but we know based on the instrumental record that while scientifically important the effect size is small.
If you were writing a scientific thesis you’d be given a fail because you can’t reach conclusions without making far more out of uncertainty than the data warrants.
Nice comment today Ken. Trenberth is making our case for us.
Adam, kdkd – any ideas where the warming has gone? As the world leading scientist Kevin Trenberth says, “natural variability is not an explanation”.
kdkd – by the way, your last sentence above (#1166) doesn’t make any sense. Read it again if you don’t believe me.
Tamas,
You appear to be making the argument that small is large, and context is irellevant. But in your world that’s perfectly consistent and sensible.
“If you were writing a scientific thesis you’d be given a fail because you can’t reach conclusions without making far more out of uncertainty than the data warrants.”
probably should be:
“If you had written a scientific thesis you’d be given a mark of fail. This is because you can’t reach your conclusions without making far more out of the observed uncertainty than the data warrants.”
Although I think the first sentence was a reasonable approximation of the second try given I try not to waste too much of my time with you autosodomite losers.
kdkd – “autosodomite”?? I see you are reverting to rudeness again. There really is no need for it old boy.
Anyway, can you answer Trenberth’s question? What are the physical processes? Where did the heat go?
Until you can answer that you cannot claim that all the warming is caused by CO2.
Tamas,
I’m not pointlessly repeating myself for you. Trenberth’s question is a profound and complex one but it refers to a problem of magnitude much smaller than you are assuming it is.
Anyway I thought autosodomite was a good turn of phrase, referring as it does to your contorted arguments which are not based on any sensible view of reality
Ken Lambert @ 1162, I’ve been following the Cage Match aperiodically since its inception, and I’ve tried to comment a few times in the past, but I seem to have an issue posting from the home computer. I have no idea why.
I’m currently in the field on a work laptop, and that seems to work – the miracles of modern technology.
“Are you one of kdkd mates brought in for a little light amusement….like darling Harold? They usually don’t last long.
Or could it be……….. Rope a Dope??………….”
Is that how you normally greet people Ken, – with silly jibes?
Or is it some seemingly innocuous, but slimy, bait, and you hope I might respond in kind?
I’ve been an “A Rope” all my life, Ken, and have learned that the people who resort to the cheap tactic of dumb word plays with my name are the ones with no argument left.
Or is that just all part of your on-line persona – that of devils advocate?
You see Ken, to a reasonably aware layman, with a little bit of scientific background and bent, such as myself, I have been able to broadly follow the arguments for much of this cage match. I do not in anyway claim any expertise in the scientific and statistical analysis that either of you have carried out, but can understand to root core of the general arguments.
And I can report that what I make of the general tone of your own arguements put up in response to KDKD’s statements is they are preponderantly irrelevent shots aimed at the periphery of the argument at hand.
It appears that you have no real riposte to make to many kdkd’s statistical and scientific points – beyond of course your one favourite topic to which you return every so often, as if you are clinging to a lifeline in a stormy sea – your ‘heat imbalance’ issue.
Ken, you do appear to be simply trying to wind up the opposition by ridiculously overstating / emphasising some minor peripheral point in one of the oppositions arguments, as if that were somehow the major situation under discussion. You are desperately trying to ignore the main topics, and results, postulated, and simply look to the sidelines for yet another distraction in the distance with which to continue your devils advocacy.
And on that note, I have to leave the Cage for tonight. I shall return refreshed another day.
Adam #1172
I stand chastised Adam. My welcome was dripping with so far unwarranted sarcasm. I can only plead that I have lost a little of my usual courtesy in this Cage Match fending off a deluge of infantile abuse from kdkd, day after day, month after month. He has dragged a small part of me down to his level.
I should not have let it happen. I defer to Tamas who has maintained a high standard of decorum in this debate.
Having said that; your central criticism viz:
“It appears that you have no real riposte to make to many kdkd’s statistical and scientific points – beyond of course your one favourite topic to which you return every so often, as if you are clinging to a lifeline in a stormy sea – your ‘heat imbalance’ issue.
Well Adam, this ‘heat imbalance’ issue is a central point of the AGW debate and Dr Trenberth is the world’s most prominent player in this critical area and his email trail to the cream of AGW scientists is an absolute watershed in this debate.
To suggest otherwise means you need to study the science further.
To argue that this a ‘minor peripheral issue’ is
kl #1173
missing last word “facile’
Ken #1173
The only thing that makes hanging out with you losers bearable is the fun to be had with keating-esque style repartee (although my attempts are just a poor shadow etc etc)
Get this into your rotted brain: The effect that you claim cause the whole *ahem* house of cards to collapse is too small to be of significance in the sense that you want. Your perseveration on the matter does not change this fact. However the energy imbalance is of scientific interest, it’s just too small to be a useful part of *your* claims.
That leaves you with precisely nothing left to support your argument.
OK, it appears my plans for a Friday night escape have gone awry, and I am still on-site and alcohol-less. So I return to the fray briefly.
Ken, apology accepted, and I happen to agree with you that kdkd has behaved less than appropriately, and has descended to grossly inappropriate language, on many an occasion.
(Whether kdkd has been reduced to that abuse by your continued childish glee with which you misrepresent his points, and given your apparently deliberate obtuseness remains a debateable (sp?) issue.)
Ken, personally I doubt that your simplified “‘heat imbalance’ issue is a central point of the AGW debate” as I feel this is your side-tracking argument, which conveniently ignores all the other science surrounding climate change.
Climate change is a very, very complex issue, with mulitple strands all coalescing into one very strong conclusion. One single point in one area is neither going to prove or dis-prove all the data and analysis available in all the other fields of research.
And I have written that in the knowledge that you are going to make some grossly over-simplified side swipe about the CRU e-mails, and how one comment taken out of context is going negate all the other science.
Science is more than one person, in more than one discipline, experimenting and investigating and checking, and leading to a verifiable conclusion.
Adam #1176
At the risk of repeating #1112 here is an edited version:
You can verify the basic numbers from reading Trenberth…its just that pesky +1.6W/sq.m which he can’t find a place for in the balance…….which as the emails reveal….he contends that the earth system isn’t warming and can’t explain it in energy balance terms
The typical energy balance relationship for the Earth system is:
F.incoming (341 W/sq.m Solar) = F.reflected (102 W/sq.m) + F.re-radiated by long wave (239 W/sq.m)……..Eqan 1.01
The IPCC finds a net +1.6 W/sq.m imbalance on the right hand side of this equation, mainly from CO2 GHG absorbing but not re-rediated in the F.re-radiated term.
This means that 341 comes in and 339.4 goes out (at 2005 balance date for IPCC 2007).
Clearly if there is no net heat gain (and no temperature increase), then the system must be re-balanced and this can be done by changing any or all of the three terms of the above equation.
The F.incoming has dropped fractionally by 0.25 W/sq.m over the last 5 years to 340.75 W/sq.m so the right hand side must be also approx 340.75 W/sq.m.
F.reflection could have gone up (Ben Sandiland’s ship trails), but would have to have increased greatly in a short time. The IPCC Fig 2.4 shows direct and cloud albedo at
-1.2 W/sq.m with med-low LOSU. To offset the purported CO2 GHG forcing it would have to rise to about -2.8 W/sq.m – not impossible but unlikely in 5-10 years, especially when this factor is supposed to be reducing by the last 30 years of pollution controls.
Which leaves us with F.re-radiated by long wave where the sub-term F.CO2 GHG lurks.
F.re-radiated must go up by +1.6 – 0.25 (solar drop off) – Delta F.reflected (increase), and the only significant term this can come from is F. CO2 GHG.
In summary, unless you can ascribe 1.35 W/sq.m to the F.reflected terms by increase in direct and cloud albedo, then it must come out of the F. CO2 GHG term. This means that F. CO2 GHG could be anything from 0 – 1.35 W/sq.m, with the 1.35 only being possible if the F. reflected has more than doubled – highly unlikely.
The upshot of that for there to be no temperature increase – the CO2 GHG forcing must be closer to zero.
Many times in this blog, I have never argued that the earth system has not warmed over the last 130+ years, and that CO2 GHG plays no part in this.
Climate change is with us all the time and has very complex interactions, but can be reduced to the 3 main energy balance terms – and within those terms the knowledge and measurement accuracy varies widely, as exampled with the above numbers.
F. incoming (Solar) is probably the most accurately measured and varies with the 11 year cycle and a range of other cycles up to 100,000 years.
F. reflected involves clouds and direct albedo – and is the least accurately measured (low-med LOSU according to the IPCC)
F. re-radiated is the most complex and involves the sub-term F.CO2 GHG, plus Methane and Water Vapour and the daily heat absorption and nightly cooling as the heat is re-radiated by long wave radiation. This is where AGW theorists find the +1.6W/sq.m imbalance attributable to CO2 absorption in bands different to other GHG and water vapour. (the log function eqan).
The profound shock in the Trenberth email to the cream of AGW scientists is that Trenberth is admitting that the core of the theory – the F. CO2 GHG heat up imbalance cannot exist – or is being negated by variations in F.incoming or F. reflected which they are not measuring accurately enough or at all.
He just doesn’t know—hence his frustrated cry about lack of warming:
“Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go?”………………….
……….“But the resulting evaporative cooling means the heat goes into atmosphere and should be radiated to space: so we should be able to track it with CERES data. The CERES data are unfortunately *wonting* and so too are the cloud data. The ocean data are also lacking although some of that may be related to the ocean current changes and burying heat at depth where it is not picked up. If it is sequestered at depth then it comes back to haunt us later and so we should know about it.” (*wonting* presumably is misspelt *wanting*)
For such a private admission of the critical gaps in knowledge and measurement from the leading IPCC author on this major area of AGW theory is shocking indeed and has huge ramifications for the credibility of the science.
Ken #1177
You’re repeating yourself. At the risk of repeating myself:
The overall effect is too small to falsify the AGW hypothesis. Yes it is of scientific interest, but no it doesn’t falsify the large number of other strands that contribute to and support the hypothesis.
Your one trick pony is looking pretty lame there.
Here’s a very nice sober exploration of the climategate revelations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg
Ken will particularly want to completely ignore everything from 4:55 onwards in the video, as it damages his already pathetic argument even further.
Adam – you say “Climate change is a very, very complex issue, with mulitple strands all coalescing into one very strong conclusion. One single point in one area is neither going to prove or dis-prove all the data and analysis available in all the other fields of research.”
First, can you brief us on what “all the other fields of research” are? I don’t mean to be curt but it seems to me that the main field of research is “climate science” and this is why the CRU emails are so damaging. If the key climate scientists cannot understand why the world is not warming then all the other fields of research that supposedly support global warming are worth nothing.
Second, I agree that the climate system is very, very complex and that is why I have never accepted that the science on this issue is bullet proof. There are so many factors that we do not understand and cannot measure and these factors could be vastly more powerful than human CO2 production. Trenberth accepts this when he asks “What are the physical processes? Where did the heat go?”
Surely, at the very least, we cannot anymore say that the science is settled and the debate is over.
Tamas, we’ve been through this many times before. I’ve complained about your goldfish memory and your constant insistence on bringing things back to first principles before, but no matter how often we go down this track you still profess to be ignorant of everything except a subset of the current global temperature record. You have claimed not to need things from first principles every time, but your behaviour says otherwise.
Selected highlights of the field of “climate science” are:
Start with the theories of electromagnetic radiation and chemical bonds. Add in the laws of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and our limited theoretical understanding of complexity. Note the careful use of the words “theory” and “laws” here. They mean something different in science and mathematics than what they mean in every day conversation.
Next you can add in theories from meteorology, paleometerology, ecology and paleoecology, geology and paleontology, and computer science.
The CRU’s expertise is on a specific area of paleoclimatology, and there is indeed no evidence to show fraud in this area from the so called “climategate” emails. But even if there was, there are plenty of other areas briefly alluded to above that show there is no house of cards, and that the big picture is in the opoosite direction to your deluded point of view. The “evidence” of fraud from the delusional camp is borne of scientific illiteracy, cherry picking specific sentences, and refusing to understand their meaning in context.
For such a large and complex area of scientific endeavor we see such a consistent picture supporting the AGW theory that for the big picture analysis the science is settled. The degree of concordance of different strands of data from independent sources is unprecedented for such a complex topic. There’s nothing in common with scientific failures from the past like the non-existence of the ether, where the search was for a higher level of abstraction to provide a unifying theory. Here the science is based on observations and modeling of observations and is purely empirical.
kdkd #1181 – what rubbish. I am not asking for the first principles of thermodynamics and so on. Adam asserted that multiple strands of scientific inquiry support the global warming hypothesis. I asked him to name some of these strands of inquiry and I note you did no such thing in your post. you can’t just assert that “meteorology, paleometerology, ecology and paleoecology, geology and paleontology, and computer science” all support global warming without bothering to reference how these fields support global warming. Please explain.
You refer to thermodynamics and Ken and I have constantly pointed out that according to the first law the world is emitting more energy than it is receiving because it is cooling down. Yet you have no explanation for this and just say “it’s not statistically significant” while Kevin Trenberth, a key IPCC scientist, thinks it is significant and requires an explanation – and explanation that he admits they simply do not have.
Also, you say “there is indeed no evidence to show fraud in this area from the so called “climategate” emails”. Are you serious?
So why has Phil Jones – head of the CRU – been stood down? Why is Mann being investigated? Why is the Met office now undertaking a thorough review of its temperature data for the past 160 years? Why has the head of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri, called for an investigation?
Climategate is serious and it is just silly to pretend that it isn’t.
Delusion Boy, I’m not wasting my time giving you detailed arguments as you’ve proved your ability to ignore all the evidence beyond reasonable doubt many many times. Go and read a handful of textbooks. You’re lucky to be getting a precis from me. While claiming that you don’t want a first principles argument, this is what you request every single time, and I’m understandably utterly sick of this idiotic ruse.
The rest of your misguided and/or paranoid rant has already been dealt with, but your obstinacy and your idiotic delusional ideology means you’re basically impossible to converse with rationally on this matter.
Or to put it another way you’ve just asked: “summarise a large, complex, multidisciplinary field that pushes the edge of scientific endeavor in a short blog post’
Not wanting first principles my arse.
Tamas #1182 and kdkd #1183,4, #1178
Tamas has nailed the issues perfectly. The kdkd attempt to play down the Climategate emails and aftermath for Phil Jones and the CRU are laughable.
Climategate is a gamebreaker.
There is no doubt that the demise of Malcolm Turnbull, ascent of Tony Abbott and the rejection of the ETS legislation in the Senate was assisted by the revelations of doubt raised about the AGW science and the behaviour of scientists involved in Climategate.
I ought to know – I was in contact with some of the Senators myself.
kdkd’s only rational attempt at a point: “The overall effect is too small to falsify the AGW hypothesis.” is manifestly wrong.
Dr Trenberth does think it is a ‘small issue’. Perhaps you should read some books kdkd – how about one on the first law of thermodynamics??
Ooops: last para #1185 Dr Trenberth does not think it is a ’small issue’.
Boys: I am repeating myself….just for kdkd ……so it will sink in:
“The profound shock in the Trenberth email to the cream of AGW scientists is that Trenberth is admitting that the core of the theory – the F. CO2 GHG heat up imbalance cannot exist – or is being negated by variations in F.incoming or F. reflected which they are not measuring accurately enough or at all.
He just doesn’t know—hence his frustrated cry about lack of warming:
quote “Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go?”………………….”endquote
Ken,
I think you’re confused. As you were unable to demonstrate a significant theoretical impact on measurable temperature greater than the standard error over a substantial time period, your uncertainty mongering is meaningless.
As I said repeatedly, the issue is scientifically interesting, but it has no significant impact on the overall theory. You’re overextending your conclusions again. Standard, and pretty pathetic MO from someone who doesn’t understand the scientific process properly. Hint – it’s not the same as being able to do a few calculations.
Or are you saying that science and mathematics have the capability of accounting for complex highly uncertain systems in a manner that results in a perfect account?
Oops, my straw man shows your pathetic delusions for what they are – pathetic repetitive ramblings.
Boys,
As a postscript, I was listening to the ABC’s veteran auntie, the breathless, delightful Gerry Doogue this morning on a climate and ETS segment.
After Robert Gottleibsen’s critique on the impossibility of explaining the complexity of the ETS to a layman, Gerry got 3 women to talk about climate change weariness.
The careful sidestepping and contortions to ‘not mention Climategate’ were very obvious. Even the trendy luvvies and leftists of the ABC were uncertain and wary of stating their fidelity to the AGW theory.
Instead of ‘denier’ there was a new respectable category of climate weary citizen: the ‘don’t knower’.
kdkd #1179
Had a look at your You-Tube trying to erase Climategate.
A silly confection and distortion.
In fact the alleged Trenberth’s alleged email *introduces* his mates to his “article” which appears to have just been published (it has a 2009 date).
And he quotes from his article (and offers a .pdf version from the author).
How would the public, media, commentators like George Monbiot for example (or the IPCC) know about Trenberth’s article, when he was just introducing it to his mates….. the cream of the AGW science community in October 2009??
Captain paranoia #1190
“A silly confection and distortion” this is as compared to your very thin paranoid conspiracy version yes? Personally I found it a sober and realistic analysis, consistent with the rest of the non-nutjob analysis
What’s with the quotes around ‘article’? It’s very real: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf It’s from a reputable journal, discusses the very issue that you’re so concerned about (and it’s implications for AGW theory) and has extremely high quality graphics in order to help the intelligent lay person understand the issues.
I think you’re perhaps getting frustrated at the lack of attention to your conspiracy nutjob theories in the media as it’s pretty clear that you’ve overplayed your hand massively again, and that there’s really nothing to see here.
Your and Tamas’ approach to this topic is generally pretty pathetic really. The last two posts were pretty much content free zones apart from the usual does of paranoid delusion.
Tamas,
Here’s a nice discussion of what the phrase “the science is settled” actually means. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/#more-2187
Personally I think you and ken need to get your heads out of whatever orifice you’ve got them inserted into.
kdkd #1191
The quote from the alleged Trenberth emails included reference to this article in my post #1151.
Good of you to post the link to the .pdf.
Very interesting stuff – had a brief look through it and it confirms what I had conjectured about the energy balance. It is far from closed.
Very interesting treatment of Fig 2.4 from the IPCC. It appears that the net 1.6W/sq.m has dropped to 0.9W/sq.m when water vapour, ice and radiative feedbacks are added.
Trenberth notes that a 1% variation in cloud albedo (Was not that the figure I suggested recently?) would amount to about -0.5 W/sq.m which wipes out most of the CO2 GHG warming, and aerosols are ‘uncertain’ with an approximate forcing of -1.2 W/sq.m. A small change in this would easily wipe out all the warming from GHG.
This points to my energy balance speculations about the ‘doubling’ of the reflective variation component of the F. reflected term wiping out the +1.6W/sq.m being more feasible when it is wiping out a lesser +0.9 W/sq.m.
The energy budget is now where near balanced, hence his more frustrated plea to his email mates…………….. “Where did the heat go”?
The upshot of all this is that ‘the science is far from settled’.
Ken #yawn
I think that this could be called the King Canute argument.
kdkd #1194
Seems like Crikey was prepared to publish my telling Comment on Friday. No doubt it will be followed today by one of your desperate abusive efforts at content-less rebuttal.
I will see if I can get in touch with Trenberth and get a response to some of the “Where did the heat go?” questions. I would be surprised to get a reply in this frenzied atmosphere – but you never know; most Americans love Australians.
Have a read of the Trenberth account of the Argobuoys – seems a repeat of the confusion from Willis. He seems to suggets that the missing heat could be stored ‘below 700m’ where we are not measuring it – but as you know the Argo-buoys go down 2000m.
Are we now to believe that the Argobuoys are not measuring or are ignored below 700m?
Ken #1195
I don’t really have a problem with the missing energy hypothesis. What I do have a problem with is that you’re massively overstating the conclusion leading from this. Having read Trenberth’s article I thought it was an impressive piece of work with nice balanced, well stated conclusions.
Ken #1194
I see that your argument from Friday’s Crikey gets a thorough going over in the letters page there. Your argument is so weak that aside from my mild rebuke, there are three other respondents more than willing to provide a great deal of detail as to why your argument is so weak.
Hardly a “desperate abusive efforts at content-less rebuttal”. You’re going to have to lift your game, or preferably give up. If you concede now, you can go home with no shame.
kdkd #1197
Mark Byrne, Steve O’Connor, Geoff Russell and Matt Andrews and should enter the famous Crikey Climate Change Cage Match, and we can deal with their arguments in detail.
Firstly, which of them had even heard of Dr Trenberth or his research ‘article’ before the email leaks of Climategate?
Accounting for ‘only’ two thirds of the Earth’s claimed heat gain imbalance might not be a problem for a statistician, but it could easily indicate that we have only two thirds of the problem we thought we had.
Dr Trenberth’s ‘article’ is a curious mix of certainty and great uncertainty.
The +1.6W/sq.m of net anthopogenic radiative forcing is reduced to +0.9 W/sq.m by response feedbacks.
If you look at the main reflective cooling terms of the Earth’s energy balance namely ‘cloud cover’ and ‘aerosols’, a 1% increase in cloud cover can cool the Earth by -0.5 W/sq.m and aerosols have an ‘uncertain’ direct and indirect effect. Aerosols account for approximately -1.2W/sq.m. without any tolerance given. Fairly small variations in the uncertain effects of aerosols and cloud cover can easily wipe out the +0.9 W/sq.m of supposed heating of the Earth system. (remember Crickey ace reporter Ben Sandilands’ piece on aerosols from his ‘insider at GISS?)
The Argo buoy story is similarly confused. They started reading ‘too cool’ and then were ‘corrected’ or ‘omitted’. Then Dr Trenberth says “Even so, since 2003 there appears to be a slowdown in the rise of ocean heat…..although sampling was found to be inadequate in the earlier data analysis”.
As if 3500 Argobouys floating up and down to 2000 metres depths over all the world’s oceans aren’t enough to work out the temperatures and heat balance.
So where does that leave the intelligent layman. The ‘lack of warming’ is apparent in the satellite data, and Dr Trenberth’s article simply reinforces the conclusion that the cream of the AGW science community simply don’t know ‘where the heat went… and want more money and observational tools to find out.
Ken #1198
“Firstly, which of them had even heard of Dr Trenberth or his research ‘article’ before the email leaks of Climategate?”
That’s an appeal to conspiracy theory. The less paranoid among us who do not work as professionals in this field do not need to keep up to date with the literature as it is published. You seem to be suggesting that this is a requirement, and provides you with some magical moral superiority.
One of the clinical features of perseveration is the individual components of a patients story to construct an essentially fictional whole. This is the crux of the technique for your King Canute argument.
We can see that your argument is worthless, as you ignore three things. These are:
1. The importance of the continuing increase in concentration of greenhouse gasses in this model. If you feel compelled to calculate this, please provide upper and lower bounds of uncertainty based on worst case and best case scenarios.
2. The fact that you persistently confuse (either deliberately or through ignorance) the short term variability with the long term trend.
3. You don’t explain how we can deal with the high levels of uncertainty of the Argo Buoys temperature sensors below 700 metres. It’s clear that compressive forces at many atmospheres of pressure will cause problems with measurement. You insinuate that this problem is an unknown unknown, where it is a known unknown (only decent contribution Donald Rumsfeld ever made). You need to make your argument more appealing by providing constructive argument rather than destructive argument.
Now that’s a QED.
kdkd #1199
I will get to the other points tonight but #3 is a howler.
“You don’t explain how we can deal with the high levels of uncertainty of the Argo Buoys temperature sensors below 700 metres. It’s clear that compressive forces at many atmospheres of pressure will cause problems with measurement.”
Why is that clear?
Did not the designers know that ‘compressive forces’ would cause problems with measurement?
If not they are incompetent – pressures get linearly higher with linear depth!!!
So are we to now believe that the Argo buoy was designed to go down 2000 metres but is only accurate to 700 metres, and we knew that all along??
Why then send it down 2000 metres?
Why not say that this is a 700 metre device which is no good below that?
What testing was done throughout the temperature and depth range before deploying 3500 around the planet??
Years, weeks or a few days in someone’s swimming pool?
You’re making this up – you know nothing about the f**ing Argo buoys and are simply parrotting unbelievably incompetent BS and excuses from the ‘scientists’ who prey on our gullibility.
Ken
Number 3 is not a howler. Presumably the pressure problems is why measurements are not attempted below 700m due to this very problem. Seems like a reasonable engineering compromise to me.
Appeal unwarranted conspiriacy or incompetence where none is warranted, again.
p.s. Why the fuck does crikey keep publishing Tamas’ bullshit when it’s basically factually incorrect?
kdkd #1201
Isn’t it amazing? We can’t measure temperature, salinity etc below 700m with the Argo buoys, because of a design fault which prevents them working properly at the design depth of 2000m.
And below 700m (or was it 900m) is where Dr Trenberth speculated might lurk the missing heat.
We can’t measure down there so that might be where it is.
Not anywhere we can measure, even though our measurement of clouds and aerosols are ‘uncertain’, and even though it could just be re-radiated out to space.
Ken,
Engineering comprimise is not cock up. Give me an argument that doesn’t appeal to incompetence and conspiricy, or give up. Plus it doesn’t alter the big picture which you are steadfastly ignoring like the paranoid delusional that you are.
And you’re perseverating on one of the three points, presumably in order to try to distort the agenda to fit your paranoid delusional needs.
Kdkd – care to explain what was ‘factually incorrect’ about my comment in Crikey today?
Tamas,
No it’s a waste of time talking to you. Review the thread here and discount everything that you have to say as wrong. Also ignore Ken because he tends to avoiding completely incorrect facts, he distorts them out of recognition.
Hey, delusional wankers, you have a bigger problem than you thought.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/12/07/2763819.htm
As does everyone else.
Ken: This warning comes with added hindcasting.
kdkd, I’ve revised my view about the utility of debating with these nutters. This thread will constitute a useful archive of delusionism. There can’t be many delusional arguments they haven’t put forward. Confronted with reason, they shift ground to a different tack, but then trot out the already disproven arguments again, perhaps feeling that time heals even the wounds of logic. The question surely is – evil, mad, or thick?
Perhaps it’s worth considering the risks – as the insurance industry most certainly will, to Tamas’s annoyance. On the one hand, (a) the high risk (backed by science) of catastrophe during the lifetime of a baby born today, and the low cost of early action to mitigate this risk. On the other, (b) the blatherings of the ideologues, paid hacks, cultural warriors and the ethically conflicted that the risk is grossly exaggerated, while at one and the same time the risk of economic slump arising from mitigation is grossly understated. Inquiry after inquiry confirms the risk analysis both of science and of the economists. Should a prudent government base policy on (a) or (b)?
As I said, it’s useful for posterity to capture the thoughts of those who have no hesitation in answering (b). A future Ken Burns will be able to turn it into a compelling doco.
kddk #1206
“The authors stress that the more-than-expected warming would unfold over a matter of hundreds of years, rather than this century.
The findings do not mean that the predictions for temperature rise by 2100, established by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), should be rewritten, they say.
“We don’t want to be overly alarmist here,” says lead author Dr Dan Lunt of the University of Bristol.”
I am really scared by this kdkd. In hundreds of years we will know if the University of Bristol was right.
Harold #1207
Darling Harold…..good to have you visit. How are you going with those numbers on how to replace coal fired power in Australia ….isn’t that what you were sent away to do??
We have not stooped to unfunny abuse and quantity-free assertion though …..have we Harold?
I can’t recall a technical issue where kdkd has bested Tamas or myself.
That’s why you keep coming back for more sceptical stick from us both.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you and kdkd didn’t tie yourselves up and pop a see-thru bio-degradable bag over your heads before opening up your favourite cage fight.
Ken,
You walked into that trap. Puts your ludicrous claims that under 10 year time scales are a suitable level of analysis to shame doesn’t it!
“I can’t recall a technical issue where kdkd has bested Tamas or myself.”
Ludicrous. Captain paranoia’s King Canute arguments from over extended consequenses based on paranoid delusions are clearly superior.
Happy delusions. The reason you get the abuse is that with your repetitive drivel either based on lies and or distortions mean that you deserve it.
This week’s Economist letters:
“Climategate
SIR – Now that we know from leaked e-mails that some of the raw data behind the most widely used graph of global temperatures have been lost or discarded; now that we know that the peer-review process in climate science has been hopelessly incestuous; now that we know that some sceptics’ concerns about corrections for urban heat islands were privately shared by those who dismissed them in public; now that we know that proxy graphs were truncated specifically to “hide the decline” and avoid giving fodder to the sceptics—you are free to start covering the science of climate change again (“A heated debate”, November 28th). It is not settled.
Matt Ridley
Newcastle”
Hey Tamas, you know you are getting traction when the Economist starts publishing sceptical letters on AGW.
Ken,
Despite you and Tamas pathetic and moronic approach to this subject, I do learn things from having this pointless and tedious conversation occasionally.
For example did you know that the phrase “the science is settled” has its origins in a propaganda technique originating from the delusional camp, and of course the science couldn’t possibly be settled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_M._Connolley/The_science_is_settled
On the other hand, as you’ve continuously demonstrated with your deluded arguments based on lies and distortions, the big picture is pretty well established.
In other news, the first decade of the 21st century is apparently set to be the warmest decade from the instrumental record. That’ll be the cooling you and Tamas have been banging on about. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/09/2765726.htm
You’re pathetic, give up.
p.s. where’s my rebuttal to points 1 and 2 from #1199; are you having trouble manufacturing an appropriate confabulation?
Ken,
Despite you and Tamas pathetic and moronic approach to this subject, I do learn things from having this pointless and tedious conversation occasionally.
For example did you know that the phrase “the science is settled” has its origins in a propaganda technique originating from the delusional camp, and of course the science couldn’t possibly be settled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_M._Connolley/The_science_is_settled
On the other hand, as you’ve continuously demonstrated with your deluded arguments based on lies and distortions, the big picture is pretty well established.
In other news, the first decade of the 21st century is apparently set to be the warmest decade from the instrumental record. That’ll be the cooling you and Tamas have been banging on about. http: / / www . abc.net.au / news/stories/2009/12/09/2765726.htm
You’re pathetic, give up.
p.s. where’s my rebuttal to points 1 and 2 from #1199; are you having trouble manufacturing an appropriate confabulation?
George Monboit as always is good value. Here’s some info about the company Ken and Tamas are keeping within the delusional and/or evil camp:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/dec/07/george-monbiot-blog-climate-denial-industry
kdkd #1203
Re #1199 …have not had time to respond….been helping Tony Abbott with a few political issues….like putting down that mad Maoist Guy Rundle.
I would always go for incompetence rather than conspiracy…it is usually the easiest thing for people to do. Being lazy and incompetent requires less effort than conspiracy.
This applies to scientists of all shades, but you have to say that there is more than incompetence in the emails of the CRU. “Hiding behind” sounds like conspiracy to me.
kdkd #1213
Well, well …conspiracy to pervert the course of science on both sides of the climate change debate.
Who would have thought……??
Ken
I’m getting sick of you wildly overextending your conclusions. It’s like trying to argue that a number close to zero is in fact a number close to infinity.
If you want to keep this seemingly futile discussion going, respond to my criticism, and try to state your conclusions in a measured and objective way. The Trenberth paper we both rate highly is an excellent example of how this is done, and a model that you would be well advised to follow.
This is an amazing non-sequitur seeing as it’s supposedly based on the contents of my post #1213
“The only closed system here is Tamas’ mind” hehehe.
Too right delusion boy! Happy lala land!
And while I’m on a roll, this article: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9787 “When Old Men Kill Their Children” is more scientifically robust, and overstates its case less than Ken and Tamas’ habitual delusional gibberings.
Harold #1207 “constitute a useful archive of delusionism. There can’t be many delusional arguments they haven’t put forward. Confronted with reason, they shift ground to a different tack, but then trot out the already disproven arguments again”
I completely agree. Obviously I think you and kdkd are in denial, but hey…
The thing is that you guys are having trouble “hiding the decline” in the quality of your arguments. But if you hitch your wagon to the greatest scientific scandal ever then that is what happens, I suppose.
I do feel for you though. Those leaks from the CRU must be infuriating. Ken and I saw through this whole thing ages ago so it really isn’t much of a revelation for us.
Tamas,
Thank you for proving[1] my point so quickly.
[1] Technically it’s not a proof in the logical sense, just more evidence to support a case for which the evidence you have provided is already extremely strong, viz that you are a delusional no-hoper whose probability of rehabilitation is indistinguishable from zero. The only way to prove me wrong now is to recant. QED, Tamas exits the cage.
kdkd #1216
Glad we agree that the Trenberth ‘article’ is important and might have been the work of an honest man.
It is a little bit different to his private emails though, isn’t it??
No mention of ‘travesty’ for example.
Do you think it curious kdkd that the famous +1.6 W/sq.m of anthropogenic warming has now been reduced by ‘climate responses’ to +0.9 W/sq.m.
And this is not yet able to be measured directly due to the small value compared with the 341 W/sq.m Solar incoming??
And when we get to the cloud data, a 1% increase in clouds equals -0.5 W/sq.m cooling.
And when we get to the aerosols data, the current level is ‘uncertain’ but approximately -1.2 W/sq.m cooling.
And the Argobuoys were initially reading ‘too cool’ so these were ‘omitted’ and others corrected by adding in Xwire data which reads ‘too warm’ and the expert on this (Willis) even then got cooling oceans from 2003 onward.
So a minor error in the measurement of clouds and aerosols cooling can wipe out the 0.9W/sq.m warming, and the Indians and Chinese are now being queried to see if they have released more SO2 than they say they did (the world’s most reliable witnesses), and then Dr Trenberth says that he can account for two thirds of the heat, with a huge error margin and then he says “Where did the heat go??”
Hey, this is ‘science’ that we should spend billions…na ….trillions on
Frustrated that the theory is not matching the observations…which is ‘lack of warming’ over the last 10 years??? Dr Trenberth is….
Harold, my old darling…I have never heard you mention a Watt let alone know what a Watt is. Its just nutters like me and Tamas who look at inconvenient things like numbers and complicated stuff …which kdkd had a go at one time and was only out by a factor of 1000 (1000 fold)…
So lets hear your corporate take on the numbers kiddies….and the huge uncertainty revealed in by Dr Trenberth’s ‘article’…
As I have been saying all along…..either the heating effect of CO2 GHG has been exaggerated or the cooling effects of the clouds and aerosols have been underestimated…OR BOTH.
Ken #1216
Worthless posturing with continued overextention of conclusions. Take my advice to be taken seriously. Where’s the answers to my two questions there’s no detail that’s not boring repetition there.
Delusion boy is rubbing off on you in some kind of psychotic frottage.
kdkd #1223
Scared of engaging on the numbers……..aren’t you kdkd???
Ken #1125
Nope, you just didn’t answer my important questions. Try again or give up.
Ken #1223:
See, here you show that you’re basically incapable of reaching a scientific conclusion without using language inappropriate for public scientific communication. Use the measured approach of the scientific paper rather than the argy-bargy of informal communication to make your point, and answer my outstanding questions.
You may note that I only call you out for idiotic paranoid delusional incompetence when you either repeat yourself, make points that are not supported by the data (i.e. lies or distortions), or otherwise demonstrate an approach to climate change lead by blind political ideology. On the rare occasions where you make novel and potentially interesting scientific points, my responses are measured and in fitting with the way that science is communicated.
You should try the same, or expect more jokes about you and Tamas rubbing up against each other for sexual gratification.
“On the rare (Ed – frequent) occasions where you make novel and potentially interesting scientific points, my responses are measured and in fitting with the way that science is communicated”
OK kdkd, where are my numbers wrong from post #1222?? Lets hear both your Newtonian and non-Newtionian analyses?
The critical statements in Dr Trenberth’s ‘article’ :
“We cannot track energy in absolute terms because the accuracy of several measurements is simply not good enough” (pp23)
“The net imbalance is estimated to be approx 0.5 PW (0.9W/sq.m, 0.4%) owing to the responses of the climate system (Fig 4). These values are small enough to yet be directly measured from space, but their consequences can be seen and measured, at least in principle.” (pp23)
The error in Energy contribution (2004-2008) estimates are huge; Table 1 (Energy in E20 Joules) (pp23):
Arctic Sea Ice : 1
Total Land Ice: 2-3
Ocean: 20-95 (a very wide range which dwarfs all the ice melt)
Sun: 16
‘Observed’: 145
Residual: 30-100 (the bit which can’t be accounted for)
Dr Trenberth should be given credit for showing us how ‘uncertain’ the science is when one scratches the surface.
It is indeed a ‘travesty’.
They’re only frequent if you don’t repeat yourself, which you’ve been doing for around the last 700 or so posts.
You diminish your case with this kind of overstatement. Try to break the habit so that your scientific views are taken more seriously .
So where are the current problems with your argument? Well you still haven’t really answered my questions #1 and #2 from ages ago.
Firstly you’re yet to reconcile your argument with climate observations. The instrumental temperature record, observed changes in ecosystems, and frequency of extreme weather events would be a reasonable minimum scope with which to develop your argument on this score.
Secondly you haven’t discussed the potential consequences of a continuing rise in co2 emissions. To do this in an even handed way, you need to discuss the implications from your “ideological” viewpoint where the impact of co2 is seen as less important, for a mid-range point of view (the IPCC AR4 estimates of importance are appropriate here), and for a worst case scenario view (where many are currently arguing that the observational data is pointing towards). Assessing the probability of each scenario is also appropriate.
This is why your responses to date have been inadequate. I hope you find the detailed criticism above useful in developing your argument.
kdkd #1228
How civil of you kdkd – even academic when you get into a tight spot.
Repeat your questions and I will do my best for you as always.
By the way note Fig 4 (pp22) of Dr Trenberth’s article. Interesting reduction of the net imbalance from +1.6 to +0.9 W/sq.m.
Ken #1230
The questions were stated again in 1229. For clarity:
1. Reconcile your argument with climate observations. The instrumental temperature record, observed changes in ecosystems, polar and high altitude ice melts, and frequency of extreme weather events would be a reasonable minimum scope with which to develop your argument on this score.
2. You need to discuss the potential consequences of a continuing rise in co2 emissions. To do this in an even handed way, you need to discuss the implications from your “ideological” viewpoint where the impact of co2 is seen as less important, for a mid-range point of view (the IPCC AR4 estimates of importance are appropriate here), and for a worst case scenario view (where many are currently arguing that the observational data is pointing towards). Assessing the probability of each scenario is also appropriate.
Question 3 about the engineering compromises underlying the Argo buoy design, we’ve already dealt with, although I think you should accept that there were very likely cost-benefit tradeoffs in the design. I would imagine that very high pressure temperature monitoring kits are not simple off the shelf integrated circuits, while the cost of such a large programme can be presumably contained by using simple integrated circuits rather than more exotic and expensive equipment.
ken:
Last extra question for bonus points: what are the failure criteria for your argument? What evidence do you need to see to have it proven false.
I would cease supporting my argument if the instrumental record (temperature and non-temperature data) started showing that we were well within the IPCC “best case scenarios” consistently across multiple data sets.
kdkd #1230 and #1231
I will have to be a bit quick and dirty as I have family commitments this weekend which will cramp my late night free warm-monger debunk. (Pinched warm-monger from Bolta – not bad is it?)
Q1:
A baseline is needed for ice melts, ecosystems and extreme weather events – 100 years, 500 years or 2000 years? We really don’t know what are the limits of natural variability.
Q2:
CO2 forcing is hard to separate out from the other forcings, particularly if the source is the same eg; SO2 aerosols. The suggestion that the Indians and Chinese need an SO2 audit shows how uncertain are the combined effects of their emissions.
Overriding this whole issue is the reliability of the data. Every day there are more reports of raw temperature data sets being massaged by the AGW theorists to show warming where little or none exists. (Re Northern Australian and Alaskan Temp records reported this week). The 42 scientists named in the US Congressional report as ‘peer reviewing’ each other’s work are now all suspect. Many of them appear in the Climategate emails.
Which implies that CRU-Hadley and NASA-GISS are both suspect until their raw datasets are re-analysed by independent experts. Thousands of other scientists flea off these core temperature datasets.
Q3.
I don’t know the technical specificaton of the Argo design, but I find it hard to believe that exterme pressure and temperature testing was not a large part of the program.
Ken #1233
We’ll leave Q3 for now, as you seem to be admitting that engineering comprimise is a possibility.
The rest of your response is in the land of conflating uncertainty and paranoid conspiracy theory I’m afraid though. I’ll spell it out for you.
Q1. What you’re saying here is that you can’t see the logical basis for applying time scales. You appear to be trying to dodge the issue – what I’ve been calling the pretense of uncertainty. Here’s a simple answer with a strong logical relationship to the problem at hand. Agriculture developed about 10,000 years ago, that’s a good t1. The industrial revolution started about 200 years ago. That’s a good t2. The post-industrial revolution or whatever it’s called started around the 1970s oil shock, so let’s call it 1980, or 30 years ago. See, no pretense of uncertainty, just a bit of logical deduction.
Q2. Your paranoid conspiracy theory won’t wash here. Looking at the graphs presented here: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this you’re going to have to do much better. I tried to get you thinking beyond the paranoid conspiracy theory you’re so fond of by talking about worst, middle and best case scenarios. The work I did on the Karaoke also shows that the importance of the role of co2 doubled in an approximately 100 year period. Given tamino’s strong evidence that your point is essentially wrong, you just need to focus on the worst/best and middle case scenarios, without trying to politicise your answer.
We also now have question 4. What are your failure conditions? What evidence is required to prove you wrong. I already told you what I need to prove my position wrong. I showed you mine, now you’ve got to show me yours (but not when you’re rubbing it against Tamas please).
After Climategate and recent revelations of unexplained ‘adjustment’ of temperature data, we don’t even know if the HADCRUT and GISS data sets are reliable or unbent.
Have a look at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/13/how-bad-is-the-global-temperature-data/
Positiive proof of tampering with the Northern Australian Temperature data:
The smoking gun: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
Pretty convincing stuff. Why would you need to correct raw Australian data? Has the thermometer changed its scale in 100 years. Are earlier Australian weatherpersons unreliable or bent? Does the missing data from 1941 (when the Japanese rudely interrupted) really make a difference?
Beats the hell out of the Tamino prattle about 20 years good and 10 years bad – even Climategate emails showed that Trenberth et al accepted that there was a ‘lack of warming’ over the last 10 years. This is done to death.
There has been a ‘lack of warming’ for the last 10 years – end of story.
If we agree that we have plateaued at about 0.7 degC above the 1860 level then where is the catastrophe so far? Floods, droughts, hurricanes all bigger, longer, worse than when?? Worse that Noah’s flood? Worse that a 300 year drought in the Holocene?
Even a 1-2 degC rise by 2100 as prophesied by AGW warmists may improve rainfall and the greening of Australia. It is far from clear if the Murray-Darling basin will be wetter or drier.
Warm periods in the Holocene have correlated with good times for agriculture and prosperity for humankind.
kdkd#1233
(Previous comment awaiting moderation…Removed a link this time)
After Climategate and recent revelations of unexplained ‘adjustment’ of temperature data, we don’t even know if the HADCRUT and GISS data sets are reliable or unbent.
Positiive proof of tampering with the Northern Australian Temperature data:
The smoking gun: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
Pretty convincing stuff. Why would you need to correct raw Australian data? Has the thermometer changed its scale in 100 years. Are earlier Australian weatherpersons unreliable or bent? Does the missing data from 1941 (when the Japanese rudely interrupted) really make a difference?
Beats the hell out of the Tamino prattle about 20 years good and 10 years bad – even Climategate emails showed that Trenberth et al accepted that there was a ‘lack of warming’ over the last 10 years. This is done to death.
There has been a ‘lack of warming’ for the last 10 years – end of story.
If we agree that we have plateaued at about 0.7 degC above the 1860 level then where is the catastrophe so far? Floods, droughts, hurricanes all bigger, longer, worse than when?? Worse that Noah’s flood? Worse that a 300 year drought in the Holocene?
Even a 1-2 degC rise by 2100 as prophesied by AGW warmists may improve rainfall and the greening of Australia. It is far from clear if the Murray-Darling basin will be wetter or drier.
Warm periods in the Holocene have correlated with good times for agriculture and prosperity for humankind.
kl #1235
Added link back – after 2nd para..
Have a look at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/13/how-bad-is-the-global-temperature-data/
Re: The Argobuoys
Q3.
I don’t know the technical specificaton of the Argo design, but I find it hard to believe that exterme pressure and temperature testing was not a large part of the program.
Perhaps I should say that I find it hard to believe that a 2000m piece of gear was not rigorously tested down to 2000m in a range if temperature conditions from ice to tropical. To say that electronics were not designed for pressures at 2000m begs the question, why was the performance advertised down to 2000m in the first place??
Unless there is untested design error or gross incompetence in planning and execution…you could not imagine deploying 3500 units without thorough real life testing.
Nothing surprises these days. After all, NASA pranged a spacecraft into Mars because of a mixup by a factor of 3.28 – the number of feet in a metre. And Hubble was deployed with a curvature error unfocussing the mirror – nobody had checked the final assembly for focus.
Ken,
Watts is not a good source to use, their scientific standards are very poor. The Tamino profile shows (wait for it) – there no significant difference between any of the global temperature records. End. of. story. Claiming otherwise is delusional. As is claiming a “lack of warming” for the last decade.
You’re now avoiding answering my questions, and perseverating on conspiracy theory and low scientific standardsinstead. Try again, including the important question 4. Try answering them one by one without using any nutjob arguments.
Continued …
In question 1, I specifically asked you for a holistic view of warming signals including temperature, ice melt, ecological indicators and extreme weather events. You countered by telling me the global temperature record was inadequate, and ignored everything else.
That gets you an F for your argument is clearly Fucked (aka not answering the question). As I said, try again, or give up. Don’t forget that questions 2 and 4 are still outstanding as well. This seems to be giving you a lot of trouble, given that my questions are specific and do not push a political agenda.
kdkd #1238
Show me a scientific refutation of the Watts link on the Darwin temperatures and the link on how bad is the global temperature data.
Show me a scientific refutation of my analysis of the longer term effects:
ie: “Even a 1-2 degC rise by 2100 as prophesied by AGW warmists may improve rainfall and the greening of Australia. It is far from clear if the Murray-Darling basin will be wetter or drier”
Ken,
Answer my questions properly first. Feeble attempt to move the goalpoasts. Why don’t you reference your claims about the warming / rainfall link in australia. It’s contrary to the current evidence for drying of the southern part of the continent. What evidence do you have that suggest this trend will be reversed?
You need to answer the questions properly first. I don’t accept watts as a reputable source, in the same way you don’t accept GISS as independently reputable, so humour me and go and find independent scientific conformation of the problem before pretending it’s a show stopper. See how i found you strong evidence showing the GISS and other global measures of warming trends were essentially the same. You need to do that with your “evidence” – independent reputable sources to support your argument. Shifting the onus onto me to accept your moved goal posts is not acceptable.
Again, where are proper answers to questions 1,2 and 4. You won’t get away with not answering them unless you want to look like a fool.
kdkd #1241
Standard kdkd tactics. Set up a series of academically plausible questions (which require a thesis length answer) then act as judge and jury of the answers using such discredited references as realclimate and tamino.
You don’t yet get it ..do you kdkd?
Climategate is a gamechanger.
I would have accepted the Hadley dataset used in your last Karaoke, but now that we know that the original raw data has been amazingly ‘lost’ and is now unverifiable, then the whole incestuous Hadley – NASA GISS dataset is suspect.
so ken,
More goalpost moving. You haven’t tried to answer any of the questions, and try paranoid delusion and goalpost moving instead. Not even partial answers, it’s pathetic – the transparency of your ideological bullshit viewpoint.
You’re refusing to answer my questions and retort with paranoid delusional fantasies based on discredited sources and overextended conclusions then?
How do you cope with the fact that the satellite data and the land/sea instrumental data is not significantly different then?
If you can’t do a full answer, try a partial answer, or pack your bags loser.
Anyway I’m glad you’ve shown your viewpoint is paranoid fantasy so clearly, because it means I can totally give up on you now.
Perseveration. Confabulaition. Paranoid conspiracy theory. Rancid right wing blind ideology. Total disregard for the evidence. You’ve shown yourself up with all these things.
kdkd exits the cage with Ken and Tamas’ heads both on stakes.
kdkd #1245
Same self-wanking declamation from post 254 from kdkd.
By the way Dr Michael Roderick has won the Australasian Science Prize for work on the water cycle. The prediction over the next 100 years is for a global increase of 17mm rainfall for a 1 degC increase in warming.
“The future (of the MBD) is not necessarily as bleak as appears from the recent continuing dought” Roderick concludes. Ref: Nov/Dec Issue ‘Australasian Science” pp12-13 – article by Peter Pockley.
So much for the doomsday predictions for a scorched earth SE Australia, popular with AGW alarmists.
Ken,
The usual bullshit where you pick around the edges and don’t answer the central questions. And as usual you’re massively overstating the conclusions from the article you cite which is available here: http://www.australasianscience.com.au/bi2009/310ASPrize.pdf
Here’s a good quote for you from that exposing your delusional idiocy.
“That is, the regional forecasts of future rainfall in the agricultural areas of Australia are very uncertain, and we don’t know what is going to happen. But he emphasises the need to work as hard as we can to find out.”
So you’re saying that my questions are irellevant? Or you’re just refusing to answer them? Either answer is the wrong one by the way.
If you only answer one question, answer question 4, clearly and concisely.
A logical statement of what it takes for you to decide you’re wrong. Tamas has done this and it has exposed his delusional fairy land. Give us yours. Anyway your refusal to answer is a typical defense of someone trying to deny their confabulations.
Also here’s the Economist calling out your and watts’ paranoid delusions about the instrumental record:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/trust_scientists
Watch out for those goalposts as you move them, falling goalposts can be fatal!
kdkd #1247,48
And here is the author’s reply to the cowardly Economist attack:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/sticky-for-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
He made a couple of minor errors which he admits but his defence seems pretty convincing to me.
And you Australasian Science rebuff has backfired due to your deceit or non-comprehension of the article:
“That is, the regional forecasts of future rainfall in the agricultural areas of Australia are very uncertain, and we don’t know what is going to happen. But he emphasises the need to work as hard as we can to find out.”
So the alarmist AGW position is a drier hotter Australia and the globe…particularly SE Australia…and Dr Roderick says of Australia: “we don’t know what is going to happen”.
The rest of the article talks about a wetter overall globe and the Graphic shows green over most of Australia – ie more rainfall.
So the conclusion of the article is: “wetter or we don’t know”.
And the preamble says that Dr Roderick’s work will change popular conceptions of what will happen in Australia with a warming climate.
That popular conception promoted by AGW alarmists is HOTTER and DRIER.
Dr Roderick’s work debunks this.
Ken,
Where’s the answer to question 4? Answer: you won’t answer it, you’re too delusional to try. Questions 1 and 2 will help your case too, but again your delusions won’t let you.
Why are Watts and the other delusionals like you so intent on perseverating over the temperature record with paranoid conspiracy theory? Why are you all steadfastly ignoring all the other indicators? Answers: the evidence doesn’t support the delusions so they must be ignored.
Ken continues shadow boxing inside the cage … Careful, you’ll knock yourself out again.
kdkd #1250
The answers to your contrived “Questions” are spread out over the last 100 or so posts. Go do some research…. academic.
Sea level rise around Australia was less that 1mm last year according to the CSIRO data reported in the Australian. CSIRO website gives a tolerance of +/- 5mm and nothing on the last year’s data.
I have already discussed at length the issues of sea level rise. I plan to do some more research over the holidays on the issues of silting, biomass, thermal lag and CO2 absorption. Will keep you informed.
Ken,
No that “answer” is pathetic. You perseverate on the temperature record and ignore everything else, except where you can jump to unwarranted conclusions and appeal to paranoid conspiracy theory.
If you’ve done such a good job of answering the questions, it’s news to me. Summarise them, and answer question 4 clearly.
If you’re appealing to your mess of paranoid conspiracy theoy, lies and perseveration over the last 1251 posts, then I’m afraid that your position lacks intellectual coherence and you’re in trouble.
Also you really need to answer question 4. Define your end game. Failure to do so is an admission you can’t and that your arguments are therefore worthless.
Aah, a breath of fresh air from Ben Goldacre in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/12/bad-science-goldacre-climate-change
Yes Ken and Tamas, you’re rude little delusional imbeciles who are wasting our time. There’s a limited amount of educational value in dismissing your codswallop, but it doesn’t make what you’re doing any more worthwhile.
damn, this is such good stuff, I’d better post this quote from the beginning of the article for the imbeciles to read as well:
[So as we career towards a mediocre outcome in Copenhagen, why do roughly half the people in [the UK] not believe in man-made climate change, when the overwhelming majority of scientists do?
Firstly we have the psychological issues. We’re predisposed to undervalue adverse outcomes which are a long way off, especially if we might be old or dead soon. We’re inherently predisposed to find cracks in evidence that suggests we should do something we don’t want to do, hence the enduring appeal of stories about alcohol being good for you.
Suggesting that personal behaviour change will have a big role to play, when we know that telling people to do the right thing is a weak way to change behaviour, is an incomplete story: you need policy changes to make better behaviour easier, and we all understand that fresh fruit on sale at schools is more effective than telling children not to eat sweets.
This is exacerbated because climate science is difficult. We could discuss everything you needed to know about MMR and autism in an hour. Climate change will take two days of your life, for a relatively superficial understanding: if you’re interested, I’d recommend the IPCC website.]
Again the link is http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/12/bad-science-goldacre-climate-change
And again, the morons will dismiss this as something incompatible with their delusional psychosis which they defend with lies, perseveration and confabulation.
kdkd #1252
Your ‘questions’ arose from my unanswerable post #1228.
Using Dr Trenberth’s own data, I was able to highlight Dr Trenberth’s own uncertainty about the energy balance data:
VIZ:
The critical statements in Dr Trenberth’s ‘article’ :
“We cannot track energy in absolute terms because the accuracy of several measurements is simply not good enough” (pp23)
“The net imbalance is estimated to be approx 0.5 PW (0.9W/sq.m, 0.4%) owing to the responses of the climate system (Fig 4). These values are small enough to yet be directly measured from space, but their consequences can be seen and measured, at least in principle.” (pp23)
The error in Energy contribution (2004-2008) estimates are huge; Table 1 (Energy in E20 Joules) (pp23):
Arctic Sea Ice : 1
Total Land Ice: 2-3
Ocean: 20-95 (a very wide range which dwarfs all the ice melt)
Sun: 16
‘Observed’: 145
Residual: 30-100 (the bit which can’t be accounted for)
Dr Trenberth should be given credit for showing us how ‘uncertain’ the science is when one scratches the surface.
It is indeed a ‘travesty’.”
This buggered your confidence in the theory and caused your desperate ploy to grab the initiative by posing your thesis length questions….and another thing…..and another thing………………..bit like Monty Python really.
What the above numbers mean in laymans terms is this: (Units in E20 Joules)
The theory says we should have 145 which we call ‘observed’ from the calculated 0.9W/sq.m applied to the Earth’s surface.
But we can only account for 45 to 115 by measurement…………… leaving a ‘Residual’ of 30-100.
This is an extraordinarily wide band of uncertainty in the Measurement, which caused Dr Trenberth to exclaim : “Where did the heat go?”
Any idea kdkd??
Not good enough Ken,
Apart from the repetitious and tedious nature of your post, you’re refusing to place your argument in the broader context.
Why? Because doing so would cause you to challenge your own delusional construction.
Prove me otherwise loser.
kdkd #1257
As you know I set out in April to prove that CO2 GHG effects on warming were exaggerated, and that the AGW alarmists certainties were very uncertain.
I think I am doing OK.
Climategate is making the case on the uncertainties if not deliberate distortion, incestuous ‘peer review’ and scientific fraud.
The Temperature data and Dr Trenberth’s Energy Balance data are making my case on the exaggeration of the CO2 GHG effect and ignorance of cooling effects.
And I have already offered the solution in my 10 point plan, which is looking increasing like Opposition policy. (I would add some more energy efficiency emphasis like smart monitoring of commercial and domestic electricity use such as passsive power use and mandating energy efficiency of buildings and new dwellings)
And if I am seriously wrong, we can balloon a pipe into the stratosphere and blow 155 l/min of SO2 aerosols just like a natural volcano does (or the Chinese and Indians are now doing)
Ken,
That’s a pretty half arsed failure criteria (what it takes for you to be wrong). Please be more explicit about what it takes for you to be wrong. Then reconcile your view that everything’s exaggerated to the fact that most (all?) of the non temperature indicators are tracking or exceeding the IPCC worst case scenarios.
The only explanation I can see why you find answering these questions properly so difficult is that you know that doing so challenges your delusional thought processes in a very big way.
Let’s deal with this a little more systematically
If you call wildly exaggerating conclusions, focusing only on small parts of the big picture that you can distort to fit your ideas, and generally ignoring all evidence that doesn’t support you OK, then yes, you’re doing OK.
See wild overextention of conclusions above. You won’t be taken seriously in a scientific way until you curb this habit. However, as doing so will cause it to become extermely difficult or you to continue to support your delusional thought processes, I’m not holding my breath.
Very pedestrian 10 point plan really.
Would you like a side order of unintended consequences with that? 2 Pinatubos a year until emissions start decreasing and the greenhouse gas concentration gets down to a sensible figure. Yeah, sounds sane to me.
And the show stopper that shows you’re unwilling to think about this clearly. You need to state what your failure criteria. What evidence do you need to show that you’re wrong? If you don’t provde this, it magnifies my claims that you’re seriously delusional, and it because it means that you won’t admit the possibility that your wrong. This is a requirement for anyone who wants their scientific ideas to be taken seriously. Apparently you don’t, which is fine.
kdkd #1260
Your Guardian stuff is just trying to set up a straw man. I never claimed that CO2 was not a greenhouse gas.
But as you can see from Dr Trenberth’s article, the overall imbalance from IPCC AR4 of +1.6W/sq.m has dropped to +0.9W/sq.m (with feedback effects), and that a 1% error in cloud measurements can drop it a further -0.5 W/sq.m.
This results in +1.6 dropping to +0.4. So the ‘Summary for Policymakers” like Rudd, Wong and Hunt which shows the Earth is warming at a relentless and locked-in +1.6W/sq.m is actually +0.9 and with a minor error in clouds +0.4.
So we have 50% to 25% of the warming ‘scientists’ thought we had.
If you add SO2 aerosols (low LOSU), the imbalance could easily be wiped out or turned negative.
This is most likely what has been happening for the last 10 years or so with the plateauing of temperatures (or slight cooling), and the vast gap (Residual) which Dr Trenberth finds in the energy balance from 2004-2008.
My economically responsible 10 point plan takes account of the potential for the +0.9 W/sq.m warming effect being correct if net cooling effects from clouds and aerosols are eliminated (highly unlikely that Indians and Chinese will stop vast SO2 releases), and focuses fossil fuel use to essentials like air travel.
It realistically pushes gas, nuclear, geothermal for base load electricity and electric trains, light rail and cars for primary transport tasks. Energy efficiency would also be a major plank in the plan.
It does not include an ETS or a playpark for financial spivs to gamble in the carbon casino.
You should get behind Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan and commend it to academics and the more intelligent students.
Ooh, pompus. Integrate your rather pedestrian list with some of the more interesting (not necessarily left wing) ideas from the field of green econimics and maybe I will.
kdkd: Here’s a reply to that Economist blog:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/sticky-for-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
Ouch.
kdkd 1260 & #1262
So what ‘unintended consequences’ do you get from squirting a bit of SO2 into the stratosphere? Volcanoes have been doing it in a dirty way for eons. They add lots of particulates and other nasties which the plan for SO2 does not.
It was a sane plan when an AGW alarmist like Dr Glikson proposed it – but now it is insane if suggested by a sensible skeptic as a fall back in case the crazies are right.
‘Pompous’ is the correct spelling.
Green economics usually involves Al Gore making a buck somewhere doesn’t it??
Ken,
Point of last resort, not sane first response. Too many unknown unknowns (and probably some known ones) are attached to geo-engineering at that scale. I think it probably will come to insane geo-engineering given the policy vacuum, and the apparent impossibility of reaching a sane political solution. Your toxic, superficially plausible but scientifically spurious arguments (and Tams’ delusional lies, mixed with some of your own lies) really don’t help minimise the risks here either.
Anyway, given that you’re suggesting such a radical solution means you admit a big chance of a serious problem. QED, you lose.
Where are your failure criteria – what evidence would you require to prove you wrong? Why does #1261 totally ignore the phenomena related to warming (melts, extreme weather events etc)? I’m not disputing energy balance figures, I’m disputing its relevance to the big picture of observed serious global warming. You seem to want to refuse to deal with this. There’s no rational reason for you not to integrate this line of evidence into your argument.
Tamas #1263 The more I look at watts, the more obvious it becomes that it’s part of the climate delusional paranoid fringe. Just like you and Ken.
Missed this one:
Classic offensive statement from the climate delusional paranoid fringe. Al Gore is irellevant.
To quote Clay Davis – Sheeeeeit – just watched the Plimer / Monbiot “debate” on Lateline. And Monbiot just kept asking the simple questions, whilst Plimer prevaricated, and obfuscated, and distracted, and deliberately avoided answering those simple questions.
It appeared that Tony Jones almost lost control of the debate at times, but tried to hold Plimer to answer fairly basic questions. And yet Plimer resorted to petty rebuke “the height of impoliteness” when Monbiot repeatedly asked him to answer the direct question, rather than distract.
The continuing put down of “Monbiot is not a scientist” just didn’t wash, as Monbiot accurately stated the job of of a journalist is to ask questions, and Plimer was obviously not answering them.
Stunning “discussion”.
Thank whichever God you worship that the ABC brought those two together finally.
Haha.
Adam, Sounds very familiar. More like Ken (delusional old man with unpleasant political views, an axe to grind and misplaced personal pride) rather than Tamas who is just the village idiot.
looking forward to watching it tomorrow
kdkd #1265, 1267
Your abuse is getting boring kdkd. Accusations of lies by me are a different matter.
Where are the lies kdkd?
You have not got an answer to Dr Trenberth’s data; in fact you have not got any data at all because you are scared of engaging on numbers……. and all you can do is parrot your alarmist mantra endlessly mixed with your watermelon infantilism.
Ken
The abuse is fine because you’re insulting my intelligence with your repetition, paranoid conspiracy theories, overstatement of conclusions and magnification of relative minutae. I’m hoping to offend you sufficiently that you’ll go away because you are wasting my time.
I have no beef with Trenberth’s findings. I’ve said this repeatedly. Too busy banging your meaningless drum to listen I suppose.
On the other hand I want you to relate it to the bigger picture of current observations. You have repeatedly refused to do this. I can only assume that subconsciously you realise that doing so would mount a significant challenge to your delusional thought processes.
Do you have a more convincing reason why you won’t engage with the bigger picture? There are plenty of other strands that show that anthropogenic global warming is a serious concern other than the global temperature record (yeah and the closely related planetary energy balance). And for the most part the picture they paint is much clearer. But you ignore all of them. Why is this captain paranoia? Do you beat each other over the head repeatedly at your monthly national socialist meetings to help prevent critical thought?
kdkd #1271
Any data connected with CRU or Hadley or NASA/GISS and the coven of scientists who flea off those sources is now suspect.
Briffa’s tree rings are suspect. Willis’s Argobuoy story is suspect – unbelievable even.
Destruction of source data is suspect if not trying to ‘hide’ something.
Cheat once and they will never believe you again.
Ken #1272
WTF? I think your paranoid nonsense is very unbecoming. However the questions I’m asking you are completely independent of these sources. Why won’t you try to answer?
It must be because it would be too much of a challenge to your elaborate delusional thought system.
kdkd #1273
Have a look at the Economist letters this week on climate change. Three skeptical and one not. The tide is turning. Could you imagine the Economist running three skeptical letters BEFORE Climategate?
Have a look at the characters deciding the future of the world at Copenhagen:
Arnie Swartzennegger, Al Gore and Prince Charles………………..
The Terminator, the Wooden Indian and a Twit who talks to vegetables…
Ken,
Give up the contentless posturing. Why aren’t you asking my questions? If your view was at all coherent and related to the big picture of all the evidence, you’d find it no problem at all.
Climate change is not decided by democratic processes, it’s decided by the laws of physics, and the principles of biology.
The only thing so called Climategate has done is it’s given your delusional idiots enough rope with which to help you continue your delusional ideation. On the other hand the real evidence points in totally the oposite direction.
Hey delusion boy and captain paranoia. Read this:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html
And thanks for the British Daily Express for prompting the list.
And Ken, you’re energy balance thing isn’t in there, but seeing as you’ve been unable to demonstrate how your hypothesis fits the big picture, I think your argument is lacking in direction and relevance.
Ken Lambert @1261 is comparing apples with oranges.
1.6 W/m2 is the net forcing due to human activity.
0.9 W/m2 +/- 0.5 is the net result after resulting feedback is taken into account. This already includes clouds.
The two are clearly shown separately in Trenberth’s figure 4.
Temperature predictions are already based upon the net result, not the net forcing. We do not have 50% of the heating “we thought we had”. Ken Lambert cannot use the difference between 1.6 and 0.9 to “explain” the recent slower rate of warming.
Ken also has his understanding of Trenberth’s Table 1 backwards @ comment 1256. We know that there is 145e20 Joules/yr in the system, because that is what it takes to cause the sea level rise we have observed, of 2.5 mm/yr or so. The puzzle is that all the bits we can separately track, as yet, only add up to a max of 115e20 (within 1 standard deviation: have 2 standard deviations, as is the usual standard, and there is no problem at all), but the overall budget is NOT in question. Given that the biggest uncertainty is the ocean measurements, the extra heat is probably going into the deep ocean where our buoys cannot reach yet, as Trenberth says:
“Possibly this heat is being sequestered in the deep ocean below the 900 m depth used for the ARGO analyses where it would contribute about 0.4–0.5 mm/yr sea level rise”.
kdkd#1276, 1275
Nice comments from Tamas and me in Crikey today.
Why can’t we get Mark Byrne and Matt Andrews into the Cage Match where we can knock some facts into them?
Onya Tamas…
Ken #1227
Even nicer comment from me in Crikey tomorrow exposing your moronic small mind delusional approach.
Saw the Monbiot versus Plimer discussion earlier. Plimer is just like you, deluded and evasive.
Refusing to answer my questions, viz explaining how the energy balance relates to the bigger picture, and explaining your failure criteria really exposes your argument as the piss poor chimera that it is by the way, well done. Hoist with your own petard
Monbiot really understands his stuff.
Delusion boy and captain paranoia will be in the wasteland camp then. Good work boys. Hope your great-great-grandchildren are proud of you. If your you and your ilk win on the international political stage (seems likely, not because of the superiority of your position but because of your appeal to our baser unintellectual instincts) it’s frankly more likely they’ll be dirt poor, starving and/or dead.
And you wonder why I’m rude to you.
sorry, link: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-rapacious-will-not-give-up-without-a-fight-20091215-kuds.html
kdkd #1278
The importance of your questions is writ large only in your tiny mind (one which uses incredimail faces must indeed be microscopic).
The big picture IS the temperature and the energy balance.
As Dr Trenberth says – you can only explain what is happening in thermodynamic terms. If there is a heat imbalance it must show up somewhere.
The imbalances, even at +1.6W/sq.m are still too small (against an incoming of 239 W/sq.m) to be measured directly.
Your rabbiting on about Arctic Ice, Polar Bears, Sea levels etc just does not explain the last 10-12 years.
Thermal lags alone in the oceans are at least 10 years, so Ice which melted yesterday could have been a result of heat input 10 years ago.
You still have not explained why sea levels around the huge Australian coastline (measured at 15 stations) rose only from -0.1mm to 0.9mm last year according to the Australian’s report. I searched the CSIRO website and found that the Sea Levels are measured with a +/-5mm tolerance. No explanation of last year’s figures. This information is almost useless.
Your wide variety of evidence for alarmist AGW is in Dr Trenberth’s words – ‘uncertain’.
Ken,
Let me get this straight. You’re claiming the big picture is about joules and degrees celsius, and because this is self evident, there is no need to reconcile this with the way that the output of models relates to local observations (i.e. very close concordance with frequency of extreme weather events, melts, high altitude phenomena, on a global scale, sea level rise) or any other reconciliation of scientific abstractions with observable phenomena?
As far as I can see you need to provide a plausible explanation of most of these things all at once using your existing argument. And to be honest if your case is intellectually coherent, and holds together, this should be pretty easy for you. about 100 posts of you refusing to do so suggests otherwise, so the odds are against you so far.
Meanwhile you’re taking refuge in a small part of a large noisy data set. Perhaps there’s a way of making your argument plausible, but you haven’t given it yet. Maybe you can prove me wrong. On the other hand you can demonstrate your delusional thought processes by remaining silent. Also question 4 is very important. You need to give an unequivocal answer to that so that you have an exit strategy if your opinion is demonstrated to be incorrect. Why has it taken 100 odd posts for you to even try to start answering these?
Probably the paranoid delusions.
Missed this one:
Can you please explain why the last 10-12 years show that the trend of global warming has been reversed. To my eye, and to my statistical analysis (using the ground or sattelite data) it looks more of the same. A continued strong warming trend inside a system that has large amounts of short term internal noise. Is there some statistically rigorous technique I’ve missed.
Actually scratch that, we’ve been here before and you couldn’t answer that question without resorting to lies the last time. Unless there’s some new information that you’ve identified.
p.s. before you give me some shit about how models are wrong, firstly this is a truism, and secondly the energy balance is a model.
Here’s a good example of Wattsupwiththat stupidity. For example this page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/16/another-al-gore-reality-check-%E2%80%9Crising-tree-mortality%E2%80%9D/
So If I look for the cited Zhou et.al (2003) reference at the bottom, its not there. Same with Nemani et.al (2006) they aren’t there.
A good scientist will tell you the limitations of their findings, which in this case include that all the studies cited are of localised phenomena, and don’t take account of changes in land usage.
Finally this kind of unprovoked ad hominem attack is really not appropriate in a forum that puports to have a serious purpose.
Compare to realclimate.org, where every citation is referenced properly, and the limitations of conclusions are clearly stated, and it’s pretty clear to see why I don’t trust it as a source.
And that’s before I get to the paranoid conspiracy theory bent in Watts, which again is absent in realclimate.
kdkd #1286
In today’s Crikey, Tamas has listed a nice little set of quotes in answer to Matt:
I trust he does not mind my quotation of his piece:
Quote:
Matt finishes with an assertion that the leaked files show “zero evidence of unethical manipulation of data”. Here are a few quotes from those leaked files. Judge for yourself:
Phil Jones, head of the CRU, in 1999: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
Phil Jones in 2004: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Jones in 2005 after a request for data: “I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”
Notes in the Harry_read_me computer file for CRU data: “These will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures.” “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!”
Endquote
So there could not possibly be any way that the above could be interpreted as AGW ‘scientists’ colluding (and even conspiring) to manipulate the data, invent corrections to data, keep other scientists papers from being published, destroy data requested under FOI, and “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!”
Skeptics are all just crazies who have paranoid tendencies and have made it all up – Climategate is a right wing fascist fraud – faked in Godwin Gretch’s laptop!!
Is that what we paranoid nutters did kdkd??
Ken,
Like I said, climategate is unfortunate, as it gives you just enough material with which to maintain your delusional ideation.
Let’s look.
Standard technique referred to in a colloquial way. The quote is specifically about a small aspect of the paleoclimate record which has zero impact on the big picture.
Strange how these papers made it into the IPCC report then, isn’t it.
Decline of what? You’ve really taken this one out of context.
What data would this be? What effect does its unavailability have on the big picture?
Conclusion: you seem to be having trouble with providing enough context to the material to make a meaningful comment.
And why no answers to the questions yet? Because you’re determined to provide more evidence you’re a deluded fool, that’s why.
Ken,
Answer to my post #1283 rather than more ducking and weaving. All this ignoring questions is exposing your delusional thought processes. If your case was sound, these questions would be trivial to answer. So why do you avoid answering them, and provide trite bullshit when pressed?
Nice comment yesterday Ken. And this weeks letters section in the Economist was very interesting. Paul Reiter’s letter was excellent.
kdkd – What do you make of this news story from Russia?
“Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.”
http://en.rian.ru/papers/20091216/157260660.html
Tamas #1290
Pretty boring stuff. More material with which you can maintain your pathetic delusions, but beyond that, totally uninteresting. Ask a reputable meteoroligist what it’s about. Looking at the IEA it looks like their expertise is on fossil fuel issues in Russia. My car needs a new CV joint. I think I’ll go and ask my accountant to do it …
Tamas #1290
Good find Tamas – and telling comment in yesterday’s Crikey
kdkd reverts to the typical smear tactics rather than addressing the serious implications of the Russian report.
I wonder how many countries data has been similarly dealt with?
Looks more and more like distortion of data by Hadley if not scientific fraud.
Stay tuned.
Pity we can’t entice Mark Byrne and Matt Andrews into the Cage for a tag team match and teach kdkd and them a lesson they will never forget.
Ken
Your non-sequitur WTFs are coming in at pace.
My analogy was incorrect. It’s more like asking a used car salesman to fix my car with the naive expectation that he won’t try to sell me a new car instead.
Face it guys, you’re unable to find credible sources to support your delusions, so you’re stuck with the non-scientists and the liars. Your great great grandchildren will be proud.
Ken,
Where’s the data from other than temperature that supports your view that it’s all fraud and a beat up? (melts, extreme weather events, fires, ecosystem changes and so on).
Alternatively you could provide a logical basis as to why you think the temperature data and energy balance alone supports your argument (i.e. that they are all the data required) but you haven’t done this either.
Finally the all important failure criteria, which you are again avoiding. What you think it takes for your argument to be shown wrong.
Seeing as you’ve been avoiding these questions for about 300 posts now, the obvious conclusion is that you must avoid everything that doesn’t confirm your delusional thought processes. Is there another interpretation I’ve missed? Keep it scientific, last time you tried to argue you just slipped into paranoia and abuse rather than addressing the science.
Prove me wrong old man, or STFU.
p.s. Tamas announced his failure criteria in a crikey letter some time ago. This exposed him as so steadfastly delusional, there’s no point in even discussing it with him. He is merely the cage match dickhead and whipping boy.
kdkd #1294
Suggest you consult the Australian Aboriginal record about the frequency and geography of Australian extreme fire events in the Holocene.
After all they were here for the last ice age and the last great sea level rise, the extinction of the megafauna (at their hands), and a whole host of climate change over 40,000 years.
And they are still here!!!
Ken,
1. Can you tell the difference between pre-agricultural hunter gatherer societies and the present day?
2. Why are you avoiding answering the important questions that if you answered them properly could unequivocally support your argument?
I see the delusional duo getting knocked out of the stadium again in today’s comments in Crikey. Good work boys, hope the bruising doesn’t heal too quickly.
I love how kdkd asserts: “melts, extreme weather events, fires, ecosystem changes and so on” without any numbers to back it up (#1294).
Didn’t we link to a report some time back that all these disasters are actually DECREASING? Yes, that’s right, we did.
Ken – the news just keeps on growing with Climategate. kdkd answers all these devastating revelations with the TRALALALALALA defence.
But it’s not working out so well for him.
And how much of a joke is Copenhagen descending into? It’s embarrassing to watch all the Cargo-cult-mentality “screw the rich world” demonstrations and worse, negotiations. Does Kevin Rudd really want to be so closely associated with such a farce?
Tamas #1298
As you’re clearly a lost cause (as is Ken really) there’s no point in doing your research for you. I love the way you venerate stuff from partisan think tanks and dismiss the more rigorous stuff. (also your hit and run approach to online conversation means along with the delusions it’s basically impossible to have a meaningful dialogue with you).
You guys are kind of interesting from the perspective of the psychopathology of delusion, but that’s a very qualified “kind of”.
Ken: I think you’ll enjoy this article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004574599981936018834.html
Tamas #1300
And then you go to prove my point. The wall street journal is a bankers rag with a long history of climate delusion and lying about the scientific underpinnings. The journalists are as scientifically illiterate as they come. That piece of writing is fact free – a piece of empty polemic.
It’s fortunate that your name is distinctive, because we can be assured that whenever we see the words “Tamas Calderwood” in print, it’s a synonym for “The following opinion is the worthless ramblings of an arrogant idiot with no regard for facts”.
kdkd# 1299. Rigorous stuff like “hide the decline” and losing the raw data?
This how they hide “the decline”:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235395/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-Climate-change-emails-row-deepens–Russians-admit-DID-send-them.html
More stellar sources like the british daily mail. And taking a couple of words taken out of context. Thanks for continuing to provide comedy.
Here’s a proper experimental design to see if the CRU data is suspect or not.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/are-the-cru-data-suspect-an-objective-assessment/
The watts post alluded to earlier cherry picks specific sites, so the fundamental problem with it is that it doesn’t use random sampling which is a requirement for this kind of work.
It’s fine to be sceptical, but failing to disclose a non-random sample is actually a lie, and results in fabricated conclusions.
Forget the post is from realclimate, a source you delusionals don’t rate[1], just examine the internal logic of the experimental design.
[1] because you can’t use it to support your psychotic beliefs.
And here’s a proper paper on siberian temperature data. I’ll give you a clue. The Daily Fucking Mail, or the Wall Street Leech Rag don’t count as a reputable sources on climate change.
ESPER, J., FRANK, D., BÜNTGEN, U., VERSTEGE, A., HANTEMIROV, R. M., & KIRDYANOV, A. V. (2010). Trends and uncertainties in Siberian indicators of 20th century warming. Global Change Biology, 16(1), 386-398. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01913.x
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122374111/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
This would suggest that the “decline” that they wanted to “hide” was in fact a spurious phenomenon caused by lack of knowledge of how to manage the data properly.
kdkd #1307
Now, now kdkd – control that mouth frothing.
See if you can find any reference to a net warming of 0.9W/sq.m in this: or any reference to 1750AD:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
Nitey….nite….
Ken,
Try relating this to the bigger picture of other non-temperature observations.
Why are you refusing to do this? You could support your case in a powerful way if you did, but for some reason you won’t.
The only conclusion possible to make from this is that you have something to hide.
Ken #1308 is a total non-sequitur.
Your internal thought processes about this subject seem to becoming so wildly at odds with reality, that these disjointed, objectively irrelevant rebuttals, and your habit of presenting a couple of disjointed facts as if they were careful deductive arguments are really getting out of control.
It’s really not good for your credibility.
Oh dear,
Spotted a major error in Ken’s argument. Big enough to make my calculation errors seem unimportant (and as they weren’t really central to my argument, Ken needed to make far more out of them than was warranted anyway).
From the IPCC report that ken links to:
So interestingly the 0.9 figure is within the range of the existing confidence interval. Therefore Ken’s assertion that previous estimates have been inaccurate is shown to be a fabrication.
Let’s check the error bars from Trenberth’s latest paper just for completeness. It’s 0.9 (+0.4 to +1.4 at the 90% confidence level). So there’s clearly no significant difference between the estimates, and Ken’s case collapses.
So in conclusion, we see that as well as Ken’s inability to relate his argument to the bigger picture, he’s also incapable of interpreting basic statistics. If he had done so, he would find that the evidence does not support his argument in any way whatsoever.
So now as well as your refusal to answer my questions, I have a major error of interpretation to repeatedly crow about. Dude, your argument is shot, give up.
kdkd #1311
Ooo Ooo …kdkd thinks he has finally landed a punch…..pity it wasn’t hard enough to register.
I’m talking about the Fig SPM.2. and the deletion of the reference to 1750AD in relation to FIG 2.4 of AR4. Understanding this point is essential to the treatment of Solar which was not zero in 1750AD as were the ‘anthropogenic’ forcings. SPM.2. deliberately changes the descriptive wording under the Graph.
It gets worse for you kdkd.
The forcings included in AR4 Fig 2.4 average +1.6W/sq.m. The confidence intervals were always there.
This Fig is reproduced in Dr Trenberth’s Figure 4. BUT with the added effects of ‘Radiative feedback’ at -2.8W/sq.m and ‘Water vapour Ice-albedo feedbacks’ at +2.1W/sq.m giving a net -0.7W/sq.m.
There two factors were not included in AR4 Fig 2.4 or SPM.2.
The Total net imbalance is then recalculated as +1.6 -0.7 = 0.9W/sq.m.
Not the same thing as Fig 2.4 kdkd….you should read Dr Trenberth more carefully.
He might be one of the few honest scientists to emerge from this rapidly growing scandal.
kdkd#1307
Sciencespeak kdkd…
“instrumental and tree growth estimates for the entire 20th century warming interval match each other, to a degree previously not recognized, when care is taken to preserve long-term trends in the tree-ring data. We further show that careful examination of early temperature data and calibration of proxy timeseries over the full period of overlap with instrumental data are both necessary to properly estimate 20th century long-term changes and to avoid erroneous detection of post-1960 divergence”
What really happened was that the tree rings did not behave upwardly after 1961, so the were simply deleted and instrumental temperatures substituted. Will expand on the Briffa emails later.
So either the tree rings were right and it was cooling after 1961 or they were wrong and that puts all the reconstructions back in time in doubt also…ya can’t have tree rings on demand when it suits the script kdkd!
Hey Ken,
As well as focussing on stuff you weren’t asked about and ignoring the direct questions you were asked, you’re totally ignoring your massive howlers and failure to interpret the scientific literature properly.
So the question becomes: which is preferable, “science speak” (which one can only assume has science and evidence at its core), or fucking delusional moron speak?
I guess it’s up to the readers to decide.
#1312
One of the crikey correspondents clearly showed you were double counting (at least), leading to more howling errors.
The only rapidly growing scandal is the degree to which you are prepared to lie and distort the science to fit your delusional idiocy.
The squawkings of the growth, growth, growth, infinite growth at whatever cost brigade never cease to amaze me. Anthropomorphic climate change is not proven and it’s all a big anti-industrial, anti-capitalist conspiracy according to them! One just has to look around the world at the level of industrial deforestation, the toxicly polluted rivers and lakes , cities so smothered in the spewings of industry to put two and tow together and accept that we humans are responsible. we can’t blame other species or the ‘natural climate cycle’ for the incredible levels of destruction that we have wrought on the planet and increasingly continue to do so. This anthropomorphic destruction is showing up in the form of ever increasing temperatures, more intense weather events, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and ice caps and a general mix up of the seasons that is throwing the evolved cycles plants and animals into a spin. There is room for industry and a new and enlightened world but the ecological outcomes must preceed economic ones and the ways of the past and of right now must come to a gridning halt if we are to leave a decently habitable planet for the future generations. It really is time we took a leaf out of indigenous cultures many of who have the philosphy that any action today must be thought of in terms of what effect it will have 7 generations ahead. thus green jobs are out there, green industry is just waiting to be funded to the extent that the dinosaur industries are now. when a multinational talks about environmental laws or taxes will costs jobs, they only mean profits for they would replace all of their workers in an instance if they could! no jobs on a dead planet! over and out…..
This is the reply to my Crikey critics which was not printed in comments today:
Andrew Davidson and James Haughton must think they have hit me with a Climateer short ball and a groin shot at the same time. Sorry boys, your killer points are just a bit wrong.
Andrew, the +1.6 W/sq.m is taken as the total net anthropogenic radiative forcing from IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 repeated in SPM.2 “Summary for Policymakers”. The main component is +1.66 W/sq.m derived from CO2 via the oft quoted Eqan F.CO2 = 5.35 ln(CO2a/CO2b), where CO2a is todays CO2 concentration in ppmv and CO2b is the concentration in 1750AD – before the industrial revolution. The heating and cooling components of Fig 2.4 sum to -0.06W/sq.m and these include -1.2 W/sq.m of Total Aerosols (direct and cloud albedo). The net is therefore +1.6W/sq.m. Solar is a tiny +0.12 W/sq.m in this sum – relative to 1750AD (a distortion in itself).
Dr Trenberth’s Fig 4 reproduces AR4 Fig 2.4 (SPM.2.) and adds the water vapour, ice albedo and radiative feedback due to raised temperatures which subtracts 0.7W/sq.m from the +1.6W/sq.m to give a total net imbalance of +0.9W/sq.m.
There is no mention of the above forcings being relative to 1750AD in the same Table produced as SPM.2 for the Rudds and Wongs “Summary for Policymakers”; nor an accounting of the feedbacks which reduce it to +0.9W/sq.m. Policymakers would believe the real warming is +1.6W/sq.m if you read that document.
There is no mistake in my cloud figures. I quoted a 1% error in cloud measurement dropping the forcing by a further -0.5 W/sq.m, with fluctuations reported by Dr Trenberth of +/-1% in the HIRS cloud observations from 1979 – 2001.
Andrew has mistaken my comment on SO2 and other aerosols as double counting. I referred to the current aerosol cooling “effects at -1.2 W/sq.m” which is the value included in the total net anthropogenic of +1.6 W/sq.m. This -1.2 W/sq.m figure is ‘uncertain’ and has wide error bars. It ranges between -0.4 and -2.7 in Fig 2.4 AR4 with low LOSU (level of scientific understanding).
My point was that if you add SO2 and other aerosols as reported unaccounted Indian and Chinese emissions have already done, then the -1.2 W/sq.m would increase negative.
A -0.4 W/sq.m increase applied to cloud reduced imbalance of +0.4 W/sq.m would wipe out any warming; larger would give cooling.
Von Schuckman should talk to Trenberth – because he finds no easy location for the heat imbalance at all.
James Haughton gets it backwards – not me.
Dr Trenberth’s Table 1 “Observed” energy imbalance of 145 E20 Joules/year is based on his +0.9W/sq.m imbalance being applied to the surface of the Earth for 1 year. This equates NOT to 2.5mm ‘Observed” sea level rise; and not even the individual components Ice Sheets, Total Land Ice, Ocean expansion which all add to 3.4 to 4.2mm SLE (sea level equivalent).
That SLE range of 3.4 – 4.2mm equals a range of heat input of 45 to 115 E20 Joules/year – not the 145 E20 which is supposedly ‘observed’. Hence Dr Trenberth’s missing 30 – 100 E20 Joules/year.
Dr Trenberth’s comment is relevant “We cannot track energy in absolute terms because the accuracy of several measurements is simply not good enough”.
My contention is that the 0.9 W/sq.m has been reduced by increased and poorly measured Aerosols and the missing 30-100 E20 Joules never existed.
But impicitly that makes perfect sense, as it’s the frame of reference for the entire body of work.
Strike 1. Conflating uncertainty.
So there are two things going on here. Firstly you are making the assumption that the +-1% error is a 1% error. Secondly you’re failing to take account of the short lived nature of cloud effects.
Strike 2. Cherry picking at the extreme range of error bars to fit your conclusion.
Strike 3. Perseveration on single figures and failing to understand the broader context.
So in baseball that means three strikes and you’re out.
I could probably continue, but no wonder this wasn’t published. You’re taking refuge in technical discussions that it’s very difficult for the intelligent layman to fully appreciate. But while I’m here:
Strike 4. Selectively ignoring error bars in order to maintain the pretence that there’s a statistically significant difference between the +1.6 figure and the +0.9 figure when there isn’t.
Strike 5. Taking refuge in poorly expressed technical discussion, which becomes increasingly incoherent as it proceeds. This leads to:
Strike 6. A conclusion that is a fabrication based on the fact that you’ve selectively ignored important parts of the data especially during strike 4, 2 and 1.
Thats two innings worth of strikes. I think this shows that you’re very likely not to be selected for the team in future.
E-, must do better.
erratum: “is a 1% error” should be “is a -1% error”.
KDKD – more Climategate news from that filthy banker rag, the Wall Street Journal (ie; the biggest selling newspaper in the United States).
Patrick Michaels has news how his and other scholarly papers were kept out of the holy “peer reviewed” journals.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398304574598230426037244.html
Kinda like discovering that the Bible isn’t true or something, isn’t it?
You gotta admit kdkd. The news has been pretty bad for your side of the argument lately. You can still become a sceptic though mate. Anytime you want to actually critically analyse this issue, Ken and I will be here to help you.
And still there’s a manifest and continuing refusal to relate to the bigger picture of non-temperature observations. If your case was so clear cut open and shut as you claim this should be easy. Because of your failure to do this, we therefore conclude that your case is a fabrication.
And still there’s a refusal to explain your failure criteria. Scientific work is usually about testing hypotheses, to see if they are supported or otherwise. Therefore you need to state clearly what is required in order for your hypothesis to be supported. Conventially this is done with a null hypothesis (i.e. if my hypothesis is wrong, then this is the logical condition for it being wrong). There’s two problems here. First, your alternative hypothesis is rather vague, and secondly you are refusing to state your null hypothesis. Threrefore what you’re doing is unscientific until you correct this.
But be careful not to repeat Tamas’ mistake – he provided a null hypothesis of such torturous circular logic that it exposed his delusional position in a rather elegant way.
Tamas:
“Mr. Michaels, formerly professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia (1980-2007), is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.”
The Cato institute is known for their dodgy “science” and partisan leanings (as is the WSJ). Nice bits of paranoia in the WSJ too.
Your dependency on right wing think tanks and economists with a strong vested interest for maintaining the status quo for as long as possible is unbecoming.
Here’s an interesting article: The WSJ and the Scientific Consensus. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/06/the-wall-street-journal-vs-the-consensus-of-the-scientific-community/
Seems the WSJ hasn’t moved on at all since 2005 when that article was written. The Soon and Balinus paper referred to in that nonsense from the WSJ Tamas posted was apparently discredited in the WSJ itself ( http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF…/Regalado2003WSJ.pdf )
Anyway, this is all a very interesting study of the psychopathology of delusion. There’s the fossil lobby, and their vocal team of groupies who do their damndest to lower the signal to noise ratio on all aspects of climate change science.
{ repost due to moderation queue }
Here’s an interesting article: The WSJ and the Scientific Consensus. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/06/the-wall-street-journal-vs-the-consensus-of-the-scientific-community/
Seems the WSJ hasn’t moved on at all since 2005 when that article was written. The Soon and Balinus paper referred to in that nonsense from the WSJ Tamas posted was apparently discredited in the WSJ itself ( http: // stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF…/Regalado2003WSJ.pdf )
Anyway, this is all a very interesting study of the psychopathology of delusion. There’s the fossil lobby, and their vocal team of groupies who do their damndest to lower the signal to noise ratio on all aspects of climate change science.
kdkd 1317
“So there are two things going on here. Firstly you are making the assumption that the +-1% error is a 1% error. Secondly you’re failing to take account of the short lived nature of cloud effects.”
As explained previously, the cloud over your house is short lived – it moves next door or dissipates. Taken over the whole planet, a portion of pixels will always be under cloud – not the same pixels all the time. A 1% increase over the planet equals -0.5 W/sq.m of cooling effect – that is my point.
If you add two numbers together – add their error bars together too. Makes no differnece to the point that Aerosols have the widest error bars of all the forcings.
To suggest that all that missing heat is ‘below 900m’ beyond the reach of the Argobuoys is just very convenient.
Tamas is finding some good stuff. Amazing that we now add threats of violence to the thuggery applied by the Climategate Coven to suppress opposing views even by non-skeptical scientists who did not follow their orthodoxy.
Reminds me of the Inquisition persecuting heretics.
kdkd’s hysterical infantile abuse seems to fit the pattern.
By the way Realclimate is the organ of the Climategate Email mates and must be viewed in that dark light.
Ken,
Your argument in #1324 is pathetic. +-1% is +-1% not -1%
and so on.
Especialy telling:
This is ludicrous. Basically you’re saying that the only really good logical measured scientific commentary on climate science should be dismissed out of hand. And you wonder why it’s so obvious that you’re just maintaining delusional thought processes.
Besides the last realclimate thing I posted just alerted us that the WSJ was itself demonstrating that the science it’s referring to in subsequent articles has already been discredited by itself.
Stop wasting my time.
Still no answer to the bigger picture questions ken. I’m not going to let go of that, because until you answer them, it’s obvious that your argument is a pathetic chimera of twisty delusional logic, and nothing to do with real scientific understanding.
kdkd #1320: You say “And still there’s a manifest and continuing refusal to relate to the bigger picture of non-temperature observations. ”
huh? Global warming is surely about, err, “temperature observations” isn’t it? What on earth else could it be about?
You then assert: “And still there’s a refusal to explain your failure criteria. Scientific work is usually about testing hypotheses, to see if they are supported or otherwise. Therefore you need to state clearly what is required in order for your hypothesis to be supported. ”
I don’t have a hypothesis kdkd, YOU DO! Your hypothesis is that man-made CO2 causes dangerous global warming. It has always been a ridiculous hypothesis because there are so many factors in the climate system that we do not understand that we can never strip out the human-CO2 effect.
Nonetheless, I would assume failure of the Earth to warm would show this hypothesis to be incorrect. But not in your world.
Given that you are the one with a hypothesis that Ken and I say is not proven, perhaps you could point out what the “failure criteria” are? Is there nothing that would change your mind?
And in the latest news on the farce that is Copenhagen, here’s Thomas Fuller on how the climate change lobby have shamed themselves by giving Robert Mugabe a platform to speak on.
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m12d17-A-global-warming-deal-in-Copenhagenone-more-such-victory-and-we-are-undone
This kind of news has to be tough on you kdkd.
Tamas,
Well this is merely an excuse to ignore all those things related to the long term climatic trends. If your case was sound, you’d be able to give a coherent integrated account
Wow, amazing delusions! I already told you my simple, logical easy to verify failure criteria. If I was wrong, I’d expect that the observations would start to track or go below the lower range of the IPCC projections. However the exact opposite has been occuring, and things seem to be getting worse. Your persistent psychotic delusions don’t alter this fact.
You already announced your weird circular logic failure criteria in crikey as well, which clearly demonstrated that your deluded, ideological and misinformed opinions have no value whatsoever.
Saying you have no hypothesis is really delusional solipsism. Your hypothesis appears to be on two levels. Firstly, that the theory of chemical bonds and the first law of thermodynamics do not operate as we would expect in large scale complex systems. And secondly, that the global climate system is a good millieu in which to test this theory.
You do realise that repeating fabrications does not make them true? This is just irrational nonsense you’re fond of repeating, but the evidence does not support it in any way.
Anyway, COP15 appears to be a bad joke on many levels – your feeble attempt at attack there is rather misplaced.
As I said before you and ken are interesting in one respect as a study in the psychopathology of delusion in (I presume) otherwise sane people. But you really are wasting my time with your bullshit. Fortunately I’ll be gone soon and we can terminate this pointless discussion.
kdkd – Where are you going? The internet is everywhere buddy so you don’t need to leave us!
Or maybe you are saying that as the global warming theory falls apart you’ll be moving into the sceptics camp?
Anyway, to your points. All the things related to “long term climactic trends” are based on the world getting warmer. It has warmed by 0.7C in 140 years – not really a big deal right? And it hasn’t warmed since the mid 1990′s. These are facts kdkd and you can’t get around them.
You then say “If I was wrong, I’d expect that the observations would start to track or go below the lower range of the IPCC projections. However the exact opposite has been occuring, and things seem to be getting worse.”
Are you for real? Do you actually look at the temperature data? The IPCC models didn’t predict this cooling trend we’re in. So therefore your hypothesis is falsified according to your own criteria.
You finish by saying: “Anyway, COP15 appears to be a bad joke on many levels ”
Oh. My. God. We AGREE!!!! Ken, check it out – kdkd agrees with us on something!
This is just the start kdkd. Soon you will be agreeing with everything Ken and I say. You will have become a global warming sceptic. Nice to have you with us buddy.
Incorrect assumption. It’s causing a number of significant geological and ecological changes that you’re chosing to igore in order to maintain your delusions. The science also strongly suggests that we’re locked in to the same amount of warming again already over the next 30 years, without accounting for extra co2 emissions. Imagine if your temperature changed form 37ºC to 38.4ºC. You’d start feeling pretty sick. The earth’s temperature sensitivity is similar.
At best an egergious misrepresentation of data. At worst completely untrue (2000-2010 is the warmest decade on record according to the IMO).
This is the cooling trend that’s only supported by your delusions. In reality it doesn’t actually exist.
Your delusions are fixed, and you won’t be changing your mind any time soon, because of the weird internal logic with which you maintain your psychotic idiocy. Well done.
Anyway, thankfully I’m going on holiday and what little internet access I have will not be used for communicating with you no-hoper losers.
Possibly this is what Tamas and Ken are so concerned about:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_itPEoTvu3wg/Syo-gKFiYlI/AAAAAAAABFw/r5cxmHDAjaE/s400/091207usatC.slideshow_main.prod_affiliate.91.jpg
kdkd – care to name any of the environmental effects the 0.7C rise in temps in 140 years has had?
Were these effects similar to what happened in the medieval warm period when it was warmer than today?
And the UAH data clearly show no warming since the 1990′s. You’re a statistician – you know that is the truth.
Enjoy your holiday and Merry Christmas!
Well summarised here: http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/
Apparently similar but larger.
Actually, as a statistician, I know this is the opposite of the truth, and that there is no statistically significant difference between it and the other measures of global temperature. Why do you persist with this blatant lie?
See, calling out your delusional bullshit is easy. You’re a fool, and deep down you probably know it.
err … that should be larger and faster in the present day
#kdkd & Tamas
kdkd must be going to the Antarctic – to check out the depth of sea ice. Don’t stand on any ice shelves kdkd..
I’m going on holiday myself with limited internet access – probably could do with a break from kdkd……but might have a bit of interesting stuff on sea levels in the New Year.
By the way the Great Barrier Reef seems to be in great shape at the minute according to today’s Australian. Prof Ridd suggests that corals seem to handle ups and downs in water temperature by …..wait for it….adapting and evolving. If it gets permanently warmer they will migrate to cooler waters.
Sounds like Darwinian evolution to me…..ever heard of that kdkd??
Anyhow Tamas, what are we going to do without kdkd to kick around…??
Best wishes to you for Christmas and the New Year.
More delusional crap from Ken who clearly fancies himeslf as an expert on adaptive radiation of corals. Interesting how when Ken’s looking for supporting evidence that isn’t global temprature related it’s always repetition of pretty vague stuff from disreputable sources in such a way that it confirms his delusions. No need for it to be clear stuff, we can always overstate and distort conclusions where necessary.
Anyway I can’t wait to be shot of your and Ken’s useless bullshit. Can’t even use it to fertilise the garden it stinks so bad.
kdkd
To paraphrase Winston….in battle indomitable……..in victory magnanimous.
Enjoy your holiday and may your climate God hold you in the palm of her hand…
Well I’m not away for anothe bit, so you’ve still got me calling you out on fabrications, distortions, deliberate ignorance and failure to answer simple questions for a while yet.
Unless you do a turn about anyway.
Your concession in #1338 was very gracious by the way.
kdkd #1339
It was a gracious declaration of Tamas and my victory. Probably the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end.
Copenhagen has shown what can happen when the inmates get control of the asylum.
When someone called Lumumba is running the third world agenda and a weakened West is captive of watermelon science – chaos reigns.
Not even our Mandarin Candidate will be able to spin this into anything but a fiasco.
Rephrasing: Enjoy your holiday and may your climate God hold you in the palm of ITS hand…
Ken,
Wow you are deluded. Given you claim your case is so strong, the questions I asked ages back should be easy to answer. However, you have made no attempt to do so.
I can only conclude that you can’t provide an answer without exposing your case as a shallow cess pool of paranoia and delusion.
Again it was good of you to concede defeat so graciously.
p.s. the political and scientific process are entirely independent. This is obvious to anyone with any basic grasp of the reality of the situation.
kdkd #1341
Perhaps the Daily Mail Report on Briffa et al will explain why the politics of global warming of science has become a squalid dstortion: (also sorts out the MWP where we came in back in April kdkd??)
Quote
“Of course, this is inconvenient to climate change believers because there were no cars or factories pumping out greenhouse gases in 1000AD – yet the Earth still warmed.
Some tree-ring data eliminates the medieval warmth altogether, while others reflect it. In September 1999, Jones’s IPCC colleague Michael Mann of Penn State University in America – who is now also the subject of an official investigation –was working with Jones on the hockey stick. As they debated which data to use, they discussed a long tree-ring analysis carried out by Keith Briffa.
Briffa knew exactly why they wanted it, writing in an email on September 22: ‘I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards “apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more”.’ But his conscience was troubled. ‘In reality the situation is not quite so simple – I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.’
Another British scientist – Chris Folland of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre – wrote the same day that using Briffa’s data might be awkward, because it suggested the past was too warm. This, he lamented, ‘dilutes the message rather significantly’.
Over the next few days, Briffa, Jones, Folland and Mann emailed each other furiously. Mann was fearful that if Briffa’s trees made the IPCC diagram, ‘the sceptics [would] have a field day casting doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these estimates and, thus, can undermine faith [in them] – I don’t think that doubt is scientifically justified, and I’d hate to be the one to have to give it fodder!’
Finally, Briffa changed the way he computed his data and submitted a revised version. This brought his work into line for earlier centuries, and ‘cooled’ them significantly. But alas, it created another, potentially even more serious, problem.
According to his tree rings, the period since 1960 had not seen a steep rise in temperature, as actual temperature readings showed – but a large and steady decline, so calling into question the accuracy of the earlier data derived from tree rings.
This is the context in which, seven weeks later, Jones presented his ‘trick’ – as simple as it was deceptive.
All he had to do was cut off Briffa’s inconvenient data at the point where the decline started, in 1961, and replace it with actual temperature readings, which showed an increase.
On the hockey stick graph, his line is abruptly terminated – but the end of the line is obscured by the other lines.
‘Any scientist ought to know that you just can’t mix and match proxy and actual data,’ said Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.
‘They’re apples and oranges. Yet that’s exactly what he did.’
End quote
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235395/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-Climate-change-emails-row-deepens–Russians-admit-DID-send-them.html#ixzz0aHEjipTt
Hey kdkd:
Repeat after me kdkd:
‘I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.’
Merry Christmas..
Ken,
It’s pathetic to pretend that the British Daily Mail is a credible source for science journalism. The fact that you need to use such spurious sources shows what a poor state your argument is in.
There are multiple independent ways of showing the hockey stick, and that the warming in the present day is of serious concern. The Briffa version is one among many independent sources. Even the delusional’s favourite UAI sattelite data supports AGW caused by man made greenhouse gasses.
You’re trying for distraction whereas it’s obvious that the only way to properly defend your argument is to answer my questions from around 300 posts ago. Again, why are you unable to do this? If your case was strong, answering my questions would be simple for you.
We can only conclude that you have to resort to distraction and irrelevance because your case is not at all strong. QED. As I said, your earlier concession was very gracious.
Repeat after me kdkd:
‘I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.’
Merry Christmas
Nice christmas present, distraction and irrelevance, thanks. You’ll find a large box full of stuff under your tree that you can pretend isn’t there from me.
kdkd 1345
How about Tamas and I pretend that dangerous AGW exists, and you and your fellow Maoist….. Premier Wen of the PRG can pretend to fix it.
Meanwhile repeat after me kdkd:
‘I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.’
Season’s Greetings
See Ken, You’re already ignoring the very large box under your tree.
Is that close enough to a repetition for you?
Boys & Girls
Found some very interesting articles while checking out he seaside.
National Post (Canada) pieces from Terence Corcoran are detailed and impressive analyses of the Climategate emails:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-1.aspx
(Do you love the Russian tree ring guys asking for not more than $10K/day into their personal accounts to keep working)
Fascinating story which reflects all the weakness and folly of the human condition – but not quite what one would expect of taxpayer paid scientists. Read part II next….
Part II……
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-2.aspx
A more than fair conclusion too – I would have said the story smells more like manipulation if not fraud.
Ken #blah
Polemical nonsense – there’s the hand of the authors substantial biases in both those articles – unsubstantiated comments aplenty.
You have about a month to answer my outstanding questions, which if your case is as strong as you claim, will be easy for you. If you haven’t answered them properly by the time I get back I’m calling the match over, and I’ll be back to crow over your decomposing corpse of an argument.
L8tr
kdkd #blah
Was not aware that you made the rules of the Cage Match. Interesting that Corcoran’s articles are so detailed because he has studied many of the emails in depth and importantly the chronology wrt IPCC reports.
Notice you can’t challenge one of his points. It is hard to argue with the written word of the players as expressed in their direct emails isn’t it?
Not just a bit of honest disagreement between the players is there kdkd? The Briffa & Mann tree ring stuff is fascinating – you tried to deny the MWP early in the Cage Match – following the Mann script. Not looking so flash now kdkd??
Ken, #1351
Absence of content. Like I said article full of unsubstantiated assertions. If you weren’t so hoodwinked by your own biases you’d see that clearly.
Now get on with my questions or your case is totally pointless and invalid.
Gone now
kdkd #1352
We must be in the running for the longest blog in climate change history.
Absence of content?
13 years of emails between the major players in climate science – analysed in some detail to produce a coherent narrative – essential reading for all those interested in the greatest issue of our time – and you claim absence of content?? Hello??
You’re fighting from memory son – punch drunk.
Maybe time for the referee (the delightful Sophie Black) to stop the fight.
( free wifi while on the road)
#1353
There’s not much scientific commentary in those articles you posted, and quite a bit of empty rhetoric. Interesting how the delusional camp will switch from rhetoric to pseudo-science, to magnification of the slightest bit of information they think confer doubt, to outright scientific illiteracy and lies. On the other hand, the people interested in the science of the thing rather than trying to “disprove” the scientific consensus generally restrict scientific discussions to scientific issues. As you’ve noted before I only get rude when the discussion veers from science.
No effort to answer my questions. Why not? Is it less easy than it ought to be if your case was as strong as you claim?
Sorry JamesH (assumed James Haughton), I missed your post when it crossed the page to the next 50 posts, in case you did ot see my reply:
JamesH
Posted December 16, 2009 at 3:19 pm | Permalink
Ken Lambert @1261 is comparing apples with oranges.
1.6 W/m2 is the net forcing due to human activity.
0.9 W/m2 +/- 0.5 is the net result after resulting feedback is taken into account. This already includes clouds.
The two are clearly shown separately in Trenberth’s figure 4.
Temperature predictions are already based upon the net result, not the net forcing. We do not have 50% of the heating “we thought we had”. Ken Lambert cannot use the difference between 1.6 and 0.9 to “explain” the recent slower rate of warming.
Ken also has his understanding of Trenberth’s Table 1 backwards @ comment 1256. We know that there is 145e20 Joules/yr in the system, because that is what it takes to cause the sea level rise we have observed, of 2.5 mm/yr or so. The puzzle is that all the bits we can separately track, as yet, only add up to a max of 115e20 (within 1 standard deviation: have 2 standard deviations, as is the usual standard, and there is no problem at all), but the overall budget is NOT in question. Given that the biggest uncertainty is the ocean measurements, the extra heat is probably going into the deep ocean where our buoys cannot reach yet, as Trenberth says:
“Possibly this heat is being sequestered in the deep ocean below the 900 m depth used for the ARGO analyses where it would contribute about 0.4–0.5 mm/yr sea level rise”.
Quote Reply
Ken Lambert
Posted December 18, 2009 at 4:02 pm | Permalink
This is the reply to my Crikey critics which was not printed in comments today:
Andrew Davidson and James Haughton must think they have hit me with a Climateer short ball and a groin shot at the same time. Sorry boys, your killer points are just a bit wrong.
Andrew, the +1.6 W/sq.m is taken as the total net anthropogenic radiative forcing from IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 repeated in SPM.2 “Summary for Policymakers”. The main component is +1.66 W/sq.m derived from CO2 via the oft quoted Eqan F.CO2 = 5.35 ln(CO2a/CO2b), where CO2a is todays CO2 concentration in ppmv and CO2b is the concentration in 1750AD – before the industrial revolution. The heating and cooling components of Fig 2.4 sum to -0.06W/sq.m and these include -1.2 W/sq.m of Total Aerosols (direct and cloud albedo). The net is therefore +1.6W/sq.m. Solar is a tiny +0.12 W/sq.m in this sum – relative to 1750AD (a distortion in itself).
Dr Trenberth’s Fig 4 reproduces AR4 Fig 2.4 (SPM.2.) and adds the water vapour, ice albedo and radiative feedback due to raised temperatures which subtracts 0.7W/sq.m from the +1.6W/sq.m to give a total net imbalance of +0.9W/sq.m.
There is no mention of the above forcings being relative to 1750AD in the same Table produced as SPM.2 for the Rudds and Wongs “Summary for Policymakers”; nor an accounting of the feedbacks which reduce it to +0.9W/sq.m. Policymakers would believe the real warming is +1.6W/sq.m if you read that document.
There is no mistake in my cloud figures. I quoted a 1% error in cloud measurement dropping the forcing by a further -0.5 W/sq.m, with fluctuations reported by Dr Trenberth of +/-1% in the HIRS cloud observations from 1979 – 2001.
Andrew has mistaken my comment on SO2 and other aerosols as double counting. I referred to the current aerosol cooling “effects at -1.2 W/sq.m” which is the value included in the total net anthropogenic of +1.6 W/sq.m. This -1.2 W/sq.m figure is ‘uncertain’ and has wide error bars. It ranges between -0.4 and -2.7 in Fig 2.4 AR4 with low LOSU (level of scientific understanding).
My point was that if you add SO2 and other aerosols as reported unaccounted Indian and Chinese emissions have already done, then the -1.2 W/sq.m would increase negative.
A -0.4 W/sq.m increase applied to cloud reduced imbalance of +0.4 W/sq.m would wipe out any warming; larger would give cooling.
Von Schuckman should talk to Trenberth – because he finds no easy location for the heat imbalance at all.
James Haughton gets it backwards – not me.
Dr Trenberth’s Table 1 “Observed” energy imbalance of 145 E20 Joules/year is based on his +0.9W/sq.m imbalance being applied to the surface of the Earth for 1 year. This equates NOT to 2.5mm ‘Observed” sea level rise; and not even the individual components Ice Sheets, Total Land Ice, Ocean expansion which all add to 3.4 to 4.2mm SLE (sea level equivalent).
That SLE range of 3.4 – 4.2mm equals a range of heat input of 45 to 115 E20 Joules/year – not the 145 E20 which is supposedly ‘observed’. Hence Dr Trenberth’s missing 30 – 100 E20 Joules/year.
Dr Trenberth’s comment is relevant “We cannot track energy in absolute terms because the accuracy of several measurements is simply not good enough”.
My “contention” is that the 0.9 W/sq.m has been reduced by increased and poorly measured Aerosols and the missing 30-100 E20 Joules never existed.
End quote
James H: As a further comment – Trenberth’s Table 1 is not easy to understand at first glance so your mistake is easy to make. I had to read it and the relevant text 2 or 3 times myself and do a couple of hand calculations to discover what he was doing. When I saw your comment in Crikey (my reply not printed) I went back and rechecked Trenberth’s paper and again interpreted Table 1.
Hence:
Dr Trenberth’s Table 1 “Observed” energy imbalance of 145 E20 Joules/year is based on his +0.9W/sq.m imbalance being applied to the surface of the Earth for 1 year. This equates NOT to 2.5mm ‘Observed” sea level rise; and not even the individual components Ice Sheets, Total Land Ice, Ocean expansion which all add to 3.4 to 4.2mm SLE (sea level equivalent).
That SLE range of 3.4 – 4.2mm equals a range of heat input of 45 to 115 E20 Joules/year – not the 145 E20 which is supposedly ‘observed’. Hence Dr Trenberth’s missing 30 – 100 E20 Joules/year.
Since the 145 E20 is based on the 0.9 W/sq.m, the clear implication is that if only 45-115 can be accounted for – then the 0.9W/sq.m is an over-estimate, and given the large error range in Aerosols – this might be the place to look.
Seems more likely than heat hidden ‘below 900m’ where the Argo buoys just can’t reliably measure.
Happy to discuss this further.
Ken Lambert @ 1355,
Since the SPM is a summary of a summary, it’s not very reasonable to complain that they left out extra explanatory text such as “compared to 1750″, which clearly appears in Sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the synthesis report, which are referred to in the SPM. This is at best a quibble about editing.
Section 2.2 clearly explains the difference between “Forcing” and “Feedbacks”. The important thing is that the feedbacks are themselves a response to the forcings (and hence will be more uncertain than the forcings, another reason not to stress them in the SPM). When you’re trying to explain what effect humanity is having on the planet you want to measure the forcings we are applying, as if you reduce the forcings the feedbacks will also reduce (and vice versa). Trenberth notes that Top Of Atmosphere measurements of outgoing radiation (the major negative feedback he mentions) are “not yet long or reliable enough to bring to bear on this question”, which is probably why the 4th IPCC summary didn’t discuss them in any detail in the summary or the SPM, which are supposed to summarise the most reliable stuff.
Ocean expansion: I agree that aspects of Trenberth’s paper are not easy to understand. However, on page 22, Trenberth states that “0.9 W/m^2 integrated
globally is a sea level equivalent (SLE) of 107 mm from land ice melt or 1.3–2.7 mm from thermosteric ocean expansion”. So that 2.5 mm in table mm is in agreement both with the theoretical integration of 0.9 W/m^2 and with the sum of observations; hence there is no residual SLE rise in the last column of table 1. Given this, I stand by my interpretation that the total is well established but the individual components are not.
With reference to your argument that aerosols and clouds are responsible: on page 24 of his paper, Trenberth notes that there are no observed trends in aerosol or cloud levels and that cloud levels fluctuate randomly over 6 months or less. I think this makes the idea that both of them have been at the cooling end of their error bars since 2000 unlikely, though not impossible. It seems more reasonable to hypothesise that the extra energy is going somewhere we currently can’t measure at all (below 900 m), rather than that our measurements are systematically wrong. Trenberth addresses this argument on p. 25 “Or the warming is not really present? In this case, the blame would point to the atmosphere and cloud changes, and it should be confirmed by CERES and MODIS measurements. However, preliminary estimates for 2006 through 2008 suggest that net radiation heating increased, which if true exacerbates the imbalance identified here.” In other words, while there is uncertainty, the preliminary results point away from aerosols and clouds and towards an unknown heat sink, which Trenberth thinks is possibly deep ocean warming. Since the error bars for ocean heating are very wide, this seems like the likely place.
More generally, your anti-AGW arguments appear to have been reduced to arguing about whether you agree with Trenberth and the IPCC that aerosols measurements are uncertain, or whether you agree with Trenberth and the IPCC that deep ocean measurements are uncertain. Hypothetically, if the warming slowdown is caused by aerosols from China and India, this is likely to be only a short-term mask, first because both countries are coming under increasing pressure from their own populations to clean up their industrial emissions due to associated lung disease, smog, etc, and second because the aerosols emitted are going to land up on the icecaps as black carbon and accelerate the melt there.
James H #1356
Thanks for your reply. Have not time tonite to respond in detail, other than to ask your take on the Argo buoy story. The average depth of the oceans is about 3700m.
The Argo buoys were designed to go down to 2000m, but have apparent problems measuring accurately the temperature-pressure column below about 700m.
What is regarded as ‘deep ocean’ from the heat storage viewpoint?
Ken @ 1357;
There’s a good account of the Argo program and its measurement issues on the NASA Earth Observatory site here, which also includes how sea level, ice melt, etc is reconciled with TOA energy balance measurements from CERES.
A paper published since Trenberth’s (von Schuckmann 2009) has integrated the Argo data down to 2000 m and finds that the deeper ocean is indeed accumulating heat. See here for an account.
With regard to your last question, I don’t know enough about the ways in which heat is transmitted down through the ocean to comment.
JamesH #1358
I read the NASA Willis story a couple of times (unconvincing) and also searched the Argo sites for a global data analysis. Could not read the von Schuckman paper as you have to subscribe and buy it. Are there any other internet available global ocean datasets derived from Argo producing temperature and heat information?
Trenberth’s paper repeats a couple of discrepancies I found months ago (Other IPCC solar data used in the kdkd Karaoke). The number for Solar Irradiance is quoted as 0.12 W/sq.m in Table 4 (same as AR4 Fig 2.4).
The actual figure is between 0.3 and 0.5 W/sq.m kdkd used in the Karaoke. The ‘trick’ is that all the forcings in IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 are ‘relative to 1750AD’ when the AG forcings were zero. The Solar forcing was not zero in 1750 but a finite number.
In Fig 2 of Trenberth’s paper the incoming solar radiation is quoted as 341.3 W/sq.m which when multiplied by 4 equates to an average TSI of 1365.2 W/sq.m for the time period stated (March 2000 – May 2004). A typical figure quoted is 1366 W/sq.m.
In Fig 5 the TSI is quoted from the SORCE TIM data as 1361.5 W/sq.m for the similar period dropping to 1361 W/sq.m recently (2008 minimum of the 11 year cycle).
The difference in TSI of about -4.5 W/sq.m is unexplained. Divided by 4 to relate to incoming solar radiation, the difference would be about -1.1 W/sq.m which compares with the +0.9 W/sq.m heating imbalance.
Have I missed something here??
Argo data. Ever heard of Google?
The difference between Fig 2 and Fig 5 seems to be an instrument calibration thing on TIM, which only started in 2004. See here where the TIM team give their own version of the global energy balance, adjusted for their 1361 figure. I don’t think this is particularly unusual. Most instruments measure relative change more accurately than absolute level (which is why temperature change is quoted in terms of anomalies) because to have absolute level accurate, you have to have a previously existing accurate absolute measure to calibrate it to (in which case, why do you need a new instrument…) This can be dealt with by scaling or offsets.
As Trenberth is clearly dedicated to working out these sums (see eg his paper here) and how to calibrate all the measurements against each other, if my guessplanation fails to satisfy you could always write and ask him. I find most scientists are happy to answer polite questions from the general public. Here’s a hint: don’t use words like “travesty”, “fraud”, “billion dollar scam”, etc, if you want a reply.
JamesH #1360
‘Guessplantation’ – a new word for Macquarie James.
Seems appropriate for the ‘science’ of AGW. Thanks for your advice in approaching ‘scientists’. We engineers aren’t quite so precious and only require one ‘kowtow’ on approach and no walking backwards for more than 3 paces.
Dr Trenberth might be one of the unscathed heroes of Climategate. Telling the truth to his mates via emailed words such as ‘travesty’ has cracked the small cabal of IPCC lead authors wide open and let the educated public have a close look over their shoulders.
Had a look at the SORCE site and the TSI graphs;
Note the following quotation:
“Data Quality Description (updated 13 December 2005)
On-orbit instrument characterization is an on-going effort, as the TIM team regularly tracks instrument degradation and calibrates the instrument servo system on-orbit, periodically updating the data processing system with new calibration values. Only minor corrections are anticipated at this phase in the SORCE/TIM mission. To date the TIM is proving very stable with usage and solar exposure, and long-term relative uncertainties are estimated to be less than 0.014 W/m2/yr (10 ppm/yr). Present absolute accuracy is estimated to be 0.48 W/m^2 (350 ppm), largely determined by the agreement between all four TIM radiometers. There remains an unresolved 4.5 W/m^2 difference between the TIM and other space-borne radiometers, and this difference is being studied by the TSI and radiometry communities.” Endquote
The -4.5W/sq.m difference is still to be resolved it appears in 2009 – 4 years later.
Note that the 8 other satellite radiometers average out at a TSI of about 1366 W/sq.m for the last 10+ years before SORCE TIMS was deployed.
I noted this 4.5 W/sq.m difference many months ago in (I think) one of the Karaoke posts – but never saw the heat ‘rebalancing’ from the 2006 Sorce Team Meeting – 10 years of CCSM Research via the new graph modifying Trenberth’s numbers from 1997.
Very interesting rebalancing. The fine print is a bit hard to understand but this 2006 graph is presumably an average for the prior 10 years.
It varies much from the graph in Figure 2 of Trenberth’s August 2009 paper which quotes his 2000-2004 mean budget.
The SORCE graph balances about a TSI of 1361 W/sq.m, which divided by 4 gives an Incoming Solar Radiation of 340 W/sq.m. (-2 off the 342 of the original 1997 Trenberth number).
The Outgoing Reflected is (+4) on 107 W/sq.m = 111 W/sq.m and the Outgoing Longwave is (-3) on 235 W/sq.m = 232 W/sq.m by my take.
See: http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/images/instruments/tim/Kiehl_Trenberth_revised.gif
The balance is then 340 – 111 – 232 = -3 W/sq.m.
Have I got this wrong James??
KL #1361
See the TSI Satellite Data here:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/images/instruments/tim/tsi_database.jpg
Thanks for waiting so patiently, it looks like this cage match has been a long road to walk. Here is your climate change answer:
Yes, global climate fluctuates – sometimes to extremes. However, the key factor you pendants appear to be missing is that the fluctuation is between the world experiencing a land based climate pattern and an ocean based climate pattern. In the absence of life the climatic cycles are ocean based. This is where we start seeing the extreme weather patterns including temperature fluctuations, hurricanes, flooding, etc.
However vegetative life, and specifically trees, can influence climate. A tree, and some are better at it than others, is capable of creating its own micro climate. Cover enough of the world’s land masses with the micro climate altering organisms and all of a sudden we move to milder, land based climatic conditions again. It’s a grass roots thing, not a magic bullet. Clear fell the great forest lungs of the planet and we swing back the other way.
I did notice early on in this thread someone bringing up that fallacy about dinosaurs being wiped out by a meteor impact. Just so we are all clear that is an unsubstantiated theory floated in the first part of the 20th century and still no one has been able to find this mythical meteor crater yet.
A more reasonable and consistent answer is that for 300+ million years dinosaurs dominated life over the planet and they eventually were able to overrun the established global ecosystem by effectively denuding the world of vegetation. The ensuing reign of starvation and climatic fluctuations would not have had to last very long to ensure virtually almost all reptiles species became extinct. With the major consumer gone plants would have relatively quickly adapted and recovered.
Now that we’ve decimated the living cycles of the planet in 1/300th of the time the dinosaurs took we (either us or future generations) will need to start considering lifestyle changes that seek to address the imbalance. Regardless, I’m sure coming generations will be able to hold our current efforts up as a great example of self interested mediocrity on a grand scale.
KL #1361,#1362
Prescient numbers 1361, 1362 James?? Do you have a response to these posts??
For those who are interested the SORCE Energy Balance Diagram and Description can be viewed here:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/instruments/tim/tim_science.htm
Sophie that means you too!!
JamesH —Hellooooo??? are you out there James? Holidaying, working too hard or hiding??
Please get back to us JamesH – need some answers to Post#1361 – prophetic number that eh …James – 1361.
BoxingCandle #1363
I remember watching a documentary a couple of months ago about viruses and the history of them (for the life of me I cant find what its called). One thing they did was to extract blood from preserved mosquitoes from the time of the dinosaurs and then test to see what was preserved in the blood.
They found many diseases and viruses in each blood sample (sleeping sickness is the only one I can remember). This lead the commentator to conclude that the dinosaurs were struggling to cope with the vast variety if illnesses they were carrying.
With any change to the climate because of a meteor or volcano exploding or AGW, whatever event occurred pushed the dinosaurs over the edge and into the museums of today.
Boxing Candle #1363
There is truth in what you say BoxingCandle. Suggest you have as look at Freeman Dyson’s website on the matter.
You have just come in at a very interesting point in the Cage Fight.
Obviously in holiday times, opponents JamesH and kdkd have probably taken a break; but JamesH has broken contact at a critical point.
It seems that JamesH and I are at the pointy end of a difference of -4.5W/sq.m in incoming TSI which resolves to about -1.1W/sq.m of solar radiation applied to the surface area, when lead IPCC author and guru Dr Kevin Trenberth’s latest paper on the whole basis of global warming hinges on a heat up imbalance of +0.9W/sq.m applied to the surface of the Earth.
JamesH has gone quiet on the matter.
Seems like a pretty important point to me.
Ken #1357 and others.
I see james has identified you as a timewaster blowhard. I see you never bothered to respond to his points from #1356, prefering to go the ignore them and pretend they’ve gone away methodology which you prefer with hard questions, and things that challenge your view as indefensible.
Your house of cards, which you’ve build on a nasty fault line is gone. Time to give up.
Your and Tamas’ comments in crikey the other day were laughable. Tamas clearly has no grasp of statistics (failing to understand the meaning of the number zero and its implications in regression coefficients), and your delusions are very funny. Good to see the readership is so bored of you you’re just ignored now.
Right, back into the bush for me …
Naah kdkd – If JamesH is reading this he is madly searching for an explanation for the discrepancy identified in #1361.
Kdkd #1369
I have no grasp of stats? Care to explain why your ‘zero’ warming trend has lasted since at least 1995? Why has there been no warming for 15 years buddy?
Steven Evans #1367
There is no doubt that a rock hitting Earth (doesn’t not even have to hit if its big enough) could wipe out a raft of species. The kinetic energy released is huge. The dust cloud would produce a massive nuclear winter.
I would fear it a lot more than AGW.
Of course biological killers can do in a species more selectively. What about the hitherto unknown communicable facial tumour cancer afflicting the Tasmanian devil? It has wiped out a large proportion of the population because the little buggers don’t know to stop biting each other. Without human intervention the whole population would disappear. Seems like natural selection of a resistant type rebuilding the population is not working with an infectious cancer.
Hey kdkd
Have a look at this energy balance which was quoted by JamesH, and see what you get?
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/instruments/tim/tim_science.htm
I get -3 W/sq.m which means that the Earth is cooling on average for the 10 years up to 2006 (publication date), at roughly 3 times the rate that Dr Trenberth says it is warming.
Also have a look at today’s Australian : “United Nations’ blunder on glaciers exposed”.
The IPCC in its 2007 AR4 Report seems to be putting 90% probabilities (very likely) on non-peer reviewed obscure Indian scientist conjecture reported in the New Scientist in 1999.
Farcical – and this is science??
Have been trying to decipher the sea level story around the Australian Coast – will report soon.
Actually, I have just been busy.
I agree that the TIM energy flow diagram looks rather odd as it appears to show more energy flowing out than in – which contradicts pretty much all the other evidence we have (including the temperature record, it would be a recipe for plunging temps, not a slower rate of increase which is what the last decade shows). Given that the TIM measurements differ from other measurements by a factor (4.5 W/m^2) larger than the amount of flow out that they show, I think there must be an instrument calibration error, as proved to be the case with the spurious ocean cooling Argo showed.
Re Himalayan glaciers: Yep, the IPCC screwed up. A climate scientist spotted this and contacted them and they issued a prompt public retraction. That is science. When I see some “sceptics” retract their mistakes, I’ll take them as seriously as I take the IPCC.
JamesH #1374
Happy to admit my errors if you will point them out James.
Is it not curious that Dr Trenberth is quoting the SORCE data in his paper of AUG09, when the ‘calibration error must’ to which you refer has existed since the start of the SORCE TIMS deployment in 2004?
The note on the SORCE website about the 4.5W/sq.m discrepancy is dated 13DEC05.
So for 4 years this unexplained difference exists and Dr Trenberth uses it alongside his own 2000-2004 energy balance data which implies a TSI of 1365.2W/sq.m.
Then the TIMS people produce their own version of Trenberth’s famous graph with a
-3W/sq.m cooling balance for the 10 years prior to 2006!
And all of this is too small to directly measure against a background of 340 W/sq.m incoming and about 240 passing through the atmosphere.
Great claims require great evidence.
A huge claim is being made by the IPCC and ‘climate science’ for the immediate and massive reduction in CO2 emissions to save us from catastrophic climate change.
Am I alone in suggesting that amateurs such as me with an HP calculator and internet connection should not be able to find such inexplicable discrepancies in ‘settled science’??
Tamas #1371
Your comments were meaningless. The statistics you did had no valididty. You clearly have no understanding of why this is the case. The end.
kdkd #1376
Not answering for JamesH any more kdkd?? Have a look at his Post #1374. Looks like am not a dunce after all.
Ken @ 1375: To be honest I would be looking for a few retractions of their more obvious mistakes from high profile “skeptics” like Plimer, Singer, or Watts. No offence.
Trenberth was using the TIM data to indicate that there has been no significant fluctuations in solar irradiance: he is using it as a relative rather than an absolute measure. As I mentioned a few posts ago, most instruments are more accurate relatively than absolutely.
The fact that there is an obvious discrepancy between different measurements is why Trenberth wrote the article in the first place, to call attention to this, and why he used words like “travesty” in his rather excitable private correspondence.
On “settled” science: You are misunderstanding the sense in which this is true. To some extent, no aspect of scientific knowledge is ever “settled”; if it was, it would be a dead area with no research. For example, the two most accurate (in the sense of mathematically accurate predictions) theories science has ever produced are Einstein’s relativity and Quantum mechanics. If you’ve ever used a CD or DVD, or a GPS system, you are relying on both these theories being accurate. And yet in some ways they are inconsistent with each other. Research continues e.g. at the Large Hadron Collider. The eventual clarification might conceivably change a lot of the grand structure of what we think we know about the universe, especially its origins; yet in terms of quantitative predictions which affect things at a human scale (e.g. a GPS unit) it might change the twentieth decimal place. Systems which rely upon the consequences of relativity and QM as we now understand them are not going to stop working when our understanding changes.
Currently, there is a discrepancy between the TIM measurements of TOA radiation and some other measurements. This will eventually be resolved. Because the hypothesis that the earth is warming and that increased greenhouse gasses are the culprit is supported by multiple, convergent, independent lines of evidence, this resolution, whatever it is, is unlikely to have any significant effect on the broader system of knowledge. In John Mashey’s terms, it is a brick on top of the wall that is currently not well mortared, not a fundamental foundation stone that has exploded. See his really excellent essay on “How to learn about science”.
JamesH #1378
Quite a plausible explanation James, although I doubt if your professed interpretation of the mind of Dr Trenberth is believable.
It seems to me that absolute numbers regarding the Earths energy flux balance were important enough for the SORCE people (to whom you referred me) to do their own balance around the TSI of 1361 W/sq.m (340 incoming solar radiation). Why would you bother do that if your belief was that the real figure was 1365-1366 W/sq.m?
Have you considered the possibility that the 1361 number is right (remember there are 4 TIMS instruments of the latest design), and all the other older radiometers were wrong?
It also seems to me that after 4 years a whole radiometry community should have come up with an update from the post on the SORCE website dated 13DEC05 which is still current.
And further, why would you end up publishing a figure of -3W/sq.m; totally at variance with the +0.9W/sq.m from the IPCC lead author and guru – Dr Trenberth.
You say: “Because the hypothesis that the earth is warming and that increased greenhouse gasses are the culprit is supported by multiple, convergent, independent lines of evidence, this resolution, whatever it is, is unlikely to have any significant effect on the broader system of knowledge”
Surely Dr Trenberth has examined the ” multiple, convergent, independent lines of evidence’ in his AUG09 paper. He has looked at reconciling the energy flux equivalents of sea ice melt, land ice melt, solar reduction, land temperature, sea levels etc and not closed the balance – not even close.
His starting point is that there is an imbalance of +0.9W/sq.m (2000-2004 average)applied to the whole Earth surface which equals 145 E20 Joules/year.
The SORCE people come up with an average of -3W/sq.m (10 year period up to 2006), which is wildy at variance with the warming hypothesis – in fact 3 times the rate of cooling that Trenberth claims it is warming.
This would imply a warming of 145 E20 Joules/year could be in fact a cooling of -450 E20 Joules per year.
This is not just a minor scientific debate. Massive resources are devoted to ‘climate change’ by governments around the world, based on IPCC reports which assume warming imbalances.
Having read many papers and references from IPCC 2007 in particular, Dr Trenberth is a lead author and central figure in this science area.
If Trenberth, Hansen, Mann, Briffa and Jones were expunged from the climate change scientific literature – the core of the hypothesis of alarmist AGW would be hollow indeed. IPCC Reports would be denuded of references.
Your thoughtful lecture on the scientific process James, is quite bizarre set aginst the enormity of the difference between the Trenberth and SORCE energy flux balances.
Even Trenberth in private regards the imbalances within his +0.9 W/sq.m warming as a ‘travesty’ of imprecise measurement – so then what are we to make of a -3W/sq.m cooling imbalance?
The short answer is that the science is far more uncertain and measurement far cruder than the IPCC climate science community is portraying to the public and that alone is could be classed as a fraud by the self-interested.
Dr Trenberth has been honest in private communication – shall we await developments?
Ken @ 1379: Trenberth’s measurements are different measurements of one variable, energy flux – so I wouldn’t call them a whole set of multiple, independent, convergent, etc. (Trenberthl, being a stickler, also restricts their accuracy to 1 standard deviation, whereas the usual usage is 2, within which all the sums balance easily). I was referring more to such lines as temperature measurements, atmospheric gas content measurements, species shifts, sea level rise, ice melt, paleoclimate reconstruction, etcetera, all of which tell us that the planet is warming and that human-caused release of greenhouse gases is the culprit. We knew this long before we started getting TOA radiation measurements.
I refuse to read any significance into a public webpage not being updated. If the SORCE number is accurate, then the change has pretty clearly not been propogated through the other measurements (including those in that diagram, which is why their adjustment is in red), hence the spurious -3 w/m2. Most of the others would, I believe, have been measuring relative change: e.g. “clouds reflect 30% of incident radiation” not absolute (for reasons mentioned earlier). If the SORCE figures turn out to be more accurate, it does not mean there has been a sudden change in nature from 1365 w/m2 to 1361 w/m2; it means that we were always getting 1361 w/m2 and all other measurements would have to be recalibrated to this baseline. SORCE pretty clearly don’t know why their measurements differ from all the others, so it’s premature to speculate.
“If Trenberth, Hansen, Mann, Briffa and Jones were expunged from the climate change scientific literature – the core of the hypothesis of alarmist AGW would be hollow indeed.” And if my aunt were a man she’d be my uncle. Also, if the laws of physics were different, pigs would fly. I don’t see why we would “expunge” any of these people when even The Australian concedes that they did nothing wrong.
You seem to miss that the high-profile scientists you mention are the heads of research teams and the people who summarise many many other research findings for policy use, not the only scientists doing climate research. If they weren’t there, some other climate scientist would do their jobs, and that someone else would make the same findings, because that’s what is actually happening.
James,
I think Ken is not claiming that your aunt is a man, but that you were actually adopted from !Kung tribesmen at birth, despite the colour of your skin, and the signed affidavits from your father and obstetrician, and a certified DNA test, if you’ll allow me to stretch the analogy further.
JamesH #1379
I am not arguing that there has been no warming – nor that increased CO2 plays a role. I have argued that the ‘lack of warming’ of recent times is contra to the relentless warming imbalance which CO2 theory predicts.
After Climategate, I also ‘believe’ that all the evidence of ‘thousands’ of scientists has to be rigorously reviewed.
The five I mentioned (and their assistants) are central to the whole IPCC edifice. They might all be perfectly honest and upright and proven right – we shall see.
Your SORCE explanation (about the red numbers) is incoherent. They have marked up Trenberth’s 1997 balance graph with their own adjustments and come up with
-3W/sq.m. There must be some explanation for their adjustments. They have just not subtracted 4.5 W/sq.m divided by 4 ie. 1.1W/sq.m from both the incoming and outgoing and left a positive balance which is consistent with Trenberth’s 2009 paper.
They have adjusted all the numbers for the various terms which must have come from some measurement.
You have not justified your dismissal of the SORCE balance as ‘spurious’.
“the ‘lack of warming’ of recent times is contra to the relentless warming imbalance which CO2 theory predicts”
What “lack of warming”? The most that can be claimed is a slower rate of warming. “recent times” – please quantify.
No-one has ever said that warming would be “relentless”, i.e. that every single year would be hotter than the previous year, ad infinitum. Current temperature trends, however defined, are still well within the range of predictions from the IPCC’s modelling – temperatures would have to be flat or declining for 15-20 years before the models would be clearly out of whack.
Broadly speaking, the warming trend is often masked by random fluctuations and cycles such as El Nino. Pinning these down more precisely than “random fluctuations” is very hard, because it involves a) reasoning backwards from the hurricane to the particular Amazon butterfly responsible b) catching the butterfly and c) measuring its wing-flutterings, and there are a lot of butterflies out there. Hence Trenberth’s frustrations.
The text below the SORCE diagram in question says “Quantities in parenthesis indicate changes in global heat flows in 10 years of Community Climate System Model (CCSM) research. The -2 associated with incoming solar radiation is based on SORCE TIM results of 1361 Wm-2. This figure is adapted from a presentation by Bill Collins, NCAR, given at the 2006 SORCE Science Team Meeting.” In other words, the other parenthesised figures have a different source, the simulation GCM from the CCSM group, not the SORCE TIM group at all. Their computer modelling (not measurement) indicates that Trenberth’s original graphic should be modified according to the figures in blue parentheses. On top of this SORCE TIM researchers have slapped their -2. The CCSM people had pretty clearly not (at the time the diagram was prepared) recalculated their model to take into account the lower level of incident radiation which SORCE TIM suggests. Hence the discrepancy is spurious (that is, apparent but not real) because it arises from treating the CCSM figures as independent of the SORCE TIM figures, whereas for a proper comparison you would need to recalculate the CCSM figures based upon the new number for incident radiation (and check them against the physical measurements since 1997 to make sure that they were matching reality).
kdkd @ 1381: You mean Ken thinks I’m President Obama? I’m flattered!
James H #1383, #1384
I should advise you that playing games of infantile ridicule with kdkd can be fun but has a downside. kdkd’s silliness has clearly overtaken his ability to play with you and I and he has vacated the field. Still trying to understand the first law of thermodynamics and sort a Watt from a Joule I expect.
You are trying to draw some conclusion from the SORCE graphic and caption which presupposes a close knowledge of the CCSM and SORCE methods of work.
Are you connected to them in some way James?
If one looks closely at your densely argued points – the discrepancy reduces; not disappears.
You say that the (-2) W/sq.m shown in red on the graph was slapped on by the TIMS people, and the CCSM balance was based on the original 342 incoming and the adjustments in blue are the real modelled adjustments to the original 1997 Trenberth figures to bring us up to 2006.
If we ignore the SORCE (-2) adjustment all together; then the CCSM adjustment to the reflected and outgoing longwave (blue numbers) becomes:
342 (Incoming) – 232 (outgoing longwave) – 111 (reflected) = -1 W/sq.m balance.
You still have a -1W/sq.m cooling which wipes out Dr Trenberth’s +0.9W/sq.m of AUG09 warming.
And as for ‘lack of warming’ at the moment (and for the last 10-12 years) – check out Dr Trenbrth’s emails and his AUG09 paper. I do not have it in front of me (will check tonight) but I seem to recall a ‘lack of warming’ mentioned in the preamble of that paper.
And probably more significantly, note the +4W/sq.m increase in the reflected term, which is consistent with the increased “low LOSU” cloud albedo which I proposed in several prior posts was a reason for ‘lack of warming’ and possibly cooling since 1998.
Ken,
Au contraire, I’ve been doing much more interesting stuff in the bush for a month (freezing my arse off next to the Great Southern Ocean much of the time).
Distance of course begets clarity. And it’s clear that your repeated failure to answer a range of questions and your perseveration on one or two very small parts of a very large big picture (and refusing to relate theory to observation to boot) clearly shows your ability to critically evaluate the evidence is fatally impaired.
This is caused by your deluded ideological conviction that the whole thing is some monstrous communist cabal lead by evil funding driven climate scientists, and their lesbian comrades. So like Tamas, there’s no point in rational discussion with you because the basis of your position is not rational.
The clarity I have gained about Tamas’ views is essentially we can take any random assertion he makes, and be extremely confident that it is close to the polar opposite of the truth.
In cage match terms, your bloodied stumps have become gangrenous and you will now need a complete corpsectomy to survive. Well done at all the self inflicted damage guys!
kdkd #1386
Looks like JamesH (a very polite chap) is finding the discussion rational enough. He has been working hard to explain the discrepancies I have identified.
By the way did you check out the temperatures and sea levels while you were away – any sign of small Danish children being washed out of trees??
One more boo boo by the Maharishi who runs the IPCC and the whole show will be terminally discredited.
Even the Economist this week is feeling dudded having faithfully repeated the ‘melted Himalayan glacier by 2035 fantasy’ in prior articles.
Stay tuned for more revelations.
JamesH just hasn’t had his patience tried beyond the limit yet. It also looks to me that the work he’s examining is much closer to where he actually works than the material I was looking at (or more likely he’s smarter than me). This has the result that shooting youse gangrenous fish in a waterless barrel is even easier as he doesn’t have to think about how to load the gun.
You have repeatedly failed to state your failure criteria – not even tried. This is very strong evidence that your starting position is not rational. You’ve repeatedly failed to relate your premises to the bigger picture – strike two. And the lesbian scientist conspiracy stuck in your head just puts the ridiculous cherry on top of your ludicrous pie.
Climate-gate, Glacier-gate, Amazon-gate… the IPCC’s credibility is dropping faster than temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere right now.
Even the BBC are on to it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/01/the_dam_is_cracking.html
And, good grief, even The Age: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/be-alert-but-wary-on-climate-claims-20100126-mw7z.html
The greatest scientific scandal in history has started to unravel – proving that Ken and I were right all along.
Climate-gate, Glacier-gate, Amazon-gate… the IPCC’s credibility is dropping faster than temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere right now.
Even the BBC are on to it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/01/the_dam_is_cracking.html
Good grief – even the Age ran a sceptical piece today.
The greatest scientific scandal in history has started to unravel – proving that Ken and I were right all along.
KL #1385
Following from the paragraph:
“And as for ‘lack of warming’ at the moment (and for the last 10-12 years) – check out Dr Trenbrth’s emails and his AUG09 paper. I do not have it in front of me (will check tonight) but I seem to recall a ‘lack of warming’ mentioned in the preamble of that paper.”
Suggest you check the first two sentences in the “Introduction” to Dr Trenberth’s AUG09 paper which finishes with the question: “why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
Would this suggest a ‘lack of warming’ ie – when the temperasture does not continue to go up??
Tamas #1389
Spot on Tamas.
Here is The Economist take on Glaciergate. They are not too happy about looking like dills repeating “2035 meltdown claims” headed by the IPCC Yogi Pachauri who called the sceptics ‘purveyors of voodoo science’.
What was it Winston said about; “Fakirs – of a type well known in the East”….
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15328534&source=most_commented
Excerpts:
“That a review process which included 40,000 comments did not catch the error proves that size is not everything—especially since the error was quite catchable. Dr Kaser read the chapter after it was reviewed but before it was published. As a glaciologist—he was an author of the relevant chapter in the WG-I report, a much more thorough take on the subject which makes no grandiose claims about the Himalaya—he found the passage absurd, and alerted the IPCC.” and
“The other question is why, when alerted by Dr Kaser, the IPCC did nothing. When open criticism began last year, it was airily dismissed by Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the IPCC and runs an institute in India where Dr Hasnain now works on glaciology. If he had not heard the claims were wrong by that stage, he should have done. This mixture of sloppiness, lack of communication and high-handedness gives the IPCC’s critics a lot to work with.”
Ken and Tamas # Yawn
See, small picture thinking for small minds. More of the same crap from you guys [1], nothing to see, move along.
[1] Rule 1 is avoid scientific commentary, sticking to the Economist or superannuated newspaper editors wherever possible, ensuring that you look as foolish as possible in the process.
Just to clarify here with the skeptics peeing themselves over a mistake in a 948 page document; do you apply the same standards of accuracy to all the sources you read? So, if I find 1 mistake per 900 pages in skeptical documents, you will disregard them for ever? Further, does it add more credence to the claim if it is also reported in lots of newspapers?
Ken’s drivel #1390
Of the many questions you and your partner in moronic kneejerk paranoia Tamas, one important one is to explain the difference between the pattern of global temperatures over the past decade or so, and all the similar patterns in the record across the preceeding century.
I’d wager the reason you haven’t done this is because you can’t without inadvertently discrediting your own argument.
Must be nice in such a small mind, not much to worry about.
Correction: Of the many questions you and your partner in moronic kneejerk paranoia Tamas haven’t answered is …
kdkd #1395
I note that you are not engaging on the science kdkd. Your silence on the Trenberth papers and SORCE data is deafening.
There is a distinct feeling that a ‘tipping point’ has been reached; see today’s ‘Australian’ headline regarding exaggeration of the AGW story.
‘Crying wolf’ it used to be called. I have the strong impression that the AGW industry has attracted a lot of second rate scientists with green agendas, and their doomsday predictions are now unravelling.
The hard pressed public ear is deafening to these ‘scientists’.
It is all coming to pass kdkd; my constant theme has been that the AGW story was wilfully exaggerated and Copenhagen showed that the Chinese in particular were not impressed by the ratbaggery of the western green agenda.
I would expect that the Chinese have their own scientists telling them the truth as they read the same science papers and IPCC confections as we do and having no desire for catastrophe – formed their own conclusion that the West was scamming them with dodgy science.
They said NO, NO, NO in a language which even Rudd and Wong could understand.
Ken,
The only tipping point is in your (and tamas and the rest of the delusionals minds). How about trying to answer any of the questions that have been posed to you. You won’t because either you can’t or you know the answer would cause you to discredit your own position.
As I said, there’s no point in trying to engage with you on the science, because your position is not rational, it’s based on some communist-scientist-lesbian conspiracy fantasy.
kdkd #1398
It appears that AGW exaggeration is a malady which can afflict straights, gays, and unnaturals of all flavours.
It seems that our Chinese friends were unimpressed by Ms Wong, her girlfriend and the Mandarin Candidate in Copenhagen.
They and the African delegates were probably more interested in the eastern european girls who did a roaring trade with their charms.
I spot at least one mistake per paragraph in that Age article by John Carroll, quite apart from the fact that he is not qualified in any related field. I think that the IPCC looks pretty good by that standard.
Ken @ 1385: In a diagram with no decimal places a discrepancy of 1 can’t be called significant, since it could be rounding error.
increase in reflection: I think you are misunderstanding the adjustment. My interpretation is that the CCSM simulation is not talking about changes in the last 10 years, but recalibration of the measurements; if (they are correct that) the longwave reflection is 4 w/m2 greater, then it has always been 4 w/m2 greater than we thought it was.
Ken #1399
On the other hand, Climate change delusion is an exclusive maliaise of the right wing lunatic fringe such as yourself, Tamas, Monkton and Watts.
Won’t be taking you seriously or engaging you on science until you deal with your backlog of questions. As we’ve established that answering them will cause self-immolation of your own argument, I’m not holding my breath.
Oh, come on Evan Beaver (#1394).
It is surely the AGW camp that is “peeing” itself at the moment with all these revelations about the IPCC.
There have been at least 15 such errors found in the fourth report now. Not good for the “gold standard” of climate science.
And by the way, it is the global warming theory that needs to be bullet proof. Science is about asking questions and the attempt to falsify a theory. If that theory is shown to have holes then it should be discarded. What level of falsification do you require? Whatever the level, the IPCC is doing its darnedest to meet it right now.
JamesH #1400 – care to point out all those errors you spotted in that Caroll article in The Age? And I love how any sceptics have to present “climate science credentials”, yet this standard is not applied to the alarmists. For example, see Clive Hamilton’s narky rant in Crikey today. He pings Monckton for not being a climate scientist, but then nor is Clive…?
kdkd – ahh… I’m having trouble following your argument mate. Can you confirm that there actually is one?
Ken #1397: “I have the strong impression that the AGW industry has attracted a lot of second rate scientists with green agendas”. A very pithy comment. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way before but I suspect you have nailed it there.
Tamas,
The only thing we’re peeing ourselves at is your misinformed ignorance and ideologicaly driven delusions.
Think about it this way. Your and Ken’s positions are as extreme as the most extreme “alarmist” only at the oposite end. Logically both positions are as bad as each other. However your posiiton provides no insurance policy if you’re wrong.
So Tamas , laugh and the world laughs at you
actually, The opinion polls show that the world is laughing at the IPCC and the global warming hysterics like you kdkd.
and how are Ken and I “extreme”? We are just saying that the global warming hypothesis is wrong because of the lack of evidence. What’s extreme about that?
I seriously can’t believe you continue with this.
Tamas,
If the only sources you read are your delusional fool comrades, of course you will have distorted views about the whole field.
I am glad I wore my corset this evening for I fear if I had not done so your foolish prating would have caused me to split my sides with laughter.
C’mon Evan – it’s fun. What’s to disbelieve?
JamesH #1400
James said:
“Ken @ 1385: In a diagram with no decimal places a discrepancy of 1 can’t be called significant, since it could be rounding error.
increase in reflection: I think you are misunderstanding the adjustment. My interpretation is that the CCSM simulation is not talking about changes in the last 10 years, but recalibration of the measurements; if (they are correct that) the longwave reflection is 4 w/m2 greater, then it has always been 4 w/m2 greater than we thought it was.”
Sorry James, -1W/sq.m in a warming world which hangs on Dr Trenberth’s +0.9W/sq.m cannot be dismissed as a ’rounding error’.
Sorry James, the caption under the SORCE schematic says; “Quantities in parenthesis indicate changes in global heat flows in 10 years of CCSM research”. Note “CHANGES IN GLOBAL HEAT FLOWS” is the key phrase. Exactly the opposite of what you claim.
As you no doubt know, energy flux is a power unit, and the base figures (in black) are Dr Trenberth’s 1997 numbers, with the new figures (parenthesis) presented in 2006.
I would expect that the values in parenthesis are global annual average for the 10 year period 1997 – 2006. Heat energy flux is a unit of power (W/sq.m) and the total energy transferred (Joules) is calculated by integrating the heat energy flux WRT time and surface area of the Earth.
You can reproduce Dr Trenberth’s (AUG09 paper) 145 E20 Joules/year of heat energy imbalance based on the supposed +0.9W/sq.m heating energy flux by the simple multiplication:
+0.9 W/sq.m x 5.12E14 (surface area of Earth in sq.m) x 365 days x 24 hours x 3600 seconds/hour = 1.453 E22 Joules/year = 145 E20 Joules/year.
Remember Dr Trenberth could only account for 45-115 E20 Joules/year of his 145 E20 imbalance based on the +0.9W/sq.m.
So every 1W/sq.m is very important to the argument – even 0.3W/sq.m is significant when it equates to about 45 E20 Joules/year. All the ice (arctic, sheet and glacier) supposedly melted in one year can only account for about 5 E20 Joules/year by comparison.
Over to you James…
Ken
Please explain how your perseveration on the heat balance relates to the observed temperature anomaly. Oh you won’t because you know you’d destroy your own case with the answer.
Dunces cap for you. You may continue sitting in the corner painting the walls with your own faeces while simultaneously snacking on Tamas’ tasty nuggets.
kdkd #1409
You seem obsessed with excrement at the moment kdkd. Still a problem with potty training??
Suggest you check the first two sentences in the “Introduction” to Dr Trenberth’s AUG09 paper which finishes with the question: “why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
Would this suggest a ‘lack of warming’; ie – when the temperature does not continue to go up??
And Tamas is right as usual.
It is not for the sceptics to propose comprehensive climate theories which require massive Government action. The role of scepticism is to find errors and holes in existing theory which will lead us all closer to the truth.
The IPCC and its ‘thousands of scientists’ has always been suspect in its treatment of dissenting views. The Climategate emails have shown what the central players were up to – and how influential a small cabal were in the ‘daisy chain’ review process.
Gross errors like the Glaciergate scandal were not picked up due to ‘human failure in applying the process’ according to the ‘voodoo science’ head.
“Thousands of scientists” must have read the final draft of the AR4 report – and it still was published with this nonsense.
Okay, I’ll try here then too.
Tamas and Ken; do you have an alternate theory that better describes the observations of temperature variation in the last 100 years? What data would disprove this theory?
While you claim that your job is to poke holes in theories, there is a set of observations that still need explaining. What is your explanation?
Evan #1411
Have a read of Dr Trenberth’s original AUG09 paper and give us you take on it Evan.
Here:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
Tamas @ 1402,
Please point out to me where I have ever quoted Clive Hamilton as a source on climate science.
In general I do think that denialists commentators should be required to demonstrate relevant credentials vis-a-vis “alarmists”. This is because “alarmists” are simply urging us to defer to the judgement of recognised experts on a complex matter, whereas denialists are putting forward their own individual arguments. In medical terms, the “alarmist” is the one saying “take your sick kid to the doctor, they’re the health expert” and the denialist is the one saying “no, my amazing new homeopathic remedy that the medical profession rejects is the one you should use”. we’ve seen how well that works.
Errors in John Carroll’s article:
‘Club of Rome predictions proved wrong within a decade’: the Club of Rome presented a variety of scenarios based upon different levels of agricultural productivity, population growth, etc. Thanks to the green revolution, the worst of these scenarios did not occur. Saying that this proves them wrong is like saying that the Montreal Protocol proves that the Ozone hole is not a problem.
“I must confess to being wary of causes that attract pseudo-religious enthusiasm and intellectual fanaticism” – name any political issue, at all, ever, that doesn’t. The most fanatical comments I have come across on AGW are all from Lord “One communist world government” Monckton.
“Current predictions of global warming and its long-term effects depend on computer-generated mathematical models.” Predictions of global warming depend on basic physics. Plass was able to calculate a 3 degree sensitivity to CO2 doubling in 1956 – the computing technology he had available to help him is thoroughly exceeded by any professional pocket calculator these days.
“their relationship to reality is compromised by the simplifying assumptions they have to make in order to reduce the number of variables they can take into account to a workable number.” – this is only true if the variables reduced or excluded actually had a significant impact on the result. Otherwise, this is a vacuous complaint that could be applied to any calculation in any of the sciences or any branch of engineering – they all make simplifying assumptions that reduce or exclude variables, and yet our bridges do not fall down.
“In economics this means they are next to useless for long-term prophecy”: This is not because economics uses maths or computers, but because a) it deals with human beings and human constructs which do not have any basis beyond mutable human preferences and b) economics has until recently been deliberately divorced from testing its assumptions against reality. We now have a tiny sub-branch called “experimental economics”. How far would any other science have gotten if they had only gotten around to “experimental science” in the late 20th century?
“The second problem with mathematical models is that they assume current factors will continue as they are-major ones will stay major, minor ones minor, and no significant new ones will emerge.” – This must be why the IPCC includes a large range of predictions based upon various major changes in levels of emissions, hypothetical volcanoes, and many other potential factors. This is an example of complete ignorance of how mathematical modelling works.
“However, when it comes to linking emissions to rising world temperatures, the models become fanciful.” How does he know? So far, despite cries of “cooling since 1998!”, world temperatures have followed the IPCC’s predictions.
“The New York times published an article”. A newspaper published an article expressing a point of view. I’m shocked. Shocked! The reality is that current trends are completely within the envelope of IPCC predictions.
“The claims made about the science have been rash, asserting dogmatic certainty about human-induced warming when the reality is that the overall picture is quite unclear.” Actually, the overall picture is very clear. Where it gets unclear is assessing precise regional and local effects. ‘Dogma’ is assertion of truth without evidence. The fact that, as Oreskes work showed, articles disputing global warming in the peer reviewed press are rarer than hen’s teeth is not ‘dogma’. By Caroll’s standard, an assertion that the sun will rise tomorrow is “dogma”, because I can’t tell if it will be cloudy or not.
Slanders on the CRU: Whatever you may think CRU handled McIntyre’s campaign of organised harassment via FOI requests, it casts no doubt on their findings.
Carroll then goes on about how complex agriculture is, (which is why it isn’t in the ETS, he omits to note), and suggests that we should target only major polluters (inexplicably failing to note that this is what the ETS does).
Just to clarify: I’m no big fan of the ETS, but Carroll can’t even get his criticisms right.
Ken, I have absolutely no opinion on it because I’m an engineer.
Try answer my question when you have the time.
Okay, after initially dismissing it out of hand, there is something in there. Energy balance makes a great deal of sense to me. But, it’s not really a scientific paper looking to change any current opinions on AGW; just advocating a change in predictive methodology. Seems reasonable, but at first glance I would imagine the closed-system energy calcs for the whole planet would be difficult to tie down with any useful certainty.
Evan is absolutely correct, although of academic interest, the energy balance model has very little to say about the gross features of the observed temperature anomalies over the past century, or even over the past decade, and the current revisions of this model do not place the big picture under any doubt whatsoever.
Good luck getting the two idiots to fess up to this though, it’s agains their interests which are exclusively about pretending that their own facile, delusional points of view are somehow correct or even relevant.
1408: Au contraire Ken I think rounding errors are meaningful in this context of arguing over a simplified picture on the innernetz
Eg take a look at Trenberth’s Energy Diagnostics paper figure 2, which gives both 3 and 4 significant place measures of incident, reflected and radiated radiation.
Add up all the 3 sig place measurements: 0 w/m2 imbalance, ie none at all.
Then add up all the 4 sig place measurements: 0.9 w/m2 imbalance.
Since the picture on the SORCE page uses only 3 significant figures, they don’t include the 0.9 w/m2 imbalance at all; and their reported imbalance of -1, within that rounding error, might just as easily be, say, -0.7, which when added to the missing 0.9 gives +0.2: still warming, but slowed a bit.
I don’t think there is really anywhere further to go with this for either of us without more information.
JamesH #1048
Well done at having the patience to deal with the moronocrats. Next up watch Ken ignore your comment and/or change the subject while simultaneously refusing to answer Evan’s question #1411
To date Tamas has done as I predicted, and essentially everything he says on scientific matters is basically the opposite to reality.
JamesH #1417
Such rationalization as assuming no decimal places are available for the SORCE graphic is a big leap James. I would think that the CCSM people would have numbers to 1 decimal place and have omitted them for graphic clarity. We can try asking them though.
With such reasoning as you have demonstrated it is possible to wipe out energy flux imbalances and hey presto….no global warming.
What you have shown I think is the level of error in the scale of the numbers and the imprecision of measurement – which is the uncertainty of the AGW case – not exactly settled science is it?
By the way if you reduce the imbalance from +0.9 to +0.2 then you have reduced the heating imbalance from 145 E20 Joules to 32 E20 Joules, which would reduce the temperature rise of the Earth system (assuming rough linearity of response) from a scary 2 degC to a balmy 0.44 degC by 2100.
Mate you have just given us plenty of time to get the ‘carbon cops’ into everyone’s home and business and rip out huge energy savings.
Oh, by the way, if you assume Australia is 1.5% of global GHG emissions – you can shut it down completely – nil…zero…nothing burnt at all and 21 million persons starving and freezing in the dark……and it will reduce projected 2-3 degC rise from doubling of GHG (by say 2100) by the grand amount of 0.02 degC.
Two one-hundredths of one degree celcius.
Will share the calc if you like.
Evan Beaver # 1411.
Yes - I have a much better explanation: Natural variability.
Why do you assume that the Earth should stay at a perfectly constant temperature and any variation must be man-made? The earth has been far warmer and far cooler in the past. The medieval warm period and Roman warm period were both warmer than today. What drove that warming? Why did the earth cool after those periods?
Who knows? The Sun, most probably. But the simple fact is that we do not fully understand the climate system so to claim that all recent warming is man-made is patently ridiculous. If we don’t know all the natural factors (that are orders of magnitude larger than human factors) then how do we know that they are in perfect equilibrium at the moment and the 0.7C of warming over the past 140 years is man made?
JamesH #1413. I didn’t mean to imply you were quoting Clive Hamilton. My point was that there is an asymmetry in the demands for credentials when arguing about the science behind this.
You claim that your case is backed by “recognized experts on a complex matters”. Sure, like the CRU gang and the IPCC. Here’s a list of highly qualified scientists that support my skeptical view:
John Christy. Lead author; IPCC reviewer – Uni of Alabama
Dr Vincent gray. NZ IPCC reviewer
Richard Lindzen. MIT.
Dr Ian Clark. Uni Otowa, dept earth sciences
Dr C lee Campbell. Nth carolina state uni
Dr Robert Balling. Climatology, Arizona state Uni
Dr Tim Ball. Climatologist
Jan Veizer – Geologist, Uni of Ottawa
Patrick Moore. Co-founder of Greenpeace
Chris de Freitas – climate scientist at the University of Auckland
William Kininmonth, former Head, National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology,
Professor Robert Carter, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University.
There are thousands more scientists that are skeptical, not to forget the majority of the population of the US, UK and Australia.
So you are believing one set of scientists and I am in agreement with another. But for me it doesn’t even come down to that. I can critically analyse the issue myself and draw my own conclusions.
And I don’t think much of your rebuttals to Carroll’s article. I mean, do you really want to defend the club of Rome? They are a laughing stock these days.
Tamas spouts discretided crap verbatim and Ken pretends that his case hasn’t just collapsed around him, while continuing to refuse to answer legitimate questions.
Yes, ignore all evidence, but say it often enough and it will become true. Well done guys, you plumb new depths in distasteful discredited bullshit.
Sheesh… You really do talk some rubbish sometimes kdkd
kdkd #1421 Tamas #1422
Got to hand it to you Tamas – your extreme patience and politeness with kdkd has done the trick. You can just see him frothing at the mouth and throwing his toys out of the cot.
He is like some sort of Green Guard (not a bad name – just thought of it) with a little green school book screaming infantile chants of excremental abuse at sage older scholars like you and me.
Ken #1423
You spelled fuckwit wrong
kdkd #1424
Charming…..
Well Ken, think about it this way.
You spent many posts discussing the difference between two diagrams, and when it’s clearly demonstrated to you that you’ve been focussing on rounding errors rather than anything meaningful you go into denial again.
You’ve been repeatedly asked questions by me and others to clarify the relevance of your opinions, and you repeatedly refuse to answer them and pretend they’re irellevant.
You have criteria about sources that you won’t discuss based on wild paranoid fantasies, rather than scientific merit, so the scientific idiocy of Watts is perfectly acceptable to you but the erudite RealClimate is off limits.
And you repeatedly use lies and other falsehoods to support your pathetic arguments (Tamas is especially good at this one too)
So in that context your refusal to engage in constructive discussion (you admitted in a recent post that you only see the need to be destructive in your approach) means that fuckwit is pretty polite.
Name 2 lies or falsehoods I have used kdkd. Hell, name 1. C’mon tough guy. Actually name an actual lie from me. Good luck.
Wow Tamas, you are deluded.
Lie 1: There is a global cooling trend since 1998
Lie 2: There is no evidence for global warming
Lie 3: Any observed warming is merely the effect of urban heat island effects.
Lie 4: The sattelite data is the only trustworthy data.
Lie 5: The sattelite data is quite different from the surface instrumental record
Lie 6: The only important thing is the global average temperature, everything else is irellevant.
That enough for you you deluded fuckwit, or should I go on?
kdkd #1428 #1426
Tamas, we have a couple of civil and reasonable cage match participants in JamesH and Evan Beaver – and some useful discussion is happening.
kdkd is clearly dealing himself out of a progressive discussion by his continual and really nasty abuse of us both.
I could suggest that we call referee Sophie to remove the chilli powder from his gloves, or perhaps adopt the Climategate tactic of pressuring editors to block his publication – but in the interests of free speech – better to let him foul his own nest.
Perhaps the best thing is to not respond to anything from kdkd which uses uncivil abusive language and let him howl to the moon by himself.
Ken,
Love to engage you on scientific discussions, but your attempts at discussion are a pretence designed to maintain the fiction that your delusions are some how based on reality. If this wasn’t the case you’d answer questions, admit to where you have made mistakes, and would discard the paranoid conspiracy theory crap as fatally damaging to your case.
So how do you suggest that such nonsense is dealt with? Polite restraint maintains the fiction that what you have to say is of any value.
Which is more offensive:
a. Repeatedly using lies and/or pseudoscientific non-arguments, selective avoidance of sources due to some subjectively assessed dislike of the source, constant refusal to answer questions that would at least make the discussion more meaningful, statement of offensive political beliefs, and so on ….
or b. use of the word “fuckwit” to describe the above behaviours.
You stop insulting my intelligence and I’ll stop insulting you. Quid pro pro.
Evan #1415
“Seems reasonable, but at first glance I would imagine the closed-system energy calcs for the whole planet would be difficult to tie down with any useful certainty.”
Well that is Dr Trenberth’s specialty – and that is what he is trying to do, so as to conform with the first law of thermodynamics. ie; conservation of energy.
What he is saying in his AUG09 paper is that an imbalance of +0.9W/sq.m equating to 145 E20 Joules/year (derived from several factors including CO2 GHG, cloud reflections, solar variations and feedbacks) has to go somewhere.
He can only account for 45-115 E20 Joules/year (average 80) from the Earth’s temperature changes, ice melt etc. leaving a ‘residual’ of 30-100 E20 Joules/year (average 65).
The ranges of these numbers shown how imprecise are these estimates.
The three main factors which affect Dr Trenberth’s +0.9 +/-0.5 W/sq.m warming imbalance are:
1) Incoming Solar Radiation (range 1361-1366 W/sq.m divided by 4) = 340-342
2) Outgoing Longwave Radiation (a mix of GHG absorption, emission etc) = 235-239
3) Reflected Solar Radiation (cloud and surface albedo) = 102-107
(Ranges from Dr Trenberth’s 1997 and 2004 graphs)
Even the IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 lists the Reflected Solar Radiation (Cloud and surface albedo) as “low LOSU” (level of scientific understanding). The error bars for this term (cloud + surface albedo) range from -0.4 to -2.7 W/sq.m. See Fig 4 in Dr Trenberth’s paper for the same table.
We are not even sure about the incoming Solar Radiation (340, 341 or 342?); this alone can wipe out a +0.9 imbalance. The Reflected term has a range of 2.3 W/sq.m and if would not be hard to suggest a 0.5 W/sq.m variation in this term. SORCE suggests a +4W/sq.m increase in this term.
With numbers and error margins on the above scale – I think it is reasonable to suggest that the +0.9 could be +0.5 or less and this would roughly balance Dr Trenberth’s energy budget (the 145 would drop to about 80).
Hence we would have roughly half the warming – and half the supposed problem.
kdkd #1430, #1431
Well then kdkd just civilly respond to #1432.
“Offensive political beliefs” – are you kidding? Do we have an attempt at ‘politically correct policing’ from you kdkd’. Dear dear – not the ‘thought police’ I hope. Are you a paid-up member kdkd?
Ever heard of *Free Speech* in that second rate pale brick tower of yours kdkd?
Yeah whatever, but the lesbian conspiracy and “climate change is not a human rights issue” crap you pulled earlier is pretty marginal stuff and makes you look foolish. Be as offensive as you like then. If you can lift your game on the other stuff (doubt it, it’ll expose the weakness of your argument) I might just overlook your rancid right wing ideology.
kdkd #1434
“but the lesbian conspiracy and “climate change is not a human rights issue” crap you pulled earlier is pretty marginal stuff ”
Please show me where I have ever used the above words or phrases – lesbian conspiracy – are you kidding again??
ken: go read the archive yourself. Of course you’ve come up with some nonsense like that.
Err Ken #1432
You’ve got a few holes you want to poke in the energy balance model. Us statistical people call them random variables. This means we can use some simple statistical reasoning to evaluate your argument. Unsurprisingly your argument comes out as rubbish.
Now all the assumptions you make are that the numbers are going to go in the way that supports your delusions. You can model this in a simplified way with a binomal distribution. With the three variables you claim support your delusions, it’s like flipping a coin three times and expecting it to come up heads three times. The probability of this happening is 0.5 to the power of three which is 0.125.
So using simplified assumptions the chances of the Ken Lambert Delusional Hypothesis that the “problem is half as big as supposed” is 12.5% assuming that the coin is evenly weighted to the way you want it to go. Of course, this is almost certainly an over-estimate of the probability that your argument is correct.
Plus you don’t relate the Ken Lambert Delusional Hypothesis to the ground level observations in any way, despite repeated requests that you do so. Presumably this is because you have something to hide.
Of course none of this is new, it’s just that you ignore detailed expositions of the stupidity of your position, so I fully expect that you will ignore yet another one.
kdkd #1436
No you made the accusation…You go read the archive…and if you can’t find these words and phrases…You withdraw the accusation and apologise.
kdkd #1437
Irrelevant concoction trying to sound statistical. Only one of the three variables has to move for the assumed warming imbalance to be wiped out.
The balance from the SORCE website is already -1W/sq.m and possibly -3 W/sq.m. What is the probability that they are right statistician??
post #711:
You’ve gone more extreme than that.
#179
Standard right wing clap trap from Ken that he can’t even remember spouting.
#1439
You’re pretending your rounding error is real data. Again. Forget it. And why are you constantly failing to relate it to the ground level observations? Despite being repeatedly asked?
kdkd #1440
Laughable desperation kdkd – trying to score a point no matter how remote or tenuous the reference.
Where is the ‘lesbian conspiracy’ mentioned? Where is the sentence “climate change is not a human rights issue” ??
Ken,
you’ve come up with enough conspiracy theory crap and knee jerk right wing bullshit so we know what you really think.
You’re right about my stats, they’re not quite right – the distribution is trinomial (higher, lower, stays the same). However, in the absence of compelling theory to suggest that the world will move to fit your delusions, the chances of you being right are still around the 10% mark.
So why won’t you develop your ideas by using real observations again? Oh yeah, because it would cause you to expose your own argument as paper thin and ridiculous.
kdkd #1443
Perhaps Dr Trenberth can answer: “why are you constantly failing to relate it to the ground level observations?
Quote from pp23 of his AUG09 paper:
“Changes in the global energy budget
We can not track energy in absolute terms because the accuracy of several measurements is simply not good enough. This includes the TSI #4 and the Earth’s TOA energy budget #6,7,15″ endquote
Who cares about the energy budget in absolute terms. If youre right the budget should be reflected by things like temperatures tracking the lower range of the IPCC projections, slower changes to ecosystems, less rapid arctic melt/warming and so on. Where is this evidence that would support your argument?
Answer: there is none [1], so you have to try to maintain the pretence that the energy budget is some kind of magic that does not translate to observations on the ground. Sounds pretty dim witted to me.
[1] Your repeated lies and paranoid suppositions about the data emmenating from non-climate delusional sources do not a valid argument make – in fact they weaken your argument to the point where it’s clear to everyone but you that you’re full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
kdkd #1445
“Who cares about the energy budget in absolute terms. If youre right the budget should be reflected by things like temperatures tracking the lower range of the IPCC projections, slower changes to ecosystems, less rapid arctic melt/warming and so on. Where is this evidence that would support your argument?”
Go read Dr Trenberth’s paper and see if you can understand it:
Suggest you check the first two sentences in the “Introduction” to Dr Trenberth’s AUG09 paper which finishes with the question: “why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
Would this suggest a ‘lack of warming’; ie – when the temperature does not continue to go up??
Nitey -nite..
What lack of warming would that be? You are wrong – deluded or lying, but wrong. The first decade of the 21st century is clearly the warmest decade since the start of the industrial revolution.
Now let’s watch Ken avoid this inconvenient fact and laugh as he pretends that the ruins of his argument are in fact a solid and viable construction filled with erudite relevance.
By the way; Bolta is calling IPCC Head Pachauri a liar and conspirator to withhold the Glaciergate story until after Copenhagen:
Quote:
“Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it…
Dr Pachauri … told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.”
Asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at (his IPCC) Copenhagen (summit last December), he said: “That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit…”
However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error…
Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as “voodoo science”.
Mr Bagla said he had informed Dr Pachauri that Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University and a leading glaciologist, had dismissed the 2035 date as being wrong by at least 300 years. Professor Cogley believed the IPCC had misread the date in a 1996 report which said the glaciers could melt significantly by 2350.
Mr Pallava interviewed Dr Pachauri again this week for Science… In the taped interview, Mr Pallava asked: “I pointed it out [the error] to you in several e-mails, several discussions, yet you decided to overlook it. Was that so that you did not want to destabilise what was happening in Copenhagen?”
endquote
Changing the subject because you know you’ve just lost.
Your time wasting distraction does not alter the material conclusions based on the overwhelming evidence. It’s just another pathetic attempt of the delusional camp trying distraction and conflation of uncertainty.
kdkd #1446
“What lack of warming would that be?”
Why kdkd – the lack of warming which Dr Trenberth refers to in his paper. Go read it.
Ken,
Of course I’ve read the paper; who found it for you in the first place? Now where’s this referral to the “lack of warming”. The phrase itself doesn’t appear, so let’s look for the word warming … Below you’ll find every sentence in the paper that uses the word warming. No mention of lack of warming there, and quite a lot of mentions of continued warming. Perhaps you are making things up again?
kdkd #1451
A good summary of all the uncertainties in climate science by one of the lead IPCC authors.
Pity that your word search for the word ‘warming’ conveys no inkling that you understand the context of the paragraphs in which it is used.
Suggest you check the first two sentences in the “Introduction” to Dr Trenberth’s AUG09 paper which finishes with the question: “why is the temperature not continuing to go up?” and the rest of the paragraph which introduces the paper.
Then go to the Climategate emails and tell us what Dr Trenberth says there about ‘lack of warming’.
So Ken,
If there is this lack of warming of which you speak, then why is the decade 2000 – 2009 the warmest on record since industrial times?
Here’s your quote:
Personally I suspect the climate system as being somewhat non-deterministic due to its complexity, so Trenberth’s attempt to get a completely accurate model of the relative energy balance will not be fully achievable. At the moment, measurement errors ensures that the model cannot be completely accurate in any case.
You are attempting to equate this with the argument that “warming has stopped” which is clearly not the case. Trenberth is arguing that the mechanism is incompletely understood, and warrants further investigation. You are trying to pervert this argument (unsuccessfully) into “the warming is less significant than the scientific community states” or worse. The content of the paper does not support this hypothesis. Trying to claim so is dishonest.
kdkd #1453
You are dancing around the issue trying to get a form of words which helps you sleep at night kdkd.
Let us agree that ‘warming has plateaued’ and from here it could go up or it could go down.
With thermal lags in the oceans of perhaps 10 years plus – heat added 10 years ago can still be melting ice or warming water through complex mixing and circulation cycles.
The central point of the whole energy balance exercise is that energy must be conserved so that heat added to the system must show up somewhere.
Ken #1454 WTF
Perfect example of bizarre contortions that your argument requires for you to maintain the pretense that it makes any sense at all. It seems that you are living up to your reputation as a delusional moron.
Get this into your terminally stupid brain: The decade 2000 to 2010 is clearly the warmest on record since the start of industrial revolution using surface or sattelite instruments. There is no evidence for any reversal in this warming trend whatsoever. Claiming there is is based on being ignorant or being a liar.
Got it now? Oops, having been exposed as the above you’ve run out of argument. I look forward to the next episode in the serial exposing Ken’s delusional mind.
I will let Dr Trenberth have the last word:
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
Nitey nite….
But this is not the same as saying that there is no warming happening or that the trends in warming are reversing.
Wow, 500 posts and your argument was that paper thin …
kdkd # 1457
“Perfect example of bizarre contortions that your argument requires” – is this the pot calling the kettle black?
Which part of **the lack of warming at the moment ** from the lead IPCC author on this area of climate science don’t you understand??
Ken:
Which part of the “2000-2009 is the warmest decade on record since the industrial revolution” do you not understand?
Classic climate delusional ploy of pretending that trends are meaningful for very short time periods.
kdkd #1459
Seems that **the lack of warming at the moment ** was troubling Dr Trenberth enough to write a whole paper about trying to explain it.
Ken,
Which is a laudable aim. However not the same as the “global waming has stopped” , “global warming trends have reversed to become a cooling trend” or “global warming is not as serious a worry as the science to date is telling us it is” hypotheses you continue to perseverate over without evidence.
Distorting small parts of evidence to maintain your delusional pretence is what’s happening here.
kdkd #1461
Whichever way you want to cut it kdkd, warming is ‘lacking’. Whether it is slightly warming, flat, slightly cooling or simply ‘plateauing’ – it is not following the alarmist interpretation of the IPCC script.
Even the United Kingdom’s chief scientist Prof Beddington has told the alarmists to ‘cool it’…….he said that the uncertainties in the science had not been communicated to the public.
Glaciergate is an example of what happens when a vast exaggeration – preposterous in fact was able to pass through the whole IPCC “peer review” process because it fitted the alarmist party line.
My point is standing up even better than ever after Climategate and Glaciergate – the alarmist AGW story has been exaggerated.
Ken
Wrong. Measured warming is at the upper end of the IPCCs projections. The attempt to appeal to short term (sub decadal) trends is not meaningful given the current limitations of our measurement model, or the precision of the energy balance model. You seem to be incapable of separating these things in your rancidly ideological mind.
Yes, environmentalists often exaggerate. It’s a problem partly caused by idiots like you and your deluded denialist approach to environmental issues. You will note that I’ve been very careful not to exaggerate anything, yet you still wrongly claim my case is not supported by any evidence.
Piss weak Ken, can’t do better because your case is so weak.
kdkd #1463
If my case is so weak why are you trying so hard to counter it.
I smell desperation.
The hits below waterline are taking toll on the AGW alarmists.
Ken:
Post #119
Just making sure that you an the readers know it’s the stench, not the quality of the argument. Anyway if that’s the kind of quality of discussion you’re falling back on now, we know that you’re done. Nice doing business with you.
How the ‘climategate’ scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics’ lies
Very nice summary. Particularly pertinent to Ken is the following:
[ While he was in Copenhagen, Inhofe made a direct link between the "trick" to "hide the decline" and the second most popular soundbite from the emails. He said "of course [Jones] meant hide the decline in temperatures, which caused another scientist, Kevin Trenberth of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, to write: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
The link is bogus. The two emails were ten years apart. Unlike Jones, Trenberth’s remark from October 2009 was indeed about the slackening of the warming trend that some like to interpret as cooling. That much is agreed. But Inhofe and other sceptics latched on to Trenberth’s “travesty” phrase as a revelation that scientists were trying to keep cooling secret because it undermined their arguments about global warming.
Again this is demonstrably false. Nothing was hidden. For months, Trenberth had been discussing publicly his concerns about the inability of scientists to pin down the precise reason for the “absence of warming” since 1998. He had argued in the journal Current Opinion in Environmental Stability in early 2009 that “it is not a sufficient explanation to say that a cool year [he had 2008 in mind] is due to natural variability (pdf)”. Such explanations “do not provide the physical mechanisms involved.” This was the “travesty” he was referring to in his email. He wanted scientists to do better.
He said the best way to improve the explanation and make it more specific was to make better measurements of the planet’s energy budget. This would allow scientists to distinguish between any changes in the greenhouse effect, which would result in more or less heat overall in the atmosphere and oceans, and short-term natural cycles of variability, which merely redistribute heat. He was debating this with the former head of the Climatic Research Unit Tom Wigley, who took a different view. But their genuine scientific discussion has, since the publication of the emails online, been hijacked by ignorant or malicious invective. ]
Ignorant or malicious invective. Sounds accurate to me. Lies or stupidity, which is it to be Ken?
aah yes, and since the publication of the latest decadal trends, this “absence of warming” turns out to be an illusion.
Graph here
kdkd #1465, #1466
Always a pleasure kdkd.
It seems we can also add Wanggate and Jonesgate to Climategate, Glaciergate and Amazongate.
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud
It looks like Jones will not survive these exposes.
Mann gives the lie to his determination to minimize or rub out the MWP by calling it ‘putative’.
There was ‘recorded history’ 1000 years ago you know. Monks were writing things down in Europe and quite well educated people in China and Japan were keeping accounts of what was happening.
Just in case our readers are down a little on history.
kdkd #1466
For those who want the best narrative on the Climategate emails I have read:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-1.aspx
Terence Corcoran has followed the chronology and puts the arguments in a time perspective.
And from the guardian article you cite:
So just to be clear, that the climate delusionals are scratching out around the edges inflating uncertainty while overall it’s clear that all these “-gate” “scandals” are of questionable relevance to the big picture underlying the science.
KL #1469
Terence Corcoran Part 2 here:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-2.aspx
kdkd #1470
“They were convinced that the urban effect was much bigger, even though it might not change the overall story of global warming too much. After all, two-thirds of the planet is covered by ocean, and the oceans are warming, too.”
Yeah, but the story of the oceans is much more uncertain
Why don’t you give us your take on the Argo buoy story kdkd?? And why the ocean heat content has plateaued over the last five years. (Referenced in Dr Trenberth’s AUG09 paper).
And a very interesting paper by the CSIRO team, which found a much better correlation of sea levels with a model including volcanic effects – and we all know that volcanoes are not supposed to be a factor in global warming.
Wow,
A quick scan suggests that some of that article is reasonable, although it’s a bit light on real analsysis, with an emphasis on “he said, she said” narrative which is pretty weak analysis really.
A couple of errors or lies here. An error:
Well temperature history is not the only way. Ecosystem changes are one other way, glacier melts, human ecology stuff (e.g. Greenland land usage). I’m sure there are others. Perseverating on temperature only is a climate delusional technique – I can see how a journalist would be easily mislead by that.
And something that’s either ignorance or lies:
The realclimate guys consistently state that these two periods of time are not terribly well resolved in the historical record, and the degree of regional variation in these is rather too uncertain to pin them down to a specific time frame. So Conrcoran is overextending an attempt to discuss things with scientific precision and pretending it’s a discussion about black and white rather than shades of grey.
At least he admits that the science is pretty solid, and it’s the scientific politics of the email messages that’s the “interesting” bit. Sounds like any other collaboration to me.
Ken,
I think you need to explain this graph: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46880000/gif/_46880316_glob_ave_temp2_466gr.gif in the context of the climate delusional position. I am not terribly interested in the details of the measurement models, as I do not work in this area – at the moment my interests lie in improving rigour for (computer assisted) qualitative data analysis techniques.
So as far as climate science goes, I’m interested in the big picture, and the need for action to secure the planet’s ecology for my descendents, as well as the psychopathology of climate delusion.
kdkd #1473
When I took you a bit more seriously I cited several papers from all over the planet (both NH and SH) showing strong evidence for the MWP. Back on the 150-300 Post range I think.
Papers were (from memory) from: China, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina (all widely dispersed in longitude and latitude from Europe.
The standard AGW claim is that the MWP (if it happened) was a regional and not global artifact. Wrong.
Ken,
That would be back in the day that I had you down as misguided rather than delusional.
Wrong is too strong. Subject to continuing research is a much better way of putting it. I think the realclimate stuff predates those papers anyway. In any case it’s pretty clear that the drivers and trajectory of the MWP are quite different than the present day.
Which leads me to another symptom of the psychopathology. Failing to look at timeframes of research findings properly.
Re: the MWP
kdkd 1)
“The realclimate guys consistently state that these two periods of time are not terribly well resolved in the historical record, and the degree of regional variation in these is rather too uncertain to pin them down to a specific time frame. ”
So according to this – we don’t really know the degree of warming and cooling in the MWP and LIA nor the time periods involved ie: the **trajectory**.
kdkd 2)
“In any case it’s pretty clear that the drivers and trajectory of the MWP are quite different than the present day.”
But we know for sure that the *drivers and trajectory* of the MWP is different to the present day.
Presumably all based on about 15-20 years of the current warming the ‘lack of which’ has now plateaued.
Hello??
Ken #1477
Boring circular argument harking back to around #300-#500
1. What a load of crap. We have a pretty good idea about the MWP temperatures compared to the present day i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png (it was cooler then than now). We’ve also got a good idea that it was the sun what did it.
2. What a load more crap. There is absolutely zero evidence for a lack of warming. Refer to the graph in #1474, and recall that we are in the midst of the deepest solar minimum for a long time. Even so the decade 2000-2009 is the warmest on record.
We know that assessing sub-decadal trends is not really meaningful, as our measurement models aren’t good enough. Even so the evidence that anthropogenic global warming is a serious problem is overwhelming except to a delusional few.
3. You didn’t answer the question in #1474, i.e. explaining the graph from #1474 and how that shows a “lack of warming”.
See how I answered both of your implicit questions in #1477. Now it is the height of rudeness to ignore my explicit question, yet again.
Now stop wasting my time. Put up a decent argument or give up.
kdkd #1478
“See how I answered both of your implicit questions in #1477. Now it is the height of rudeness to ignore my explicit question, yet again.’
If you can describe your offerings as answers.
Ignoring an ill-informed question is *height of rudeness* for kdkd…………. viewers; but calling myself and Tamas;
‘delusional’, ‘stupid’, ‘liars’, ‘f**wits’, and a range of other expletitives is just a bit of Keatingesque banter.
We are even accused of the sabotage of the futures of our and the planet’s children.
Let us live in hope that if you do procreate kdkd – they don’t turn out like you.
Or like the famous riposte of Bob Menzies to an interjector who kept yelling ‘what about abortion Bob?’
“It is a pity in your case they can’t make it retrospective”.
I only started getting really rude when it became clear that you weren’t really interested in the debate, just interested in maintaining your delusional ideation, and trying to infest other people with it.
My answers are fine, it’s your lack of answers that are the problem.
Sabotaging your and my childrens’ future is really the name of the game for the climate delusional camp, prioritising short term interests over longer term (multigenerational) concerns. But as you seem unable to appreciate, what we do collectively today has an impact in 2100, 2200 and all the way through to at least 2500, more likely the year 3000 and beyond. If we’re still dithering and making policy from your perspective of delusional stupidity by 2050 then we’re all really up shit creek with no u-turn in sight as far as human civilisation as we know it is concerned.
p.s. I think you have some idea that I’m some sort of naive twenty-something. This is not in fact the case. And I’ve already completed my reproductive output, let me say, as a responsible environmentalist, I neither believe in the Costello approach nor the Chinese approach. How many kids have you got? Half a dozen all grown up to be good little suburban adventure vehicle drivers
kdkd #1480
Two – boys. Even they aren’t juvenile enough to use smiley faces in their communications.
I must admit that my stickiness to this particular “Cage Fight” indulgence is powered by a special loathing for the kdkd persona as expressed over these long months.
We can only hope that your brand of toxicity is all an act – or a mental ailment beyond your control.
Either way it will be a hollow victory because my usual buoyancy has needed some deflation so get down near your level.
Its a dirty job but someone needs must.
Ken,
I think you’ll find that smiley faces are not juvenile, they’re important parts of non-face-to-face communication O_o.
I’m afraid I got into this because I thought it was important that it’s made clear that this “climate change is nothing to worry about argument” is based on very thin evidence. This is because it requires skirting around the edge of the big picture, inflating uncertainty, and otherwise distorting research findings. Over the past 9 months, I think you’ve demonstrated that pretty well.
Maybe it is time to call a truce, this can’t go on forever.
p.s. I’m not usually as rude as this either on the internet or in real life – I assume this is the bit of my persona here that you don’t like. Either that or my dogged determination to let you get away with nothing.
Its time to invite Evan Beaver and James H back into the cage.
Evan – we have unfinished business in my reply at Post #1432.
James H – we have unfinished business in my reply at Post #1419.
Perhaps I should apologize for reacting to the toxic input of kdkd. It has indeed poisoned what should be a civil interchange of thoughts and opinion.
kdkd #1480, #1482
No kdkd, you entered the debate with a firm religious belief in alarmist AGW and the green agenda. When those beliefs were shown by multiple references and cogent argument to be shaky and exaggerated by the uncertainties in the science – you got progressively more toxic in your responses. So much so that reasonable discussion is now impossible.
All the ‘gates’ are opening up. Crying wolf and exaggerating the certainties of the science are now claiming their victims.
The intelligent public is now sensing that they have been deliberately conned into a panic by ‘debate is over’ advocates such as Tim Flannery – who has now admitted the uncertainties of climate science.
Copenhagen showed what happens when the crazies get control. Such grotesque sights as Robert Mugabe blaming the emitting West for buggering his country not the least of the insanity.
As Alan Kohler wrote in last night’s Crikey – Australia can reduce its GHG by 5% just converting the Yallourn Valley brown coal electricity generators to gas.
My 10 point plan included feasible conversion to gas as a starting place.
Reasonable GHG reduction and energy saving measures which do not damage our economy are the way to go.
Ken, #1484
No, I entered this forum having spent some time researching the science of climate change over the past decade, reviewing old and new texts on the subject. What surprised me when I did this was that although the big picture was pretty much unchanged in the 30 year period I looked through, I had heard lots of things about the uncertainties around the science in the media, and I had assumed that this was somehow justified. If it was, surely I’d see that reflected in changes to the big picture in the texts I read.
So why if things were supposed to be so uncertain, was the big picture surrounding the science so unchanged? The only conclusion I could reach was that it was the influence of the fossil fuel lobby and their accidental or deliberate hangers on.
So I maintain based on the big picture surrounding the scientific evidence available for the last 30 years, that it is your position that is shaky and based on some kind of quasi-religious belief, or as I prefer to think of it anti-environmentalist political ideology.
Well that is good news because once you think about the uncertainties surrounding the science we need global co2 emissions cuts somewhere between 25% and 90% as soon as is practically achievable. Now there’s an easy way of doing this, or the hard way. Politicians are opting for the easy way, because the consequences will not be catastrophic until long after their office has ended. They’re also too easily influenced by the fossil fuel / environmental exploitation lobby, and not by the environmental stewardship lobby.
So you can call a truce, I’m happy to do that, but if you keep banging on with your quasi-scientific anti-environmentalist ideology based ideas which are plainly based etither on falsehoods, or distortions, then the truce ain’t going to happen.
kdkd #1485
It should be clear to the viewers that you resort to abuse when your technical or science argument falters.
Nothing to do with the science or the papers cited or the interpretion I care to make of any piece of information.
It is as simple as throwing a tantrum when you don’t get your own way.
No, a truce is not the issue. You refrain from infantile abuse in your posts – and I will refrain from responding to them.
No Ken,
The derision is reserved for when you misrepresent the scientific data due to ignorance or malicious intent [1]. There’s only so many times I can correct the inadequacies in your arguments before it becomes tedious. So if you care to stop repeating the same old misinformation, I’ll tone it down. But it does appear that you’ve run out of material, messing around at the edges when the core of the scientific theory and observations have been shown to be generally sound.
[1] For Tamas this is always – he’s a one trick pony with only lies and blindsight coming to his aid.
“malicious intent [1].”
To suggest ‘malicious intent’ is offensive and untrue. Drop accusations like that for a start.
You are not an authority on climate science who can ‘correct’ anything other than a typo or a misquote. You can argue a case for error or irrelevance or lack of logic – that’s about all.
Remember your attempt at a technical argument in the ‘bar heaters episode’ which betrayed a lack of knowledge of the concepts involved.
To assume bad faith in anybody’s argument is never acceptable in a civil debate.
Ken,
I’m fine with ignorance then. Because malice or ignorance are the only two things which would explain the circularity in your argument. Your anti-environmentalist ideology must just rot your brain then.
Hello mr pot, I would like to introduce you to mr kettle.
To which I fessed up straight away. To be honest I’m amazed you’re still harping on about it, because it makes you look bad. Physics is not something I do any of at all, so making mistakes with it is something I do easily. Fortunately I’m married to a physicist, so if there are important things I need to know about I can easily get good quality answers.
However, your lack of understanding of statistics and scientific methodologymeans that you from constantly making glaring errors of fact and logic which you never admit to.
Which is why we have to write off your conspiracy theory gate-du-jour claptrap as irrelevant to the argument. And realclimate provide valuable level headed scientific commentary, which you dismiss out of hand, preferring the logical contortions and overblown hyperbole of wattsupwiththat. Again you should meet this mr kettle I know.
So the question is, if you don’t want a truce, when are you going to give up?
Kdkd – Ken and I will give up when this scam has collapsed. That will be quite soon.
kdkd #1489
This sounds like a cracked record. “When are you going to give up”…….NEVER.
Realclimate is the organ of Gavin Schmit – a conduit for the IPCC AGW Team. I often check it out – sometimes print it out…and occasionally consign it to the bottom of the budgie cage.
Oh look, I’ll let you both blather away to your hearts content so long as you prefix everything with a disclaimer. Something like the following will do:
“It is highly unlikely that anything below has any scientific merit, and merely opinion which has not been checked for factual accuracy or logical thought”.
Deal?
Ken: See your ludicrous dismissal of the sober and level headed writings at realclimate really belittle your case, especaialy as you’ve shown that you’re in thrall to watts’ right wing think tank funded hyperbole instead.
kdkd #1492
I have catholic tastes in reading kdkd. Realclimate has a bias toward minimizing the uncertainties in the science and keeping the AGW dogma pure. Skeptical science is similar but sometimes useful. Watts is highlighting the other side of the case in a sober and rational way.
I am doing this purely out of personal interest and am not paid by anybody.
Realclimate is published by real scientists who understand the importance of limiting scope in scientific writing, and a sober insensational approach to scientific reporting. My main criticism of realclimate is that the discussion can become too technical for a lay audience at times. Skeptical science (which I must start reading more regularly) is similarly sober, but the work of one person.
Watts on the other hand throws out furphy after furphy, with little critical analysis and constant appeals to conspiracy theory. The comments section is enlightening reading, as it shows how they’re really dominated by people with ideological blindsight. It’s even more worthless getting into a discussion with the commenters there than it is on this page.
Finally I see that climate audit is part of the tradition of mining geologists and/or engineers failing to understand that the nature of investigations in their field are quite different, and lack the uncertainties in climate science.
“To assume bad faith in anybody’s argument is never acceptable in a civil debate.”
Perhaps I should have qualified the above statement with the following:
“To assume bad faith (as distinct from finding evidence of same) in anybody’s argument is never acceptable in a civil debate .”
kL #1483 for JamesH;
James, your von Schuckmann paper which supposedly found 0.77 W/sq.m equivalent of heat sequestered in the oceans down to 2000m is discussed here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Understanding-Trenberths-travesty.html
I was particularly interested in a series of comments by Berényi Péter (Posts #25,27,29,30,31) trailing from the John Cook article.
He makes a number of points which are unanswered by Cook – a few of which I have wondered about myself.
Any comment on this information JamesH ?
Ken #1495
But we’ve seen plenty of evidence of bad faith or ignorance in your various misuses of snippets of information, where you pretend they have a huge and lasting effect on the big picture, where in fact they make no difference.
e.g. claiming the “hide the decline” and the “travesty” comments are some kind of admission of failure of the science of global warming as a whole. Constant abuse or ignorance of statistics because proper statistical thinking would demonstrate your points are invalid. Pretending that the rounding error stuff was of no importance, and doubtless others.
Your choice, which is it. Ideological stupidity or ideological malice?
#1496
I agree, Berényi Péter is one to watch. Another Lambert who superficially talks a good talk but is clearly blinded by ideology (or excessive brainwashing in engineering school) once the depth of the argument becomes apparent, or is he actually interested and alert to the science?
If you want answers to some his unanswered questions, a good thing to do would be to put them up on realclimate next time there’s an open thread. I can see why they’re unanswered, they’re complex stuff.
kdkd #1497
Do you know the work of Berényi Péter kdkd??
“but is clearly blinded by ideology (or excessive brainwashing in engineering school) once the depth of the argument becomes apparent”
You had better justify the smear of this person with some evidence!!
Not so complex is the first law of thermodynamic argument. Conservation of energy.
The oceans are by far the largest energy (heat) storage sinks on the planet. The point is that integrated over time – a heat imbalance must show up in the oceans somewhere.
Ken
I was smearing you. I was saying that he’s worth watching, as you were in the early days.
Measurement model is inadequate. However the last decade is the warmest on record since the industrial revolution despite the deepest solar minimum in a long time. Pretty damning evidence really …
Nice article on the funding systems for climate change delusional groups here.
kdkd #1500
Does the article explicitly claim that McIntyre is financed by Big Oil interests?
$100,000 from Exxon is not such a big deal. I have read that Exxon give money to green groups as well. Big business will always make a dollar out of whatever is going at the time, and sensibly tries to have an each way bet.
Warmest decade on record is not inconsistent with ‘lack of warming’ at the moment.
As I have explained to you at length if you integrate the area under the energy flux (forcing) heat imbalance graphs WRT time you will get the total energy added to the system.
Take the IPCC Solar forcing graph (Fig 6.13 used in the Karaoke) and you will see a positive imbalance for the last 100 years+. Take the “all other forcings” (including CO2) and you will see an imbalance as well. Integrate these and add them together. That is the estimated total energy added to the earth system.
If these forcing imbalances return to ‘zero’ then we will flatline at the elevated temperature level (plateauing).
To see temperatures reduce, the forcings must go negative which removes energy from the system.
We are probably flatlining at the moment which means that the 11 year cyclical reduction in Solar (as distinct from longer term solar cycles) of about 0.5W/sq.m at TOA (reduced by factor of 4) to 0.1 W/sq.m at surface; is absent: and other cooling forcings are offsetting the CO2 GHG forcing.
Do the math.
Oh… and by the way if Australia turns off all CO2 GHG emitting industry, transport, farming and households tonight – it will make a difference of **0.02 degC** to a 2-3 degree rise in temperature projected by the IPCC by 2100.
Ken
Very Orwellian. Increased temperatures = lack of warming. I’m impressed that you seem to want to claim that a theoretical model will eliminate any effects observed in an observational system.
Totally unjustified assertion. How to does this tally with the fact that 2000-2009 is the warmest post industrial decade on record? If you really think your argument is sane, you need to answer this clearly in non-technical language. i.e. without blinding your reader with jargon.
Yep its tiny. The opportunity here isn’t to make a huge absolute difference, it’s to show leadership and creativity to the other industrial economies what is possible without being economically destructive. So your argument is somewhat irellevant here.
As I explained to you at length, and with considerable effort, if you do a simple regression model of temperature versus co2 and solar (and a bunch of other things) using the data collated by the IPCC, you see that co2 overwhelmingly accounts for the temperature anomalies observed, with solar effects much smaller, and the remaining things in the IPCC’s AR4 being miniscule in comparison.
This worked for the Hadley data, as well, and we also found that the UAI sattelite data was not stastically significantly different from the ground observational record.
Now, the only way you could defend this was by equating your ignorance of the statistical techniques I used with meaning that they were invalid. And when that failed as a debating technique you dismissed all of the data out of hand with ludicrous conspiracy theories.
And you wonder why I get cross. You go around in circles, ignore everything that isn’t inside your own mind, and then come out with bizarre Orwellian statements that frankly make no sense. Yet you’re still determined that your argument has shreds of relevance or validity remaining.
In fact you’ve gone into so many contortions to maintain your delusions that we’re not even sure what the point of your argument is.
kdkd #1499
“Does the article explicitly claim that McIntyre is financed by Big Oil interests?”
You never answered this question kdkd?
Ken.
No it doesn’t. Why do you ask? I was actually thinking what kind of information you’d pull up if you performed a climategate email theft hack on a network of climate delusionals.
(See, polite, prompt answering of questions. Now get to your backlog if you dare!)
Ken – the climate scare is unraveling pretty fast isn’t it? Every day brings a new dodgy IPCC claim.
The tables have turned. The public is becoming more sceptical. It is fascinating to watch.
We’re winning Ken.
Tamas,
Yes I see the delusional crowd are overstating everything and pretending that it affects the scientific big picture on a daily basis. There were one or two significant errors there[1]. Now your mob are starting to seriously overplay their hand.
So again, winning is in your own tiny delusional mind. Well done. You should peek outside the echo chamber some time into the real world.
[1] That really had no effect on the overall scientific big picture.
kdkd #1504
Well because the article includes McIntyre’s name amongst a number of outfits which are supposedly financed by the likes of Exxon. The effect is guilt by word association. Mention McIntyre in the same article as Exxon and people will associate him as a tool of Big Oil.
A cheap attempt at a smear.
kdkd #1503
This is from John Cook discussing Dr Trenberth’s paper in Skeptical Science:
“Next, Trenberth wonders with this ever increasing heat, why doesn’t surface temperature continuously rise?”
What don’t you get about the idea that Dr Trenberth thinks that surface temperature is not continually rising??
Tamas #1506
Thanks for the encouragement – it is a dirty job mucking out kdkd’s pigpen most days – but someone has to do it.
Have you heard that the Dutch Govt is investigating the IPCC and its claims regarding AGW?? Should be interesting.
Ken #159
The reason that temperature does not continually rise (i.e. is not monotonic) is due to “natural variability”, some of which Trenberth accounts for in his paper.
Non-monotonic temperature increases are not the same as “lack of warming”, although might casually refer to it as such in informal discussions.
I must say 1501 was a fairly spectacular demonstration of the level of delusions that you have about this subject. Let’s repost some comments to point and laugh at again seeing as you won’t answer the questions that I asked about them:
Comment on McIntyre to come later.
1496
I thought the other commentators did a good job answering Berényi Péter’s questions. I second the point that satellites have high relative accuracy but their absolute accuracy is questionable, as is obvious from the discrepancy between SORCE and other satellite measures.
For a good insight into the evidence satellite studies provide, I recommend this article: http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm
Re McIntyre.
First let’s note that he’s from the same mould as Plimer, a geologist with an interest in climate change “scepticism”. He’s one of the better “sceptics” as far as I can see, although the hubristic language on his blog is a bit much (rather like Watts’ blog). And in common with Ken he likes to overegg his case big time.
Anwyay, let’s see if we can connect him to the corrupt funding of climate delusion from Exxon.
So exxonsecrets.org documents the funding trail of exxon to climate science destructivists. Now they’ve given close to a million USD to the George C Marshall Institute. One of the benificiaries of this funding? One Steve McIntyre. (Source)
Given the close association of the exxon funding with the tobacco delusionists from decades past, we can only conclude that anyone associating themselves with this mob must be suspect.
kdkd #1513
Great piece of detective work kdkd – care of Greenpeace – a noted reliable witness.
Perhaps you could now list all of the organizations which benefit in some way from Exxon on the record donations. You might find a number of ‘Green’ organizations. Does this link them with ‘big tobacco’??
Ken,
The data is straight out of Exxon’s annual reports and from the reports by the associated think tanks. Greenpeace merely collated it.
The big tobacco conspiracy was a well documented and unambiguous attempt to pervert the clarity of unequivocal scientific findings. Perhaps you can explain why many of the same faces appear in the climate “skeptic” camp? Or is that yet another question that you’re not going to answer?
JamesH #1512
“I thought the other commentators did a good job answering Berényi Péter’s questions.”
I don’t think so.
Berényi Péter’s point about the satellite imbalance at TOA of 6+ W/sq.m being ‘corrected’ back to 0.85 +/-0.15 W/sq.m using ‘climate models’ is a very interesting one. Big adjustment isn’t it? Seemed a ‘bit circular’ to me. Cook did not answer it specifically.
Cook cited the von Schukmann paper (which you Crikeyed me with) to explain the lost heat (0.77 W/sq.m) and Berényi Péter came back with a detailed criticism of that paper in further posts – which remained unanswered by Cook. Cook then presumably closed down the thread (it is his web site yes?).
It ended on the interesting Berényi Péter’ point that Von Schukmann did not reconcile his 2000m balance with the 700m balance – and how did the heat get down to 2000m without showing up in the 700m column on the way. He also identified a funny bump in the graph which seemed impossible – not answered either by Cook.
Regarding the SORCE data; it seems that the SORCE people were trying to establish that their 1361 W/sq.m TSI was the correct one and produced Collins’ energy balance schematic to prove this. It contradicts Dr Trenberth’s latest schematic and balance – and has a big chance of being wrong. The Collins schematic is still on the SORCE website but not apparently published elsewhere.
The more I delve into this SORCE the thicker becomes the plot. The TSI ‘absolute’ value is clearly critical to detecting the Earth’s long term energy balances and the Solar contribution. We only have ‘relative’ TSI data by satellite since 1979 which clearly identifies the 11 year Solar cycle differences – but before that it is mainly by proxy.
Put it this way, if the SORCE figure of 1361 TSI is right, then all the balancing terms have to be adjusted to get back to an imbalance of +0.9W/sq.m if Dr Trenberth’s imbalance number is right. If these other terms (CO2 GHG, cloud albedo etc) have been calculated separately by independent means (some with wide error bars) then how do you re-adjust those balances?
Ken #1516
Your points appear to be obscure, and not really supported by the evidence that you cite. Especially as you need an absolute model, and all that is available is a relative model.
The precision of the proxys is less than the variance of the measurement model as well, so it’s going to be impossible to reconcile the two together with sufficient precision that your argument requires.
Meanwhile you continue not to answer the questions that are asked of you. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to do this.
So you’ve essentially given us an untestable hypothesis, and seeing as it’s untestable you’ve taken the further step of asserting that it is true. Meanwhile there’s skuds of temperature and ecological evidence that you have to outright ignore to maintain the pretence that your argument is consistent with the big picture.
Must. Do. Better.
kdkd #1517
You seem intent on answering everything kdkd – even posts not directed to you. Why don’t you let JamesH answer for himself.
He seems pretty well informed on these issues and it was he who referred me to the SORCE energy balance (Collins) schematic.
You seem to be saying that the noise is much bigger than the difference we are looking for.
Seems to me then we don’t have a problem.
Several of the IPCC alarmist claims are falling apart – Himalayan glaciers, Amazon disasters, African droughts, why even the Murray-Darling is showing signs of life.
Remember the ‘hotter and drier’ claim for Australia was countered by the paper I cited which projected ‘wetter or don’t know’ for Australia and ‘don’t know’ for the MDB.
Are these amongst your ‘skuds’ of evidence kdkd??
And what do Obama, Gore and the IPCC share in common: The Nobel prize for BS!!
Ken,
Why don’t you answer any of the questions I pose to you? Why are you exclusively intent on misdirection and abuse of illogic?
Anyway, when you’re walking down a dark alley at night a mugging is more likely to be successful if two people set about you. Consider this the consequences of your abuse of climate science and latching on to any tiny bit of ‘evidence’ that supports your delusions however tenuous.
Besides, all of these things you highlight show the magnitude of the uncertainty but they do nothing – absolutely nothing – to suggest that the big picture of catastrophic consequences of anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st centrury is incorrect given a business as usual scenario.
So why won’t you answer any of the questions posed to you? Something to hide I presume. Presumably that you’re out of your depth and struggling to give a coherent account of your delusional ideation.
#1518
No, this is a perfect example of your illogical approach. The logical conclusion given your rather vague hypothesis that “there is no problem” is not that it is true given the imperfect evidence that we have available, but that the methodology you are using can not answer the question. So we have to fall back to models of temperature, ecosystem changes, frequency of extreme weather events [1] and so on.
[1] Of which the northern eurpoean cold snap this season is an example.
kdkd #1519
You can find answers to all your non-thesis length questions in these posts kdkd.
We have been battered by zealous scientists and IPCC converted politicians with professions of 90 or 95% certainty that human released GHG warming is going to have catastrophic consequences for the planet.
This is nearly all based on the temperature record of the last 30 years.
I am simply showing that the certainties of anything in this field are not 90-95%; that a comparatively small number of ‘scientists’ (lead IPCC authors and their teams) have dominated the debate and tried in some cases to control the data and discussion; and that there are large assumptions being made based on the work of very few individuals and large uncertainties with theory, measurement, technology and resultant climate science in general.
The ideal of an open accessible flow of information and robust debate with self-evident scientific truth emerging as night follows day; has been exposed by Copenhagen, Climategate and Glaciergate as a festering nest of human fallibility, blind belief, distortion and gross exaggeration.
Ken #1521
Not really, I see evasion, misdirection and misunderstanding aplenty. Add a dash of conspiracy theory and association with really delusional idiots like Tamas, and your argument is exceptionally fragile. Especially when you resort to crackpot conspiracy theories (the latest: “comparatively small number of ’scientists’ have dominated the debate” – come back after you’ve done a comprehensive literature review and say that) which really degrade your case.
kdkd #1522
I must say that we have been Stockholm-like adversaries kdkd. Bit like a Punch and Judy show really.
A slight softening of your usual abuse must be seen as a win I guess. You mentioned that your wife was a physicist – I would have hoped for a medico …..able to adjust your lithium or phenobarb at will.
Ah…we must be grateful for small climate changes..
Ken,
Note that Tamas gets constant derision because that’s all he deserves.
kdkd #1524
Is this kdkd engaging in wedge politics? Trying to drive a wedge between myself and Tamas? …..NEVER…………………..
No Ken, just telling it like it is. You have some limited skills for analysis of scientific findings, but you let your ideology get in the way. Tamas has no skills or understanding of science, and he also lets his ideology get in the way, and refuses to read anything not associated with the big oil / big tobacco cabal who have been trying (and somewhat succeeding) to pervert the course of climate science over the past 20-30 years or so.
kdkd #1526
“Tamas has no skills or understanding of science, and he also lets his ideology get in the way, and refuses to read anything not associated with the big oil / big tobacco cabal who have been trying (and somewhat succeeding) to pervert the course of climate science over the past 20-30 years or so.”
And this is from a “Green Academic” who only thinks pure scientific thoughts untainted by pink ideology or anything to do with the ratbag world of Copenhagen style activists.
Should you add to the conspiracy of big oil and big tobacco, the Australian State run electricity utilities which used to be owned by the taxpayers (some still are) until Keating style labor went for privatization and Zegna suits?
Were all the taxpayers (presumably you too) part of the conspiracy too kdkd?
Time for JamesH to chime-in on #1516. You there James??
Ken #1527
That makes no sense. In any case Tamas has repeatedly demonstrated his total inability to think critically about this subject. Combined with an egregious abuse of statistics, and total ignorance of the non-delusionist literature and it’s clear that his opinions are a sick joke.
I was specifically referring to the well documented links between the tobacco and oil company lobbyists, and their modus operandi of trying to promulgate unreasonable doubt about scientific topics which are far better established than they claim. Your attempt to bring in local politics is desperately irrelevant.
kdkd #1529
Linking me with Big Tobacco and Big Oil just won’t fly kdkd. I wish Exxon would pay me something for all the hours I have spent on AGW and climate science and educating you.
And I have always accepted that smoking cirgarettes causes lung cancer.
Bob Carter was listed on a blog site as a payee of Big Oil. I checked with him and he was very amused and said he only wished they would send him money also to cover all the free time he put in debunking the alarmists.
Ken #1530
I wasn’t linking you with them at all. But the ideas you draw on often do come from the tobacco/climate delusion cabal. Also I’m quite curious as to who funded the climategate hack.
And the plural of anecdote is not data. Also what’s a marine geophysicist “published several critiques of anthropogenic global warming in economics journals”. Seems a rather strange use of his expertise.
Also “his external activities include being on the research committee of the Institute of Public Affairs, an Australian think tank whose views include climate skepticism and whose funding includes some oil and tobacco companies as well as the Australian government” (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Carter)
The IPA’s funding includes “businesses. Among these businesses are ExxonMobil,Telstra, WMC Resources, BHP Billiton, Phillip Morris, Gunns Limited, Monsanto Company, Murray Irrigation Limited, and Visy Industries.
In 2003, the Australian Government paid $50,000 to the Institute of Public Affairs to review the accountability of NGOs.” which kind of puts the lie on hs statement a bit (also via wikipedia)
kdkd #1531
Kinda like me on the P&C Committee of the local State School which received a donation from McDonalds of some sporting gear.
That makes the voluntary committee members (including me) a tool of a multinational business cabal which might also include Philip Morris who also sponsor motor racing co-sponsored by McDonalds (their billboards are next to each other), which is next to that of Exxon which supplies fuel for the GP cars – which makes me a tool of multinational fast food, oil; and tobacco …………………… is that right kdkd?
Ken #1532
Promoting the activities of the P&C is certainly worthwhile. Are you saying that promoting the activities of these anti-science lobbiests is also worthwhile? Seeing as you have to rely on their arguments to keep your case going, it seems that the association is rather closer than your inadvertent association with the P&C and McDonalds.
kdkd#1533
This is a diversion kdkd. Time to return to the central debate – how much effect is human released CO2 GHG having on the planet.
I say – some – but not nearly as much as the AGW alarmists claim due to the great uncertainties in the science.
Now returning to JamesH and #1516 – there has been some very interesting comment on John Cook’s Skeptical Science. Heavy duty technical discussion about the atmosphere and water vapour.
A January 2010 paper by Susan Solomon et al, is mentioned as confirming a reduction in the enhanced CO2 GHG effect since year 2000 due to decreased water vapour. I have only read an abstract of the paper but it suggests the ‘plateauing’ or flattening of surface temperatures since about year 2000.
Berényi Péter’ and others are heavily involved in the stratospheric water vapour issue on Cook’s blog.
I notice that neither Cook nor anybody else has replied to the Berényi Péter’ critique of the Von Schukmann paper.
It seems that the JamesH ‘s SORCE Collins schematic is a dud. Again it shows that not everything coming from a ‘scientist’ is necessarily right – on both sides of the debate.
Just confirms again that the ‘science is not settled’.
Ken #1534
I think the only people trying to claim that “the science is settled” were doing as a propoganda technique from the delusional camp
‘”The science is settled” is a slogan attributed by opponents of the Kyoto Protocol and global warming theory to supporters notably in the Clinton administration. There are no known examples of its use outside the skeptic press, though some of the statements that were made have similar implications. The slogan itself has therefore become a detail in the political debate.’ (via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_M._Connolley/The_science_is_settled).
Granted that there are substantial uncertainties in our scientific understanding. However a prudent analysis of the scientific synthesis tells us that if we haven’t turned around the global economy by 2050 then civilisation is in grave trouble by 2100.
I’m unsure how we can claim plateauing of temperatures when the decade 2000-2009 is the warmest on record since the start of the industrial revolution. And according to the graph via the BBC (from #1474) the decadal increase in temperature for the last 60 years is quite clear. There’s a suggestion in this graph for the 1990s period and the 200s period that we may be seeing the beginning of an exponential increase in temperature as well.
Here’s the graph: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46880000/gif/_46880316_glob_ave_temp2_466gr.gif (again)
kdkd #1535
Although I would not swear that the exact form of words ‘the science is settled’ was used – a similar claim has been made by Tim Flannery and David Karoly to name two.
Tim has recanted – don’t know about Karoly.
Prudent analysis suggests immediate implementation of my 10 point plan (convert the Yallourn brown coal generators to gas as soon as feasible without destroying the companies).
I note that Rudd and Wong have stuffed up their “Green Loans” scheme by qualifying thousands of Green Auditors with limited funds to carry out audits (about 36 Audits each is the number).
Suggest that Abbot and Hunt embrace the kiddies from ‘Carbon Cops’.
These bright enthusiastic young people have a TV show where they go into family homes and audit energy use via the existing power bill. Watched a couple of these shows with the kids over Xmas and the savings achieved with relatively cheap lifestyle changes, low energy light bulbs, timer switches, monitors etc were amazing.
Admittedly the homes chosed were 2 parent – 2 teenage kid outfits of some prosperity with 3 cars in the driveway; and with existing energy bills of $10000+ per year. $10000+ per year – believe that??
These people were incredibly wasteful with lighting, TV’s on or on standby 24/7, pool pumps, driving very short distances, clothes dryers etc.
The savings made were 50-75% in these extreme cases.
I would lay a bet that 10-15% could be saved across all Australian homes with simple energy saving and likestyle changes.
A reasonably smart politician like Abbott could capture the kiddie vote by an innovative and well structured program of free ‘carbon copping’ all Australian households and businesses with cheap monitoring and easy lifestyle changes.
A trailing audit fee could then be charged as a percentage of savings on the annual household energy bill.
Maybe he could employ all Rudd-Wong’s unemployed “green loan” auditors.
And you claim that 50+ engineers are not out there at the leading edge…get with the program kdkd…
Goodness gracious me, Ken and kdkd agree on something! Getting rid of the yarra valley stinkers in favour of gas would cost less than the ETS and result in an immediate 5% emissions reduction nationally. Then a modest goal of 15-25% efficiency gains over three years goes way over both major parties pathetic targets. It’s all achievable, it just needs leadership.
Shame about the green loans program, it had potential. The moral of the story as far as I can see is that neither Labor or the Libs are serious about this stuff, nor about the kinds of cultural changes that would be required to get big efficiency gains.
Now, I live in a smallish, energy efficient townhouse. We cut our electricity consumption by 30% through the installation of solar hot water. We junked our rust bucket (94 Magna) and bought a much smaller car, and petrol consumption dropped by 50%. Changed jobs so that the amount of driving done has dropped by 80%, we work from home or catch the train 95% of the time now. Also the usual move to energy efficient light bulbs, front loader washing machine etc.
With a bit of effort I can see that following these cuts we could get our electric consumption down by another 10% (replacing the electric hob cooker with an induction cooker is on the list, reducing the amount of crockery in the kitchen so that we don’t end up running the dish washer as often are two examples), but we’re a fairly difficult case as our resource is was relatively low at this stage to start with.
Now if we had politicians and other leaders who were serious about this stuff and could really mobilise the community, imagine the possibilities!
e.g. http://www.reincarnatedmcmansion.com/
kdkd #1538
All good stuff kdkd …we can agree that simple energy conservation measures using relatively cheap technologies and common sense could easily get the 5% reduction target on the domestic front and probably 15-20% if worked harder.
I am having lunch with Tony Abbott tomorrow – and see if I can get in his ear (big enough?) about the ‘carbon cops’.
I sat next to Bob Brown at a concert this time last month. Next thing you know the Greens come up with this rather excellent and sensible interim carbon tax proposal[1]. You could have a word with Tony about what a great idea this is.
You know, the moral of the story is, unless you’re part of the utter raving lunatic fringe like Tamas, or some kind of robber baron intent on bankrupting the future, it seems that responsible, ambitious but staged co2 emissions reductions are a no-brainer. Proper leadership and incentives, and in the New World at least we ought to be able to get 25% reductions in 10-15 years no problem. All the serious analysis of efficiency gains shows this
So where is the leadership? Fooled by the robber barons I reckon. Which brings us back to the tobacco/oil nexus.
Personally I would say that “the science” in the sense of our understanding of the mechanisms is settled; that is, if we continued to put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the temperature did not rise in the long term, it would be a violation of the laws of physics as we currently understand them. What is not “settled” is the precise level of temperature change due to the many different feedback elements involved and the mathematical truism that uncertainties add; so if, say, the temperature is the sum of two variables each of which has +/- 0.1 uncertainty, then the total uncertainty is +/- 0.2 . In practice it is not very likely that both variables would be at the extreme end of their distribution and so the distribution would be narrower, but the potential for wide uncertainty cannot be excluded.
The large error bars around total temperature response to CO2 are less a case of “the science” not being settled than the inevitable result of adding lots of smaller error bars.
“I sat next to Bob Brown at a concert this time last month.”
Did you raise the arm rest and hold hands??
Just kidding.
Even through Bob Brown is a green nutter, one has to admire his tenacity – and very occasionally he says something to agree with.
Keep away from the feral rhetoric of the mainstream pollys, and listen to some of the Green’s stuff some time. They’re frequently sensible. However I still can’t bring myself to join a real political party.
Ken – have a look at this link NOW:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Gentlemen,
Phil Jones, Head of the CRU, now admits the following:
BBC Q: “Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Phil Jones”the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.”
Phil Jones “There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. ”
And much, much more.
Oh. My. God.
(will catch up on the other thread stuff soon)
JamesH #1542
Quick comment – I will respond in detail when I get time.
I am not arguing with the CO2 GHG effect. I am saying that the Solar warming and other cooling forcings are probably underestimated or as you say have wide uncertainties and are poorly undestood. If one counteracts the other then we have less of a warming problem than the alarmists have spouted.
The reduced water vapour in the upper atmosphere seems to be a counteracting effect which is now under intense discussion and I am keeping a watch for comment on the Trenberth and Von Schuckmann papers.
Tamas #1545
Good one Tamas. Look forward to kdkd’s takling on Phil Jones about the statistical significance of the temperature trend 1995-2009. It just makes kdkd’s 15 year minimum ‘significant’ period for statistical significance. Boom Boom..
Tamas #1545
Scientifically illiterate morons like you will of course try to make something out of those statements that is not actually what they mean. Typical kind of valueless crap we have come get used to enjoying from you.
Ken #1547
You are also king of the non sequitur.
You are both ignoring the elephants in the room. One’s wearing a badge that says “observations” and the other which is trying to sit on the first is wearing a badge that says “Exxon” (although it’s trying to keep that badge hidden).
Ken #1546
This is also a non sequitur, and your conclusion is based on wishful thinking, not evidence.
kdkd #1548
As I said kdkd — you need to get with the program…..viz:
“A January 2010 paper by Susan Solomon et al, is mentioned as confirming a reduction in the enhanced CO2 GHG effect since year 2000 due to decreased water vapour. I have only read an abstract of the paper but it suggests the ‘plateauing’ or flattening of surface temperatures since about year 2000.”
You need to keep up kdkd…even JamesH is a little less certain that he was when he hit me with the SORCE data and Von Schuckmann..
Signs of a vigorous scientific ‘debate’ which does to the heart of the whole alarmist warming story..
Ken #1549
You mean you want me to get with your program where every little research finding PR stunt from the oil/tobacco nexus that comes out causes you to totally overstate your case?
Useful commentary on the paper you refer to is here. Perhaps you may want to get with the program and stop going with the two most common misinterpretations of this paper. Actually based on your past history of this stuff, that would result in you confabulating your own even more entertaining and bizarre misinterpretation.
correction “research finding PR stunt” should be “research finding and PR stunt”.
Interesting you can see the work of the delusionist nexus on twitter. The tags #climate and #climatechange have delusional shills drowning out the more rational voices[1]. I smell a PR stunt coming from somewhere.
[1] Ken occasionally sounds like a rational voice, but repeatedly he allows the siren call of the delusionals to draw him back to the teat.
Question to Phil Jones from the BBC:
“Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming”.
Jones: “Yes, but only just. ”
This stuff is getting too easy Ken…
Tamas,
Crap question and crap answer. Anway that’s wrong, as 2000-2009 is the warmest decade on record since the start of the industrial revolution. The decadal trend is clearly significant. The data speaks much louder than some crappy interview with a scientist with no media training who’s clearly under a great deal of stress.
Again, stop wasting my time with your worthless crap. You have nothing to say except delusional crap.
kdkd # 1549
Your link does not work.
Here is a knockout statistical paper for comparing with your Karaoke kdkd.
http://economics.huji.ac.il/facultye/beenstock/Nature_Paper091209.pdf
Yes Tamas……the Phil Jones saga is hard for kdkd to handle.
If Jones is now telling the truth as he sees it, then kdkd’s significant warming trend mantra is wrong.
kdkd is suggesting that Jones is untrained in media – presumably he has been tricked into telling the truth when he should have spun a story.
Is that what you wanted kdkd – Jones to tell it like it isn’t? — to spin the Alarmist AGW party line??
kdkd has morphed into Kieren Diment – this is getting serious..
Ken #1554
Sorry, but your knockout statistical paper is worthless as indicated by the use of the phrase “AGW is refuted” in the abstract. No idea where this is supposed to have been published either. Leading conclusions like that are not appropriate for scientific work. I suspect that these economists you refer to have a high delusion index from working outside of their field with an ideological preconception of what they want to find. I’m not wasting my time reading the thing in detail, as a superficial glance smacks of statistical abuse to find their preconceived conclusions. As distinct to what I did in the Karaoke which was simple descriptive work.
The link clearly describing Ken’s #1549 bout of idiocy is here. That oil/tobacco teat must be pretty tasty.
And you two are really pathetic losers. Apparently (according to #1552 #1554) the whole edifice of AGW is based on Phil Jones being misquoted by that bastion of scientific credibility the British Daily Mail, then re-reported by a lazy BBC journalist. Worthless stuff guys, you obviously have no arguments left and have to satisfy your climate-delusion-masturbatory urges by parroting the droppings of the astroturf brigade.
Pathetic Idiots.
You can read about the quote that Tamas uses to bolster his tainted-with-blood-money delusions here
kdkd #1556 #1557
Your Exxon smears of Tamas and myself are not working and have never worked kdkd.
Are you now suggesting Prof Susan Solomon’s team at NOAA are also in the pay of Big Oil …….when you don’t get the research results which agrees with Realclimate’s AGW alarmism??
See the Solomon paper here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1182488
I have already pointed to 4 research papers (peer reviewed and published) which evidence the MWP in South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand and China. Three in the south of the southern hemisphere about as far from Northern Europe as you can get yet Realclimate (the organ of Gavin Schmit and the GISS team) is still retailing doubts about the MWP as a global event.
Your AGW alarmists have been found out kdkd…..the tipping point was reached with Climategate and Copenhagen and in Australia with the rejection of the Rudd-Wong ETS and no amount of smearing and mouth frothing from kdkd will change that tide of public scepticism for the green doomsayers.
Ken,
Give up, the Solomon paper doesn’t show what you’re claiming. I’ve read it, you’re trying to manufacture uncertainty by providing a facile misinterpretation of a serious paper. Again.
Not very interested in the MWP – it seems rather irrellevant to the present day. Again I think you’re trying to make a pretence of uncertainty for some malicious or deluded purpose.
Whatever, you’re a gullible fool Ken. I think you should know better, but that delusionist siren call is too seductive for you.
kdkd #1559
“Whatever, you’re a gullible fool Ken. I think you should know better, but that delusionist siren call is too seductive for you.”
Whenever you can’t respond on the numbers or the technical argument you resort to smears, abuse and name calling kdkd…
Shame..shame..shame…
Ken,
If I had to respond in detail to every bit of misinformation you distribute we’d be on post 10,000 by now and the dirge would be even more repetitive than it already is. Too much effort for zero gain. But we’d better let the ever dwindling readership know that you and tamas are wasting electrons.
So here’s the executive summary:
98% of what you have written here is worthless. You are allowing others to mislead you or you have malicious intent. The end.
Shame indeed. Hang your head.
kdkd #1561
Malicious intent –oooh….nasty.
No, you can see the broader argument turning against your uncritical acceptance of alarmist AGW.
I am glad that 2% of my contribution is pleasing you kdkd. Was it Einstein who said that only one contraverting experiment is required to shatter a whole theory?
Why hang around kdkd?? – I would be perfectly happy jousting with the polite and civil JamesH.
No Ken,
The 2% is the occasions that you forget your delusional tendencies. The rest you’re either being mislead by the fossil fuel alarmists, or you’re one of the people actively trying to mislead.
There’s very little if anything of merit in your “scientific” “analysis” that’s the result of you weighting your preconceptions greater than the evidence, and jumping to conclusions the moment you can distort a finding to maintain the pretence of the faintest whiff of doubt. As we’ve noted before to maintain consistency with your views you have to ignore the big picture wholesale.
Usually you claim to be in the ignorant rather than the evil camp.
If you didn’t talk such rubbish I wouldn’t have to keep calling you out on it. As far as I can see, being silent about your ridiculous abuse of logic and distortion of science is to give it some sort of legitimacy.
kdkd #1563
“Usually you claim to be in the ignorant rather than the evil camp.”
Increase the medication tonight kdkd ……your ravings are becoming comical….
Ken,
You can stop replying to me, and then all you’ll have to put up with is me calling you out on your scientific misinterpretations and other ignorance whenever you overdose on your laxatives.
Meanwhile we can expect you and your deluded friends to continue to ignore reputible published evidence like this while continuing to pretend that the latest piss weak musings from the poorly qualified are in some way relevant, and misinterpreting everything they can.
So feel free to continue wasting your time. But don’t expect any free kicks.
Today’s “Fish in a barrel” shot:
Former IPCC chairman Robert Watson says the IPCC must be investigated:
“all the errors exposed so far in the report by the IPCC resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem… ” if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.”
As in, they are biased. I am shocked. SHOCKED.
Ken – kdkd is becoming more impertinent and obscene as this “science” crumbles. The number of biased newspapers increases, we are tainted with oil industry blood (seriously, check out #1557) and facts according to the worlds top climate scientists be damned (no warming since 1995).
Global warming is coming apart fast. Even Crikey seems to have stopped talking about it. Maybe they’ll take a good hard look at the IPCC soon.
Tamas,
What rot. Piddling around the edges. Taking the Daily Mail as your primary source on climate science. Making unsupported claims about the source of the science.
Your delusions are clearly causing you to hallucinate fish in barrels for where is in fact are your feet.
It’s clear the oil/tobacco nexus are on a roll in their disinformation campaign. Watts is especially shrill and overplaying his extremely weak hand at the moment.
No supporting facts Tamas, that show your case is sound, because you haven’t got any.
Here you go Tamas, you can eat your words now.
Actually kdkd, that quote was from the London Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026932.ece
How many more newspapers can you lose before they all become worthless?
And like it or not, Jones said there has been no warming since 1995. If you want to say that the trend is positive… well, then you would have to accept that the trend from 1998 or 2001 is NEGATIVE.
None of the trends has statistical significance, but that’s kind of the point: there is no trend. The world is just not warming up right now.
How can you not get that into your brain kdkd?
Tamas,
Like it or not Jones did not say that there has been no warming since 1995. Your logic is up the spout. Failing to support the alternative hypothesis does not mean that the null hypothesis is true, it means given the available data that the alternative hypothesis is not supported. Your picking hairs about short term statistical trends makes you look foolish, which is nice for me, but fatally damages your argument.
Can you explain why 2000-2009 is the warmest decade on record since the industrial revolution? How is this consistent with your alternation between asserting cooling or no warming? Why is this consistent across all surface and satellite measurements?
“Natural variability” is not a good enough explanation by the way – just more intellectual laziness and failure of scientific understanding.
Tamas #1569
Hear Hear … it shows how thin is kdkd’s case that he has been arguing for months about 10, 15 and 20 year significance periods etc etc when even Phil Jones has conceded that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. Now he is reverting to the “warmest decade on record since 1750 or thereabouts” .
kdkd if you turn the bar heater down to a level where the imbalance of input over losses reduces to zero then you stop warming. If the balance is zero you stay at the same temperature, and if it becomes negative – you cool.
Trenberth says we currently have +0.9 warming, SORCE says we are -1.0 or -3.0 cooling (probably wrong), and with plateauing temperature it seems that we have reached a balance unless the warming energy accumulated is hidden somewhere we can’t measure.
Why 2000m down in the oceans of course – enter von Schuckmann who finds it down there in the last few months – enter Solomon who finds that the CO2 GHG effect is reduced by reduced water vapour in the stratosphere.
Stay tuned kdkd – its a moving feast of science on the run…unsettled, confusing and looking for a home.
Tamas – I think that kdkd is really a downy bummed juvenile with an Andy Griffths fetish. He says he is an adult but he has learned a few big words (some from us) and mixes them with quotes from cartoons he watches after school. Oh…. and he attrbutes it all to being abused in a papist school….
Err, Ken
Jones is saying exacty the same thing. Since 1995 is too short a period to detect a robust significant trend. This is not the same as no trend, and trying to claim so is pathetic, and shows how poorly you understand this stuff.
Back on your energy balance equation. Bored. We already know we don’t have the precision to understand how this affects thing on short time frames. Pathetic perseveration again.
So both of you can now explain why 2000-2009 is the warmest decade on record since the start of the industrial revolution. Oh hang on, you’ve been asked to do so repeatedly but you won’t. I guess deep down you know that you’re deluded, and that you have to ignore these important pieces of evidence to maintain your delusions.
Bored, go away losers.
Ken #1571
Hey Ken, this is flat out wrong. Which is it to be, ignorance or are you deliberately lying about this?
kdkd #1573
“with plateauing temperature
Hey Ken, this is flat out wrong. Which is it to be, ignorance or are you deliberately lying about this?”
Nope…..just quoting Dr Trenberth’s ‘lack of warming’ at the present which can variously be referenced to 1995, 1998, 2000 or 2005 depending on which graph you want to read.
Tamas has a handle on all the temperature graphs.
kdkd – I know this is really hard….like rejecting stories learned at your daddy’s knee…but even AGW scientists accept that there has been a ‘lack of warming’ in recent times when all the theory predicts an increasing energy imbalance which must show up increasing heat energy somewhere in the system.
As I have said many times – either the warming effects of CO2 GHG are overstated or the cooling effects of other forcings are understated for the imbalance to close up.
Most reasonable viewers would accept this as a reasonable proposition.
It is only those who have a psychological need for the doomsday message to keep screeching out with increasing volume, or have an economic interest or job dependent on it, who can’t accept the reasonable doubt and increasing uncertainty about alarmist AGW science.
Ken,
If you have to lie about the data and deliberately misrepresent the communication of scientists, and the observational record, it really leads to the conclusion that your argument is worthless.
So it’s your deep psychological need that’s the problem here.
I’m getting sick of asking this question, and your refusal to answer it: how does the decade 2000-2009 being the warmest on record since the start of the industrial revolution support your case, and support your misprepresentation of Trenberth’s comment?
So where’s the answer?
kdkd #1575
“how does the decade 2000-2009 being the warmest on record since the start of the industrial revolution support your case, and support your misprepresentation of Trenberth’s comment?”
Here is your answer…again…and again…
“kdkd if you turn the bar heater down to a level where the imbalance of input over losses reduces to zero then you stop warming. If the balance is zero you stay at the same temperature, and if it becomes negative – you cool.”
If the balance is zero you stay at the same temperature – even if this temperature is the warmest in a 1000 years viz. the *warmest decade* – which is also in doubt due to the MWP.
Get it??
Ken,
Your answer makes no sense. The past decade clearly shows a continuing warming trend. Therefore your hypothesis is not supported as you can clearly see in this graph
(again – I get bored of repeating myself, apparently you do not). See how the margin of error does not overlap between the 1990s and the 2000s, or the 80s and 90s, and that the warming trend is sustained for 6 decades? If we discount the somewhat understood decadal pause in the 1940s to 1960s, we see the warming trend has been continuing for around a century, which is exactly what the AGW hypothesis predicts.
So stop misrepresenting the work of others in a pathetic attempt to shore up your recalcitrant delusions.
How can the past decade show a warming trend kdkd? You are talking rubbish.
Jones admitted the truth. There hasn’t been a warming trend since 1995.
And sure, this was the warmest decade since the mid 1800′s. But the warming trend has been going for a few hundred years, so of course each decade will generally be warmer.
But the trend stopped 15 years ago – get that into your head.
The warming is not dangerous, not man made and certainly not a crisis, as all the IPCC exaggerations show.
Tamas,
You’re talking crap. You’re either lying or you’re blinded by your preconceptions and delusions. Nothing you wrote in post #1578 is either true or part of a coherent argument.
Today’s “”Fish in a barrel” shot:
Phil Jones, talking to The Guardian, on his 1990 paper reviewing the Urban heat island effect.
“Jones now admits that the stations probably did move during the period of analysis, and as such, the paper may in fact need a correction. “I will give that some thought. It’s worthy of consideration,” says Jones.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/16/hacked-climate-science-emails-climate-change
kdkd – There has been no warming trend since 1995 – this is according to one of your high priests, Phil Jones.
The medieval warm period may have been warmer than today. Again, from high priest Jones.
The IPCC should be investigate because all its errors are biased towards overstating the problem, none towards understating it. This from high priest Robert Watson, former IPCC chair.
You are spitting back vitriol in the face of these facts kdkd. It just makes you look desperate and silly. Try using some facts to respond.
No Tamas, this is according to your misrepresentation of what he said, with a dash of your lack of understanding of science and statistics.
Or you’re lying. You chose which one.
The more the delusional camp get over excited by every little thing they find in the press to distort, misrepresent and lie about, the more they overplay their hand. Maybe in a couple of years this will have positive consequences. Right now it debases everything on this subject, which I guess is the aim of the oil/tobacco nexus behind this stuff.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the science of anthropogenic climate change is real, and of grave concern for the future of civilisation and our descendents.
kdkd:
1) Ken and I do not work for the oil or tobacco industries.
2) Here is what Jones said in its entirety:
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
Um, so the trend from 1995 is not significant, but it’s still positive. But the trend from 2002 is in fact negative, but it’s not significant either.
Please point out how I am lying kdkd. And your “grave concern for the future of civilisation and our descendants” is cute. very cute.
kdkd #1583
Top stuff Tamas – neither the warming nor the cooling is ‘statistically significant’ from 1995-2009 – sounds like a ‘plateau’ to me.
kdkd…check out the temperature data from Figure 1 from the below paper:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
The temperature data is from:
Time series of annual global mean temperature departures for 1861–
2008 from a 1961–1990 mean (bars), left scale, and the annual mean
carbon dioxide from Mauna Loa after 1957 linked to values from bubbles
of air in ice cores before then. The zero value for 1961–1990 for
temperature corresponds to 14 8C and for carbon dioxide 334 parts per
million by volume (ppmv). Updated from Karl and Trenberth [16], original
data from HADCRUv3 http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
#datdow, and http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/.
The description is illuminated by the author:
“The global mean temperature in 2008 was the lowest
since about 2000 (Figure 1). Given that there is continual
heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by
accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Figure 1) and
other greenhouses due to human activities, why is the
temperature not continuing to go up?”
“why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
What don’t you understand about that sentence kdkd?
By the way, it is time to draw the line at your false and libellous accusations that Tamas and I are in any way connected to Oil or Tobacco interests. We have both said there is NO such connection to either of us – period.
Do not make this accusation again in this public forum.
kdkd #1583
Top stuff Tamas – neither the warming nor the cooling is ’statistically significant’ from 1995-2009 – sounds like a ‘plateau’ to me.
kdkd…check out the temperature data from Figure 1 from the below paper:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
The temperature data is from:
Time series of annual global mean temperature departures for 1861–
2008 from a 1961–1990 mean (bars), left scale, and the annual mean
carbon dioxide from Mauna Loa after 1957 linked to values from bubbles
of air in ice cores before then. The zero value for 1961–1990 for
temperature corresponds to 14 8C and for carbon dioxide 334 parts per
million by volume (ppmv). Updated from Karl and Trenberth [16], original
data from HADCRUv3.
The description is illuminated by the author:
“The global mean temperature in 2008 was the lowest
since about 2000 (Figure 1). Given that there is continual
heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by
accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Figure 1) and
other greenhouses due to human activities, why is the
temperature not continuing to go up?”
“why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
What don’t you understand about that sentence kdkd?
By the way, it is time to draw the line at your false and libellous accusations that Tamas and I are in any way connected to Oil or Tobacco interests. We have both said there is NO such connection to either of us – period.
Do not make this accusation again in this public forum.
Ken,
Trenberth’s words are not chosen carefully enough, because quite rightly he shouldn’t have to deal with deluded dickheads like you misrepresenting his work.
“Why does the temperature not continue to go up” should be “Why are temperature increases non-monotonic”.
This (correct) interpretation of what he means destroys your argument, and renders what you have to say irrelevant and stupid.
p.s. can’t believe that your and Tamas case is so weak you’re still having to split hairs about trends over ridiculously short time periods.
Actualy it shouldn’t be “why are temperature increases non-monotonic”. In order to prevent the deluded dickhead quotient from misrepresenting, while maintaining scientific objectivity, it should probably be:
“Why are temperature changes in response to alterations in the earth’s energy balance non monotonic”
Claiming the original statement is some observation about global cooling is the facile gibberings of someone whose preconceptions prevent proper scientific objectivity [1].
At least your idiot ravings expose your arguments as intellectually bankrupt and wrong.
[1] Or approximation of objectivity if you believe that true objectivity is not possible.
kdkd #1586, #1587
Impotent mouth frothing kdkd…..so desperate that you are inventing sentences to put in Dr Trenberth’s mouth.
Note viewers that kdkd never mentioned the temperature record in Figure 1, to which Dr Trenberth is clearly referring in the quotation.
What about Figure 1, kdkd….what about Figure 1??
Ken,
Your perseveration over excessively short time periods and claiming that trends from such are at all relevent belittles your case and shows that you are incapable of applying proper scientific objectivity to the problem at hand.
Prove me otherwise, start looking at the big picture. Oh, you won’t because in common with the other delusionals you know that unless you stop perseverating over the global temperature record alone, then you would expose your argument as shallow and irrelevant.
Oh yeah, Figure 1
Your argument is idiotic. Trying to claim the terminal part of the graph represents some kind of substantial trend is stupid. Given that the only year warmer than 2009 was 1998, it would appear that even if we took your moronic argument seriously, updating figure 1 with post 2006 data would destroy your argument entirely.
Assuming we might have readers left listening to Ken’s pathetic floundering, the wafer thin “evidence” he is referring to is here.
Pathetic Ken, your argument is gone, give up.
kdkd #1588
Giving the lie to your dismissal of ‘excessively short’ time periods is the simple question:
If Dr Trenberth thought that tle ‘lack of warming’ was an insignificant fact – why mention it at all?
Why in fact write the paper showing up all the ‘unknowns’ in the science in the first place?
What is a significant period kdkd 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 years? The whole alarmist AGW story is based on the last 30 years of temperature records.
Last time we had this ‘circular’ argument it ended up at 15 years.
Well Phil Jones has given you your answer; 1995 – 2009 is 15 years – and there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
Statistically Significant at the 95% level means that we can be 95% certain that the connection is not due to chance; ie there is 1 chance in 20 that the change in climate is due to chance.
As Dr Jones said that “The positive trend is quite close to the significance level”, this means that it is statistically significant at close to 95% level, ie. above the 90% level.
Which is what the IPCC says; we are 90% certain that humans are warming the planet.
“No statistically significant warming” does not mean “no significant warming”. It does not mean that temperatures are not going up. It means, going on the statistical record of temperature records alone, there is a bit more than 1 chance in 20 that the warming we have observed (which is large, 0.12 degrees per decade) is due to random chance. The other 18-19 chances are that the warming is caused by CO2. How much would you stake on 1 chance in 19, or even 1 chance in 10? It’s not a good bet.
Furthermore, this “1 chance in 19″ that the temperature is going up for some other reason is based only upon statistical analysis of the temperature data fluctuations. It does not take into account that we have a very good theory based on well understood physics and chemistry of why the temperature would be going up (the Greenhouse effect), but, AFAIK, nothing comparable to explain why the temperature would happen to “randomly” fluctuate upwards by 0.12 degrees/decade for 15 years for some other reason. El Nino is cyclical and wouldn’t cause that kind of imbalance. Occam’s razor therefore suggests that the 90%+ likely explanation is also the correct one.
Again you’re wrong ken. Your subjective and biased opinion wants the story based on 30 years of data. More like the last century mate. Give up, you’re busted at playing fast and lose with the truth and distorting the writings of credible scientists to meet your ideologically driven preconceptions.
JamesH
What I thought that if you wanted to look at the statistical significance of these time series based long term trends, you’d have to look at the statistical significance of the change in correlation over time. That is, not the raw temperate data as such, but the change in the trend over time.
Of course if you eyeball how that would work using a variety of datasets, you quickly see that Ken and Tamas’s arguments are shallow and utterly busted. I’m not bothering to do this as the delusionals are reluctant to have a dose of reality shoved in their face, and generally they claim that the shit sandwich they’re being force fed is actually lobster that they ordered at a swanky restaurant.
JamesH #1592
Question to Phil Jones:
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
Now apply your inestimable logic:
“Which is what the IPCC says; we are 90% certain that humans are (warming) er….*cooling* the planet.”
So humans have warmed the planet for the preceding 15 years and cooled it for the last 7 years – is that right JamesH??
Ken,
Your whole discussion of this is really irellevant. If you look at the long term and the big picture there are a couple of short term blips where the trend appears to stop. But you have to look at the data out of context, and with real preconceptions in mind to try to make something of it.
Conclusion. You’re engaged in a beat up, you’re trying to make something out of pretty damn close to nothing. Usual crap nothing to see here, move along.
kdkd #1596
JamesH is perfectly capable of arguing his own case kdkd…without your obfuscation.
KL #1595 is a nice little logical skewering don’t you think kdkd…..?
JamesH: the 95% confidence level is only to establish I’f there is in fact a trend. It says nothing about what is driving that trend. It could be anything. The IPCC says the trend is driven by human activity but they offer no evidence for this.
Thus, we can’t even establish that there is a trend, let alone what is driving this phantom trend.
Ken #1595 is an example of the same delusional nonsense we have come to expect from you. Your argument is total crap and deep down you know it. #1597 what obsufucation. Your argument again is crap and you know it.
Tamas. Your argument is even more crap and requires serious suspension of disbelief as you are expecting us not to account for the laws of thermodynamics or theory of chemical bonds when inferring the cause of the substantial warming trend over the past century.
Man you guys are such losers. If you didn’t irritate me so much, I’d be laughing at you even harder than I already do.
Kdkd – no trend, no crisis. Deal with it buddy.
Tamas,
The real problem we have here is that absolutely nothing you have to say on this issue relates to reality in any way what so ever. Fool.
Aah,
Here’s another one of the deluded duos precious arguments shown to be completely unsupported by the data. Executive summary. Poorly placed USA weather stations actually underestimate warming, not overestimate as claimed by the oil/tobacco nexus funded Anthony Watts.
Your credibility would now be shot except that you didn’t have any in the first place.
Kdkd – the trend mate. What is the current warming trend?
Tamas, you idiot. The warming trend has been unchanged for decades, possibly increasing slightly , but there’s not enough data to be sure.
Claiming otherwise requires either lying about the data, and/or fundamental misunderstandings of the underlying statistical logic.
kdkd #1599 Tamas #1600
Tamas – I think kdkd knows he is done for. The tide has turned. The AGW alarmists have been found out. Climategate was the gamebreaker which led to the CRU meltdown and the IPCC Glaciergate.
When you opponent resorts to abuse and name calling you know he has lost the plot and forfeited the debate.
Ken, you’re a lost case. You’re been repeatedly showed evidence that your “evidence” is wrong and or of no relevance, and your retreat further and further into your delusional bubble. All these ludicrous -gate things you speak of do nothing to alter the big picture, they’re just succor to your views that are not actually based on reality.
RIP Ken Lambert. Declared that white is black and black is white, and was promptly killed on the next zebra crossing (with apologies to Douglas Adams).
The name calling by the way is due to your refusal to have a rational discussion on this topic. It is a result of the weakness of your case, and your refusal to take a reality based view of the topic at hand.
Got it?
kdkd #1607
I have given you the 10 point plan kdkd – sane, energy efficient and not subject to the whims of the green nutters and academic fellow travellers funded by the long suffering taxpayer.
You have offered nothing other than smear, abuse and syncophantic repetition of the AGW religious mantra of second rate scientists fishing for research grants by echoing the party line.
The 10 point plan is fine. Nothing that hasn’t been comprehensively outlined by other people, but fine nonetheless. I’m happy to discuss it further in a polite way. I think the targets you set could be upped by 0.5 to 1 order of magnitude without adverse long term economic consequences. This would be a response more in proportion with the size of the problem and the response time that the evidence suggests we have.
No. You may recall I engaged you in a fairly detailed exercise to determine whether co2 was the problem here, using a variety of publicly available datasets and simple undergraduate statistical methods. It confirmed what you claim is the “religious mantra of second rate scientists”. At this point you went into serious denial. I think seeing as you essentially ignored this work, justifying doing so with crackpot conspiracy theories not supported by evicence gives me the right to lose patience with your idiocy. As for being called a fuckwit, you have to admit, in the context of the comment you made (#1423), you asked for it.
So you prefer the decideldly third or fourth rate nonsense that emanates from a group of people mainly notable for their funding from people with vested interests in continuing our wasteful energy and carbon intensive economy for as long as possible, as well as their delusional hangers-on.
So somebody has evidence on their side here ken, but it ain’t you. As you have demonstrated repeatedly, to try in vain to maintain a coherent argument you have to repeatedly ignore or misrepresent the available evidence. And when you get really desperate you reach for the crackpot conspiracy theory.
kdkd #1609
The length of your response must be boring the viewers kdkd…….and showing how much struggle you have in regurgitating your message.
I forgot – I even gave you the “Carbon Cops” – an ideal way to involve the energetic and idealistic kiddies in saving energy and cost to every household – and rescue their own wasteful lifestyles (Two fluffy towels per day for pimply teenager by electric dryer please mum!!)
Crikey seemed to like it – it featured unopposed in the Comments Corrections etc a few days ago.
Even Tony Abbott’s Opposition is looking at something similar to rescue all those ‘green auditors’ without a job as a result of the Rudd Govt’s flawed and incompetent policies.
Earn your taxpayer funding kdkd….produce something constructive…….
Ken,
Don’t be so pathetic. My lengthy response calls out all your bullshit, and you are letting it go unopposed.
By the way, I suspect that the crikey commentariat are just (like me) bored of your nonsense. In the context of Abbot’s crappy ineffectual policy, the carbon cops idea is quite reasonable, although I guess there are more effective ways to try to effect the wholesale change in Australian cultural attitudes towards energy use required.
kdkd #1611
Face up to it kdkd…..the tide has turned. The Chinese in Copenhagen were not convinced by western ‘science’ involving them in a climate catastrophe.
They just kept saying No, No, No…..
kdkd’s huffing and puffing is like his fart in a football crowd – only he is impressed….
Ken #1612
The unsubstantiated (unless you count by the oil/tobacco) nexus ramblings of an unreconstructed lunatic conspiracy theorist.
I’d expect you, seeing as you claim to understand some of the physics behind this, to understand the scientific issues. All you understand is the deep psychological need to maintain your delusions.
As usual there’s good commentary at realclimate about “Whatevergate”, identifying it as largely a beatup from the ultra-competitive and scientifically challenged UK media. The most prescient quote:
Seeing as Ken has to constantly ignore evidence, misrepresent the work of others, reach for wild conspiracy theory and in general take a non-reality-based-view of the topic in order to continue his argument, this commentary looks eminently sensible to me. Tamas is even worse, he bases his opinions on the topic exclusively on lies, misrepresentations and only reads the output of various right wing think tanks funded by the oil industry and their cronies ignoring the results from real scientists completely.
The tide is turning indeed. I see our two King Canutes are getting their undies rather wet, another hour or to and they’ll be drowning.
Yes kdkd – the oil industry has somehow stopped global warming for 15 years now. You gotta hand it to those guys, they are good.
Tamas #1615
Thank you for proving my point, to wit:
In this case, an out and out lie.
AKA the data does not support Tamas’ claim, yet he still parrots it as if it is an unassailable fact. However, as we can clearly see here, he’s making it up.
kdkd – the data doesn’t support my claim? Tell that to Phil Jones buddy.
And I love how you source the Met office for global temperatures. Can we see the data behind their graph? Ahh… no, Phil Jones lost the data.
Great science eh? Make a claim (the world is warming!). Data to back up the claim? Sorry – lost it. You’ll just have to trust us.
If you believe that kind of “science” then I’ve got a bridge to sell you buddy.
Idiot boy #1618
Aah, this one has lies and misrepresentation. Good work
Please point out the lie and the misrepresentation kdkd.
Notes on AGW fact or fiction ?
G Collet, Marine engineer, Diesel fitter, Master IV (fishing) Australia,
My background in marine engineering with associated knowledge of heat transfer in water and air, latent heat of water to water vapor and water to ice caused me to be skeptical and look for further evidence.
Any one who has spent time outdoors away from urban heat islands will have noticed that during night time it is warmer under an overcast than under a clear sky . Greenhouse effect of clouds. The opposite occurs during day. Reflection from cloud.
There have been scientific papers published to explain this.
(1) Pro. Richard Linzden, Mas. Institute of Technology. –Climate of fear, Wall St Journal, April 12 – 2006
(2) Dr Miklas Zargoni, Scientific Paper, Dec, 2009. CO2 Can Not Cause Any More Global Warming.
(3) Saturated Greenhouse Effect, Graph, — Global Energy Flows –Trenberth BAMS, 2009.
(4) Hungarian Physicist, Dr Frenec Miskolczi Proves CO2 Emissions Irrelevant in Earth’s Climate. Scientific paper published. Not disputed by peers.
Google advertisement. The Green Guide. – 2009 – CarbonExpected to be the Largest Commodity Market.
Follow the money.
Conclusion—Carbon trading can not be of benefit to other than those involved in trading. Absolutely no benefit to the ecology.
Any program that addresses pollution and alternative energy can only be of benefit.
Tamas,
You are misrepresenting what Phil Jones actually said, either because you don’t understand the scientific concepts, or because you want to maintain your delusions. You are making a false claim (i.e. a lie) that the met office data is substantially different from all of the other climate data sets.
QED
kdkd.
1) Here is what Phil Jones said.
BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Jones: Yes, but only just.
2) The Met office data comes from the CRU. That’s why it’s called the HadCRUT data. Jones admits that he has lost much of the historical data.
So, um, no lies and no distortions.
This is getting harder for you kdkd, isn’t it? That’s why you are becoming ruder and attacking Ken and me rather than our arguments. It’s pathetic.
Tamas,
1. You clearly don’t understand what this answer actually means. Presumably because you do not understand the scientific issues underpinning the statement.
2. You appear to be claiming that the HadCRUT data is significantly different from the other data sets available. This is not the case.
See, misrepresentation due to lack of understanding, and an out and out lie.
It is getting harder for you, you’re a lame one trick pony, and the evidence does not support your uninformed opinion.
1. The answer means what it says – there has been no warming trend for 15 years. How can you not understand that?
2) The HadCRUT data may well correlate with other data, but so what? They don’t actually have the underlying numbers that their calculations are based on. What kind of “science” is that?
so, no lies or distortions and you just look silly. Again.
1. No. It means that there is insufficient data to determine whether there is a trend or not, but only if you ignore data available in prior years. This is where you are misrepresenting the statement. My interpretation will be independently verifiable by professional statisticians inside or outside the field of climate science. Yours will only be verifiable by fools such as yourself.
2. You are making no sense. The HADCRUT data and the trends therein are indistinguishable from the other datasets available. You are now resorting to argument by non-sequitur.
So indeed your misrepresentation is confirmed, and by moving over to argument by non-sequitur, you confirm our suspicion that your original statement was a lie. Therefore you remain as always our favourite climate imbecile.
Hahah – kdkd you are too funny.
1) You just made my point 1. No trend can be determined over the past 15 years. This at a time when humans have produced record CO2. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?
2) What are the other data sets? NASA/NOAA. Um, that would be Jim Hansen’s NASA GISS. Jim “death trains” Hansen. Think his data might be a little dodgy? Why have the number of stations in his data set collapsed from over 6,000 to 1,500 today?
You want to be careful saying that NASA and HADCRUT are highly correlated, because it just makes the NASA data look suspicious.
And once again, your rudeness knows no bounds. Such a shame that you can’t have a polite debate. Your rude drivel is so boring…
1. No because I understand the underlying logic how we assess trends. You clearly do not, and you use this lack of understanding to leap to incorrect conclusions.
2. NOAA, UAH and so on. All indistinguishable, all show the same gross behaviour. tough titties dude – called out big time on this one.
I’m rude to you because you deserve it. As far as this topic is concerned, you are an imbecile, your opinions on the topic are not based on evidence and are a waste of oxygen.
1) You are talking rubbish. No trend for 15 years. This according to Phil Jones. Your claim to some deeper, more nuanced knowledge is laughable.
2) Why won’t NASA and the CRU release their data? What are they afraid of?
Rudeness is not a popular character trait kdkd. Say what you like, but you will be judged by others for it.
1. Tamas, your understanding of trends, and correlations is laughable. This is a blunt instrument at best, and you are really trying to make something out of it that makes no logical sense. I will not waste my time explaining this to you as you are clearly not interested.
2. I see you’ve had to resort to changing the subject here because your claim is not supported by the data. That’s right, your beloved sattelite data supports the NOAA and HadCRUT data. Tough on you I know, but that’s the way the evidence goes.
Tell you what, you stop insulting my (and all the other readers) intelligence with lies, misrepresentation, misunderstanding and crackpot conspiracy theory and I’ll think about being polite to you.
1) Whatever, smart guy. Your argument is rubbish.
2) My original point was that HADCRUT doesn’t have the data anymore. Got it?
Tell you what, keep being rude and throwing wild accusations at me and Ken. It just makes your case look desperate and weak.
1. See, I knew you weren’t interested.
2. No, your original point was that the HADCRUT data was untrustworthy. However it does not differ substantially from the other data sets.
As you and Ken constantly have to constantly repeat the same lies and misrepresentations to make your case, and then add a touch of whacky conspiracy theory when things get really hard for you, it is in fact your case that looks desperate and week. I just don’t suffer fools easily. IRL I would have walked away from your crap long ago.
kdkd #1631 et al
Tamas kdkd is sounding like a cracked record.
Clearly kdkd’s tactics are to endlessly chant from his little green schoolbook: lies, misrepresentations; crackpot conspiracy theories etc etc in a Dr Goebels-like technique of endless repetition of ‘the big lie’ – ie: *the bogus concensus of the IPCC about alarmist AGW*.
You won’t see off Tamas and myself kdkd….toying with you every night before bedtime has become a sometimes amusing but mostly a melancholy duty.
By the way JamesH never replied to this and nor did you try either – skewered both:
Quote:
JamesH #1592
Question to Phil Jones:
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
Now apply your inestimable logic:
“Which is what the IPCC says; we are 90% certain that humans are (warming) er….*cooling* the planet.”
So humans have warmed the planet for the preceding 15 years and cooled it for the last 7 years – is that right JamesH??
Endquote
Nitey nite…….
Ken #1632
Misrepresentations and crackpot conspiracy theory. Well done.
You have nothing interesting to say, and are repeating yourself constantly. You and Tamas are free to do this, but expect your idiocy to be called out every time you do.
Oh yeah, the ’02 to 09 trend is irellevant. It’s pretty clear once we discount for the extreme El Niño in 1998 that the decadal trend is for more and more warming. Trying to slice it into tiny slices and ignore the past is a form of lying.
And for your paranoid moron needs, here’s a graph of such for the sattelite data. Bear in mind that the sattelites really seem to overestimate the effect of El Niño.
Hasta la vista delusional duo.
More on the tobacco / acid rain / oil company nexus here for all your having your face rubbed in it needs. Of course the delusional duo will continue to exclaim how it’s not a shit sandwich, but a delicious plate of cordon bleu lobster.
Ken #1632
The following quote from you really demonstrates that you have no understanding of the issues surrounding trends in global temperature measurement. This merely makes you look ignorant and stupid.
kdkd #1636
Just let JamesH have his say kdkd…. You don’t need to cover for him. He seems to have some grasp of the numbers and has made some sensible points on the addition of errors.
Ken WTF.
Whatever. You want a private conversation with JamesH, do it via a private channel. My point stands. Any person providing the interpretation that “humans have warmed the planet for the preceding 15 years and cooled it for the last 7 years” has such a woefully poor understanding of regression and correlation that their opinion should not be taken seriously on the matter.
You may wish to look up the Dunning-Kruger effect (aka the delusion index) and apply it to your understanding of the topic. You’re off the scale mate, bringing your limited engineer’s understanding of the implications of stochasticity, along with your ideological blinkers to a topic whose complexity makes you way out of your depth. This is why you have to perseverate over such a limited part of the topic – and lie and misrepresent about it too.
kdkd #1638
As Phil Jones says – both the warming 15 and the cooling 7 are not statistically significant.
Ken #1639
Yep, and as such there’s absolutely no point in trying to make anything out of those two absences of discernable trends at all. You have to look at the data in a broader context. Bear in mind that the word “climate” implies weather patterns and seasonal patterns over a 30 year or so period, so 7 and 15 year time periods are pointless to examine anyway, especialy given the precision limitations with which we can examine the earth’s energy balance.
So stop perseverating on those things, they’re delusionosphere talking points that are to draw the credulous and the misguided. Scientifically the 7 and 15 year trends are meaningless.
kdkd #1640
Go back 5-6 months in this ‘Cage Fight’ and find where you finally accepted that 15 years was the minimum ‘statistically significant period’….
Off you go….
Ken #1641
I’m afraid you’re wrong again.
If you push the period to asses the trend to as short a period as possible, under some circumstances 15 years are long enough to detect a strong trend. But in the real world™ we wouldn’t dream of trying to make something of such short periods of time in isolation.
Another example of your preconceptions and ideology making you want to reach conclusions that aren’t warranted I’m afraid.
Kdkd #1640
“You may wish to look up the Dunning-Kruger effect (aka the delusion index) and apply it to your understanding of the topic.”
Straight lift from ‘Skleptical Science’ kdkd – read it this morning.
I will try and find the ’15 year significant’ reference tonight.
I remember lots of kdkd flashdancing around the time period for significance in your desperate attempt to show that the warming trend was always positive and SIGNIFICANT.
Ken,
Read about the Dunning Kruger effect from the primary source about a year ago. Skeptical Science merely reminded me of it. I can send you a copy of the original paper if you like.
Don’t care about the “15 year significant” period. Any answer you got would have been caused by idiotic climate delusional badgering over utterly irrelevant minutae. There was no desperation to show the warming trend was always positive and significant, you’re misremembering, and allowing your preconceptions and ideology to cloud your scientific judgement. My revised opinions are that trying to show short term trends using correlational methods are pointless and misleading.
Tamas: Nice job in today’s crikey, you really do like to broadcast that you’re an idiot with no understanding of the issues at hand, well done.
Actually there was a nice paper in the delusional press (probably Energy and Environment) that clearly showed the pointlessness of assessing short term trends out of context of the rest of the available dataset. It came up here a while ago. Again it caused the delusional duo to claim black was white, war was peace and fucking was virginity, which is the usual thing that happens because they hold their preconceptions and ideology more dearly than the actual evidence!
Thanks kdkd. I note that as usual you can’t actuall refute the point I made today do you just resort to you usual rudeness.
Tamas,
What’s the point of engaging you when you’re clearly uninterested in the facts and the underlying science?
And yet you cannot reference these facts or underlying science .
No Tamas,
I’m aware from experience that trying to engage you in discussion is a fruitless task because your entire viewpoint is based on lies, misrepresentations and wacky conspiracy theories. With a side order of ignorance.
Ken @ 1632
Possibly unlike some others I have a life and only log in here when not sufficiently irritated by other events.
Can you really not understand the difference between “But only just” and an unambiguous “No”?
Here’s an example. My son is 5’7”. Average height for a guy his age is 5’8”.
Journalist: Would you say your son is below average height?
Me: Yes, but only just.
Journalist: Do you agree that your son is a midget?
Me: No.
Headline: JamesH admits child is stunted. Is he a bad parent? Will child protection agencies be called in, in what is rapidly becoming known as “Growthgate”?
Having answered so many of your questions, I now wish to pose a question to you. Given that the sociology is the same (vast majority of scientists in a field believe one thing; a small minority backed by a noisy and rather incoherent internet/press/political fan base believe the opposite; getting it wrong has potentially dire consequences), how would an outside observer tell the difference between the claim that greenhouse gases are not causing and will not cause the temperature to rise, the claim that smoking does not cause cancer, the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS, and the claim that homeopathic remedies are effective? Because I can’t think of any methodology or basis for judgement that will admit the first but reject the other three. Do you have one, or are you going on instinct?
JamesH #1650
I do accept that smoking causes lung cancer, HIV causes AIDS, Homeopathic medicines are placebos, Lee Harvey Oswald shot John Kennedy, and your son is 5’7″.
I don’t accept that the science of enhanced CO2 GHG warming and scientific understanding of all the forcings affecting the Earth system is good or accurate enough to make predictions of catastrophic warming by doubling CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100.
I further suggest that the ‘plateauing’ of temperatures over the last 7-15 years, and the great uncertainties in the energy balances of the Earth system points to the overestimating of warming by the enhanced CO2 GHG effect and/or the underestimating of coolings effects such as cloud albedo.
Climategate has shown that advocacy science has egged the custard to generate a climate of moral panic and hysteria for drastic economy destroying action.
Invoking the precautionary principle, I advocate sensible measures to reduce CO2 release by converting to gas and nuclear for central generation, energy saving efficiencies and sane time frames which do not damage our largely coal based energy system in Australia.
All very reasonable I would have thought James.
Like Ken, I have no life. JamesH is sensible and polite about this stuff, I wonder how long he’ll take to lose patience with the delusional duo.
Let’s look at what Ken’s saying.
Illogical argument. While the uncertainty is relatively high, the observations and predictions to date suggest that the chances of catastrophic warming in scenarios close to business as usual are high. Ken is suggesting that because the uncertainty is high, the outcomes are going to be at the lower end of the predicted range. This is not predicted by the evidence and a great example of crappy interpretation of scientific information.
Good work here. Starts with an assertion not supported by evidence (temperatures have not plateaued in any meaningful sense over the past 7-15 years, as can be seen by 2000-2009 being the warmest decade on record since the industrial revolution). Then we go on to make the same fallacy as in part 1 of Ken’s manifesto of illogic. Ken’s making the assumption, not backed by evidence, that feedback effects will be strong negative feedback effects; however, we see quite a bit of evidence around that the main feedback effects will be positive (e.g. decrease in Arctic albedo).
And we round it off with crackpot conspiracy theory not at all supported by evidence. I find this particularly amusing, as the delusional camp have to constantly over-egg their custard, make assertions unwarranted by the evidence, and otherwise woefully abuse scientific information and the scientific process.
Here’s a nice little article for you to read in the Guardian: Do climate change sceptics give scepticism a bad name? There is a crucial difference between scepticism and non-belief in the face of overwhelming evidence.
kdkd #1653
Desperation all round kdkd.
You still don’t understand that warming imbalances can reduce or zero out with the temperature ‘plateauing’ and staying at about the same level. Having the ‘warmest decade’ since the MWP is not inconsistent with ‘plateauing temperatures’.
Get it??
You are getting in the way of James H’s rational discussion because your emotional livlihood depends on alarmist AGW.
Beware the convert – thay always chant the loudest to their Gods…
Ken,
You are desperate indeed. You provide no real evidence for your assertions, and are constantly claiming that the temperature is plateauing when it’s not.
Your argument is clearly coming from the perspective of a faith based doctrine rather than any actual evidence.
Beware the right wing ideologue, their attention to the evidence is almost always lacking.
Ken #1654
On the contrary. Your constant reliance on false evidence, misrepresentations and crackpot conspiracy theory shows that you are incapable of a rational approach to this subject. In this case it’s a case of the pot calling the Teflon pan black.
kdkd #1653
Your fraught tactics are transparent kdkd – deny, deny, deny….smear, smear, smear
If ‘denier’ is a label much abused in this debate – it should properly be applied to the AGW alarmists who are desperately fighting for their ‘over egged’ message to be heard amongst a public which has had enough of recanting Flannerys and turgid stories of scientific shonkiness.
Ken,
You’re making no sense- I suggest it’s medication time again.
You’re constantly repeating falsehoods. You are constantly repeating crackpot conspiracy theories not supported by evidence. Gven that, it is appropriate to deny that what you are saying is true, because it is false. The only reason that you view this as a smear is that you have this faith based approach to the subject at hand. You appear to have the view that contradicting your faith with the full support of the evidence is some kind of smear. A logical examination of this premise indicates that you’re not capable of discussiong this topic rationally.
There are two reasons that you might want take this approach: either your belief system is delusional, or you have some more sinister hidden agenda that requires that you constantly repeat falsehoods and misrepresentations.
Tamas,
Hope you enjoyed your slapdown in today’s Crikey. Won’t engage on the facts my arse. Just won’t take the field on your delusional terms more like.
Looks like someone has been fact checking Bjorn Lomborg. Opps, another of the delusional duo’s crutches crumbling to bits.
And precisely which facts did you slap down today kdkd? I read nothing about them in your comment… hmm? Please point them out. Thanks.
Tamas #1661
Read the contents of the link you idiot. Oh you won’t because it doesn’t support your delusions. Your other delusion is that you’re worth engaging in debate.
Read the link thanks kdkd. Care to summarize the point it was making? Are you capable of providing and intelligible synopsis?
Care to argue to the specific point I made about a 33cm seal level rise in 100 years not being a crisis? You can actually argue a point, can’t you?
Quote: (from Real Climate – kdkd’s AGW source library)
Kevin Trenberth wrote: (to Tom Wigley)
Also, Trenberth’s more recent on-line elaboration discusses possible mechanisms for the current “bad news” cooling plateau, and laments inability to define it. Here is an extract which is not contradicted elsewhere:
“…Perhaps all of these things are going on? But surely we have an adequate system to track whether this is the case or not, do we not? Well, it seems that the answer is no, we do not…”
endquote
Ken Lambert wrote:
“I further suggest that the ‘plateauing’ of temperatures over the last 7-15 years, and the great uncertainties in the energy balances of the Earth system points to the overestimating of warming by the enhanced CO2 GHG effect and/or the underestimating of coolings effects such as cloud albedo. ”
See any similarity kdkd?
I think that I would take more notice of Dr Trenberth than Kieren Diment of small regional university whose only expertise seems to be in boring repetitive unfunny abuse.
Ken.
I agree that some of my “abuse” is unfunny. Some of it is hilarious though. You just don’t think so because you are the target. However, my comment in #1658 was totally serious, and it appears to have struck a nerve.
Now your answer at #1664 appears disingenuous. This is not from realclimate at all, but from the CRU email hack. Here’s the stolen email in clearer context.
Here there’s two problems with your argument. You’re stating increased cloud albedo as a negative feedback mechanism as a fact. It has the status as a hypothesis – from Trenberth:
The certainty you claim is not in that statement. Secondly you’re assuming the effect will be strong enough to offset all or most anthropogenic warming, but again you have no evidence to support this aside from the fact that the absolute numbers are not terribly high. Thirdly you are assuming that there are no positive feedback effects that are going to offset this. Given we know about potential positive feedbacks (decreased arctic albedo, increased methane production from higher temperatures and permafrost melt, increased frequency and intensity of forest fires), then your assumption again appears unwarranted. You are failing to treat the hypothesis with sufficient caution.
Now onto the plateauing issue. If we look at the temperature record (here’s the GISS record, but as none of the records show statistically significant differences, you could perform this excercise with the HadCRUT, or the UAH or whatever). Now for your argument to be coherent, you have to make the claim that is that there’s some significant difference between the variability of the temperature between about 1995 and the present day compared to elsewhere in the series. I’m not seeing that from looking at the graph at all – the relative variability looks pretty much the same all the way through.
So nice try, but it’s your preconceptions talking again, not any actual evidence. Also you had to misrepresent Trenberth’s words in order to make your point.
Tamas,
Executive summary: sea level rise projections are highly uncertain. Now I couldn’t find any absolute figures on it, but I’d be willing to bet that a 33cm rise in sea temperature is going to have rather significant effects on storm surges, beach dune system integrity, on buildings where inappropriate development has occured and other stuff like that. And givn a business as usual scenario the rise won’t stop in 2100, it will continue, and the problem will get worse. Your claim that a 33cm rise is nothing to worry about is ignorant, deluded, and not supported by the evidence.
kdkd #1665
Dr Trenberth: “we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter ”
kdkd: The certainty you claim is not in that statement.
Straw man kdkd – I never claimed that anything was a ‘certainty’ in climate science.
What I have claimed is the great ‘uncertainties’ in climate science which is perfectly confirmed by Dr Trenberth:
“we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter “.
This meshes closely with the ‘lack of warming’ comment from Dr Trenberth, so it is entirely reasonable to make the statement:
“I further suggest that the ‘plateauing’ of temperatures over the last 7-15 years, and the great uncertainties in the energy balances of the Earth system points to the overestimating of warming by the enhanced CO2 GHG effect and/or the underestimating of coolings effects such as cloud albedo. ”
Ken,
If it’s highly uncertain there’s no justification for the use of it as the crux of your argument.
Next, Trenberth’s comment on “plateauing” is not based on a statistical analysis of the trend. I can tell you from eyeballing the graphs that if you were to do this, you’d find that there was no difference between the last 7-15 years and other similar looking periods in the temperature record over the past century. The 7-15 year trend is also based on data to 2006. If we look to 2009 this supposed ‘plateau’ is no longer present. So again the evidence here is too flimsy, and the uncertainty too high for you to be able to justify using it as the crux of your argument.
Additionally you have to ignore all the non-temperature trends, otherwise your argument becomes increasingly inconsistent with the observational record. These are things like ice melts, changes in seasonal onset time, fire frequency and so on.
Again nice try, but you’re listening to your preconceptions and ideology rather than the actual evidence.
kdkd #1668
When I last ‘eyeballed’ a graph kdkd (back in the Arctic of this blog I recall) – I was pilloried for being ‘unscientific’. Only mathematical statistical analysis was good enough according to kdkd – the eye could be fooled.
Now we have kdkd ‘eyeballing’ graphs and making claims that suit him.
Who was it who said; When you are telling porkies you have to have a good memory, kdkd??
Ken,
The trouble is with the temperature record graphs that statistical analysis of short time periods has very low statistical power. If like me, you’ve half memorised your correlation tables (p values related to sample size and correlation size) then it is legitimate to make observations about ranges in graphs. Feel free to do the statistics though, it’ll support my point.
You’re referring to post #610 by the way, where I specifically refer to a “large an noisy dataset”. What we’re talking about here is a small and noisy data set. By virtue of its smallness we have very very low statistical power, so only extremely salient (correlation coefficients around 0.5 for the 15 year “trend line” of temperature versus time (with upwards correction for autocorrelation, and 0.7 (with upward correction) for the 7 year trend). Of course if you’re trying to demonstrate a temperature drop, these correlations will have to be negative. If the correlation coefficient is not statistically significant (i.e. below these absolute values) it does not demonstrate a plateau, but demonstrates that there is insufficient data to reach a conclusion. Yes, crude analysis of trends like this is a blunt instrument, and so you need to use different methods than correlations to assess them. I’d start by looking at temperature indicator variables – time of seasonal onset, snow and ice melts, permafrost melts, fire freqency and so on. Unfortunately examining these would fail to support your case that there is a plateau of temperature change as well.
Again our pot is trying to claim the teflon pan is stained with soot.
that’s at p = 0.5 by the way. You can probably correct for autocorrelation by pretending that the p=0.01 critical value is the 0.5 value in which case your correlation coefficients have to be abs(0.623) to abs(0.864) which is a very very tall ask for a small and noisy dataset.
oops, sorry in my haste the last post 1671 that should have been p=0.05 for both instances.
Tamas – misrepresentations in today’s crikey today I see. Your delusion index (self perception of expertise) is off the scale mate.
kdkd #1671
Mincing around with unneeded complexity – plateauing, or slight warming or slight cooling, none of which is statistically significant according to Phil Jones adds up to the same thing – flat.
None of ths ‘other’ non-temperature indicators eg. ice melt is inconsistent with a warming phase which has plateaued. Ice could continue to melt because the temperature has levelled out at a temperature higher than before the current warming started.
Ken #1673
This is an interesting but facile argument. I fail to see how answers can be simple for a subject as complex as this. I see as with the creationist arguments, the global warming delusionals need to oversimplify and misrepresent facts in order to attempt a coherent argument. I also suspect that as with the creationists, they also need to take a frame of reference that is not valid.
But whatever. It still stands that your argument rests on unwarranted assumptions based on your preconceptions, and the requirement for a large number of random variables to go in exactly the way you want them, without any evidence that this is in fact occurring. Just because you don’t understand the statistical reasoning, it doesn’t mean it’s not sound. The absence of a detectable trend is not the logical equivalent of no trend, but I wouldn’t expect the delusional camp to get this because it goes against their required preconceptions. What’s the 30 year trend? This would be a reasonable starting point for detecting any plateau.
I agree with you that ice melt is a poor short term indicator, but again this is climate, we’re looking at generational time scales, not a piddling 7-15 years, so your perseveration on this is an irrelevant distraction. Just remember, every time you refer to a plateauing of temperatures over the past 7-15 years it’s either a misrepresentation or a lie.
kdkd #1674
“Just remember, every time you refer to a plateauing of temperatures over the past 7-15 years it’s either a misrepresentation or a lie.”
Just keep chanting this mantra kdkd. Write it in your little green schoolbook.
Warming since 1995 is not statistically significant and cooling since 2002 is not statistically significant either. Phil Jones has agreed with what Tamas and I have been saying for months and months.
Thanks Phil for confirming our position.
Just remember Ken that every time you repeat this, you’re basing your argument on information with very little meaning, taken in isolation from the broader context, and asked by journalist on behalf of a so called climate skeptic, and answered in a politically very naive manner. If you ask the wrong question, then you’ll get the wrong answer.
Summary: You just announced that you don’t care that your argument is based on lies, misrepresentations and incomplete information. Now move on. Give up or talk about something else.
The BBC interview is actually quite long, and if a quote cherry picked, misrepresented and quoted out of context is the best you can do to support your case, then your case is in deep trouble indeed.
kdkd #1676, 1677
“Just remember Ken that every time you repeat this, you’re basing your argument on information with very little meaning, taken in isolation from the broader context, and asked by journalist on behalf of a so called climate skeptic, and answered in a politically very naive manner. If you ask the wrong question, then you’ll get the wrong answer”
In other words Phil Jones was being politically naive when he gave a truthful answer to a simple question ie. Is the warming of cooling since 1995 ‘statistically significant’?
As you have already set the ‘gold standard’ in many of your posts as ‘statistical significance’, then to be consistent you must accept that if a thing is not ‘statistically significant’ then it cannot be separated from the background noise.
The very fact that you are haggling about the forms of questions and making green political judgements about Phil Jones’ naivety is proof positive that the science of AGW is full of uncertainty.
Then you flip to ‘complexity’ and try to link simplification with ‘creationist’ science – another unsubtle smear. Now sceptics are linked with Oil, Tobacco and Creationism!!!
Is this kdkd moving to vaudeville??
Ken,
A small piece of information while ignoring the broader context is not a valid way of drawing conclusions. Statistical significance is meaningless without the context in which it occurs. In this case we can draw strong statistically based conclusions embedded in a broad context. You are wanting to draw conclusions in the absence of such context, which is not valid.
My recent comments provide a coherent explanation as to why you try to maintain your argument in a very narrow scope and why you rely on misinformation, misrepresentation and crackpot conspiracy theory to make your argument
Given your failure to broaden the scope of your argument, and your dogged determination to keep to some very narrowly defined arguments of a more political nature than a scientific nature, I think that there’s something deficient here. It’s not at my end, so it must be at yours.
Oh look, and from today’s sealed section, Matt Andrews echoes my sentiments exactly.
My emphasis by the way. To claim the above is not a devestating rebuttal to your current massively done to death argument is to deny the well defined rules of logic and statistical reasoning.
kdkd #1680
Is this kdkd as a ‘hurt puppy’?; those awful skeptics are winning the media war after the boot being on the other foot for the last 20 years……
Matt Andrews quotation:
“And the elephant in the room is that the vast majority of the warming taking place on this planet is at depth in the oceans, most of which does not feature in the atmospheric measurements that we are debating here. Ocean heat has continued to rise throughout this decade.”
Just get Matt to substantiate the above statement with some references to ‘peer reviewed’ papers kdkd. Specifically how much heat at what depth??
Ken,
Truly pathetic attempt at changing the subject, that paragraph was secondary to my point, and I probably shouldn’t have included it. As usual you attempt to my clearly valid point and change the topic, because paying attention to it would highlight the bankruptcy of your argument.
If you’re interested in heat storage at ocean depth, then I suggest you do a search of the scientific literature. Here’s a starting point for you. This would be good for you because it would broaden your repertoire from your present absurdly narrow view of the topic. However, I suspect that you’re too closely attached to your faith based view for this to have any effect on your ability to critically evaluate evidence properly. Instead you will continue to rely on preconceptions and ideology.
“you attempt to my clearly” should be “you attempt to ignore my clearly”
kdkd:
Just get Matt to substantiate the above statement with some references to ‘peer reviewed’ papers kdkd. Specifically how much heat at what depth??
I have had a look at the Von Schukmann paper which is one of the latest. Old papers are not much good without the last 5 years or so of the Argobuoy data (such as it is).
It is a fraught area at the moment with the oceanographers needing to get their act together to give a coherent story on ocean heat content at what depth.
Go to it Matt..
Well at least we have some concession (by silence and changing of the subject) that The extent to which climate contrarians have misrepresented [the short term warming trend] is truly disgraceful.. I’m afraid I’m Mr Deadlines at the moment and won’t be immersing myself in a foreign scientific literature any time soon. I’m happy to take my short daily breaks to come and slap down your lies, misinformation and crackpot conspiracy theories though, if you still want to continue down that path.
Ken – don’t you love how kdkd and Matt Andrews have such soaring, value laden rhetoric?
As in: “The extent to which climate contrarians have misrepresented all this is truly disgraceful”.
Because we disagree with them and patiently point out the inconsistencies in their arguments, we are “truly disgraceful”.
I suppose if the facts don’t support your argument, what else can you do but hit the hyperbole button and play the man and not the ball?
Tamas,
That’s the delusions speaking again. The extent to which you lie, misrepresent, appeal to paranoid conspiracy theory, go into denial and then expect to be taken at all seriously is indeed disgraceful.
Also the only consistency in your argument is in your determination to totally ignore all of the facts and evidence presented to you.
Tamas #1686 kdkd #1687
Spot on as usual Tamas. When kdkd’s technical argument fails miserably, all he resorts to is ‘playing the man’ – invective and infantile abuse.
kdkd – how do you get your invective and abuse to appear *bold* on the posts?
You have we ‘disgracefuls’ at a disadvantage in presentation.
Tamas – maybe we could form a pop group or something for sensible sceptics called “The Disgracefuls”.
I can see us going platinum instantly….
Ken,
On the contrary, when your argument is repeatedly shown to be a facile failure based on lies and delusion, you then declare that war is peace, black is white and fucking is virginity. This may seem coherent and consistent to you, but this merely suggests that you are either refusing your medication, or that it is not working properly and you need to up the dose.
Ken – brilliant. Can I be lead singer?
Tamas #1690
Yes, absolutely – me on drums — who else could we have in the band?? Phil Jones on amplifier??
Ken – nah, phil would be unable to “hide the incline” as we sneakily pumped the sound up to “11″. I’m thinking Peter Garrett could “insulate” us from any crazy fans and kdkd could just make some weird guitar noise. It would be in keeping with his “white noise” statements on this blog. Who shall we get to conduct us as we rise to a hockey stick like crescendo?
Tamas #1692
Garrett could ‘liven up’ the crazy fans with some of that foil insulation stapled into the amplifier cabling ….come to think he probably needs one of kdkd’s tin foil hats…..
I think someone distinguished looking and patrician for conductor ….how about that silver maned smoothie Ian Plimer??
kdkd could run the air-conditioning plant —make sure the fans didn’t get too hot…
Looks like we have a plagiarist in the crikey correspondence page. Still, much more eloquently put in the original version.
Suggest that the delusional duo stick to their “humerous” interlude, as there are no facts suporting their case.
It’s not just me calling the delusional duo out as liars.
And a nice piece of graphic design showing how the liars keep lying, and why it is successful.
Here’s that well known scientific journal The Economist calling out the delusional duo’s latest lie as well. Oh hang on, the topic is something they’re qualified to talk about, Journalistic malpractice on global warming.
Busted again guys. Looking forward to your next episode of right wing “comedy”.
kdkd #1694-1697
Four posts in a row by kdkd – seems to talking to himself….
Humerous – a body bone misspelt I think…maybe you have ‘boned’ yourself kdkd..
Garrett has been half ‘boned’ and watch out for the Wong Minister – the humourless one….she is ripe for a good boning..
Well I figure that I’d better make sure that you were aware the consensus on what you’ve been saying for the last 200 odd posts (when examined in an evidence based perspective) is based on lies.
Perhaps my spelling is too poor for me to use such complicated words. Perhaps “funny” is the right experssion, with a note people with right wing political beliefs do seem to really suck at satire.
Typo in my comment in Crikey today: “For some years after 1800 the Krakatau eruption caused significant global cooling” should have of course been “For some years after 1880 the Krakatau eruption caused significant global cooling” – The Krakatau erruption itself was in 1886 FYI.
kdkd should be treated like a rabid dog – with kindness….
For those who want some good information read on:
Dr Trenberth’s Aug09 paper mentioned in the famous emails has a starting point. He starts with a warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m (2000-2004 average) which equates to 145E20 Joules/year applied to the whole planet’s surface.
The O.9W/sq.m is made up from radiative forcing elements quoted in IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 plus various feedbacks. Dr Trenberth makes the point that this number is not derived from direct measurement because the devices for such are not accurate enough. ie. an imbalance of 0.9 W/sq.m is not possible to directly measure in the roughly 240 W/sq.m of energy flux passing through the atmosphere. So the 0.9 number is composed from climate model corrections and indirect measurements, feedbacks etc (complex to describe all the components).
Dr Trenberth then goes on to account for a range of 45-115 E20 Joules/year (av 80) by best estimates of ice melt, land warming and ocean warming etc leaving a residual of 30-100 E20 Joules/year (av 65) for the period 2004 – 2008.
So of the 145 he accounts for roughly 80 and a residual of 65. That is the current state of play.
The 80 accounted for represents an imbalance of about 0.55W/sq.m of his assumed starting point of 0.9W/sq.m.
In the Aug09 paper and a particular email he suggests that brightening of clouds could be an unmeasured factor. Cloud albedo has a low LOSU and wide error bars in the IPCC AR4 Fig2.4 forcing numbers requoted in Dr Trenberth’s paper.
Clean Air Act reductions in SO2 are quoted as explaining the cooling of 1940-70 but there were few if any direct measurements 1940-1980, and the Clean Air Act does not apply to current India & China (the world’s most reliable witnesses to these emissions).
I would suggest that the places to look hard at the discrepancy between the proposed 0.9 W/sq.m warming imbalance and the roughly accounted 0.55 W/sq.m are:
1) Cloud Albedo increase from unaccounted emissions,
2) Much more accurate measurement of ocean heat content.
Remember that AGW theory rests on an assumed warming imbalance postulated by the lead IPCC author Dr Trenberth at 0.9 W/sq.m. He can only account for 0.55 W/sq.m as of Aug09.
There are only two possibilities – (1) either the imbalance is not 0.9 but something less – closer to 0.55 W/sq.m due to overestimated CO2 effect or increased cooling effects mainly from aerosols …..OR… (2) the ‘missng heat’ is sequestered in the oceans below the depths which currently show no warming (700-900m).
A paper by von Schuckmann publiched after Dr Trenberth’s Aug09 paper suggests that 0.77 W/sq.m of ocean surface equivalent heat flux is stored down to 2000m. This sole paper (unknown to Dr Trenberth until last month) is the only piece of evidence so far quoted in the AGW blogs which finds the missing heat energy. Several other analyses of ocean heat content give different results.
The above illustrates the serious uncertainties in the current knowledge of the energy balance of the earth system – which is the key to the degree or warming (if any) occurring at the present time.
This is far from the catastrophic certainties based on ‘advocacy science’ of green agenda alarmists like kdkd.
Ken,
You’re repeating yourself. Doing so doesn’t make your hypothesis true. You’ve clearly run out of ideas and are desperate.
This assumed imbalance is actually observable from the instrumental temperature record, so I’m not really sure based on this how your point can be valid. You need to move away from your assumptions (apparently based on political ideology rather than real evidence) to a properly empirical view of the subject.
kdkd #1702 #1703
No….just summarizing the state of play for the more rational contributors like JamesH.
The ‘plateauing’ instrumental record ie. lack of warming would indicate the arrest of the imbalance.
You have given me an idea though kdkd. Dr Trenberth has given us proportions for the heat capacity of the atmosphere compared to the oceans, and the contribution of ice melt in energy terms.
I think I have enough data to plug into the Earth’s Energy-Temperature formula I worked out for you about 6 months ago. We have the specific heat of seawater, latent heat of ice etc, so it might be possible to find the temperature sensitivity of the atmosphere-ocean-ice system for a given warming imbalance. The vast majority will be in ocean specific heat, because the short term ice melt is small and the atmosphere is small.
There could be a paper in this yet kdkd…I would have to assume lead authorship of course…
Ken,
Repeating that lie doesn’t make it true. Try this. There is no plateauing. The first decade of the 21st century was significantly warmer than the previous decade, and so on for quite some time through the industrial era. We even know why there are large interruptions to this trend at times.
So repeating the lie doesn’t make it true Mr Goebles.
kdkd #1705
The funny thing is that the ‘deniers’ are now really the AGW alarmists like kdkd who deny, deny, deny the uncertainties in climate science as revealed to the public by Climategate and its aftermath in order to save their pure dogma.
Until Copenhagen, western governments were susceptable to influence by the political green agenda. Now they are not so sure.
Realpolitic Chinese-style met 15000 green happy clappers and countless ratbag fringe groups.
Result: Chinese 1 – Ratbags 0.
Ken,
Your paranoid conspiracy theory and orwellian nonsesne doesn’t cut it. Come back when you’ve refuted every article at http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php with citations of equal or better quality than those provided by the author.
Assuming you’re not prepared to put in those hard yards, and just want to keep going with the same litany of lies, cynicism and propoganda techniques reminiscent of old Mr Goebels, you shall remain now and always a delusional fuckwit.
kdkd #1707
Dr Goebbels actually……
Now, now kdkd….just because your Gen X-Y education did not include anything as right wing as correct spelling – there is no reason to resort to the baser forms of abuse.
All it indicates is that you have no answer to my very reasonable propositions and you are as mad as hell and you can’t take it anymore……………………
Your very reasonable propositions. I must have missed them, or more likely your delusions are increasing. How about that detailed refutation required so that your argument makes any sense at all. Oh no, can’t do it, the dog ate your homework, can’t trust those greedy scientists with their left wing agenda of greed and self interest, so can’t use the peer reviewed scientific literature … etc etc ad nauseam.
Very credible. I stand by my previous insult, and that you are indeed trying to exploit Nazi propoganda techniques in common with your deluded co-conspirators.
kdkd #1709
Peer reviewed scientific literature ……. using it all the time mate….
Trenberth, Von Schuckmann, Willis, Solomon to name a few in recent times…..
We are fortunate to have something even better……. through the magic of the internet we have a record of private conversations between the leading scientists involved in AGW theory.
And you know the power of the overheard conversation in revealing truth…..
Shame you can’t use the peer reviewed literature to support your claims without misrepresenting what the papers say, or if that’s not possible out and out lying about the content.
I’ve been thinking about your cloud albedo hypothesis.
Take this graph of annual average temperatures. Now we’ve got no net change in temperature between 1940 and 1980 presumably caused by particulate and sulphate pollution.
Meanwhile, conservatively the temperature rose by about 0.3 degrees between 1900 and 1940, a little under 0.1ºC per decade. So we can make the assumption that dirty energy prevented 0.3ºC of warming. Big assumption, but your analysis takes us to making these kind of assumptions.
Between 1980 and 2010 we see a rise of 0.4ºC or thereabouts. Let’s now assume that between 2010 and 2050 we would get another rise of 0.4ºC without your increased cloud albedo effects, and the same magnitude of increase of greenhouse gas emissions. Now it could be that dirty energy could cancel out all but 0.1ºC of this temporarily, but there are a number of assumptions that you need to make in order to make this prediction. Your homework is to think about what these assumptions are, and how much of a leap of faith you have to make in order to be confident that we’ll only see 0.1ºC of warming between now and 2050.
Finally you need to explain how likely these assumptions are to be correct, and whether there is any evidence that would eliminate the effect of these assumptions and make them irrelevant.
Seriously, if you want your argument to be treated with any kind of credibility, this is what you need to do. Failing to do this and sticking with the lies, misrepresentation and crackpot fuckwittery just shows that all you’re serious about is posturing around your political ideology.
As usual my calculations are out, but this time they’re ballpark about right.
kdkd #1711,2
You know that the only reason I am still playing in the cage is that I hope to set a Guinness Record for the longest continuous blog in internet history – 2000 posts should do it.
Hopefully JamesH will re-enter and provide some sensible civil debate.
He seems to have gone a bit quiet – probably persuaded by the power of my last analysis of the state of play in #1701.
I note that Skeptical Science has a number of threads running with some good detailed discussion by people with some knowledge. James H probably got the von Schukmann paper from there (and hit me with it on Crikey Comments).
John Cook from Skeptical Science has cited it in a number of threads and it seems the only paper so far to find some of Dr Trenberth’s ‘missing heat’. It has been much commented upon in the threads.
I have not seen it mentioned on the RealClimate pieces or threads.
It seems then that the whole of the warming imbalance for the last 5 or so years is hanging by a thread on the one von Schukmann paper.
Ken #1713
Nope, you’ve also got to account for the fact that measurements continue to show a warming trend unchanged since the 1970s. Of course you can repeat the lie that the warming has paused, or plateaued or whatever, but this little bit of false propaganda you like to repeat is not true, therefore does not support your case.
You would appear to be wrong, and the von Shukmann paper has been discussed at realclimate.
And it looks like figure 5 provides data that doesn’t support your hypothesis – lots of heat storage at ocean depth. Don’t believe me, see for yourself. Plus what we can’t detect below 2000 metres.
How’s that list of assumptions going? Not interested? Yeah I knew. You’re trying to have a political discussion disguised as a scientific one, and you’re not afraid to pull every dirty trick in the book to try to get your agenda accepted.
kdkd #1715
kdkd: “You’re trying to have a political discussion disguised as a scientific one, and you’re not afraid to pull every dirty trick in the book to try to get your agenda accepted.”
Oh dear dear kdkd …….its cognitive dissonance again……..accusing others of doing what in fact you are doing yourself.
Wrong terminology, you’re talking about projection which is a psychoanalytic term.
Now seeing as I don’t have to constantly lie and misprepresent the evidence to maintain my side of the argument, but you have to constantly ignore the questions that are asked of you, and lie about and misrepresent the evidence, and engage in ideologically driven paranoid conspiracy theories, it would appear that your charges are again misplaced.
Too bad sucker. Until you start treating the argument as a scientific one rather than a political one, you’re not going to get a milimetre of slack. Or you could do the simple thing and just go away.
kdkd – your note in the Crikey comments section today was pathetic. You simply want to shut down any discussion you don’t agree with. But Crikey doesn’t seem to be listening.
Bad luck pal. The sceptics are making a case that must be heard. And guess what – the polls show that we are winning.
Oh, I know. This means the general population are idiots, right?
Tamas, you have a total disregard for factual accuracy in the quest for your deluded point of view to be treated as if it has factual accuracy.
The majority of the population don’t really care one way or the other, so the polls represent a very shallow point of view indeed.
And you appear to be claiming that victory in the propaganda war is of primary importance and bugger the truth. Something is pathetic indeed.
Tamas #1718
Spot on Tamas. The kiddie is crudely trying to shut up anybody who does not agree with him.
kdkd must have learned this Maoist tactic from watching grainy old films of the cadres of the cultural revolution chanting at harmless old scholars and frantically waving their little red (now green) schoolbooks.
Dimented………
Ken
One side of the argument has the facts on our side. The other of us resorts to the nazi propaganda technique of repeating falsehoods in the hope that repeating them will confer some legitimac. So again you are engaging in projection here, and still trying to treat a scientific discussion as if it were a political one.
Truly pathetic.
Rather than you 3 trading insults for another 1700 comments, are you yet prepared to nominate what information would cause you to change your mind?
Or are you that one eyed that it’s impossible?
Ken and Tamas
There’s a nice article here which explains why your lies and misdirections are so effective in influencing public opinion.
kdkd #1715
Fig 5 is snatched from where? Where is the calculation of heat content? To calculate OHC you have to brick the ocean in 3D, measure the temperature of each 3D brick (say 500m x 500m x 100m deep brick), and and then add up all the + and – numbers from each brick at referenced to a Time 1 all over the planet. Time 1 would be the reference and Time 2 would measure the change relative to the reference.
You could see that this would be hard. If you could not get a full ocean coverage (snapshot) at Time 1 then complex circulations could move hot and cold water to a different ‘brick’ before you completed the snapshot.
I am sure you could apply your big brain to the difficulties of this problem in statistical terms.
Figure 5 from the von Shukmann paper (available via a google search) which displays temperature anomalies across the ocean to 2000m depth. Lots of heat being stored in there.
Given this is very new, if Ken’s arguments were supported, I’d expect to see the early results from peer review supporting his case. Unfortunately for him the opposite appears to be the case. Of course it is possible that this will change, but assuming this a priori is not justifiable.
sorry for the continuation. Of course we see Ken has a history of discarding new information that doesn’t support his case. Trenberth’s global termperature figures go to the end of 2006, when if you play really fast and lose with the statistics, you can kind of say that there’s some very short term plateau (which nonetheless is not different to any other short term plateau type things seen elsewhere in the same time series). However, from 2007-2009 (along with the decadal trend) we see that this so called plateau isn’t really there, but that Ken maintains the fiction anyway.
Why is my 1722 still awaiting moderation? Why is it being moderated at all?
Ken -allow me to sum up kdkd’s debating approache.
“LIAR !!! LIAR!!! LIAR!!!”
No substance, but lots of accusations.
Anyway – how’s this for today’s fish-in-a-barrel shot.
From that evil sceptic mouthpiece, The Guardian:
Next to him (jones), holding a metaphorical hand, was Professor Edward Acton, his vice-chancellor, who interrupted at intervals to tell the committee what a splendid fellow Jones was and how his unit was doing magnificent work warning the world.
Acton conceded that not everything pointed in the same direction. It’s acknowledged that several hundred years ago Earth became much warmer. If we knew why, we could explain a lot. “The early medieval period is something we should spend more time researching,” he mused.
Bwahahahahah!!!!
Bwahhahh! indeed. Tamas, absolutely everything you have to say on this topic is a ridiculous lie and solidly discredited. So it would seem appropriate that due to your constant lies, misdirection and totallack of interest in the body of knowledge regarding climate change, that it’s appropriate to call you out, and tell it like it is.
Which is another way of calling you pathetic and delusional again.
Ken’s just as bad, the lies are slightly more subtle and creative, but again, it’s not about the science and the knowledge, it’s about treating the whole thing as a riposte to a perceived left wing political conspiracy. In this case ridicoulous, pathetic and delusional.
Positive feedback effects anyone? Of course we’ll get the delusional duo saying “it’s definately always been happening”, “There’s no evidence that this could be a problem in any way what soever” or some other variation on the usual fantastic lies.
Finally delusional boy, your rather weird non-sequitur about the mediaevel warming period is thoroughly dealt with here.
kdkd #1729
Mr Cook’s blog is a bit out of date (2007). What it really says is that a continuous forcing of 3.7W/sq.m will raise the Earth’s equilibrium temperature by about 3 degC.
It then claims that doubling CO2 (relative to pre-industrial levels of 280ppm) will apply a radiative forcing of 3.7 W/sq.m – quoting the IPCC WG1 reference.
This is no doubt the Mhyrr equation F.CO2 = 5.35 ln(Co2a/Co2b). ie 5.35 x ln(2) = 3.71 W/sq.m. Assuming this equation is right.
What it does not say is that CO2 forcing is but one of a number of terms which add and subtract to get the net radiative forcing as per Fig 2.4 of IPCC AR4.
Currently the CO2 component of Fig 2.4 is 1.66W/sq.m and as we know from Dr Trenberth’s AUG09 paper this ends up at 0.9W/sq.m when the other forcing terms are added and the cooling and feedback terms subtracted.
We do not know what a CO2 forcing of 3.7 W/sq.m would reduce to when all the other terms were added and subtracted in circa 2100AD when this CO2 doubling is supposed to arrive. Aerosols, water vapour, clouds are all med-low LOSU effects.
If 1.66 is reduced to 0.9 (or 0.55 actually measured), then we could proportion the 3.7 x (0.9/1.66) to reduce to 2.01 W/sq.m and linearize this to an equilibrium temperature rise of 2.01/3.71 x 3 degC = 1.6 degC.
This is since the start of the industrial revolution – so we know that roughly 0.8 degC has already occurred to date – so 1.6-0.8 = 0.8 degC to go.
There you go…..a doubling of CO2 can be resolved by an entirely consistent process to a temperature rise of 1.6 degC – half of which has already happened without any catastrophe at all.
An extra 0.8 degC does not seem to me to portend catastrophe – do you agree Tamas??
So you’re claiming climate sensitivity is 1.6ºC and not the more widely accepted 3ºC. Fair enough, although it’s not a figure widely supported in the literature. However, in your exposition you make the following assumption:
Assuming that a c02 forcing of 3.7 W/m^2 will reduce is a substantial assumption which you have not justified.
Until you do that the remainder of what you are saying can be treated as denialist propaganda, so get to it boy!
Oops.
You also need to justify this statement (the bold bit):
Because again it looks like you are allowing your assumptions to get in the way of your analysis.
kdkd #1732
Go have a look at Fig 4 from Dr Trenberth’s paper here:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
John Cook’s 3.71 W/sq.m from the doubling of CO2 is the top term in the table only. (CO2 currently at 1.66 W/sq.m)
Look at the all the other heating and cooling terms and then the ‘Net Response’ terms at the bottom – the main negative feedback being Radiative feedback of -2.8W/sq.m from the surface temperature increase of 0.75 degC (I said 0.8) which has already occurred.
Then tell me what these terms will become will become in 2100 (double CO2 time).
Nope, you’re making the assertion that in 2100 the negative feedback effects will dominate, so it’s up to you to demonstrate how this assumption is likely true. However, given that 19 in 20 papers published recently suggest that the IPCC are underestimating the temperature response to forcing (down at the end of the interview with William Freudenburg bonus points for finding the peer reviewed article that he’s referring to here. [tbc]
[cont ...] Also you need to evaluate the potential for strong positive feedback effects. Go look at the link in #1728, and you can also read a nice precis of the paper referred to here. Yet you’re still willing to bet the farm on this hypothetical idea that negative feedback effects will dominate.
If you want to be taken seriously you have to justify that in a much better way than your handwaving ideologically driven statements about LOSU.
So by all means keep trying, but nowhere near good enough yet.
kdkd #1734 #1735
“Yet you’re still willing to bet the farm on this hypothetical idea that negative feedback effects will dominate”
I never said that negative feedbacks will dominate. I said; “Then tell me what these terms will become in 2100 (double CO2 time).”
The main negative feedback – radiative feedback from increase in surface temperature will grow 4% for every 1% increase in absolute temperature due to Stefan-Boltzmann effect where F.radiative = K T4 (T = absolute temperature in degK) and 4 is the 4th power. K is a constant.
Dr Trenberth quotes this as -2.8 W/sq.m in his Fig 4 based on a 0.75 degC increase in the surface temperature.
I roughed this out by ratioing the existing OLR of about 240 W/sq.m and existing Earth temperature as about 288 degK and pre-industrial temperature as 287.25 degK as follows:
(288/287.25)to 4th power x 240 = 243.14 W/sq.m (-3.14 is pretty close to Dr Trenberth’s -2.8).
When you raise to the 4th power – slight temperature changes make a big difference.
eg: if we use a 0.7 degC difference instead of 0.75, the sum becomes:
(288/287.3) to 4th power x 240 = 242.3 W/sq.m (-2.35 is on the other side of -2.8)
As you can see a temp difference of 0.05 degK has changed the negative feedback by 0.8W/sq.m (3.14 – 2.35)
Now let us assume that we raise the temperature another 0.85 degC on top of Dr Trenberth’s 0.75 degC to make up my proposed 1.6 degC rise.
The sum then becomes (288.85/287.25) to 4th power x 240 = 245.39 which is a 5.39W/sq.m increase in negative feedback.
So at 0.75 degC increase using my number for the current negative feedback is -3.14 and at 1.6 degC increase my number is -5.39.
The increase in negative feedback is 5.39 – 3.14 = 2.25 W/sq.m
Doubling CO2 will increase the CO2 forcing to 3.7W/sq.m (according to the Mhyrr eqan) minus the current level of 1.66 ; therefore the increase in positive CO2 forcing is 3.7 -1.66 = 2.04 W/sq.m
So the doubling of CO2 will have a forcing effect of +2.04 W/sq.m and raising the Earth’s temperature another 0.8 degC will have a negative effect of -2.25 W/sq.m.
This shows that the equilibrium will be reached when this particular forcing gap closes to zero at about +0.8 degC above current levels.
This rough analysis assumes all the other forcing terms remain equal – which is why I said “Then tell me what these (forcing) terms will become in 2100 (double CO2 time).”
Certainly doubling CO2 and its forcing will not do the job of warming the Earth 3 degC on this analysis. The other heating and cooling terms would have to change significantly to the positive to do the job. You tell me what they will be??
I will let you work out the Stefan-B radiative negative feedback for 3 degC rise.
Ken,
You’re climate sensitivity figure of 1.6ºC appears to perform OK in hindcasting excercise so long as we assume that 25% of observed warming in the past 30 years is caused by something other than greenhouse gas emsissions. However this is a spurious assumption, the real figure is more likely 90%, and in this case underestimates the observed warming by 20%.
I’m also slightly suspicious that you’ve plagiarised your argument from http:// http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt .html (excuse the spaces, moderation queue etc.)
Anyway, I suggest that you go and post your latest analysis to somewhere like realclimate or skeptical science where you’ll get a range of expertise that will critically evaluate what you have to say. Getting me to comment constructively on this engineering maths is no more sensible than getting you to make an intelligent comment on statistical analysis – although at least I admit to my limitations in the area, you merely claim because you don’t understand something well that it must in some way be invalid.
kdkd #1737
KL #1736
“This shows that the equilibrium will be reached when this particular forcing gap closes to zero at about +0.8 degC above current levels.”
This not strictly correct as I have neglected the original Trenbrth of +0.9 W/sq.m (or +0.55 accounted for) which would be underlying the imbalance.
If you offset the extra +0.9W/sq.m you get to a temperature increase of 1.81 degC and if you offset the accounted for +0.55W/sq.m the temp increase is 1.71 degC.
Subtracting 0.75 degC which has already happened and you get a maximum increase of 0.96 – 1.06 degC.
If you use the predicted 3 degC rise then the sum becomes:
(290.25/287.25) to 4th power x 240 = 250.18 W/sq.m which would give a negative forcing of -10.18 W/sq.m.
If we subtract my current figure of 3.14 (Dr Trenberth’s 2.8) then the increase in heating forcings would have to rise by 10.18 – 3.14 = 7.04 W/sq.m to balance at a 3degC rise.
If this was accounted for by *CO2 alone* then the current +1.66 would have to rise to +8.7W/sq.m which by back working the Mhyrr equation would require a 5 fold increase in CO2 concentration to 1423 ppmv.
ie: F.CO2 = 5.35 ln (1423/280) = 5.35 x 1.63 = 8.7 W/sq.m.
Let me say that I would stand corrected by an expert on the assumptions – but my understanding of OLR being 240 and the S-B radiative forcing being linearly dependent on the 4th power of black or grey body temperature is pretty certain I think.
The only possibility of being seriously wrong is if *not* all of the OLR (240) is subject to the S-B equation, and I have fluked the calculation of my 3.14 being close to Dr Trenberth’s 2.8. (although this number is sensitive to a small change in temp so by reducing the temp diff to 0.7 degC, I got 2.35 and (3.14 + 2.35)/2 = 2.75. So my av number equates to a temp diff of 0.725 degC which is splitting hairs with Dr Trenberth’s 0.75 degC rise since pre-industrial equilibrium temperature of the planet).
I have not seen the “junkscience” reference – maybe not junk after all.
Ken,
As I said, your answer of a climate sensitivity of 1.6ºC contradicts the majority of the literature on the issue, and is not supported by empirical observations to date. I suggest writing up what you have into something a bit less longwinded, presenting it somewhere suitable for expert review and letting us know what happens when you’ve done that. Expert in this context means avoiding the usual climate delusional suspects.
Long winded is probably the wrong word, but concise and non-repetetive might be a better way of putting it
kdkd #1739
To take into account Dr Trenberth’s proposed current +0.9W/sq.m warming imbalance the climate sensitivity would be 1.8 degC and if it is only 0.55 W/sq.m then the number would be 1.7 degC, and my original rough proportioning gave 1.6 degC assuming zero current imbalance.
So call the sensitivity 1.6 – 1.8 degC.
I believe you are close to a physicist – run my numbers past and see if they check out.
Nope, go and find a real climate scientist, and ask them whether your calculations are correct, and on the implications for the next century. My physicist would rightly say your calculations are right outside their area of expertise.
Also there’s a big error of assumption in your calculations. All of the business as usual emissions scenarios show doubling of co2 on pre-industrial levels occuring in 2050, not 2100 as you claim.
So all you’re really saying is that if we get emissions under control (which is not looking good at this stage, partly thanks to the delusional brigade, partly thanks to crappy government negotiations), then we’re slightly less screwed if your climate sensitivity figures are correct.
See the dangers of making spurious assumptions. Your other spurious assumption is that the short term effect of low clouds is going to dominate over all of the other positive feedback effects we know are quite high risk.
p.s. Those people at realclimate who you accuse of constantly overstating their case have a nice (as usual) sober look at the new evidence surrounding arctic methane. I think you should try to get your model based on Trenberth’s model there, as well as its implications for warming to 2100.
So …
Assuming that Ken’s estimate of climate sensitivity is correct, or making a more conservative assumption that it represents a good lower estimate of what the climate sensitivity is, and given that we expect that the global co2 concentration will double in around 2050 based on a range of business as usual scenarios, we can see that Ken’s arguments support that we need to radically decarbonise the global economy by 2050 in order to attempt to keep warming within the +2ºC range on pre-industrial times. This is a big job with strong political inertia preventing this very large restructuring of the global economy from happening. Of course our big assumption is that there aren’t going to be any large positive feedback mechanisms kicking in between now and the doubling time.
So nice work Ken, all your calculations support the case that we need to get on top of this problem very quickly. And you can also see that your house of cards fell down through a one wrong estimate of a single parameter. Now I lack the expertise to determine if anything else in your calculations are wrong, but you’ve done a good job of falsifying the so called climate sceptic case so far
. Better present your (edited case) to an expert panel now.
kdkd #1742,43,44
Nice try at straw man kdkd.
I *never* said we should do ‘business as usual’ – and the world is taking and is going to take some sort of action to reduce fossil fuel burning.
Your 2050 date for doubling of CO2 would then extend out to possibly 2100. ie. my *10 point plan* advocates ‘sensible – non economy destoying measures’.
What you are missing is that 0.75 degC of the ‘doubling of CO2′ sensitivity has already happened.
Therefore the increase to come; based on a total of 1.6 to 1.8 degC will be less the 0.75 degC.
The postulated increase to come would max out at 0.85 to 1.05 degC by somewhere between 2050 and 2100.
This is compared with the IPCC ‘alarmist’ scenario of 3 degC from ‘doubling CO2′ and a net of 3-0.75 or 2.25 degC to go in a similar timeframe.
Average of 0.85 and 1.05 = 0.95 degC (KL) which plays 2.25 degC (IPCC).
That means 42% of the problem the IPCC tells us we have.
Ken,
My non-expert opinion is not capable of deciding whether you are confabulating, especially that business as usual (which is what Tamas argues strongly for, and what you constantly implicitly agree with him about) would indicate that we’d get a further doubling of CO2 to come by 2100, providing another minimum 1.8ºC of warming. Especally as your model accounts for hypothesised negative feedback mechanisms but ignores the possibility of strong positive feedback.
The oil tanker analogy suggests that we need to go hard and fast now to ensure that we get no more than doubling of CO2, in which case disaster may be averted.
Additionally you need justify how your analysis still makes sense given that only 1 in 20 of empirical studies indicate that the problem is smaller than the IPCC indicate, while the remaining 19 in 20 indicate that the problem is of greater than or equal to magnitude of the IPCC projections (i.e. that the empirical observations tend towards confirming the IPCC worse case scenarios or worse).
Answers on a postcard. Paranoid conspiracy theories of which you are fond are not acceptable. I think while your natural ideological bent tends to a conservative attitude that is geared towards supporting business as usual, the evidence you are presenting shows that a reasonable but hard and fast decarbonisation is highly desirable. The quicker we get to this, the less it will cause long term economic costs.
It really is interesting that your figures show one thing, but you are trying to argue the oposite – that is you are misrepresenting your political argument as a technical argument.
Another faulty premise. We should be aiming at no more than 2ºC warming on pre-industrial temperature, not 2ºC warming on today’s temperature. There are also substantial ecosystem changes that are radcially altering the habitability of significant parts of the planet at 0.7ºC or whatever warming. This slight of hand at trying to make 2.7ºC acceptable warming rather than a more prudent 2ºC smacks of more political posturing, rather than attending to what the scientific evidence is telling us.
You are however doing a rather good case of supporting the climate realist position, so by all means continue digging yourself that particular hole
Well etither Ken’s picked a really bad time to go away on business / pleasure or he’s realisied that he’s just fragged himself with his own bomb rather badly and is away getting all the bits sewn back on in case he survives.
Meanwhile, this week’s science show has some great stuff on climate change. Totally demolishes the delusional case, but then that is like shooting disgusting lying deluded fish in a rancid barrel.
kdkd #1746,7,8
Away for a day to earn some more to pay more tax to support the kdkd’s of this world.
Well you are probably only going to get 1.6 – 1.8 degC on pre-industrial levels if that.
Thanks for referring me to Junkscience; it has a very good summary here:
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.html
Ken #1479
Oh dear. Well you have a minimum estimate of the climate sensitivity of 1.7ºC. This is rather low when applied to a hindcasting model, and rather low when taken in context with the rest of the literature. And it’s not awfully far from the magic 2ºC figure that the ecologists and agriculturalists tell us is critical in terms of global warming mitigation.
Plus with a half arsed mitigation strategy that’s 30 years behind schedule due to toxic political influences, the chance of overshoot is pretty high.
So if it wasn’t for your need to maintain your conservative (as in: commercial concerns are more important than anything else) views, then you would be in agreement with me that this is an urgent problem that needs rapid attention in order to avoid massive economic and social damage.
Thank you for exposing your views as dominated by a shallow political perspective rather than based on the actual scientific evidence though, it’s made your case very clear, and to a sensible observer renders it rather invalid.
Ken #1749, #1745
If this is the case I really don’t understand why you constantly refer to and agree with authors in the delusionosphere (like the junkscience blog) and the ultra-deluded contingent like Tamas whose views are clearly that the whole thing is a total fiction and that the most appropriate course of action is to do nothing. Your calculations don’t support this, and neither do you.
kdkd #1751
KL #1730, #1736 – read these again kdkd.
“Doubling CO2 will increase the CO2 forcing to 3.7W/sq.m (according to the Mhyrr eqan) minus the current level of 1.66 ; therefore the increase in positive CO2 forcing is 3.7 -1.66 = 2.04 W/sq.m
So the doubling of CO2 will have a forcing effect of +2.04 W/sq.m and raising the Earth’s temperature another 0.8 degC will have a negative effect of -2.25 W/sq.m.
This shows that the equilibrium will be reached when this particular forcing gap closes to zero at about +0.8 degC above current levels.
This rough analysis assumes all the other forcing terms remain equal – which is why I said “Then tell me what these (forcing) terms will become in 2100 (double CO2 time).”
Certainly doubling CO2 and its forcing will not do the job of warming the Earth 3 degC on this analysis. The other heating and cooling terms would have to change significantly to the positive to do the job. You tell me what they will be??”
endquote
You are distorting kdkd.
I have used the AGW theorists own numbers to arrive at the 1.6 – 1.8 degC number for doubling of CO2.
The Junkscience guys are using other means to arrive at much lower temperature increases like 0.37 – 0.6 degC. I have not worked through all their calculations but they could be right – just like Dr Trenberth could be right – part of the glorious uncertainty of the science.
Interesting discussion going on on Skeptical science re Anarctic Ice mass and sea temperatures.
Have a look at the threads – Berendi(??) Peter is contributing and they have ignord me completely – no one has absorbed my point enough to challenge it I expect.
John Cook is notably absent from the discussion.
By the way I listened especially to the Science Show. The Alarmists are certainly feeling the heat at the moment.
Climategate and Glaciergate are the tipping points.
Huge claims require huge evidence.
When nonsense like the 2035 melting of the himalayan glaciers makes it through the ‘thousands of scientists peer review process’ then the public could be expected to doubt *any* alarmist claim from any climate scientist.
That is what is happening now – the public has lost confidence in the Tim Flannery’s, Phil Jones’ and other prominent alarmists.
Your alarmist club is an empire in crisis kdkd.
Ken,
I’ve explained repeatedly how your bias towards the delusionist camp contaminates your assumptions, and means that you’ve made some critical mistakes in your analysis. Your conclusions are not supported in the mainstream literature, with the exception that your minimum estimate of climate sensitivity is a good minimum estimate. However this still has us well on the way to serious trouble by 2050, and no amount of political posturing can get you out of that one. Face it, without your political biases you agree that climate change is a serious concern. It’s just that your idiotic ideological blinkers stop you from being able to admit it explicitly. Your house of cards just collapsed because you tried to balance a brick on top of it.
Ken
Your assertion that forcings will approach zero on approach to a doubling of co2 relies on this assumption, and that the effect of this feedback will be at the extreme negative end of the range. You also have to ignore all positive feedback mechanisms to maintain consistency.
Additionally, is assumption of an approach to zero forcings at doubling of co2 sound dubious and are not supported by the paleoclimate record. Doubling is also far too convenient a number and I would say that the risk is high that there’s a spurious artifact in your calculations causing this.
And this is why I am dismissive of your hypothesis beyond you’ve provided a reasonable minimum estimate of climate sensitivity.
kdkd #1753,54
“Your house of cards just collapsed because you tried to balance a brick on top of it.”
Even your metaphors are infantile kdkd..
“And this is why I am dismissive of your hypothesis beyond you’ve provided a reasonable “minimum” estimate of climate sensitivity.’
Errr…..*Maximum* estimate of climate sensitivity kdkd – not minimum.
If you want a minimum sensitivity go for 0.4 – 0.6 degC kdkd, and subtract the temperature increase we have already had (0.75 degC) – which means that we have had it all…..
Funny that – could it coincide with the current ‘lack of warming’….in fact all we are might now be seeing is the ‘natural noise’ signal on top of a 0.75 degC ‘plateau’?
kdkd #1754
“Cloud albedo has a low LOSU and wide error bars in the IPCC AR4 Fig2.4 forcing numbers
Your assertion that forcings will approach zero on approach to a doubling of co2 relies on this assumption, and that the effect of this feedback will be at the extreme negative end of the range. You also have to ignore all positive feedback mechanisms to maintain consistency.”
WRONG.
It relies on the proposition that as the planet warms its OLR will increase in proportion to the 4th power of the absolute temperature ie; the Stefan-B Eqan. The change in OLR will be a negative feedback.
The positive forcings – chiefly CO2 GHG forcing is supposed to rise logarithmically and the negative forcing of OLR rises in proportion to the 4th power of absolute temperature.
All other forcings (+ and -) are assumed to remain the same (including cloud albedo).
T^4 beats ln () every time.
Ken,
You’ve lost me. I strongly suspect that there’s an error caused by you injecting a key flawed assumption somewhere that fits your political beliefs rather than the actual evidence. The literature on climate sensitivity suggests I’m right too.
If you don’t write this up and present it somewhere credible with expertise on hand (realclimate is the obvious target) I’m going to do it for you. But seeing as I don’t really understand your work, there’s a strong chance that I’ll end up misrepresenting it.
Consider that an ultimatum. Given I’ve asked you to get someone who knows what they’re talking about a few times, and you’ve ignored the request preferring to spout to the ignoramuses on this board, I think it’s a fair ultimatum.
It’s your lie and you’re sticking to it eh?
The decadal trend suggests that accellerating warming is a possiblity. That fact alone demonstrates clearly that your lie is obviously a lie.
Your alleged (delusional) minimum is clearly not correct as we have already experienced greater warming than that.
Anyway, ultimatum time, put up or shut up.
kdkd #1757
I have already engaged Gavin on Realclimate and he won’t come out to play. Same with John Cook.
That is the trick with all these AGW alarmist propaganda blogs posing as sober forums of scientific debate:
When a challenging and well argued post is made (Mr Peter for example), the controllers of the blog – Gavin Schmidt or John Cook is these cases can choose simply to ignore the argument made and not comment.
In this way the blog can be slanted so that only the weakest arguments are answered by the Gavins and Johns, and the tougher questions go through to the keeper or are argued by other bloggers with no particular standing.
Ken
Your paranoid conspiracy theory doesn’t wash. Edit up what you have to say so that it’s clearer, tighter and less rambling. Otherwise I’ll do it for you.
Your hypothesis may be internally consistent (I lack the skills to determine if it is fully), but when you relate it to observations, and when it becomes clear that you have to use lies in an attempt to support it then it does not concistent with the external evidence.
Another thought: find me an asymptotic function with an analogue in the real that plateaus suddenly and precipitously without warning. This is what you are claiming the climate system has done, or is going to do presently.
kdkd #1759, #1760
Desperation is what you are showing kdkd – trying your old trick of setting exams for me. I would be happy to critique your summary of my arguments.
By the way, I have been talking to a very well known climate scientist and he/she has some very interesting responses to my questions. Receiving responses at all was quite edifying, and when I have some more answers I will seek permission to publish the Q&A from same scientist.
Suffice to say that what I have been writing about in the last two months or so has not been entirely based on my amateur musings.
Funny, desperation was what I thought your argument stank of from the start. Funny how when you make mistakes, you don’t admit them. I think you should fess up to who your “very well known climate scientist is”. You have my email address, so you can tell me privately.
kdkd #1762
As you could imagine, receiving substantial answers from ‘very well known climate scientist’ would be unlikely if the questions were ill-informed.
I am not at liberty to say any more until I have been given permission to publish the exchange in Q&A format.
To be a useful contribution to the debate, the Q&A will be verbatim and any interpretation or conclusions drawn by me will be clearly identified and open for discussion.
Ken – looking forward to the Q&A when you can publish it.
Here’s some news for you. James Lovecock now claims CO2 emissions are good.
From the UK Express:
“I hate all this business about feeling guilty about what we’re doing.
“We’re not guilty, we never intended to pump CO2 into the atmosphere, it’s just something we did.”
Dr Lovelock’s comments come in the wake of the scandal at the University of East Anglia where leaked emails suggested climate change data had been manipulated.
The 90-year-old British scientist, who has worked for Nasa and paved the way for the detection of man-made aerosol and refrigerant gases in the atmosphere, called for greater caution in climate research.
He compared the recent controversy to the “wildly inaccurate” early work on aerosol gases and their alleged role in depletion of the ozone layer.
He said: “Quite often, observations done by hand are accurate but all the theoretical stuff in between tends to be very dodgy and I think they are seeing this with climate change. We haven’t learned the lessons of the ozone-hole debate. It’s important to know just how much you have got to be careful.”
And so we see the beautiful collapse of the global warming movement. kdkd must be the last holdout.
Tamas #1766
Had not seen the story on Lovelock – good stuff. No doubt kdkd will claim that Lovelock is senile and demented just like Freeman Dyson.
kdkd is probably metaphorically standing on a ledge wailing and gnashing his teeth.
Should have something to publish in a week or three. I notice that Crikey is still printing your sensible viewpoint – I am struggling with time to send in comments. Notice the ABC is in turmoil about giving the ‘sceptics’ a go.
Did you look at the ‘climate sensitivity’ stuff back to post #1730?
Also have a look at the comments of Bendryl? Peter in Skeptical Science.
This guy seems to be ‘in the trade’. Will quote a link in next post.
I have had a couple of posts in that and RealClimate but both Cook and Schmidt won’t come out to play. See my comment #1761
Best
Ken
Tamas,
Have a look at the comments of: Berényi Péter – it is worth wading through the pages to follow the thread.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Watts-Up-With-That-ignorance-regarding-Antarctic-sea-ice.html
The debate on whether Antarctica is warming or cooling, losing or gaining ice is raging – looks like the ‘science is not settled’.
Tamas, The british daily Express… sources of the highest credibility eh? What a dickhead!
Ken,
Looking forward to your Q&A. Just hoping you haven’t got some waster fossil fuel lobby apologist masquerading as a climate scientist. That would make you look very bad indeed.
Ahh.. kdkd.
So are you saying the Express didn’t quote Lovecock accurately?
Or are you saying Lovecock is a dic*head?
The collapse of credibility in the global warming movement must be tough on you buddy. That’s why Ken and I go easy on you.
I mean, given all the material we have to work with, it’s not like we have to try hard…
Tamas,
I’m saying you’re a dickhead for assuming that the Express’ quotes are accurate and in context given their history of failure on reporting on climate change issues with any degree of accuracy. It’s not even worth engaging with you. Your opinions and analysis are worthless.
Meanwhile here’s the the best argument against global warming for your edification.
Face it the only way you can maintain your argument is with the intellectual coherence of a concussed bee, and the politics of Joseph Goebbels.
kdkd -you should read the comments in that story you linked to. Hilarious!
And I can only surmise that if Lovecock did say those things then you would be upset. Do some googling and check it out. Your boy Lovecock said it kdkd. Ouch, it must really sting.
And I love the Nazi slur. You know what happens in an argument when you resort to Nazi slurs.
Ken – interesting comment’s by Berényi on sea ice.
The Nazi slur is justified I’m afraid repetition of lies and distortions to make the false claim that your opinion somehow becomes true. Also the flat earth smear and the creationist sphere apply as well.
Now just because you only take your advice from the delusionosphere doesn’t automatically make that true. It makes your opinion based on poor quality reporting, and a failure to read the evidence properly. You have all the insight into this topic of a geriatric schizophrenic who has been hospitalised most of thier life. Essentially you deny that the laws of physics work and provide quality predictions (although you would dispute this despite the fact that it is clearly true).
Bit of a joke there, Lovelock is not even making the claims you suggest he is.
But then they might not … who knows … perhaps the models are useful for helping to predict this after all …
His message is certainly inconsistent. Not long ago he was going along with the “it’s the end of the world as we know it” approach with the most extreme doomsayers.
Kdkd – you are a joke. So warmer proves global warming, cooler proves global warming, no change proves global warming. Does anything not prove it?
Tamas,
Where’s it been getting cooler? I think someone’s been having you on. Did you know they’ve taken the word gullible out of the dictionary?
Kdkd – the world has been cooling since 2001. So it’s been getting cooler, um, everywhere…
I can’t believe how deeply you have fallen for this joke of a scientific theory. It’s why I’m not rude back to you. I just feel sorry for you.
Tamas,
That’s your lie and your sticking to it. Shame the evidence shows precisely the opposite. The joke here is the depths of your delusions. I’m amazed that Ken will associate himself with you at the extremist end of the delusionosphere, but I suppose that when things are that desperate for your argument, you’ll allow any old shit to stick.
kdkd #1769
How did you guess kdkd..
Tamas …..we better stop tormenting kdkd – I think signs of barking madness are appearing in his responses..
I was listening to some radio last night which contained among other things, a range climate change stuff , and what struck me was the absolute total divorce from reality that Tamas, Ken and their like must have undergone. It’s really quite amazing, but I suppose if you hold your political beliefs that strongly, the objective evidence doesn’t really count for anything at all really.
p.s. like your constantly calling out my desperation and other “Black is White” arguments. That’s straight out of the Goebbels/Orwell book of propaganda, and sort of funny in a “showing off the total absence of an intellectually coherent case” kind of a way. But that is because I appreciate sick humour.
kdkd #1780
I heard today an alarmist news item on ABC radio talking about 10mm/year sea-level rises around the Australian Coast quoting CSIRO data.
I had promised a sea level analysis since the Xmas holidays and I found all the Australian Govt data which ‘The Australian’ screwed up last year and which John Church screwed up also.
I still have some numbers to crunch – but the main ‘screw-up’ was confusing the rate of rise/fall with the *change* in the rate of rise/fall.
It is the same error as confusing acceleration with velocity. ‘The Australian’ graphic reported the *change* in the rate – not the rate itself. Church further confused the issue by claiming that ‘The Australians’ numbers were not IBP corrected (Inverse barometric pressure). Both were wrong.
I will post some links to the data to show what is going on and how it compares to the rest of the planet.
Similar kind of stuff up to confusing the doubling time of co2 concentration to be 2100 rather than 2050 eh? Or confusing scientific issues with political issues. International sea level rises are at the top end of the range of IPCC projections, that support the idea that we have a bigger problem than anticipated, rather than the delusional case that the problem is either small or does not exist.
kdkd #1782
I’ll leave you to stuff those up kdkd..
Ken: bit more denial and delusion there then? You wear it on your sleeve so well.
Ken – I was just thinking about some numbers for perspective:
Earth’s atmosphere has a total mass of 5000,000,000 gt (that’s five billion gigatons, or five billion billion tons)
CO2 makes up 0.38% of that total, or 1 900 000 gt.
Humans add 29gt to the total each year (and we have no idea how much is re-absorbed naturally).
Thus, 29/1900000 = 0.0000153 or 0.00153%
Thus, humans add 0.00153% to the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere every year.
Sheesh… No wonder temperatures have been flat for 15 years huh?
Actually, co2 is 0.038% of the atmosphere, so subtract another order of magnitude from that pathetically small number.
How weird is the hysteria surrounding such crazy-small numbers?
Tamas,
Your understanding of the science is clearly woefully deficient, and you’re complicit with getting yourself taken by a ride by the oil/tobacco nexus and their delusional hangers on. AKA you’re a gullible fool. An intuitive analysis isn’t good enough – you need to do the numbers and examine the evidence, which clearly shows your position is utterly wrong.
You do realise that constantly repeating this lie doesn’t make it true yes? Apparently you don’t. Repeating falsehoods does not improve the quality of your argument, or provide it with a solid foundation.
Tell it to phil jones kdkd. The head of the cru says no warming since 1995.
And just ponder those numbers. It might help to reveal what a crock the whole thing is.
No Tamas #1785 and #1788, the head of the CRU never said no warming since 1995 and temperatures have not been flat since 1995. Jones specifically said there had been warming since 1995. Repeating such a blatant lie just denigrates your whole argument and you don’t need to be a scientist to understand why you are wrong. Just a basic knowledge of statistics will suffice.
I don’t know why I am bothering to post this. kdkd has pointed this out to you on numerous occasions and still you continue with the lie. I just wanted to get it off my chest I guess.
I agree with what Waleed Ali said on QandA on Monday night. Most of us don’t really understand the complexities of climate science, so who are we going to believe? The climate scientists who have spent years working on this stuff, have an intimate knowledge of the intricacies involved? Or Tamas Calderwood, Ken Lambert, Andrew Bolt, Tony Abbot or Miranda Devine?
Tamas:
Actually the CRU shows the warming trends are very clear. Someone’s sold you dud information, plus your incompetence at statistics means that your own personal interpretation is wrong.
Tamas,
Making incorrect assumptions based on your own intuition and political biases does not make a coherent and correct argument.
Chris #1789
Quote from Tamas #1583;
2) Here is what Jones said in its entirety:
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
Um, so the trend from 1995 is not significant, but it’s still positive. But the trend from 2002 is in fact negative, but it’s not significant either.
endquote
So there we have it from the horse’s mouth.
Warming trend from 1995 is close – but not statistically significant and cooling trend from 2002 is not statistically significant.
Looks like a split decision to me – a ‘plateau’ – pretty flat for the last 7-15 years.
If you play with the smoothing you can get a slight warming trend for the whole period, and visa versa.
For Chris’ benefit:
Check out the temperature data from Figure 1 from the below paper by IPCC lead author Dr Trenberth:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
The temperature data is from:
Time series of annual global mean temperature departures for 1861–
2008 from a 1961–1990 mean (bars), left scale, and the annual mean
carbon dioxide from Mauna Loa after 1957 linked to values from bubbles
of air in ice cores before then. The zero value for 1961–1990 for
temperature corresponds to 14 8C and for carbon dioxide 334 parts per
million by volume (ppmv). Updated from Karl and Trenberth [16], original
data from HADCRUv3 http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
#datdow, and http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/.
The description is illuminated by the author:
“The global mean temperature in 2008 was the lowest
since about 2000 (Figure 1). Given that there is continual
heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by
accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Figure 1) and
other greenhouses due to human activities, why is the
temperature not continuing to go up?”
“why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
Chris, kdkd – What don’t you understand about that sentence?
Chris #1789
Quote from Tamas #1583;
2) Here is what Jones said in its entirety:
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
Um, so the trend from 1995 is not significant, but it’s still positive. But the trend from 2002 is in fact negative, but it’s not significant either.
endquote
So there we have it from the horse’s mouth.
Warming trend from 1995 is close – but not statistically significant and cooling trend from 2002 is not statistically significant.
Looks like a split decision to me – a ‘plateau’ – pretty flat for the last 7-15 years.
If you play with the smoothing you can get a slight warming trend for the whole period, and visa versa.
For Chris’ benefit:
Check out the temperature data from Figure 1 from the below paper by IPCC lead author Dr Trenberth:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
The temperature data is from:
Time series of annual global mean temperature departures for 1861–
2008 from a 1961–1990 mean (bars), left scale, and the annual mean
carbon dioxide from Mauna Loa after 1957 linked to values from bubbles
of air in ice cores before then. The zero value for 1961–1990 for
temperature corresponds to 14 8C and for carbon dioxide 334 parts per
million by volume (ppmv). Updated from Karl and Trenberth [16], original
data from HADCRUv3. (see next post for link)
The description is illuminated by the author:
“The global mean temperature in 2008 was the lowest
since about 2000 (Figure 1). Given that there is continual
heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by
accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Figure 1) and
other greenhouses due to human activities, why is the
temperature not continuing to go up?”
“why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
KL #1793
HADCRUv3. (see next post for link)
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
#datdow, and http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/.
KL #1793
HADCRUv3. (see next post for link)
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
#datdow.
Ken #1792
I don’t agree it is a split decision. Warming from 1995 to 2009 is not significant because the time period is not long enough. So it is not significant “but only just” according to Jones. 2002 to 2009 is an even shorter period, so less reliance can be placed on any trend there. So in reality, the trend from 1995 to 2009 (which includes the cooling from 2002 to 2009) is much stronger, than any cooling trend, but Jones is not confident enough with the sample size to say that the warming is statistically significant. There is a huge difference between that and what Tamas says and I think you should recognise that.
As for the rest of your post, I have kept a close eye on the Cage and have seen your arguments.To be honest, most of this stuff goes over my head and I do not have the time to delve to deeply. I repeat what I said at 1789 (the post not the year). I only stepped in because Tamas’s statement was totally without foundation and I felt competent and compelled to comment on it.
I note your claim in previous posts to be in communication with a climate scientist and I look forward to reading the correspondence when and if you choose to make it public.
Chris is absolutely right. Ken’s claims in #1792 are an abuse of statistical methods and have no validity. The correct answer to the journalists question would have to insist that the question was meaningless without the context of the larger temperature record.
Ken, If you have to repeat lies and misrepresentations like this, and ignore the wider context to avoid presenting contradictory information, then your argument is desperate.
Looking forward to your delusional conversation with Bob Carter…
Chris: thanks for entering the cage and I encourage you to post more often. Ken and I get a little bored with kdkd… J
To your point: I think you are being unfair saying I am “lying”.
As Ken pointed out, Phil Jones said very clearly that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995 (although the linear regression line shows 1.2C of warming per decade) he also said that since 2002 there has been 1.2C per decade of cooling, but this is also statistically insignificant.
Now, you can’t have it both ways. Either it has warmed a tiny amount since 1995 but also cooled a tiny bit since 2002. Or, neither trend is significant and the temperature is basically flat.
To claim Jones said it has warmed since 1995 and to ignore the cooling since 2002 is asymmetric and inconsistent.
I also disagree with your Waleed Ali point. It is not good enough to invoke the authority of the CRU, Jones, Mann, the IPCC etc. You must therefore invoke John Christy, Dr Vincent gray, Richard Lindzen, Dr Ian Clark, Dr C lee Campbell, Dr Robert Balling, Tim ball, Jan Veizer and many, many other skeptical scientists. This shows clearly that the debate rages and there are no firm conclusions.
However, even more than that, the spirit of the enlightenment is that every person can think rationally for themselves. I cannot accept many theories purely on trust – I need evidence. And when I look for evidence of man-made global warming I find very, very little and far better explanations in natural variability.
The alternative (correct) interpretation is that the questions relate to something that is statistically meaningless and needs to be examined in context with the other available data. Once you examine it without abusing statistical methods, and in context of the broader set of available data, you see that your position is false. Your repetition of this “fact” in the face of overwhelming evidence that you are wrong appears to be the result of deliberate lying or less deliberate abject stupidity.
There’s plenty of evidence Tamas, but it doesn’t fit your delusional view of this topic, so you refuse to accept it. The problem here is that your frame of reference to the reality of this topic is totally screwed up, that is all. Try looking at the real evidence rather than the intellectually bankrupt mish-mash of delusional misrepresentations that is your preference.
Chris, kdkd
The description is illuminated by the author (Dr Trenberth):
“The global mean temperature in 2008 was the lowest
since about 2000 (Figure 1). Given that there is continual
heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by
accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Figure 1) and
other greenhouses due to human activities, why is the
temperature not continuing to go up?”
“why is the temperature not continuing to go up?”
Chris, kdkd – what don’t you understand about this sentence?
Ken.
Just because we don’t fully understand why short term variability occurs doesn’t mean that we can magically alter the rules of statistics. Anyway there’s no way of you wheedling out of this one. Repeating the same lie doesn’t make it true. Check this page. Here’s the relevant quote:
Illuminates that your constantly repeated lie is as all sensible people understand, total bullshit, and the argument of a desperate man with no coherent case.
Tamas #1796,
What is it when you say “the head of the CRU says no warming since 1995″ when the correct comment is “yes, but only just” to the question of “Do you agree that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995″. They convey two different meanings. There has been warming since 1995. The apparent cooling since 2002 does not cancel out the warming from 1995 to 2009 because you cannot distinguish a trend from the noise. Neither period provides enough data to provide a reliable trend, but that does not mean that the earth has not warmed.
So I call it a lie, although it is possible that you just do not understand. I will give you the benefit of the doubt, although your posting history may suggest I am being generous.
It is admirable that you want to investigate the answers for yourself, but where do you stop? Do you take this approach with all facets of life? Or is it just climate change and if so why? I don’t believe any one particular scientist over another. I don’t have the knowledge and experience to critically analyse their research, and I suspect you don’t either. What I do is take an holistic approach. I see that most governments take the threat seriously. I see reasoned arguments from the scientist. I see unscrupulous journalists and publications twist their words. I see Bolt and Sheehan and Devine and Blair cherry pick and lie. I see Calderwood offer arguments full of holes (your in good company there Tamas). And I am cautious because I have two little boys who I want to see grow up in a reasonably safe world. I respect the scientists whose work I am aware of because they offer reasonable arguments and admit their doubts and questions. I distrust the other side because they don’t.
Ken #1798,
There is a lot about that sentence I do not understand … the context for a start. Tell me this Ken: what do you understand about that sentence and have you confirmed with Trenberth that your understanding is correct? Or is your experience in climate science significant enough that you don’t need to. It seems to me that you have a reasonable grasp of this topic but you seem content to argue at the margins. Why not involve yourself on a more serious level, if you are so concerned that the science is lacking.
Chris:
Sorry, but Phil Jones said there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995. “But only just” doesn’t cut it. If you accept the non statistically significant warming since 95, then you accept the non statistically significant cooling since 2002.
I accept you can’t distinguish the trend from the noise in either one. That is exactly my point. The world should be warming but it is not. How long do we have to wait before this theory can be proven empirically? Why must we spend trillions to “fix” this problem when the problem cannot even be shown to be statistically significant for the past 15 years!?
Why were the previous warming trends from 1860-1880 and 1910-1940 of the same magnitude as the most recent one from 1975-1998, when recent CO2 emissions have been so much greater?
You ask where do I stop investigating this? Well, never. If I am being asked to believe in this apocalyptic story then I will investigate it until the apocalypse happens.
The fact that science academies and governments endorse this nonsense is not good enough. They cannot explain the inconsistencies Ken and I constantly highlight.
You say you “respect the scientists whose work I am aware of because they offer reasonable arguments and admit their doubts and questions.”
Yet this is the crowd that says “THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED”. There is no questioning of this theory. They do not express doubt. Sceptics are dismissed and called idiots – look at kdkd’s vitriol as a proximate example.
In any case, you may not accept my arguments but it is unfair to call us sceptics liars. Our arguments are factual and the arguments we present have not been sufficiently rebutted.
kdkd – you say, “just because we don’t fully understand why short term variability occurs doesn’t mean that we can magically alter the rules of statistics”.
First, what on earth does that mean??
Second, if we don’t “fully understand why short term variability occurs”, then how could we understand how medium or long term variability occurs?
And please note Chris’ reasoned and polite approach to this debate. Why must you be so rude again?
My apologies gentlemen – I just checked my numbers and humans add around 1.5% extra per year to total CO2, not 0.00015%.
Difference between kg and tonnes is the zeros.
My bad.
Tamas,
I am rude to you because your trite, facile, moronic view of this subject does not deserve any respect at all. Your claim leading on from my quote in #1802 is a perfect example of your idiotic aproach. The abuse of logic and intellectual contortions that you’ll go through to claim that your position is in any way rational beggars belief. The word fuckwit is too mild to describe your approach. If there was a way of twisting the George Orwell’s famous insult “you’re not fit to scrub the floor of the whorehouse in which your mother works” to your attitude to climate science, I’d do it.
Clear enough for you? If you were approach this subject rationally I might treat your views with something other than the contempt they deserve.
By the way, 1.5% is a huge proportion for such a sensitive system. Nobody was fact checking you because we know that everything you claim is false.
Tamas (again, yawn)
You are apparently incapable of rational thought. This does not mean what you claim it does. You have been repeatedly told that your statement is false, and on occasion this has been presented with rock solid justification. But you just can’t help continue spouting lies.
Piss off and stop wasting my time.
More gems
Better give up your day job and go professional with the stand up comedy. Remember that we won’t be laughing with you, we’ll be laughing at you.
And just for the record, here is a comprehensive rebuttal of every claim that tamas has ever made about the science of climate change.
Tamas #1803
Hear Hear Tamas. A lucid and rational appraisal of the arguments.
For the kdkd’s of this world – a good faith disagreement means that one side is truthful and the other tells lies. He is really quite unbalanced and probably clinical in his abuse – hysterical in fact.
We are pulling his little world apart and messing with his head. He obviously is frothing at the mouth in #1806 – probably ready for committal to the funny farm.
Chris #1802
Thanks Chris – your points are worth noting in comparison to the kdkd madness…
In fact I am involving myself at a more serious level. I assume you read the link to Dr Trenberth’s paper and its contents.
The sentence means what it says. Despite the increasing GHG forcing – there has been a ‘lack of warming’ in recent years and Dr Trenberth is bewailing climate science’s lack of an explanation.
Surely this is not ‘at the margins’ of the geatest issue of our age – whether or not the Earth is warming, cooling or doing nothing statistically significant.
Great claims require great evidence.
And of course the kdkd argument about the warmest years , decades etc in history is not inconsistent with being on a ‘plateau’, even it they were fully verified.
When climbing up onto a plateau, the heights you reach each hour might very well be the highest you have ever climbed, which predicts nothing about whether you will ever climb higher or fall over the edge.
Ken,
The only minds you and tamas are messing with are your own – plumbing the depths of solipsism, illogic and nonsense to maintain your delusions. A bit of pompous self-agrandisment puts the cherry on the icing in your case.
To take you seriously would be to dignify your position as having any validity. Here’s a question you’ve repeadedly failed to answer. Given your claim:
Please explain how other similar patterns in the instrumental record are distinguised from the current trend? How come warming hadn’t really stopped then, but you feel the claim that warming has stopped now is some how valid.
Here’s the answer you’ll give: oh no you won’t answer it you’ll either give a stupid excuse, or ignore the question outright, because doing so would exposed the idiocy and lack of logic inherent in your argument. You’re transparrent, we can see right through your ludicrous claims.
Once you step into the quicksand it becomes extremely difficult to extricate yourself…
Tamas #1801, where to begin,
One of us is having trouble understanding what Phil Jones said, and it ain’t me. Yes, both periods are too short to be statistically significant, but you are able to interpret the longer period as being more likely to indicate something than the shorter period, even if it is unsafe to do so. But more importantly, you cannot argue that both of these time periods are not significant and then say there has been no warming, because by saying there has been no warming you are giving one or both of these time periods regard that is unwarranted.
I don’t know why those periods were of equal magnitude in circumstances where CO2 emissions have risen. Ask a climate scientist.
I didn’t ask when you will stop investigating this (climate change), I asked why only this, or do you adopt this approach with all facets of life.
It is not the scientists who say the science is settled. They understand the uncertainties. They continue to further their understanding. Sure, they might occasionally adopt a rhetorical flourish to make a point, but generally they agree that the science is not settled, but that they are confident to a large degree that the earth is warming and undergoing change as a result of the intervention of man. As to skeptics being called idiots … if the shoe fits.
Ken #1810,
When I say margins, I don’t say your argument is marginal, I mean that posting on this blog is marginal, as are your posts on Real Climate and Skeptical Science (and wherever else you may post). If you are serious about this stuff then put it to the relevant climate scientists. If you are just intent on being a shit-stirrer, you are on the right track. As I’ve said before I do not have the skills to answer your questions, but I am willing to say this: without confirmation or denial from Trenberth, you could interpret his statement as saying that, “We should be able to say what causes this variability and why warming does not follow a smooth upward line. We know it is natural variability but we should be able to describe it better. We need better measurement techniques”. But then again maybe he says something completely different. I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him.
Chris: We will just have to agree to disagree on the warming since 1995. My interpretation of Jones’ comment is that there has been no significant warming for 15 years. I cannot comprehend any other interpretation, but there you go.
You also dismiss my point about the similarity of the warming periods from 1860-80, 1910-40 and 1975-98 by saying “ask a climate scientist”. C’mon… seriously? Phil Jones is the guy that stated that fact! Jones didn’t ponder the meaning because it so obviously contradicts his thesis, but how can human CO2 be causing dangerous warming if the magnitude of the warming spurts hasn’t changed while human CO2 has increased dramatically? That is a simple, logical question with only one possible answer: human CO2 has little effect.
And to why I am obsessed with this subject… well, that’s a long story. I am not like this about every subject, but few subjects demand trillions of dollars and a complete change to our way of life. Climate Change does. Thus my intrigue.
I also disagree that many climate scientists don’t say the science is settled. The head of the IPCC dismissed criticism about the glacier claim as “voodoo science”. And look at the statements by Joe Romm, Stephen Schneider and some of the stuff in the leaked CRU emails. These guys are engaged in a weird group-think that brooks no criticism. Plus the nobel prize winner Al Gore is always going on about the settled science. The entire GW movement’s credentials rest on this science being settled. Sceptics are “deniers” of the settled science… and so on. I think it is disingenuous to claim that the GW movement does not say the “science is settled”.
Anyway, yes, this debating stuff is like quicksand: Hard to get out once you’re in.
Tamas #1813
Yes, there has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years (the word statistically is vital: don’t leave it out), but the question why is important. You and Ken argue that it is because there is no global warming, or some variation on that theme, but the real answer is because we can’t argue with any confidence on the basis of results from a shorter time period. Saying there is no warming is just as valid and as misleading as saying there is cooling or warming or a perfect zig zag pattern. You cannot reach conclusions from this information.
By the way, I disagree that we have to agree to disagree. While I am here I will keep arguing this (as I suspect you will) because it is fundamental to your misunderstanding.
And if you ask me questions that I can’t answer than I am afraid my answer will always be “ask a climate scientist”.
Tamas #1813
Nope, everyone but you will have to agree that you’re a deluded fool who as far as climate science goes, is so far detached from reality and the empirical data that your opinions are more worthless than an ashtray on a motorbike.
Got it? Your scientific illiteracy doesn’t make your opinions more valid, they make them invalid.
p.s. the rest of your comment is even more incoherent crap. As I said before, piss off and stop wasting our time.
Tamas (again, please go away).
This statement is also the result of a viewpoint detached from the reality. The only way this happens is if we (as looks likely partly due to the succes of the climate delusionals in polluting the political agenda) fail to deal with the problem in a timely manner.
Given you don’t understand the topic, don’t understand the science, and don’t understand the economics, but stick to your deluded preconceptions instead, it’s best that you just shut up and keep the crap inside your head which is unrelated to reality to yourself.
Well, this one actually is an example of the climate delusionals arguments coming back to bite them. The response of co2 to temperature is logarithmic, so given the large internal variability of the system, the warming pattern is exactly what the climate sensitivity model based on thermodynamics and the theory of chemical bonds predicts.
Go away loser, your delusional arguments merely show that your psychotic attitude to this subject invalidates everything you have to say about climate change.
Kdkd – your hatred is hilarious. But like a broken clock, occasionaly you are correct. The co2 / warming factor is logarithmic. Thus, more co2 = leas warming.
Hahahhha!!!!
Tamas,
And so you answer your own question also answered in #1817. Why you think this is hillarious when it clearly demolishes your idiotic non-scientific conclusion I have no idea. Oh no, I do, it’s because of your faith based approach to argument and complete ignorance of the facts.
Chris #1816
“You and Ken argue that it is because there is no global warming, or some variation on that theme, but the real answer is because we can’t argue with any confidence on the basis of results from a shorter time period.”
I have ever argued that there is ‘no global warming, no climate change, nor an increase in temperature over the last 100 years or so’.
I have argued that the contribution of human released CO2 is only a part of that warming and its contribution is difficult to quantify when the complexities of the problem are understood; and the uncertainties are very significant – far from certain that we must take urgent economy destroying action, or that temperature rise is a serious threat.
The Climategate and Glaciergate scandals reveal that interested climate scientists have ‘over-egged the custard’ and all their data and methods should be thoroughly checked.
Gores and rumours of Gores are a joke, bringing the Nobel into disrepute and contributing to the growing distrust of some prominent scientists who in fact practice ‘advocacy science’, exaggerating the certainties and not highlighting vast uncertainties.
A prime example of the arrogance and humbug involved was Yogi Pachuri’s smearing of criticism of the preposterous 2035 Himalayan glacier melt as ‘voodoo science’.
As Winston would have said: “a Fakir of a type well known in the East”.
Ken #1820,
Fair enough. All though I did say some variation on the theme.
But you do argue that there has been no warming for the last 15 years and that is where I think you are mistaken.
More that it is an irellevant argument. #1820 indicates that Ken is a climate delusional who appeals to all of the popular types of fallacious arguments . Then for good measure at the end he gets upset and says that the “smears” that we make on his crappy arguments are rude and unjustified.
What’s rude is the degree to which he wastes our time (although he’s not as abad as Tamas who has no redeeming features on this topic at all).
Ken #1820 (again)
Your quote from Churchill is bordering on racist, unnecessary and denigrates your argument. Would you make the same comment if the head of the IPCC was named Smith?
You are also making wide sweeping statements about all climate scientists based on a few (yes a few) errors and exaggerations.
“Gores and rumours of Gores are a joke”. I have no idea what this means.
Ken #1820 aka setting the dogs on you
This is the rambling paranoia of someone with an ideological attachment to the status quo. There’s plenty of evidence that a timely response to climate change doesn’t need to destroy any economies.
Please do not insult our intelligence with ridiculous assertions like this.
Chris #1825
Yes it was a bit derogatory – about as derogatory as the ‘voodoo science’ comment.
Winston was a racist – albeit a mild one for his times and generation and notably devoid of anti-semitism. There were very few white men in public life in that era who believed that the brown or black man was the equal of a white man despite professions of the religious belief that all men were created equal. In fact the first draft of Australian Constitution was explicit in creating a ‘white Australia’ – and it met with an objection from the British Govt which would not condone specific racist provisions in a Dominion constitution.
Check out Mr Pachuri’s commercial interests – and see if conflicts of interest are manifest.
Some of my best friends are Indians.
Sigh. According to this article “Dr Pachauri said that any money he earned from advising companies went to Teri, which aims to provide solar power to people without access to electricity.” Now just like mobile phone technology, solar is an excellent leapfrog technology. Straw man, go away.
Contrast this with the climate delusion industry where we are asked to take the credulous position that we are to ignore an overwhelming scientific consensus, and to take the status quo commercial interests as not contaminating their intellectually bankrupt positions in any way.
Stop treating us like idiots Ken.
Aah yes, I note that Ken has again totally ignored my question, this time from #1811 indicating that he is unable to coherently state his case about his popular lie that the temperature record is plateauing or cooling (depending on how long it was since his last medication). Haha, your case is in tatters because this exposes the total logical fallacy of your argument. Remember we’re not laughing with you, we’re laughing at you.
Ken #1825,
I’m not concerned with Winston’s use of the phrase, I’m more concerned with yours. It was unnecessary and aimed at Pachauri because of the colour of his skin and not because of the nature of his interests.
Chris #1830
No, it was not aimed at the colour of his skin – more the content of his character – the criterion on which we would all like to be judged.
He was ‘economical with the truth’ about the fact that he had been informed of the ’2035 error’ well before Copenhagen and suppressed it before that meeting to prevent the embarassment of such a howling error following on from Climategate.
Chris # 1825 – PS to my #1831 comment;
I don’t know about Smith, but I could substitute Gore as an American Fakir par excellence if you like. The Wooden Indian who could not win his own State against the worst president in US history – George W. Bush.
Check out the lineage of the Gore family – southern Senator Gore of Tennessee – great environmentalist who taught it all to Al at his knee.
Al Gore – a puffed up poseur, purveyor of powerpoint prattle which the British High court judged as propaganda unfit to be shown to schoolchildren as ‘education’.
‘Wars and rumours of wars’ – a old phrase which described the sort of frights which kept the public in a state of fear and panic.
Fear mongering for commercial gain from the ‘Gores and rumours of Gores’ – a bit clunky but not bad….Get it??
Ken,
Denying the link between climate delusionism and the fossil fuel industry (which seeks to question the scientific consensus on all sorts of dubious grounds) while trying to big up the alternative energy’s industry’s link with a small number of people involved in communicating the seriousness of anthropogenic climate change is disingenuous, and shows that your argument is indeed desperate and with little or no solid foundation.
Nope, that’s not what happened. A small number of statements presented as fact in the film were shown to be not justified, but hardly of the scale to engage in the desperate denialism that you favour.
Here you go
You clearly do think we’re idiots, while simultaneously exposing your own ideological stupidity on this topic.
Ken #1830.
“The Wooden Indian…”? Ken, you don’t know when to stop.
And kdkd has shown you the error of your ways at #1832. The British High Court did not find that the film was “propaganda unfit to be shown to school children as education” at all and specifically held that it could be shown, so long as attention was drawn to controversial or disputed sections. And the Court agreed with the main theme of the film “that climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”
Chris #1833
On the other hand we have to applaud Ken for going on his latest rampage, which has totally destroyed his credibility and placed him firmly in the unrehabilitatable delusional idiot camp along with Tamas.
Funnily, my “you’re not fit to scrub the whorehouse in which your mother works” (mis-)quote from Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell is less offensive than the latest rancid crap Ken’s been coming up with
Chris, kdkd #1834, #1835
Well why don’t you quote the actual words of the BHC judgement – not the opinion of the Childrens Minister who was on the defensive. Go on…..
Chris….you might be generationally challenged, and misunderstand the meaning of “Wooden Indian”.
In certain Americal States it was not uncommon to find a carved timber American Aboriginal head in feathered dress at the entrance to small town drugstores – particularly in places like Tennessee in Senator Gore’s era.
Excess Botox and burgers have rendered Al Gore’s countenance not unlike one of these Braves……being wooden they did not talk much sense, and their facial muscles did not move much ……Al Gore to a tee I would respectfully suggest……
Ken #1835,
OK, get a load of this:
I turn to AIT, the film. The following is clear:
i) It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme…I am satisfied that, in order to establish and confirm that the purpose of sending the films to schools is not so as to “influence the opinions of children” (paragraph 7 above) but so as to “stimulate children into discussing climate change and global warming in school classes” (paragraph 6 above) a Guidance Note must be incorporated into the pack, and that it is not sufficient simply to have the facility to cross-refer to it on an educational website.
See the rest here .
Cigar store Indians, I think they are sometimes called. I know what you are referring to and as it is a representation of Native American in a particularly stereotyped manner, I think using it as a reference is fraught with danger. But that’s just me.
Ken #1835, Chris #1836
Ken, Way to go shooting yourself in the foot (or was it your head) again. It would appear the judgement is specifically worded to avoid the politicisation of climate change. Seeing as one of your unstated goals is to use a bit of dog whistle politics to attempt to politicise what is a scientific issue, I would have thought that you would have been dead against this judgement.
But on the other hand, if there’s a way to lie about and misrepresent its contents to serve your political goal (so long as your audience is sufficiently gullible) you’ll do it, no matter how inconsistent and divorced from reality it leaves your argument.
You’re being torn apart by a pack of hungry wolves here Ken, I’d give up before you disappear in a puff of logic.
Chris #1838
“It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme…I am satisfied that, in order to establish and confirm that the purpose of sending the films to schools is not so as to “influence the opinions of children” (paragraph 7 above) but so as to “stimulate children into discussing climate change and global warming in school classes” (paragraph 6 above) a Guidance Note must be incorporated into the pack, and that it is not sufficient simply to have the facility to cross-refer to it on an educational website”
In other words to warn children that this is political propaganda – a Guidance Note must be included in the pack.
“the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme…” – precisely my lud……..
My lud is obviously trying to protect the immature and impressionable minds of children from ‘influencing their opinions’ with a Guidance Note which will cleanse the propaganda into a more benign form to ‘stimulate children into discussion of global warming and climate change’.
I rest my case…
Ken #1838
Sorry, your argument makes no sense. As the judge notes, with the exception of 9 examples of over-reach (not the out and out lies of which you and Tamas are fond by the way but something milder, unlike your misinformation subject to the rule of law), the basis of the film is based on sound scientific knowledge.
What was your point again? I think you manifestly failed to make it, because as usual your point was not supported by the evidence.
Ken #1838
Al Gore – a puffed up poseur, purveyor of powerpoint prattle which the British High court judged as propaganda unfit to be shown to schoolchildren as ‘education’.
That is what you said Ken. Quite different to the actual result don’t you think?
I read this stuff for a living Ken. I know what it means. The fundamental point of the film is not disputed and the Court only required guidance to be provided on those particular points.
Don’t forget Ken,
The following is clear:
i) It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact
Chris: I would say that the “scientific research and fact” it is based upon has been shown to be questionable at best. That is what Ken and I are arguing.
Tamas,
Your opinion in #1841 only has credibility in an upside down world where we take your lies and delusions as representing truth, and the corresponding opposing scientific view as some sort of elaborate fiction cooked up by a conspiracy of thousands of people over hundreds of years.
So you’re welcome to your opinion, but please don’t be surprised when people laugh at you and/or treat your gullible credulity with contempt.
Tamas #1841,
Well if you can say that then I can’t take anything you say seriously. The science is robust and the British High Court has confirmed that, along with almost all scientists who are expert in the field.
This article is for you.
Chris: It’s not just me saying it. The lead article in this weeks issue of The Economist (which has long been a climate change believer) says that the science is far from certain. Sure, they go on to repeat why all the evidence supports climate change (and I haven’t read the survey yet) but this is quite a change from the previous certainty that was constantly pronounced.
Surely you admit that recent events (IPCC errors, climategate, etc) show the science isn’t as robust as we were being told.
Tamas:
No it shows something quite deeply disturbing about the gullability of people such as yourself, and the people who prefer not to think about things too much in as much as their ability to evaluate complex scientific evidence goes. Not one bit of the recent “scandals” place the scientific consensus under question. The Economist’s attitude is a. rather inconsistent, and b. often written by people while not as scientifically illiterate as you who still lack some scientific background to be able to evaluate the facts in an informed manner.
So to repeat: So you’re welcome to your opinion, but please don’t be surprised when people laugh at you and/or treat your gullible credulity with contempt.
Tamas #1844
Wow, the article in the economist that you didn’t even bother to link to doesn’t even support your claim that the science “isn’t as robust as we were being told”. Here’s the conclusion for you to beat yourself over the head with:
Which leads nicely to Ken’s fallacious thinking. “The fact that the uncertainties allow you to construct a relatively benign future does not allow you to ignore futures in which climate change is large” which given that most indicators are tracking the upper limits of the IPCC’s projections, would seem to be especially prudent.
Such moronic knee jerk delusionism from the pair of you. You’re either playing lies or stupidity. Your choice – I suggest you try to pick the one that you think makes you look less bad.
Chris #1842, #1845
The Judge said: “It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme”….
That is not a judgement that Al Gore’s interpretation of science is robust – and with kdkd’s 9 examples of ‘overreach’….er…..
egging the custard…..exaggeration…..alarmism……failure to explain uncertainty or even mention the scale of uncertainty involved…renders the film a ‘political statement’ which needs a Guidance Note ie… *corrections* before it suitable to ‘stimulate children into discussing climate change and global warming in school classes’.
The clear implication is that without the ‘Guidance Note’ the film could ‘influence the opinions of children’ – ie politicize them with alarmist exaggeration.
My point is made – without the ‘Guidance Note’ the judge found that the film was fit for the politicizing of schoolchildren but unfit for their ‘education’.
I rest my case again.
Ken,
Your entire argument is based on over-reach at the opposite extreme. Your latest total crap being a great example.
You rest your case on a bed of un-composted manure by the looks.
Perfect example of Ken ignoring the evidence to fit his preconceptions:
Ken’s case rests on the idea that the IPCC are somehow systematically over-estimating the severity of climate change. However, the majority of the observed evidence available to us shows that the IPCC are likely underestimating the impacts due to the inherrent conservatism of the scientific process.
Ken: here’s another question for you to ignore: how do you reconcile your argument with the above mentioned inconvenient facts?
I think maybe it’s not uncomposted manure your rest your case on, but the maggot-ridden festering corpse of your discredited ideology. Somebody is trying to politicise climate science here and it’s you.
My point is made – without the ‘Guidance Note’ the judge found that the film was fit for the politicizing of schoolchildren but unfit for their ‘education’.
Ken,
Regardless of whether you think your point is made, it’s a much weaker claim than you pretended.
What about answering the questions in #1849 and #1811?
I know it’s hard for you, answering the questions highlights the weakness of your argument, while failing to answer them does the same by clearly demonstrating that you have something to hide from.
“Al Gore – a puffed up poseur, purveyor of powerpoint prattle which the British High court judged as propaganda unfit to be shown to schoolchildren as ‘education’.”
A bit hyperbolic I agree – but not far off the mark – good alliteration though;
puffed up (too many burgers), poseur (kdkd, Chris and I would know more about the science than Al), purveyor of powerpoint prattle (giant screens and ladders, polar bears stranded on ice floes, hurtling hurricanes…)
Notice viewers, that kdkd and Chris did not take me on regarding Post #1831 re Pachuri and his cover up of the ’2035 Glaciergate’ error before Copenhagen.
Notice viewers that Ken clearly has something to hide as he won’t answer any of my questions.
Re Pachuri. I prefer not to politicise the discussion of climate science, and Ken’s question is clearly political. In terms of Pachuri’s motivations, you’d have to ask him. I’m not prepared to engage in baseless speculation about this. As far as I can see, “glaciergate” is a silly error that doesn’t affect the underlying scientific consensus in any way whatsoever. Again the delusionists are cherry picking errors (i.e. ignoring their own, and latching on any little thing out of context that might be a bit of mud that sticks).
So Ken, About those questions. You know if you don’t answer them, it looks like you’re engaging in lies rather than stupidity. Now I think deliberate lies makes you look worse than merely being stupid, but you may disagree.
Ken #1852 and other posts
I think your reference to Al Gore’s weight and dietary intake are a little unfair and irrelevant to the debate. As to whether I know as much as Al Gore, well I wouldn’t make that assumption, although I notice that you didn’t include Tamas in that list.
Pachuri’s alleged cover up of ‘Glaciergate’, while lamentable if true, would also be understandable to some extent in this toxic atmosphere of allegations of data fixing, data deletion, data denial and grand conspiracies from the tin foil hat brigade. But it is largely irrelevant when weighed against the overwhelming scientific conclusions.
Chris #1856
An unkind comment on Al Gore – ‘puffed up’ – really means that he is puffed with self-importance (and consumes more than his fair share of the planet’s food resources to boot).
A fat friend of mine always says that fat people will inherit the Earth – if they don’t consume it first. He might be right.
Apologies to Tamas – of course (like kdkd, me and yourself) he knows more about the science of climate change than Al Gore.
Wow, what a content-free nadir Ken has reached.
And he’s still ignoring my interesting, useful, and if Ken had any case whatsoever, and wasn’t performing an intellectually incoherent psychotic performance they’d be easy to answer.
Thanks for exposing the hollowness and lack of reality in your argument Ken, much appreciated. We can end this discussion now. Although if you want to post 244 posts of nothing but smiley faces and links to the profoundly idiotic wattsupwiththat.com then you’ll get to the magic 2000 posts mark easily.
kdkd #1848
My Economist does not arrive until today – so I have not read the full article.
Of course your point that sceptics are taking the extreme ‘low’ end of the ‘error bars’ has some validity if the averages are accurate, and can equally be applied to the ‘warmer alarmists’ which take the ‘high’ end to make their doomsday predictions.
That is “if the averages are accurate” – and we need to see independent review of all the CRU produced data and probably anything to do with Hansen’s group which heavily influences IPCC reports.
The ‘lack of warming’ at the present is a real difficulty for those who continually claim that warming is ‘tracking the upper levels’ of the IPCC predictions. The heat content of the oceans is still a very confused picture.
I have read several papers lately on climate sensitivity which come up with numbers like 0.5 degK and 0.6 degK up to 1.5 degK. It is pretty complex stuff, but the OLR is dependent on the assumed temperature which space sees Earth as a longwave radiating body compared with the surface temperature. This is hard to determine and far from settled science.
Your Junkscience talks about the ‘Hansen factor’ where same assumes the extreme end of the climate sensitivity range (also adopted by the IPCC reports) where others take a middle or low end, giving results far less than 3 degK for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Ken,
You just ignored the fact that the majority of the indicators in the IPCC reports show that the observations are coming out at the upper end of the predicted range – closer to worst case scenarios rather than best case. “If the averages are right” indeed.
The climate sensitivity literature is pretty clear on a range of around 2ºC to 6ºC by the way. You have to mistreat the observed data pretty egregiously to get figures below this range.
Hah – no problem Ken. I am pretty confident I could win a debate against The Goreicle on this topic, just like you.
What’s fascinating about the Economist article is that they say “There are three records of land surface temperature put together from thermometer readings…on of which is compiled at the CRU”. They then say “within academia, their reliability is widely accepted”
What a joke. The CRU have “lost” the data behind their temperature record, as explicitly admitted by Phil Jones. How can their reliability be widely accepted if no one can replicate the data? What kind of academia accepts the word of others without any data to back it up?
Tamas
Well done, the only “evidence” you can present to make your point is a bunch of delusional crap.
Go away and stop wasting our time. Your posturing and general un-reality based rubbish just shows everyone what an imbecilic fuckwit you are about this topic.
a bit like anthony watts except without the egotism and right wing think tank funding
kdkd – actually, the evidence I present is from, um, Dr Phil Jones. He said in emails and to the UK enquiry that he doesn’t have the raw data to back up his temperature reconstruction.
Got it?
Tamas,
I knew you’d bite at that one because you’re soooo predictable (Ken’s psychosis is more dangerous).
Some time in the aincient (pre post #100) I clearly and easily demonstrate that there is no significant difference betweenthe CRU data, the GISS data and the sattelite data rendering your point utterly irellevant.
Now, who was the phrase ‘delusional fuckwit’ being applied to again, can’t have been me because I only draw conclusions based on observations.
kdkd – the fact that the CRU cannot share their data means their conclusions are invalid. They cannot be independently tested. It is therefore irrelevant that their conclusions are similar to the other data sets.
To help you understand, here’s an analogy:
I think your are a poor debater, use rudeness to cover for a lack of logic and reason and have appalling grammar. Ken also thinks this. An independent third party who has never read this blog may take our word for it and say “I think kdkd is rude, a poor debater and has bad English too!!”.
But without reading your drivel on this blog they would never really know because they have not independently verified your rudeness, poor debating skills and atrocious English.
See?
Anyway, back to climate change: this means we must test the other two data sets to ensure they are correct.
One down, two to go.
No Tamas, you’ve got it all wrong.
An independent third party may take your word for it, or they may read the blog and see that kdkd’s posts, which contain a touch of exasperation, are based on an argument that they can verify by other sources. Then, they may investigate the science further, studiously avoiding Watts Up With That and Climate Audit (amongst others) and discover that kdkd has faithfully reported the actual science, whereas you and Ken have been talking out your ….
Seriously though, your last two sentences are very telling. You say you must test the other two data sets, but it is clear you have already made up your mind when you say “One down, two to go”.
Err Tamas #1867
The latest in the deluded fuckwit chronicles. As I said, I established somewhere before the thousandth post in this godforsaken thread that there is no significant difference between the CRU, GISS and satellite data. I’m not going to repeat myself and demonstrate this again. You’ll just have to go back and read the archives (and climate karaoke) or take my word for it. Funny how you never mistrusted the satellite data until you were informed of the above fact
There is no evidence to support your conclusion or your assertions. Please go away and stop wasting my time.
p.s. thanks Chris. I think maybe we should leave these guys alone to wallow in their delusional cess pool alone. If only I could bring myself to do it, but letting their drivel go unchallenged is too hard for me.
kdkd#1868
“If only I could bring myself to do it, but letting their drivel go unchallenged is too hard for me.”
That’s because Tamas’ and Ken’s ‘drivel’ is so threatening – makes ordinary common sense and is not afraid to debunk the warmist bias and propaganda spouted by the green agenda driven spinners and ratbags and their media fellow travellers.
The tipping points were Climategate Copenhagen and Glaciergate. You can probably thank that Fakir, Dr Pachauri for fatally damaging the credibility of the IPCC. ‘Thousands of scientists’ vetted AR4 – accepted a preposterous 2035 date and despite a few brave objections, dissent was dismissed and labelled ‘voodoo science’.
A piece of catastrophic claptrap – no matter how flimsy was grist to the mill of alarmist AGW.
Like all converts, kdkd is more catholic than the pope so debunking his warmist religion is seriously messing with his head.
Chris #1867
Run your own race Chris. Playing Tonto to kdkd’s Lone Ranger will destroy your credibility
#Tamas #1866
Here is a gem for Chris and kdkd from Climate Depot:
“The latest jolly has just come from taking a quick spin around Al Gore’s interwebs to see what NASA might have said about Climategate, and to review in the wake of that huge embarrassment the alarmist walk-back on the importance of CRU, which one establishment pressure group dismissed as merely “one of four organizations worldwide that have independently compiled thermometer measurements of local temperatures from around the world to reconstruct the history of average global surface temperature.” That spin from Pew is not quite accurate, but seems to have been thrown out there to stave off reality.
*The truth as we now know it is that NASA admits its data is not independent at all, but thoroughly dependent upon CRU’s* — which, we have established, doesn’t exist. I’ll let the kids at Climate Progress do the math from there.”
Ken #1871
So if we’re to believe you (which seeing as you don’t link or cite your sources is questionable anyway), then you still need to explain why there is no significant difference between the CRU, GISS and the sattelite data. Or is somebody fiddling that too.
#1869 and #1871 are descended back into paranoid conspiracy theory. Let’s examine what you have to do to in order to maintain your case again.
Constant repetition of lies and misrepresentation of data
Ignoring large swathes of the available evidence, as it does not fit your preconceptions
Constant repetition of marginalia not central to the scientific consensus
Constant refusal to answer reasonable questions about your argument
Ad hominem attackes (jokes about Al Gore’s weight, racial slurs about the chair of the IPCC)
Appeal to paranoid conspiracy theory if all else fails
There are doubtless more, but that. You can end your ritual humiliation at any time by just walking away by the way.
Wow Ken #1871
No wonder you didn’t link to your source. Even in your befuddled post-medicated delusional state, you know that over-egging the custard isn’t in it. This is like they’re trying to make custard from a whole chicken farm.
And then there’s the poor linking to the FOI emails, and the failure to mention key bits of context …
Shame you’ve got to rely on a load of crap with the context removed for the “evidence” to support your argument. Your grade is F, effort required, or just admitting that your output to date has been total bullshit.
Ken #1870
Whenever I see an irrational argument such as that produced by Tamas, I’m afraid I will feel compelled to provide a rebuttal if I can, notwithstanding that kdkd is more than capable of dealing with it on his own.
What is more concerning though is the clear evidence that Tamas has chosen his position in this debate and will not be swayed no matter how compelling the evidence is. His post at #1866 is illuminating in this regard.
kdkd #1873
Your claim is that the CRU and NASA/GISS datasets are ‘independent’ but then not statistically different from each other.
Climate Depot claim that NASA use all of CRU’s data for the rest of the world (98% of the surface area) and that the continental USA data (2%) come from NCDC.
The two are then blended together to produce the NASA/GISS dataset.
Prove that claim wrong!
Ken #1875
There’s no need to prove anything to rebut your point as the sattelite data independently corroborates the veracity of the other data sets.
Bzzz you lose. Next victim!
p.s Climate depot has to be the worst designed most sensationalist pile of crap Ive seen in the climate delusional blogs yet. A new low!
Ken #1875 (again yawn)
Just to show how you engage in distortions to try (and fail) to win your argument:
I only made one of the claims above. You can work out which one and the impact that it has on your argument yourself.
kdkd #1876,7,8
Jabbering in three’s again kdkd – you must be fearing another knockout punch.
#1878 sounds tricky – which claim did you make??
Are you talking about the UAH satellite data being consistent with both NASA/GISS and CRU?
“jokes about Al Gore’s weight, racial slurs about the chair of the IPCC)”
Isn’t it great – its called free speech.
After all gluttony is one on the seven deadly sins and there is some irony in the apostle of energy restraint and reduced consumption for the rest of the developed world; himself turning into the Sergeant Schultz of warmist alarmism.
As for Fakir – one who knows India and the meaning of that word would find it a non-racist culturally appropriate description – a religious charlatan – one who pretends to have special knowledge with which to fool the ignorant – and is then tried and found wanting.
#1879
The answer is obvious. Pretending greater than the usual stupidity is unbecoming.
#1880
Again, irrelevant to your argument and suggests even greater stupidity than we already knew about.
Got any substance, or now that your argument is totally demolished you’ve nothing new to add? Thought so. Can’t answer my questions, and everything else you have to say is yet more delusional nonsense. Good luck, and hopefully farewell.
Ken #1880
Oops. It appears that your definition of Fakir is out by several orders of magnitude. *laughs at ken very hard indeed*.
kdkd #1881
“Are you talking about the UAH satellite data being consistent with both NASA/GISS and CRU?
The answer is obvious. Pretending greater than the usual stupidity is unbecoming.”
It is not *that* obvious kdkd – please enlighten me and the viewers with some proof of the above claim.
Chris. When I say “one down, two to go” it is because I am deeply suspicious of the other two data sets.
As Ken points out above, NASA rely on CRU for all their ex USA data. But as we have established, CRU cannot be verified. Thus the NASA data set now looks awfully suspicious.
This has been revealed in recently released emails from NASA to the competitive enterprise institute.
In an email from Reto Ruedy to USA today in 2007 (cc’ing James Hansen) he writes: “… we happily combine NCDC’s and Hadley Center’s data to get what we need to evaluate our model results”… and “My recommendation to you is to continue using NCDC’s data for the US means and Phil Jones’ data for the global means”.
So where does this leave NASA’s data set? It happens to have diverged rather a lot with the satellite temperatures over the past decade as well.
Two down, one to go…
Aren’t you just a bit suspicious yet?
Finally, Ken and I seem to read a lot of the pro AGW literature. Do you read WUWT, Climate Audit, etc? They make some very compelling arguments. I’d say our minds are firmly open on this issue and that’s why we have reached this conclusion.
Tamas #1884
Onya Tamas. Your expertise on the UAH and other temperature datasets is manifest.
I think we could agree that if 98% of NASA/GISS temperature dataset cannot be verified independently because Dr Phil has lost the original data – then Houston …..we do have a problem….
Farcical – the edifice of AGW rests on what should be a reliable hard core set of surface temperature data – and 98% of the original data has been lost and can’t be revisited and verified.
Not just farcical – incredible…….
Tamas #1884
So that leaves you with now having to explain why the satellite data is not statistically significantly different from the instrumental record. This is the chip of rock that you cling to, and it’s looking pretty crumbly, so good luck with that.
Yes I do keep an eye on some of the delusional blogs, and it astounds me how dickheads like you and Ken are so gullible as to have fallen for such a poorly made tapestry of lies, sensationalism and not so much over-egging the custard, as pretending that the unflavoured cooked cornflour is custard in the first place.
Ken, same goes for you. Key words that apply to your and Tamas’ position:
dickhead, gullible, delusional, fuckwit sensationalist.
Understand?
Interestingly you can see that the UAH and GISS data do not differ significantly from this post which appears to be from a climate delusional blog. Remember it’s the trend we’re examining (relative temperature) not absolute temperature. It’s a rare point that Ken will concede that the best we can do with climate data is measure things relatively
Shit out of luck losers.
kdkd #1886,7,8
Tamas and I love it when you talk dirty kdkd……
Ken,
I guess that makes you a pretty pathetic masochist as well then
kdkd – you don’t seem to understand. The past 31 years of concurrent satellite / land records correlate up until the past decade. Then they begin to diverge.
But whatever, our point is that prior to the satellites, they don’t even have the data to back up their claims of 0.7C warming in the past 140 years.
NASA’s 2%-of-the-world-USA-only records show the US was warmer in the 1930′s than today. The international data for the same period can’t even be checked. So how do we know today is warmer?
We don’t. And the climate scientists have “lost” the data they say proves that we are warmer. Uh huh… sure.
Basic point is that you don’t have data to back up your claims that the world has even warmed in the past 140 years. And even then the CRU says the warming periods it “calculated” weren’t any more dramatic than the one that ended in 1998.
Bummer dude.
kdkd #1888
What is this blog supposed to prove kdkd??
viz: http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/06/part-1-of-comparison-of-gistemp-and-uah.html
I did not see any analysis of statistical similarity of UAH and GISTEMP on the whole blog. Except for Australia – all the UAH temp trends were lower for UAH than GISTEMP.
In Antarctica the UAH trend was significantly cooling while GISTEMP was slightly warming.
Southern Ocean SSTs were flat. I can’t see how anyone could make a warming southern ocean out on this data.
As Tamas rightly points out – without verifying Dr Phil’s ‘lost data’ we don’t even know if GISTEMP is valid.
Which leaves UAH – and AGW would have to be revised seriously if it was supposedly based on UAH as the only reliable dataset.
“kdkd
Posted March 24, 2010 at 7:58 pm | Permalink
Ken,
I guess that makes you a pretty pathetic masochist as well then”"
No, it just confirms that Tamas and I are winning the argument hands down when our opponent resorts to dummy spitting low class abuse.
From which bog were your forebears dragged kdkd??
Such levels of delusion Ken. The last 50 or so posts have clearly demonstrated that your whole argument is based on pathetic attempts to misdirect and fabricate.
I’ve done the stats for you before which show no significant differences between the trends in the data sets. The page I linked to do a good job of demonstrating this graphically (implicitly – find me the raw data and I’ll spell it out for you). You can over-egg the custard all you like, but this doesn’t alter the fact that the satellite data independently corroborates the other data.
Tamas #1891
Sorry, that’s your delusions speaking. Any perception of divergence that you have is wishful thinking, and is not statistically significant. Again we’re seeing that you have to constantly repeat lies in order to make your claims.
In any case, it’s ludicrously easy to demolish Ken and Tamas’ crappy argument pretending that the temperature record doesn’t measure anything meaningful.
kdkd – you are avoiding the fundamental point: What about those NASA and CRU temperature data sets that don’t exist?
And here’s today’s fish in a barrel shot:
Public scepticism prompts Science Museum to rename climate exhibit:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7073272.ece
No tamas, you are avoiding the point by trying to claim that there are no reliable consistent temperature records and that they are not reflected in unambigouus observations, which is clearly shown to be a lie by this evidence. More of the old Dr Goebbels technique with constant repetition of lies there Tamas, are you wearing the appropriate arm band?
Shame about the science museum in london reacting to the delusional camp’s politicisation of the marginalia around climate science in this way, but at least we know it’s just the result of a load of coprophrenic bullshit along with a good dose of political credulity.
Kdkd – your link only discusses the uhi effect. It says nothing about the non existant data for the temperature record. Where is the data? How can we accept a scientific hypothesis without supporting data?
Tamas,
You clearly didn’t read to the end, “Other lines of evidence for rising temperatures” and beyond.
Poor little Tamas, just because his opinion isn’t based on anything other than his own delusions and gullibility, he sulks and doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on around him. Coochie coochie coo!
kdkd – the “Other lines of evidence for rising temperatures” you site says “Surface temperature analysis by NASA GISS find strong correlation with two independent analyses by CRU’s Global Temperature Record and NCDC.”
Yet as we have demonstrated, NASA and CRU site each other and neither has the temperature data to back it up.
Where’s the data? where is it? where, where, where???
Tamas
So you’re claiming that the ice cores and other proxies are measuring noise and that the close relationship between the satelite data and the instrumental record is irelevant?
Well in that case your argument is a masterpiece of pathetic splipsism with no merit. Stop wasting our timewitu this crap. You have nothing worthwhile to say on this topic.
kdkd #1902
“So you’re claiming that the ice cores and other proxies are measuring noise and that the close relationship between the satelite data and the instrumental record is irelevant?”
YES, YES, YES …YOU HAVE GOT IT IN ONE AT LAST KDKD…..go to the top of the class.
That’s because the ‘instrumental record’ raw data has been lost by Dr Phil and nobody can now review and verify it………wait…..there’s more….
98% of NASA/GISS ‘instrumental record’ was constructed from …..you guessed it…..Dr Phil’
So 98% (100% of CRU x 98% of NASA/GISS) of the incestuous ‘instrumental records’ of CRU and NASA/GISS are not independent at all. ‘Thousands of scientists’ have been fleaing off an endlessly quoted ‘instrumental record’ which has been adjusted and massaged from the raw data by Dr Phil who has upped and lost the raw data…
The ‘instrumental record’ which AGW theory and GCMs and computer models and myriad papers try to explain is unverifiable becauise one man on the planet ‘lost’ the raw data.
And this travesty is called ‘climate science’……
And here is a choice interview:
The pot calling the kettle black:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/03/theyve-been-on-rampage.html
Ken #1903
Your argument only works if you ignore key data, especially the sattelite data, as well as the recent proxy data (e.g. ice cores) which independently suport the instrumental record.
Let me repeat for you: your argument is a masterpiece of pathetic splipsism with no merit. Stop wasting our timewitu this crap. You have nothing worthwhile to say on this topic.
Come back when you don’t have to ignore key bits of information in order to maintain a supposedly coherent argument. Come back when you can answer reasonable questions rather than ignore them for fear that they expose the stupidity of your argument. Meanwhile stop wasting my time with this paranoid psychotic rubbish.
Kdkd – but we should ignore the recent tree ring data, right. Because jones et al had to ‘hide the decline’ of the recent tree ring proxies given that they diverged from their lost temperature data.
What. A. Joke.
So now all you have is ice cores to say it warmed in the past 140 years?
Ken, what kind of resolution can ice cores give us? I’ll look into it but I’m guessing it’s pretty low.
Kdkd’s world is crashing. No data, no argument.
Tamas,
We know to ignore the tree ring data because we know that you misrepresent the divergence problem, and ignore the substantial literature validating the accepted approach to fixing it. You also ignore the way that the satellite data validates the rest of the instrumental record and associated proxies.
Something is crashing, and someone is having to be very selective about the data that they ignore. So my argument remains unchanged, and remains extremely robust, because the selective reporting and misrepresentation that you have to engage in is so transparent, solipsistic and ridiculous that it’s clear your argument is based on lies and delusions.
Tamas #1906
Notice that kdkd has not challenged the killer points;
1) 98% of the instrumental record cannot be verified because the raw data is lost
2) UAH and RSS satellite records closely agree and are generally significantly cooler that the unverifiable ‘instrumental record’
3) kdkd then falls back on ‘ice cores and tree rings’ – proxies which are checked against ……….you guessed it – the instrumental record. Remember the ‘hide the decline’ was all about meshing the declining tree ring proxy after 1960 with ‘instrumental record’ to correct it and ‘hide the decline’.
Which leaves us with the the only conclusion – the satellite record is it!!!!
Ken,
1. Notice that the points that you claim are killer points are no such thing. They’re idiotic distractions. Your point 1 and 2 is dealt with comprehensively and irrefutably by my rebuttal of points 2 and 3.
2. You’re trying to have your cake and eat it. First you claim that absolute measurements are not possible, and we have to rely on relative measurements, now you claim the opposite. Which is it to be? Well we know that the correct answer is “relative” so why are you trying to perpetrate this lie?
3. Nope, it’s just that the relative measures from the tree cores and ice rings [sic] are consistent with the other measures including the satellite measurements. And then you go on to misrepresent the “hide the decline” quote again – it is in fact “correct for the divergence problem” making your point irrelevant and yet another bullshit misrepresentation.
Which leaves us with the only conclusion that the satellite record validates the remaining measurements quite well.
p.s. The sattelite record over-estimates the magnitude of temperature anomalies during strong El Niño events, which again helps you misrepresent the observations to make your point, but only if you ignore the big picture and perform your other misrepresentations, a small number of of which are highlighted in this post.
Wow, you’re soundly beaten yet you still harp on with the same old delusional crap.
Correction: your point 1 is dealt with comprehensively and irrefutably by my rebuttal of points 2 and 3.
What’s especially interesting about the delusional duo’s current bout of spouting total crap is that now their argument is essentially the opposite of their misrepresentation of the unwise comment about”no significant warming or cooling” during Phil Jones’ BBC interview. Now they’re trying to argue that statistical insignificance is of no relevance, except in this situation the statistical insignificance makes the point that the satellite data validates the other measures rather nicely.
Give up guys, is this lies or stupidity? As I said it’s your choice, but these are the only viable conclusions we can reach about the inspiration for your argument.
kdkd 1909,10,11
Stuttering in three’s again kdkd…
No…all it means is that the satellite plateau is at a lower temperature than Dr Phil’s ‘corrected’ plateau.
Ken,
1. There is no plateau. You need to appeal to this lie constantly to support your case. Bad look, invalidates your argument (hint, relying on a lie for support automatically does this).
2. Yes, we can’t take the estimate of temperature as an absolute measure, but the trends in the different series are statistically indistinguishable from each other. Trying to deny this is another form of lying, and again the reliance on a lie to support your case automatically invalidates it.
As you can see from 1 and 2 above, you’re bullshit argument is screwed.
kdkd#1913
Go have a look at the graphs in the latest Economist article – the latest temperature curves peak and flatten. A good overall summary I thought – not quite so dismissive of the more sensible sceptics (like Tamas and I).
Ken #1914
1. It’s rude not to link. Don’t make the reader look for the stuff you’re referring to. here’s the graph that ken wouldn’t fess up to. It makes you look like you’ve something to hide.
2. Which in fact you do. You are implying that this ‘plateau’ is a cessation of the long term warming trend. In fact it’s impossible for you to justify this claim. I count 10 “plateaus” of the kind you see as bringing AGW into question across the graph, of which the terminal one in the series is just one example. Here’s the question you didn’t answer before (because you can’t provide a coherent answer that supports your case). What distinguishes this latest bump in the graph from all the other ones, that makes you claim warming has stopped?
3. If you and Tamas are the “more sensible” delusionals, then your case is even more based on totl bullshit than we already knew.
Sorry, the idiotic contortions of the delusional duo know no bounds. Previously ken supported the statement that the temperature record was unreliable and measured noise. Now he’s claiming that we can make strong conclusions about tiny amounts of variation in a noisy system.
Inconsistent much? Yep indeed, delusional and intellectually bankrupt crap.
Ken – did you get kdkd’s message? It’s rude not to paste links.
It’s ok to call people “fu*kwits, morons, liars” etc etc, but it’s rude not to paste links. Got it?
What a weird, distorted world kdkd lives in.
Ken – this is just too easy.
Here is the US secretary for energy, Dr Steven Chu: “It’s fair to say we don’t understand these ripples. We don’t understand the downward trend that occurred in 1900 or in 1940. We don’t fully understand the plateau in the last decade.”
So I guess the US energy secretary is lying as well…
Tamas #1918
you’re over egging your custard again. Chou’s argument is so far from your “it’s not happening or is or a tiny magnitude or is not caused by human activity” position, that it just goes to show how deluded your vewpoint is. Hint: lack of complete understanding is not equivalent to no understanding.
As for #1917. It’s rude to lie and giving your argument any credibility would be lying. Therefore highlighting your deluded fuckwittery is a service to the readers pointing out your deluded lies.
Wow Tamas, you’ve just disproved climate change by relying on three sentences cherry picked from a one hour speech!
Now repeat after me: The plateau in the last decade is not statistically significant. The upward trend in temperature from 1880 to 2009 is statistically significant.
Chris – oh, come on. Can’t I have a little fund with kdkd and his hysterical accusations? If we say the temperature has plateaued, we are lying. But if Steven Chu also says it then, well, there are all sorts of contortions in his argument to justify it.
Now, to your real point. Yes, there has been warming over the past 140 years. Well, maybe. There is no actual data to check this because the CRU lost it all. But there is some evidence to suggest that the world has warmed a bit.
However, it has not warmed since at least 1998 despite record CO2 emissions. Why not?
And the previous warming spurts, as admitted by Dr Jones, were of the same magnitude as the one that stopped in 1998. Yet CO2 emissions are vastly greater today.
Work through the logic Chris. It all points to CO2 being a minor player in any observed warming.
Unfortunately Tamas, some people involved in this debate are not careful with their words and when Chu used the word plateau he should have known a whole horde of internet experts would jump on the chance to us those words as evidence. Yes, it is correct to say that temperatures between point A and point B not risen significantly, and you could call that a plateau, but using that word may give it too much authority.
As to CRU losing the data, well I can’t verify that and I can’t verify your other arguments about NASA measurements being based on CRU data. Point me in the right direction will you. And quit with the “hasn’t warmed since 1998″ crap will you. If you have a reasonable argument then you shouldn’t have to rely on such misleading statements.
And the reason for the warming up to 1940 is here
Chris,
I think the delusional camp are actually beyond help here. No matter how hard one chooses one’s words, they will still pull out the old creative misrepresentation to spin a kind of argument that’s been especially popular among climate delusionals, and the creationists.
Tamas latest installment of total bullshit #1921
You already got your answer here, you just chose to ignore it. To remind you, the logically solid and devestating rebuttal to your attempt to misrepresent Chou’s comments. Here’s the reminder: “lack of complete understanding is not equivalent to no understanding.”
Your comment on 140 years is also total solipsistic bullshit, again you’re trying to claim uncertainties in the record mean that our understanding must a priori be zero. If we held such high standards to life in general, we’d never get out of bed due to the uncertainties involved (assuming that there was even a bed for us to get out of, and so on into the abyss of complete solipsism).
Cut the total crap. Or maybe don’t, carry on. Every time you say anything, it becomes clearer and clearer to everyone that your case has no merit because you’re a deluded fuckwit who’s [ insert classic Orwell insult here]. Got it?
Chris – Jones admits that he does not have the raw data to back up his temperature estimate. This is not news. Google it.
And I gave evidence of NASA using the CRU’s temperature record for everything outside the US above.
Also, it’s not “crap” that the world has not warmed since 1998. A simple regression on the temperature data since 1998 shows a slight negative trend.
Finally, if you have to “choose your words carefully” because some people will interpret a plateau as, well, a plateau – then your argument is in pretty big trouble.
Tamas:
It’ll be your statistical literacy that’s crap then. Please keep going, it’s really highlighting the fact that you’re a delusional fuckwit rather well.
kdkd – keep a lid on that temper, old boy. It is ill becoming.
As for the trend since 1998, I will happily accept that there is no trend (what’s the word for it again… oh yeah – a plateau). The regression line is negative, but yes, yes, it’s not statistically significant.
But hey, if you go down that path I’ll just quote Dr Jones again on the lack of trend since 1995.
Tamas,
What have you got to say about the decade 2000-2009 being the warmest on record since the beginning of the industrial revolution? This little picture thinking you’re engaging in is the product of a small and delusional mind by the way. The so called lack of trend since 1995 is also of very little relevance to the big picture.
Go on come up with some other nonsense now. Reinforce the fact that you’re a delusional fuckwit (on this matter at least).
kdkd – it’s like arguing with a naughty 5 year old sometimes with you.
I have long maintained that there has been a general warming trend for around 300 years now. It is not rapid and it does not seem to correlate with CO2 emissions.
Thus, one would expect the past decade to be warmer than previous decades.
However the world is not warming right now. I suspect it will resuming its warming in 10-20 years, just like it did after a 30 year lull in the mid 1970s. This warming trend is natural and not a crisis.
And really, do you need to keep calling me a f*ckwit? You’ve made your point. Now you just come across as crude.
kdkd,
You notice how Tamas ignores your answers to his questions? See my post at 1922.
Tamas,
Wrong, the relationship is closely associated with co2 emissions, as I have empirically demonstrated with a range of data sources in the distant past, with the relationship to emperature and co2 strengthening markedly in recend decades. This fundamental mistake of yours invalidates the remains of your deluded logically circular argument.
I tell you what, you produce an argument that’s clearly not delusional, retarded or fuckwitted, and I’ll stop calling you a delusional fuckwit. Deal?
Chris:
Good point. All hallmarks of severe intractable delusions IMO.
Tamas
Yet more delusional interpretation:
If you’d been paying attention you’d know that we don’t expect a large scale irreversible crisis until around the year 2100. Sure we’ll get incremental problems especially beyond 2050, but we don’t expect to see immediate catastrophe.
However, this is the killer point: What we do today affects what’s going to happen in 2050 and 2100. The wrong decisions will cause catastrophe at this time in the future, the right decisions will avert it. Unfortunately your (ill)logical position means that you can’t acknowledge that this is the scenario that we’re looking at. Instead you fill the airwaves with creationist style bullshit arguments, and then set up a straw man with a dash of illogic (“no catastrophe today therefore no catastrophe error”) in order to try to support your deluded point.
Ken’s no better, he just confabulates a story a bit more effectively, with the illogic and misdirection a bit better hidden behind argument that looks (very) superfically plausible.
Tamas, its probably time to ‘sin bin’ kdkd again. The infantile abuse and expletives just show he is losing the argument. I suggest that we only respond to Chris and other civil players until kdkd stops the expletives and abuse.
Ken,
Sorry, I thought it was your massively illogical and inconsistent, contradictory mix of crap that showed that you two were using the argument. I wasn’t aware that it was an etiquette competition.
As I said to Tamas, stop talking total crap based on fiction, and I’ll happily tone it down.
err that would be “you two were losing the argument”. No idea where the “using” came in …
Ken #1933
Also you’ll note that my post #1932 was perfectly civil (by my standards) but still calls you and Tamas out on the pile of deluded fictional crap you present as an argument.
I think mainly you don’t like having the fact that your argument is not inspired by a reality-based view of the scientific evidence constantly thrust in your face.
kdkd #1933,4,5
Stuttering in three’s again kdkd…
You know the only reason Tamas and I are playing with an unpleasant intellectual dwarf such as yourself kdkd….. is to get the Guiness world record for largest number of posts in a blog.
The fizzer which was Earth hour last weekend shows that the public is sick of alarmist charlatans screeching doom and gloom and is *tuning out*.
The breaking of the drought in Qld and the Northern half of the MDB lends weight to the sensible argument that this is all part of ‘natural variation’ in Australia’s climate – not sinister ‘climate change’ boosted by the Tim Flannery style alarmists.
And it also points to the public being receptive to something sensible and non-destructive of the economy like Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan instead of Rudd’s ETS which will become a plaything of finance spivs in a carbon trading casino.
Ken see post #1931 for a solid and insurmountable rebuttal of:
See also the many posts highlighting the idiotic inconsistency of your argument, and refusal to answer reasonable questions because doing so would cause you and Tamas to show that your entire argument is based on fiction, misrepresentation and lies.
Very puerile. I’m only here because of your fictional delusional crap:
There are certainly delusional intellectual midgets on this thread.
Finally, I am also no big fan of Earth Hour (and don’t participate), we’re actually engaged in Earth Life, as Jackie French wrote in the Crikey comments last week. And there’s nothing wrong with the 10 point plan you have plagiarised from elsewhere. It’s just it’s inconsistent with your cosying up to the unreconstructed delusionals who’s main provenance is the embracing of philosophical solipsism and idiotic arguments inspired by the kinds of intellectual crap beloved of the evolutionary creationists.
kdkd #1937
“And there’s nothing wrong with the 10 point plan you have plagiarised from elsewhere.”
The plan has some obvious features which are widely discussed – but the last two or three points are original thoughts kdkd…..and the composition entirely original.
“plagiarised from elsewhere” is untrue and libellous kdkd….so I advise you withdraw that remark.
Ken,
So the “original” parts of your plan are the ones that are of questionable sanity or wouldn’t have any impact on CO2 emissions.
So half hearted apoligies for the inflammatory language in my previous. Some of the first 7 points are quite sane, but they’re inconsistent with the rest of cliamte-delusional’s argument.
Look, I know that it’s very easy to play the “everyone is alarmist” card, and in many situations this is the prudent thing to do (e.g. the autisim vaccine research so thorougly debunked). However in the case of anthropogenic global warming, the climate delusionals position require such a big divergence from reality as estimated by the observations and theory, that the delusional position is clearly ludicrous, based on lies and wishful thinking.
kdkd 1939
Observations and Theory are if anything diverging at the moment kdkd…
‘Lack of warming’ diverges from increasing ‘forcing’ from CO2 GHG.
‘Inability to measure energy fluxes directly’ leaves great uncertainty about forcing magnitude of the CO2 – water vapour mechanism.
‘Inability to measure absolute TSI’ means that the equilibrium TSI and energy balance of the Earth system – pre-industrial…. is not accurately known.
‘Low LOSU of clouds’ means that we are not too sure of how much heating or cooling they produce.
‘Conflicting data on ocean heat storage’ means that we are not too sure if the extra heat is crouching in the oceans at the minute getting ready to spring out.
“The leading expert on Earth energy balance’ can only account for about 60% of the warming he thinks we might have had over the last 5-7 years.
It is indeed a ‘travesty’.
Ken,
Stop repeating your delusional crap.
Be aware that you can not coherently account for why the satellite measurement of temperature is in close agreement with the instrumental record without irreparably damaging yuor case . Be aware that you can not coherently account for the agreement with the seasonal onset and other ecosystem changes’ agreement with the instrumental and satellite records without irreparably damaging your case. Be aware of your misuse of the term “Level of Scientific Understanding” – conflating LOSU with statistical uncertainty. Hint: they are not the same thing. The remains of your post is the usual crap trying to inflate uncertainty through the usual delusional and illogical arguments – basic climate delusional dishonesty that’s easy to see through.
Finally please note again that you haven’t answered the key question last asked here. Your repeated failure to answer this pivotal question unequivocally shows that your “argument” is an incoherent mass of poorly crafted bullshit.
Oh dear Ken, you’re not so much on shaky ground, but up to your nose in a cesspool of your own crap.
Ken: An excellent article from Lawrence Solomon.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/climategate/lawrence-solomon-presentation-on-climategate.pdf
Tamas,
Wow, the rallying call of the fossil fuel lobbiests to the vested interests and the delusionals. Less over-egged custard there, more some kind of disguising burned sweet omlette. Why don’t you look for stuff not contaminated by the resource exploitation industry, rather than the predictable bullshit you offer again and again?
Oh I know why, because outside of the delusional and vested interest circles, such information does not exist. You should widen your reading boy, this delusional crap is shrinking your brain.
kdkd – I love it. The “resource exploitation industry”? Ever driven a car? Been in a building? Ever used, I dunno, a computer? Where did all the “resources” that created these things come from?
In any case, do you have any facts to rebut the article?
Tamas,
Straw man. People who perceive that their livelihood who are contingent on maintaining the status quo (economic growth at all costs based on cheap energy and not being charged for externalities). If you have to make such a ludicrous case to try to defend the author of the idiotic pamphlet you linked to, then your case is fatally flawed indeed.
The facts rebutting the idiotic content of that article have been discussed to death here and elsewhere. Your insistiance on returning to first principles every time you present a new source of information (even if the information is old and based on previously established delusions, lies and/or misrepresentations) also highlights the weakness of your argument.
kl #1940 Tamas #1942
Great link Tamas – I did not know that the UK Head of Greenpeace was calling for the head of the IPCC.
Which one of my 6 points from #1940 is wrong kdkd?….
Haha. I guess translated this means “I was unhappy with my evisceration in #1942, can you please remove more material from my gut cavity”.
Wrong, this is unchanged and has been for many years.
Repeating the lie. There is no lack of warming. See penultimate paragraph at #1941 – why not answer the question if your case is strong. Your evidence does not speak for itself.
More lies. This of the sort that makes the false claim that uncertainty in measurement is the same as having no or inadequate knowledge about a system to draw strong conclusions. This line of argument highlights the intellectual sloppiness of your case.
Stupid comment cherry picked out of context, give it a rest.
Clear enough for you, or would you like to be called a deluded fuckwit again?
Well
It’s instructive to illustrate how comments out of context can have a large impact on the apparent direction of an argument. Tamas came up with more delusional crap in #1766 misrepresenting James Lovelock’s recent talk. Here’s more of what he had to say, with more context added:
Even more context here at the Grauniad. More of the usual “black is white, war is peace and fucking is virginity” rhetorical technique from you eh Tamas?
kdkd #1949
If you are not in therapy right now kdkd…..frothing at the mouth definitely requires clinical treatment.
Lies, lies, lies, – shame, shame, shame…..the sum of kdkd’s argument technique.
That which he cannot answer – label lies and keep repeating lies, lies, lies in the hope that his tormentors will go away.
Watch out for the ‘big yellow taxi’ kdkd… and don’t stand on any window ledges.
And we can note that Ken still has no justification for ignoring my pivotal question (not to mention all the other ones you’ve been compelled to ignore).
It doesn’t look good for you. Anyway, highlighting the lies is just calling it out how it is, denying the fact that you are lying is another lie, and / or an indication of your continuing ideological stupidity on this topic.
Ken
Wow, talk about more “war is peace, lies are truth, and fucking is virginity” arguments from the other half of the delusional duo. I generally answer your questions the first couple of times they come up, but then the repetition and your total ignoring the answers becomes tedious, so I resort to the more entertaining vitriol.
So Ken, your pathetic justifications for not answering any of my questions, and your total ignoring my answers to the questions you ask and the issues you rais are really very rude. Not directly rude like I am when I call you a delusional fuckwit and similar, but a much worse kind of indirect rudeness, which shows that you’re not really serious about this subject, you’re not serious about the debate, and you’re not serious about the evidence.
Stop wasting everybody’s time and go and skulk in a corner like a good little dunce.
Same goes for you Tamas.
Today’s fish in a barrel shot:
Green guru James Lovecock says:
I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done.
…
Careers have been ended by this affair and the reputation of the institution [CRU] will go down for a while. It’s sad because there are some good people there. They have to clean their house if they know people are behaving badly. They have got a rotten job ahead, but it will blow over in a few years.
…
We’re very tribal. You’re either a goodie or a baddie. I’ve got quite a few friends among the sceptics, as well as among the “angels” of climate science. I’ve got more angels as friends than sceptics, I have to say, but there are some sceptics that I fully respect. Nigel Lawson is one… I wouldn’t put it past the Russians to be behind some of the disinformation to help further their energy interests. But you need sceptics especially when the science gets very big and monolithic.
I respect their right to be sceptics. Nigel Lawson is an easy person to talk to. He’s more like a defence counsel for the sceptics than a right-winger banging the drum. His book is not a diatribe or polemic. He tries to reason his case.
…
The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet. One of the chiefs once said to me that he agreed that they should include the biology in their models, but he said they hadn’t got the physics right yet and it would be five years before they do. So why on earth are the politicians spending a fortune of our money when we can least afford it on doing things to prevent events 50 years from now? They’ve employed scientists to tell them what they want to hear. The Germans and the Danes are making a fortune out of renewable energy. I’m puzzled why politicians are not a bit more pragmatic about all this.
We do need scepticism about the predictions about what will happen to the climate in 50 years, or whatever. It’s almost naive, scientifically speaking, to think we can give relatively accurate predictions for future climate. There are so many unknowns that it’s wrong to do it.
…
Copenhagen was doomed to fail. But I think it was worth their while trying. A lot of people put their hearts into it. But I’ve never felt entirely happy with that sort of environmental wing-ding. It’s obscene to have 10,000 people flying to Bali or whatever to talk about the environment. It just shows how hopeless humans are.
…
We shouldn’t let the lobbies influence science. Whatever criticism might befall the IPCC and the UEA, they’re nothing as bad as lobbyists who are politically motivated and who will manipulate data or select data to make their political point. For example, it’s deplorable for the BBC whenever one of these issues comes up to go and ask what one of the green lobbyists thinks of it. Sometimes their view might be quite right, but it might also be pure propaganda. This is wrong.
…
[Lovelock on what it will take to convince the public that meaningful action is required to tackle climate change]:
There has been a lot of speculation that a very large glacier [Pine Island glacier] in Antarctica is unstable. If there’s much more melting, it may break off and slip into the ocean. It would be enough to produce an immediate sea-level rise of two metres, something huge, and tsunamis. I would say the scientists are not worried about it, but they are keeping a close watch on it. That would be the sort of event that would change public opinion.
…
I don’t know enough about carbon trading, but I suspect that it is basically a scam. The whole thing is not very sensible. We have this crazy idea that we are setting an example to the world. What we’re doing is trying to make money out of the world by selling them renewable gadgetry and green ideas. It might be worthy from the national interest, but it is moonshine if you think what the Chinese and Indians are doing [in terms of emissions]. The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.
[Lovelock on the surveys showing that public trust with climate science is eroding]:
I think the public are right. That’s why I’m soft on the sceptics. Science has got overblown. From the moment Harold Wilson brought in that stuff about the “white heat of technology”, science, in Britain at least, has gone down the drain. Science was always elitist and has to be elitist. The very idea of diluting it down [to be more egalitarian] is crazy. We’re paying the price for it now.
Thanks to Tom Nelson at http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2010/03/james-lovelock-on-value-of-sceptics-and.html
Tamas,
Apart from cutting out the context where Lovelock clearly states that anthropogenic global warming is a serious and pressing problem, you’re late to the party. I posted a link to the same transcript this morning, but to the primary source, not just an excerpt edited by a climate delusional to remove critical pieces of context.
Your fish in a barrel shot shows the extent of your delusions. The barrel is in fact your skull, and the “fish” your brains – metaphorically of course you just blew your own brains out – see delusions can be dangerous if you act on them!
kdkd -yeah, yeah – it’s always about “context”.
“Science has got overblown”.
“Carbon trading… is basically a scam”
“it’s deplorable for the BBC whenever one of these issues comes up to go and ask what one of the green lobbyists thinks of it”
“It’s obscene to have 10,000 people flying to Bali or whatever to talk about the environment”
“Careers have been ended by this affair and the reputation of the institution [CRU] will go down for a while.”
Care to explain the “context” around those quotes? Does the “context” change their meaning?
I think not.
Your world is collapsing buddy. I know it must be tough for you.
Tamas #1953
Great Post Tamas – some telling revelation on the state of the science:
Mind if I borrow this gem:
“The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet. One of the chiefs once said to me that he agreed that they should include the biology in their models, but he said they hadn’t got the physics right yet and it would be five years before they do. So why on earth are the politicians spending a fortune of our money when we can least afford it on doing things to prevent events 50 years from now? They’ve employed scientists to tell them what they want to hear. The Germans and the Danes are making a fortune out of renewable energy. I’m puzzled why politicians are not a bit more pragmatic about all this.”
Agrees with some of my speculations kdkd….Cop that!!
And to cap it off:
I know it’s not tough for either of you because the delusions are so strong, and you’re so convinced of them, and the evidence is so unimportant by comparison that there’s nothing left for you except to distance yourselves as far as possible from the observed reality. Don’t forget the orignial source of the stuff you’re currently cherry picking.
I also think carbon trading is not a good solution by the way, a carbon tax is much more transparent and deals with the currently not-paid-for externalities much more efficiently. I’m afraid that the delusional sceptics as expemplified by Tamas and Ken do us no favours at all, they just show us how intellectually lazy illogical arguments seem so attractive to people who haven’t dedicated a significant part of their life to understanding scientific methods.
Happy delusions guys. You probably need to hire one of those guys like Caeser did, but instead of getting them to whisper “remember you are mortal” in your ear constantly, they’ll need to be whispering “rememeber you’re a delusional fuckwit”.
Anyway, Lovelock was instrumental in discovering the ozone hole, his Gaia hypothesis is extremely instersting and is a great introduction to the “interconnectedness of all things” that’s really anathema to the climate delusionals argument.
I that the delusional duo are also overstating his thoughts. They’re not peer reviewed science, they’re speculations that may be useful to people formulating policy and research in the area, but interpreting them as unambiguous facts as the delusional duo clearly are, is again, less over egging the custard, as placing all the rotten eggs in one basket and then trying to sell them on as some tasty sweet.
kdkd #Latest threesome;
You are sounding like a broken record kdkd… frothing and jabbering your high blood pressured abuse and expletives like a flatulent fraud..
Not long for the funny farm I suspect….but hold in there for Post #2000 and a world record.
Sophie will have to declare a winner which I hope will go to Tamas or myself and you will be free to foul your own nest elsewhere.
Ken,
Your only hope left is to answer the questions I’ve been asking for the last 1000 or so posts. However, you’ve ignored every single one. You wasted #1060 on content free rubbish. I can assure you that unless you can go back, find the questions, and answer them, coherently without self contradiction, and without trying to politicise and engage in the usual paranoid conspiracy theory, then your argument is already well and truly lost.
Ans we’ll be leaving the metaphorical corpse of your argument in a ditch to be gone over by the jackals and vultures.
kdkd
My post #1940 was chock full of content kdkd – all of which you were unable to answer.
I am grateful to you for exposing us to all the shots in the AGW alarmists arsenal, and being a responder to a range of our sceptical arguments – a good try-out for the bigger leagues.
I must thank you also for presenting the nastiest, most arrogant and intolerant face of AGW alarmism to the viewers, who, being members of the sensible public are ‘tuning out’ to AGW alarmists and doomsayers.
Ken,
I think that you’ll find that #1940 was dealt with briefly in #1941, as well as many times previously – they were not new points that you raised. Funnily the question mentioned again in #1941 still goes unanswered despite the fact that it’s pivotal to your argument.
Given that you constantly misrepresent the evidence, ignore questions, deny the relevance of questions that are pivotal for you to answer in order to place your claims on a solid footing, engage in meaningless paranoid conspiracy theory and ideological posturing, I think that remaining patient for a couple of hundred posts prior to treating your arguments with the contempt that they clearly deserve is perfectly reasonable.
We don’t have to remain civil in the face of constant lies, misrepresentation and disrespect for an important area of human knowledge. I’m actually quite reasonable to people who are not trying to maintain their climate delusions in the face of the unequivocal evidence. It’s just that you’re not one of those people.
Ken, Tamas
Pipe – Shove it – Smoke it
As in, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”
Chris #1964,65
Had a quick look at the NT news report.
The bit that the originator did not mention is the Dr Phil has ‘lost’ the CRU’s original raw temperature data for the planet.
You might explain to Tamas and myself (and kdkd) how one can verify CRU’s temperature reconstruction for the planet WITHOUT the original raw source data?
C,mon – c’mon —- tell us Chris??
Ken,
Well we can see clearly that in terms of the trends data (that’s relative temperature measures), that there is no significant difference bweween the CRU data and the sattelite data. Therefore we can draw two conclusions. Either that the satellite data is also untrustworthy, or that this is a robust independent validation of the CRU’s data set.
You can also validate other parts the CRU’s processed data against the proxy record in a similar way. I know it suits the delusional case that you need all of the raw data, or the whole thing is irrelevant, that’s clearly a case of the delusionals ‘over-egging the custard’ again.
Your repertoire is very tedious. Come up with something new that’s not insane, or better admit defeat and give up.
Ken,
Well kdkd has given you a reasonable explanation.
I’ve have never seen any other field where part timers, hobbyists and sheer amatures are so desperate for raw data. Frankly I don’t think any of you would know what to do with it if it was made available to you.
Chris: do you mean to smoke this part?
“(the enquiry) sharply condemned the unit for witholding information requested by outsiders under Britain’s freedom of information laws.”
“The culture of non-disclosure at CRU and instances where information may have been deleted to avoid disclosure, particularly to climate change skeptics, we felt was reprehensible,” committee chairman Phil Willis told a news conference.
I can’t wait until they are forced to share their data. I think we sceptics will have a field day then.
kdkd – We only have 31 years of satellite temperatures. The record before that is, eh hem, “lost”, so we can’t verify that today is warmer than, say, the 1930′s. NASA’s US data, by the way, shows the 1930′s were warmer than today. Only when combined with the CRU’s “data” does the record show that the world is warmer today than the 30′s.
So, once again, no data no argument.
This stuff is too easy…
Oh, and here’s NASA’s latest take on their surface temperature record:
““Much higher resolution would be needed to check for local problems with the placement of thermometers relative to possible building obstructions,”
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0319.pdf
NASA’s data stinks too. So where’s the data to show dangerous global warming?
And I must also quote NASA again:
Analyses of global surface temperature change are routinely carried out by several groups, including the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), and a joint effort of the Hadley Research Centre and the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (HadCRUT). These analyses are not independent, as they must use much the same input observations.”
So NASA’s data is not independent from the CRU’s “data”. But as we know, the CRU doesn’t have any “data”.
What. A. Joke!
Tamas,
Same pattern with the proxies though. In general they’re pretty good. Tough titties.
I hope you read this bit:
Oops, there goes your entire argument. Not that such an inconvenient truth will stop you, we know the deluded separation from reality is terminal.
Tamas (again):
For your urban heat island effect, remember this: poorly sited weather stations lead to a spurious cooling trend. I look forward to your justification of how this supports your case, as I am awaiting a good laugh.
kdkd – but the proxies showed a decline in temperatures from the 1960s. Remember? That’s why they had to “hide the decline”
And how is there a “scientific” consensus? There is no data to be independently verified, so there is no science.
This report is a whitewash but it is telling nonetheless. The cracks are forming in the global warming consensus and the dam is beginning to burst.
The CRU must now release its data. The sceptics will go over it very, very closely.
Mean time, the world refuses to warm. How long now? 12 years since the 1998 peak? Yawn, wake me when the world finally cooks.
Tamas:
The tree ring divergence problem is reasonably well understood, and the ice core record (for example) doesn’t suffer the same problem. Then the satellite measures kick in for extra validation. Aside from showing us your limited range of material by talking around in circles, what point was it that you were trying to make, or were you just showing off your miniscule intellect?
Everything in your post #1974 is firmly debunked, and just repetition on your part. As a delusional fuckwit, you’re exceptionally boring.
kdkd #1967
“Well we can see clearly that in terms of the trends data (that’s relative temperature measures), that there is no significant difference bweween the CRU data and the sattelite data.”
So 30 year Satellite trend lines are slightly positive for most of the planet, and negative for Antarctica, and CRU/NASA/GISS are more positive for the whole planet and positive for Antarctica – and this proves that ‘there is no significant difference’ between them -AND THE LATTER CAN’T BE VERIFIED??? HELLO???
And when that argument fails – fall back on the proxies – what? – ice cores, Russian Tree rings?? – the very things that are only used prior to 1860 BECAUSE there were no global instrumental records.
Pull the other one kdkd……
Tamas – did anyone suggest that mixing pre-1960 tree ring proxy data with post-1960 instrumental data was invalid science??
As the alleged emails revealed – Briffa showed his discomfort and incurred Mann’s wrath and he eventually went along with mixing the two to ‘hide the decline’. So the falling tree ring proxy temperatures did not fit the AGW script – so just stop them there in 1960 and add on thermometer data to ‘hide the decline’ and keep the curve upwardly mobile.
And this is just an honest splicing out the dud data from the tree rings? Hello??
Well what about the rest of the tree ring data pre-1960 – could it be dud as well?
What is magical about 1960 – pre-1960 good – post-1960 bad.
Orwellian crap science anybody?….
Ken,
Straw man. Due to the lack of permanent surface stations in the polar regions, the instrumental record has to extrapolate excessively, and here the sattelite data is more accurate. There is certainly no significant difference between the global trends for the different data sets. What was the point that you were trying to make again? was it that it’s always easy to find small enlments of uncertainty in a large and complex area of scientific research?
The over-egging of the custard here (and the burning of your accidental omlette) is trying to extrapolate this to your intellectually incoherent, paranoid, delusional political argument, and pretending that you’re somehow still doing science.
Here’s a nice quote form the first CRU enquiry (there will be more):
Let me repeat that for you: the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified. Now awaiting more “black is white, war is peace and fucking is virginity” arguments from our two resident delusional idiots.
kdkd – your quote above says” the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets”
What other data sets? NASA? We have shown that 98% of their data comes from CRU!!
Name the data sets! Name them!!!
#kdkd #1978
“Even if the data that CRU used were not publicly available—which they mostly are—or the methods not published—which they have been—its published results would still be credible: the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets; in other words, the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified.”
Which ‘international datasets’……………. kdkd??
The only others we know of are UAH and RSS satellite data which read the same satellites.
The Satellites read *LOWER* temperatures and flatter trends than CRU/NASA/GISS.
End of story.
#Tamas #1979
Tamas – we must have posted simultaneously.
Great minds do think alike…
Ken – indeed.
Still, not that it takes a “great mind” to dissect this bu*lshit.
The warmest argument is not backed up by data. How can we possibly take them seriously? Well, I guess we don’t.
So let us pretend to take Ken and Tamas’ assertions seriously for a minute or two as an intellectual exercise. What they’re claiming is:
Because the raw data for the CRU temperature data is unavailiable, it means that the global temperature record is completely untrustworthy. On the face of that, it looks like it might be plausible if this single source of data was inconsistent with other available data. So is it?
Well it’s consistent with the (independently derived) satellite data, so that’s strike one.
It’s consistent with the (independently derived) ice core data, so that’s strike two.
It’s consistent with the change in arctic sea ice age and extent, again independently derived, strike three.
It’s consistent with the change in range of plants and animals to what appears to be a response to changing temperatures – strike 4
It’s consistent with the change in the time of onset of spring in the northern hemispere, strike 5.
It’s consistent with the changes in the energy balance model over the last few decades no matter how hard Ken bleats about it – strike 6.
So we can take lots of independent evicdence and see if it’s consistent with each other, which it does appear to be, in a very coherent way. Or we can accept Ken and Tamas solipsistic rubbish.
Please keep going guys, you’re demonstrating the idiocy of your position quite nicely.
Ken #1980:
Yes the relative tempearutre for the satellite readings are lower than the other data sets, but as you’ve said before we can only aspire to relative measurements. But here’s your fundamental mistake:
There is no statistically significant difference between temperature trends in the hemispheric or global satellite records and the other instrumental data sets. Feel free to repeat your lie though – repeating it demonstrates the hollowness of your argument quite nicely.
“There is no statistically significant difference between temperature trends in the hemispheric or global satellite records and the other instrumental data sets.”
Prove it kdkd………not assert it.
Here is your argument in a nutshell:
NASA/GISS ‘processed temperatures’ show a positively global upward trend, but the existence or slope of that trend cannot be verified because the raw source data is lost.
UAH and RSS Satellite temperature data is sourced from the same satellites and processed independently and closely agree – they show positively global upward trend of lesser slope and a negative trend over Antarctica.
kdkd claims that there is no statistical difference between the two temperature groups even thought the first – CRU/NASA/GISS is unverifiable against the raw source data – so for hard scientific purposes – does not exist.
Science is supposed to be a relentless search for truth – and logical deduction used to be a vital part of that.
How do you logically deduce that Set 1 has no statistically significant difference from Set 2 when Set 1 does not scientifically exist….. kdkd??
All the ‘proxy’ data – cherry blossoms, arctic ice etc, etc might indicate warming – I have neven denied warming has occurred – what is really important is the *extent and rate* of warming and absolute degree of warming to determine whether it is a serious problem of not.
That is what you are trying to cover up with your prattle about ‘statistical significance’ of one valid sloping line (UAH/RSS) with another invalid sloping line (CRU/NASA/GISS).
Ken,
Your fallacious reasoning continues to show that your case is exceptionally weak. The processed data is indeed based on the raw data. The fact that it is not available is unfortunate, not because you’d know what to do with it if you could get it, but that it would shut you up.
If there were major inconsistencies in the CRU data with the other independent data sources, then your point might have some validity. However there aren’t (your Antarctica distraction doesn’t count for good technical reasons that have been discussed elsewhere).
Finally I’m seeing another #1940 moment here when Ken’s questions are answered and he claims that they are not later on:
1. Statistical methods do not provide proof they provide support for hypothesis. You’re abusing logic in a desperate attempt to hold on to your delusions.
2. I did indeed provide strong statistical evidence that supports my hypothesis in the Climate Karaoke quite some time ago. Short term memory loss Ken?
No cover up here ken, and no need to constantly repeat things that have been roundly and repeatedly demonstrated to be not true, unlike you and Tamas.
Please keep going, the weakness, idiocy and inconsistency of your case is demonstrated even more strongly every time you put fingers to keyboard.
p.s. See how I answer the questions that you put to me? I see that you never return the same courtesy and we can only conclude that this also demonstrates the fatal weakness of your argument.
Oh yeah, the satellite data is not raw data either, it’s rather heavily processed too. Does this mean that you will no longer consider that this data has any validity either?
Ken,
Just to be absolutely clear:
Antarctica aside (there is effectively no decent ground record for the whole of Antarctica – but there’s a clear warming trend in the surrounding ocean), there is no statistically significant difference between the UAH/RSS trends and the GISS/CRU trends. How frequently do you want to repeat this fallacy, and have it pointed out to you that it is a fallacy? I’m not going to let this go, because what you are making is a false statement.
“2. I did indeed provide strong statistical evidence that supports my hypothesis in the Climate Karaoke quite some time ago. Short term memory loss Ken?”
And what was Karaoke based on kdkd…..HADCRUT – Hadley-CRU-Temperature – unable to be validated due to Dr Phil’s lost data. So you can throw out your Karaoke and start again.
Show us the absolute temperatures and trends for ‘your other sources’ kdkd.
Maybe you could start with Briffa’s tree rings post-1960……..after all isn’t it the last 30 years in which the temperatures have ‘hockeysticked up’?.
Err, Ken
In your continual quest to determine how much egg you can put in your custard before you can’t call it custard any more (hint, a long time ago), you again make fundamental errors that are easily rebutted.
I used all available data sets, HADCRUT, GISS and UAH data. And get this, you’ll like it: they do not differ significantly from each other.
Conclusion: Ken is talking utter crap as is his right as a right wing delusional fuckwit right. He does not pay an iota of attention to the evidence presented to him, because if he did, it would mean that he would have to question his delusional belief system.
Hey, where’s the answer to the question I posed in #1941? It’s pivotal to your argument. Your continued failure to answer it (it was not the first time I posed the question either) strongly supports the hypothesis that you’re not really interested in the science, just the contents of the inside of your own head.
More of Ken being a total dickhead here:
It’s called the divergence problem. It’s much discussed in the peer reviewed literature. Maybe you should take a look at the literature. Hardly a scientific conspiracy to “hide the decline”. Anyway, I’m not sure what your point was. It appears to me like you were making some moronic baseless insinuation.
“It’s called the divergence problem”
Explain it to us kdkd……good until 1959 and 11 months – no good after 1960 and 1 month.
If memory serves me correctly – you and Tamas disagreed hotly about the trends in the UAH data. UAH was considerably cooler than HADCRUT.
The first Karoake was on your own NH temperatures, the second on HADCRUT global which got a lot cooler, and I can’t recall seeing the UAH Karaoke – but it must have been cooler still.
For you – two upward trend lines no matter what the slope must have ‘no statistical difference’.’
Just like there is no statistical difference between climbing Mt Baw Baw and Mt Everest…….
Ken:
1. Go read the literature – many of the pdfs are downloadable from Google Scholar directly.
2. Your memory is faulty, but that’s ok, we’ve already established that you’re totally disinterested in the actual evidence.
3. Tamas makes you look smart — his intellectual stuntedness, delusions, narcissism and information illiteracy is so great. But that’s just relatively – you’re more the master of confabulation and circular argument.
4. What part of “relative measure” and “magnitude of the trends is not significantly different” do you not understand? Why are you bothering with this nonsense. Oh yes, because your case is so weak it’s the only thing you’ve got left. Hahaha.
5. What an idiotic statement. You either look for overlapping confidence limits, or you do a specialist statistical test. Just because you don’t understand statistical methods doesn’t mean they don’t exist I’m afraid. (same as you wouldn’t know what to do with raw data if it sat on your face).
6. Well if I start climbing mt everest and mt baw baw baw at 0 metres elevation you might have a point. However the analogy is more that I start climbing everest at 0 metres, and mt baw baw at about 6500 metres below sea level – this illustrates the idea of relative measurement rather nicely, and also the total stupidity of your argument.
Please go on – you’re continuing to illustrate the hollow, delusional, fact free nature of your argument rather nicely. Roll on post 2000, I’m sick of your boring nonsense.
Ken – Der Spiegel – one of Europe’s biggest publications at over a million copies per week – exposes the fraud of global warming.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697,00.html
As James Delingpole points out, the Germans invented modern environmentalism. So if you’ve lost the Germans…
Tamas:
Nice bit of yellow journalism there: “A religious war is raging between alarmists and skeptics”. Plenty of misreporting of Climategate as well.
Here’s another nice piece of misinformation in that article:
I think you’ll find that’s what actually happens when the IPCC finds errors, unlike say when someone like Tamas makes mistakes or repeats the errors of others – the usual occurance. In fact, when Tamas says stuff, we can usually assume that it’s based on a factual error or a lie, his record is so woeful.
Won’t waste my time reading beyond page two because the article you linked to is clearly without scientific merit.
In other news, here’s a nice piece on why being polite isn’t necessarily appropriate:
Which is why calling out Ken and Tamas as delusional fuckwits is entirely appropriate.
kdkd – I’m really not interested in your rationalisation for being rude.
Tamas,
I’m not really interested in your constant repetition of the same old discredited delusional crap, yet you continue subjecting us to it.
Today’s fish-in a barrel shot:
“Arctic ice recovers from the great melt”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7086746.ece
To quote:
+++
“In retrospect, the reactions to the 2007 melt were overstated. The lesson is that we must be more careful in not reading too much into one event,” Serreze said.”
Also “Scientists have made mistakes over other short-term trends such as increases in tropical storms. In 2004-5 an increase in the number and severity of storms, including Hurricane Katrina, prompted some researchers to suggest a link with global warming — but this was then followed by a decline in storms.
Similar fears were raised in 2005 when scientists at Southampton University published research showing that some deep Atlantic Ocean currents, linked to the Gulf Stream, had slowed by a third.
They issued a press release entitled “Could the Atlantic current switch off?” which suggested that circulation in the ocean, which gives Europe its temperate climate, might shut down. But more recent studies have shown that such currents slow down and speed up naturally, so short-term changes cannot be seen as evidence of global warming.”
++
Amazing stuff eh? Scientists making mistakes and getting it wrong. Who would have thought? I mean, isn’t The Science settled?
Nope, thats your delusional camp straw man – “the science is settled” is a phrase originating with a so called climate skeptic in the pay of the oil-tobacco nexus.
Tamas using your expertise now develop a statistical model to predict average ice extent, size of perturbations and average age of arctic ice over the next half century in order to make your point properly. Then we can evaluate how it performs against observations. Maybe a hindcast model would do too, so that we wouldn’t have to use our crystal ball or time machine.
Large ossicilations like this are actually consistent with significant changes in complex systems ( see Scheffer, M., Bascompte, J., Brock, W.A., Brovkin, V., Carpenter, S.R., Dakos, V. et al. (2009) Early-warning signals for critical transitions. Nature, 461, 53-59. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7260/full/nature08227.html )I’m really unsure of the relevance of this newspaper article in terms of providing evidence for or against the scientific consensus that you’re so convinced is bullshit.
Sorry Tamas, you’re grasping at evidence without providing any intellecutally coherent argument in order to maintain the pretence that your delusional thought processes have grounding in reality. Again your barrel is in fact your head, and the fish are the few neurons left between your skull.
Please keep going, you demonstrate the fundamental weakness of your argument very well.
So when Al Gore says “the science is settled”, he’s just repeating lines from the “oil-tobacco lobby”? Gosh.
Who’s grasping at straws here?
Tamas,
Where is the quote from Al Gore where he says that “the science is settled”? I strongly suspect that you’re going off a misquote there. In any case, find me a scientist (as opposed to Politician or delusional idiot) who claims the science is settled. The scientific consensus is very very strong though – despite your idiotic uninformed blitherings on the topic. You seem to consistently get complexity and uncertainty confused in your tiny delusional mind.
Also rather than tackling my central point, that the poor quality reporting from the times has nothing to contribute regarding the state of the scientific consensus, you prefer to stick to a peripheral matter of even less relevance than your original point. Nice work delusional fuckwit boy (that’s your new superhero name by the way).
So in summary, I agree that you are grasping at straws, and encourage you to continue demonstrating how shallow and uninformed your argument is.
kdkd – Are you kidding me? “the science is settled” is one of Gore’s signature lines! Google it, for goodness sake. I got 285,000 hits on google for “Al Gore the science is settled”. The first 10 links quote him directly for that statement.
Anyway, nice to see you are backing down from your strident claims that all the science is in. You’re a little late to the party but it’s good to see you admit it anyway.
Tamas,
If you do an google search on your claim, you see the odd non-quoted attribution, but nothing from the horses mouth, and quite a lot of attribution from the climate delusional press. Looks like climate delusional talking points to me.
Secondly, “the science is settled” is a straw man. It is a logical fallacy to equate this statement as being equivalent to the statement that “the scientific consensus is sufficiently strong that the evidence for anthropogenic global warming seems insurmountable”.
Please continue, you expose the weakness of your argument, and its basis on lies, misrepresentations and poor quality logic every time you say anything.
This weeks Science Show has interesting stuff on the origins of Tamas and Ken’s scientific delusions, and their gullibility to a concerted well funded PR campaign from the same people who brought you tobacco, acid rain, CFC and asbestos “scepticism”. You’re rumbled guys – give up now.
Interesting fact – the number of scientific papers indicating that AGW is worse than the IPCC’s projections is currently running at about 20 to 1. A far cry from Tamas’ idiotic solipsistic claims.
Cue some right wing paranoid conspiracy theorising from the delusional fuckwit duo in a vein attempt to call the dogs off.
kdkd #2005
Back refreshed and fighting fit from a great Easter break.
Tamas – congratulations on Post #2000 – after all the Cage Match was set up for you by the delightful Sophie – and lets face it …………she hasn’t been heard from since.
“tobacco, acid rain, CFC and asbestos “scepticism” – what happened to thalidomide and pedophile priests kdkd…..
Surely Tamas and I are connected to those malignant forces as well??
kdkd……………..Is that Robin (100m of sea level rise) Williams…who refused to read the Climategate emails because he feared finding that his warmist heroes had no clothes….and one of his particular favourites, Dr Phil had lost the plot…………..and the planet’s raw temperature data to boot.
By the way Tamas, I have noticed Crikey’s decline – since that format change about 6 months ago – and without your and my regular contributions to Comments ….the discussion is poor fare………….time we shook the joint up a bit..
Cheers Ken
Ken,
Nice rambling content free post with a nice hint of incoherent paranoid conspiracy theory (not based on any evidence of course!) for you to finish on. Well done!
kdkd “a *vein*attempt to call the dogs off.”
‘vain’………….. kdkd…………..if you are abusing someone you need to get the spelling right.
It looks like the Arctic sea ice is not behaving according to the script either??….. kdkd
Natural variation I suppose.
By the way the Spiegel article suggested that Dr Phil had not lost all the raw data – but he has lost his notes on how he *processed* it.
It did sound incredible that a central figure in climate science was so sloppy that he lost the raw data – but *forgetting* your method of processing the data is even more amazing.
Dr Phil is probably a lovely guy under profound mental stress and we should not get personal…but such ‘forgetfulness’ does suggest that he should be playing in reserve grade with the ‘sandals and socks’ brigade ….. around kdkd’s level….
Nope, it’s fine by me. Every time you waste electrons on this, you make it clear that the shallowness of your case is transparent and pathetic.
Well if you were an idiot who looks at short term weather as a proxy for climate, you might make this conclusion. But those of us who do not have an imbecilic attitude to the subject see this as part of the osscillation of a complex system. See the Nature paper I cited recently for more info on this.
You clearly have no experience of scientific computing. This is just a pathetic slur from someone who doesn’t really understand, and has no interest in the nature of scientific work.
I shouldn’t bother with the next bit as I know you’re not at all interested, but I can tell you as someone who does a lot of data processing and cleaning (in social sciences, but the tasks are the same), that prior to the recent invention (21st century) of good quality, low friction, free version control software, keeping track of what the fuck you’re doing when wrestling a difficult research problem is often close to impossible. Easy to use version control will help you improve your record keeping between 70 and 90% depending on your level of discipline and familiarity with the tools. Given the likelihood that you’ll use the code precisely once is exceptionally high, complete record of the kind you suggest is not really been possible or desirable, given the resource constraints that scientists are always working with.
So please keep going if you must Ken, it really shows your idiotic preconceptions and lack of real interest in the science for what they are.
kdkd #2009
“I shouldn’t bother with the next bit as I know you’re not at all interested, but I can tell you as someone who does a lot of data processing and cleaning (in social sciences, but the tasks are the same), that prior to the recent invention (21st century) of good quality, low friction, free version control software, keeping track of what the fuck you’re doing when wrestling a difficult research problem is often close to impossible. Easy to use version control will help you improve your record keeping between 70 and 90% depending on your level of discipline and familiarity with the tools. Given the likelihood that you’ll use the code precisely once is exceptionally high, complete record of the kind you suggest is not really been possible or desirable, given the resource constraints that scientists are always working with.”
Applied scientists (engineers) wrestle with the same record keeping problems kdkd….you are not special in this regard.
Without 21st century software which reliably and automatically creates archive files…..the well trained and disciplined applied scientist used magic tools like a diary and notebook.
You know ….boring stuff like dating the top of the page and manually noting file names and changes between file versions of each design model. I struggle with the same issues each day with getting staff to ensure that hard copies have updated fields, amendment notes and print-out dates.
Setting up an archive system is vital – and making sure that it is operated every time is obviously required.
Ken,
You have just confirmed that complete records of the kind you are demanding are fairly difficult for you to keep in a field where the work you do is fairly concrete. Now in a field which is much more abstract, where more work is exploratory, and so not subject to things like ISO9001 and GMP, and tools you develop are highly likely to be single-use by one person only, then the whole thing becomes much harder to achieve.
Additionally your claim that the data is lost has been exposed as false by the otherwise heavily-influenced-by-delusional-propoganda Der Spiegel piece.
So there’s your straw man demolished. Please keep going. I’m enjoying the way that you expose the inconsistent, intellectual dullard nature of your argument the longer you go on.
kdkd #2011
Struggling with the record keeping issue is not the same as *failing* at it kdkd….
No one demands perfection – but when the future of the planet is supposedly at stake based on Dr Phil’s science – a decent set of records – or better than average is a reasonable expectation.
Otherwise where is the ‘peer review’ – how do we know that Dr Phil has ‘processed’ the data correctly??
Who can check the method if it is lost in Dr Phil’s synapses and he has no record of how he did it??
Given murphy’s law, our best bet in this situation is to try to find evidence that independently corroborates the CRU’s data set. Good job we’ve got the sattelite record, various proxys, and independently derived calculations with the same data set then, all of which are in broad agreement. New proxies which may be more reliable, and numerous are being developed too.
With the usual misdirection and misrepresentation, as well as a good deal of inability to interpret a graph, the delusionals will try to claim some vague insinuation about the roman warm period from the data presented in that paper. Merely more of the same bullshit drawing conclusions from woefuly insufficient evidence.
So Ken, in the spirit of giving you more than enough rope, what part of your delusional belief system do you want to discuss next?
“With the usual misdirection and misrepresentation, as well as a good deal of inability to interpret a graph, the delusionals will try to claim some vague insinuation about the roman warm period from the data presented in that paper. Merely more of the same bullshit drawing conclusions from woefuly insufficient evidence.”
Is this a *disclaimer* kdkd??
A new proxy method shows a strong Roman warming period, and a MWP, and a LIA and somehow we are deluded by drawing any conclusion about a Roman warming which does not fit the alarmist AGW version of history.
What if the Roman warming had shown a strong cooling kdkd?? Would you have issued a disclaimer for sceptics of alarmist AGW in that case??
I bet you would have happily jumped on the Mann bandwagon and shouted loudest.
I think I am tiring of playing with kdkd….. a mental pygmy in his own echo chamber.
Ken, I raise my mental pygmy to your intellectual amoeba.
Saw that coming, so I thought I’d help you out by directing you to the correct delusional talking point. Check the variance of the proxy measures during the roman warm period. Much more data needs to come in before we’re able to draw conclusions on the size and extent of this RWP. It’s not evidence against the strong scientific consensus, it’s yet another irrelevant distraction.
What have you got to say about the 20-1 ratio of “it’s as bad orworse than IPCC projections” appearing in the literature? My bet is either nothing or paranoid conspiracy theory.
Here, have some more rope, you’re going well. What’s the next astounding jump of illogic going to be? We wait with bated breath.
“What have you got to say about the 20-1 ratio of “it’s as bad orworse than IPCC projections” appearing in the literature? My bet is either nothing or paranoid conspiracy theory.”
“Are these based on CRU Temperatures kdkd?………..or Dr Trenberth’s ‘lack of warming’??
Ken
I got it wrong, you reply is based on total disinterest in the science, and an overwhelming desier to take a view of the topic based on your political ideology and delusions. And you wonder why I’m rude to you. It’s because your replies deserve contempt. To demonstrate good faith you could try a serious answer, or you could do what you promised to and go away after the 2000th post.
kdkd #2017
Seeing that we are in a Stockholm-like grip kdkd….if I left the Cage there could be a concern for your mental balance ….it could tip you over the edge.
It just shows that my beliefs include those of Christian charity; concern for one’s enemies and neighbours – no matter how unpleasant they might be.
Ken,
Nope it’s fine. You’ve obviously run out of material given the content-free nature of your last few posts. You’ve been exposed as having a hollow argument largely based on a partisan approach to the subject, and disinterest in the actual scientific knowledge. A great time for you to leave, I’d encourage it.
But if you want to continue highlighting the absurdity of your argument by continuing, then be my guest.
Ken, Tamas
You should have a squizz at the videos linked to from here. Excellent non-sensationalist stuff.
kdkd #2020
Bogey and Cagney playing Dr Phil and Dr Trenberth – infantile propaganda dressed up as reasonable comment.
You can’t be serious………………………….
#2020
Be patient kdkd…………..I have limited time to get through a large amount of data and multi strands in 1-2 hours a day.
Not doing too bad as a McExpert so far……………have got you reacting like one of Pavlov’s puppies for fear that the viewers might see some logic in my case..
Ken,
I fear for your mental health here. As well as being content free (as we have come to expect) #2021 and #2022 make no sense.
I’m very happy for you to continue down this track as it demonstrates how much you are wasting our time with your total crap. Did you watch the videos by the way? Not just read the Guardian articles. There are quite a few of them, but tightly argued and totally apolitical. Unlike your idiotic ramblings for example.
Tamas:
It appears that I’m not the only person who spotted that Der Spiegel article as a load of crap, but I certainly wasn’t going to waste my time on a detailed rebuttal for a delusional fuckwit like you.
But there’s some nice stuff in the RealClimate piece. Here’s some highlights for you:
Tamas: please try to restrict yourself to only posting material with scientific merit. This will cause your output to cease if present form continues, so everyone will win.
“Locally – in the North Atlantic region – climate reconstructions do indeed show higher temperatures than today (see Fig.); hence there is no contradiction to the anecdotal evidence about Greenland and Scotland … ”
Gavin wouldn’t engage me and others on this issue in Realclimate kdkd….
The above claim is wrong – there are multiple papers I have cited to show that the MWP was *global*.
He tried to confuse dates by saying that the proxy periods don’t line up and when asked bluntly to define ‘his’ dates for the MWP …….he went quiet.
Clearly the Mann group has an interest in minimizing the MWP to inflate their alarmist claims.
Ken:
How about you try to make your case without appealing to paranoid conspiracy theory?
Tamas:
Here’s a more balanced report on the current Arctic sea ice extent (“Arctic winter ice recovers slightly despite record year low, scientists say”). And a key quote for you:
Rather consistent with the ideas in the Nature paper I cited previously eh? My prediction is that Tamas will latch onto some delusional spray in the comments and claim that invalidates the content of the article.
There you go Ken, I trawled through the archives and posted a similar question at RealClimate here (will only be available when the comment is through the moderation queue). The text of the question I asked is:
While trawling through the archive I also found the following questions that the delusional fuckwit duo have manifestly failed to answer. Let’s assess how you’re doing on each point:
Fail
Ken’s confabulation of the Trenberth paper fiddles around the margins of the uncertainty but makes key faulty assumptions.
Fail via the mechanism of paranoid conspiracy theory.
Well you mainfestly fail at this one by totally ignoring it as an issue.
Tamas tries to deal with this one by constantly bringing up discredited delusional talking points.
Fail.
Tamas again goes for “evidence” (hahah) from right wing economic think tanks, and ignores the scientific evidence. He also claims that it’s all a conspiracy from the insurance industry.
Well her we have the delusional duo exposing their lack of understanding of statistics and appealing to paranoid conspiracy theory again
More confabulation, paranoia and failure from the delusional duo.
Here the delusional duo engage in outright denial.
Ken tries here, but it really make the rest of his claims rather inconsistent, and shows the rather unsavoury cosying up to the climate delusionals for what it is – caused by a lack of interest in the science, and a perception that his political ideology is more important.
Well done guys, 0 out of 11 is pretty good going over the course of 1700 odd posts. It really shows how strong your argument is!
kdkd #2026
“The way the ice is behaving is simply the strangest we have ever seen.”
What strange ice you have, Grandma???
Perhaps the correct explanation is that the observers have not been ‘seeing’ Arctic ice for all that long.
The limits of ‘natural variation’ would be expected to widen the longer the observation is made.
With Amundsen being the first through the northwest passage in the 1910′s I think, and scientific observation of the Arctic would be less that 100 years old.
You would probably need the whole of the Holocene (11,000 years) to pick up all the natural variation since the last ice age.
Ken #2029
That’s an interesting discussion starter there. However, I fear that the angle you are taking will attempt to use solopsistic methods to attempt to demonstrate that the modern knowledge we have of the behaviour of the arctic ice sheets with unequiocal warming is therefore of no relevance, and the methodological problems so great that further investigation would be futile.
Which would terminate the discussion rather abruptly, being the scientific equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and shouting “I CAN’T HEAR YOU I CAN’T HEAR YOU”
Also your conveniently ignoring the Nature paper I cited recently which suggests that the “very strange behaviour” that’s being observed is potentially a highly significant portent of change to a complex system.
A very nice rebuttal of the delusional talking point that the CRU have somehow been evil or stupid through the destruction of data. Suck it up delusionists.
“That’s an interesting discussion starter there. However, I fear that the angle you are taking will attempt to use solopsistic methods to attempt to demonstrate that the modern knowledge we have of the behaviour of the arctic ice sheets with unequiocal warming is therefore of no relevance, and the methodological problems so great that further investigation would be futile.”
You are so fearful – you are putting words in my mouth kdkd…..
Is this the flurry of punches from the dope who is destined to be roped??
So what is controversial about suggesting that strange ice might not be strange after all if you had a long enough record to discover the range of natural variation in strangeness??
Desperate looney websites you are dredging up kdkd…………..bunnies and Bogeys and Cagneys making silly caricatures of sceptics as hate figures.
Ken,
I think you’re on the defensive here because you know I’m onto your modus operandi big time. Essentially your argument is that it’s all unknowable so therefore of no relevance. It’s more avoiding of the big picture along with exaggeration of the uncertainty.
Rabbet is a real scientist by the way. His mode of expression is eccentric, but his comments on the CRU non-data-loss are sound. Unlike yours.
See you haven’t got anything better, you have to fiddle around the edges, misrepresent and generally remain as detached as possible from the science. I was looking forward to ending this at post 2000, why don’t you oblige?
Acctually you do a pretty good job of charicaturing yourself with your paranoid delusional anti-evidence inconsistent non scientific approach to the subject at hand. But if that’s what you want to do please keep going. As per the outline in #2028 it shows the weakness of your case rather well. And it’s all self-inflicted.
kdkd #2028 et al…
When you start posing and answering questions in my and Tamas’ names in a ‘flurry of punches’ MO — you are just revealing desperate shouting into your own echo chamber…
Talking to yourself ………..or shouting to yourself ……is a worrying sign kdkd…..funny farm is not far away I fear.
Ken,
The meaningful content you’re contributing to this discussion is rapidly approaching zero. Inversely proportional to the quantity of psychological denial about the quality of your argument
kdkd #2036
If you want a serious and interesting discussion on ‘Is the science settled’ – have a look at:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=3&t=118&&n=136
The discussion zeroed in on the water vapour, CO2 and cloud albedo aspects of the the warming mechanism. All very ‘unsettled’ topics.
BP and fdystr*** seem to be holding their own pretty well and John Cook is to be given credit for running this discussion. His comments seldom show up at the bottom of the sceptics telling posts.
For sure the ‘Science is not settled’.
Realclimate could take some tips from Skeptical Science. Gavin’s syncophants chime into all the discussions and no well furnished sceptic bothers to try get past his ‘editing’.
So……….. megaphone man – get serious and run your stuff in a blog with a bit of grunt and see how you go.
Well water vapour is a side issue as it is a positive feedback. Bereini Peter’s highlighting of non-tropospheric water vapour seems of marginal relevance. It’s difficult to understand how you can justify the role of water vapour in the process as something that might make us less concerned about anthropogenic greenhouse gasses.
And the cloud albedo issue is on a much shorter timescale than CO2. The way you’re presenting it as a possible large and permanent negative feedback effect is frankly weird. In fact this is the key problem with your argument. You are making the strong assumption that negative feedback effects will jump in and save us, based on the confounding the idea of statistical uncertainty with the idea of level of scientific uncertainty, which is logically incorrect.
So that was a nice try on your part, but unless you can find peer reviewed papers supporting your assumption (no appeals to paranoid conspiracy theory about corruption in the peer review process please), then we can essentially dismiss your argument as again fiddling around the margins of uncertainty with key logical errors in your argument.
Bereni Peter uses the same technique as you – he produces excessively technical posts that are difficult to interpret. He relies on theoretical models, and uncertainties of questionable relevance to do wink-wink-nudge-nudge innuendo that suggest the observational data underpinning the scientific consensus are somehow negated by this vague and fairly poorly explained theory.
I’m just here until you go away. The only reason I jumped in in the early days was that you assumed the silence countering your confabulations was acceptance that you’re right. I’m not really sure that this was the right thing to do, but your constant presentation of misinformation riled me.
I’m gone from here the moment that you are. There are more people far more coherent on the scientific issues than me who do a much better job of explaining things, and weighing the evidence in a fair and balanced way.
In other words, ready to end it here when you are.
kdkd #2038
Are we trying the sane and reasonable kdkd mask today kdkd??
“And the cloud albedo issue is on a much shorter timescale than CO2. The way you’re presenting it as a possible large and permanent negative feedback effect is frankly weird. In fact this is the key problem with your argument. You are making the strong assumption that negative feedback effects will jump in and save us, based on the confounding the idea of statistical uncertainty with the idea of level of scientific uncertainty, which is logically incorrect.”
The aggregate of cloud cover over the planet is what counts – not the short life of any individual cloud pixel.
Reflectance both up and down etc is still poorly understood. Different types of cloud and their heights do different things. They generally cool during the day and warm during the night. The overall effect of increasing cloud and sulphates is generally cooling.
I saw a report on Catalyst last night which suggested that clouds have ‘brightened’ over Antarctica which might mean more reflection of incoming solar. The reporter was coy about drawing any conclusion (which might contradict AGW orthodoxy and on the ABC must always predict doom).
The overall effect – heating or cooling of a changes in clouds is far from certain and that is why the error bars are wide.
And to boot we can’t yet measure the energy balance at the TOA directly – a point which Dr Trenberth laments in his famous paper.
You were doing very well there until the voices told you to pull out a washed up old paranoid conspiracy theory. The ABC is being quite sensible and scientific in responding to new information in a scientifically conservative way if that’s how they presented it.
Individual cloud pixels can change quickly (see you’re relying on the language of computer modeling there !), but you need a theoretical justification backed by observation as to why and how this may change greatly on global scale for an extremely long period of time. To the best of my knowledge, no such thing exists, so your assertion at the moment is at best a hypothesis that needs to be tested, and at worse a spurious assumption driven by political ideology.
And we know that the behaviour of the climate over Antarctica is quite different compared to the rest of the planet due to that large lump of ice, and the southern ocean weather patterns, so it would be foolish to try to generalise from Antarctica to the rest of the planet without a theoretcal model (backed by observations) which was very robust indeed.
Will catch Catalyst on iView some time within the next few days …
Ken and Tamas shoudl have a bit of a squizz at this (long) article from the NYT on envornmental economics. Other than demolishing some of your delusionist talking points, it’s an interesting balanced read on the economics of the issue.
“The reporter was coy about drawing any conclusion (which might contradict AGW orthodoxy and on the ABC must always predict doom).”
Don’t feed the trolls… arghhh! So, Ken, is this the same ABC that gave lavish and uncritical publicity to the amusing fraud Monckton and virtually none to the internationally renowned scientist Hansen on their recent visits? http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/18/balance-on-climate-change-reporting-where-does-it-lie-at-the-abc/
Care to retract the ‘must’? Truly, the we-are-the-unheard-victims whinging of the denialists is extraordinary. Andrew Bolt even does it, from the soundproof eco-fascist-induced punishment cell of, erm, his nationally syndicated column and blog.
Hint: if you want to appear like a victim, stop sounding so smug. Smugness and victimhood don’t rationally coexist. Oh, and if you can’t answer kdkd’s questions at 2026 (and it’s obvious you can’t) you’ve lost the argument.
BTW, I won’t respond to the ravings you and Tamas will post in response until you’ve serially addressed kdkd’s basic questions, which you can’t and so won’t. kdkd is a working scientist whose labours may well produce some advances in human knowledge, something I doubt you comprehend and certainly don’t respect. You’ve run out of new and even recycled discredited talking points. Time to shut up.
HT #2042
Welcome back …………darling Harold!!
Have you worked out those green energy uutility rates yet….from about 6 months ago??
Dear dear, it this kdkd’s boss being brought in to save his floundering foul mouthed protege??
“kdkd is a working scientist whose labours may well produce some advances in human knowledge, something I doubt you comprehend and certainly don’t respect.”
Oh dear, kdkd as hurt puppy who is misunderstood. A saviour of humankind no less..
Listen up Harold, I am a working applied scientist (engineer) who designs things, employs people and exports things and together with thousands of other productive taxpayers probably pay kdkd’s salary.
kdkd’s basic questions have been answered endlessly and he has been floored on countless occasions with detailed information and analysis from me and Tamas.
He needs to stop sucking on the RealClimate teat and develop some arguments of his own.
Harold:
Technically I’m a working social scientist, but I’m more statistically literate than most soc scis in my current area of research.
Ken: at this stage all my funding comes from industry projects, so I’m not sure that you do pay my wages.
And finally, Ken, you do refuse to answer sensible questions no matter how often they’re posed of you. The only conclusion we can reach is that you don’t answer them because either you cant, or because you know that answering them will expose the fact that you have something to hide.
Finally:
This I found amusing, and highlights your delusional ideation. As you can see from the 11 points in a recent post your record of answering questions properly is about zero.
Again you continue to show the weakness of your argument, and I encourage you to continue doing so.
Ken:
Watched the Catalyst piece. So what evidence do we have that your “clouds will save us” hypothesis is suported given that the arctic temperature has been rising precociously at the same time that these mesospheric clouds have been increasing in extent? Looks like they have a small effect, you’ll have to find some other mechanism.
Looks like you’ve fucked up your custard with too much egg again. Hint: use the yolk only, and even then a relatively small quantity. Don’t let the voices tell you to add too much.
kdkd #2045
Here is an interesting summary from Prof Lindtzen from MIT. He *is* an atmospheric scientist.
http://gazettextra.com/news/2010/apr/08/con-earth-never-equilibrium/
Ken,
Lindzen seems to be a bit of professional contrarian too. There’s been a bit of tobacco denial in his past, and as far as we can see the assertions made in his article are not supported by the evidence:
(from his rather thoroughly referenced Wikipedia page). Conclusion: the information used in your article appears not to be properly supported by the available evidence. There’s also a good bit of crackpot grandstanding going on in that article too.
More interesting stuff on Lindzen here. I thought that the section on “Lindzen’s Discarded Global Warming Arguments” was especially interesting, but there’s other interesting stuff in there too.
kdkd #2047
I would not agree with any comment that ‘weakly’ links lung cancer to tobacco. The article with this reporter’s comment is here:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/78772/output/print
You attempt to use the tobacco smear and the Exxon smear really misses the point.
What you have to do is defeat his arguments on global warming – particularly on climate sensitivity.
He is the son of a Jewish refugee and has made it to a professorship at MIT – so probably a lot smarter than both of us.
Ken,
I think when perseverating over his other nutty ideas and how they are irrelevant to your arguent (you are partially correct here), you missed the evidence that his theories are not terribly well supported by the evidence. Especially the following:
Which coincidentally is what we’re seeing with the mesospheric cloud in the arctic as well. Looks like a bit of a contrarian like Bob Carter – although we know Carter’s climate science credentials are non-existant, wheras Lindzen is in some respects an important theoretician.
You’re going to have to find some better evidence if you want to maintain your argument. You’d do well to start with people who don’t try to politicise the science.
His climate sensitivity figure is 1ºC as well, which we’ve previously demonstrated is far too low. Your 1.6ºC from the analysis of the Trenberth paper is a reasonable minimum estimate as we have established previously, but it’s much more likely to be between 2 and 3 ºC according to models and observations.
kdkd #2050
“wheras Lindzen is in some respects an important theoretician.”
All climate science is, in critical aspects – theoretical.
“Satellite data from CERES has led researchers investigating Lindzen’s theory to conclude that the Iris effect would instead warm the atmosphere.”
CERES data is not yet extensive or accurate enough to measure the energy imbalances at the top of the atmosphere. (Ref: Trenberth)
Some good discussion on Skeptical Science on this very issue which is really the nub of AGW CO2-GHG theory.
My take on this is that the doubling CO2 issue at say a 3 degC rise means that roughly 1 degC increase will occur at TOA to balance the increased S-B emissions and 2 degC across the atmospheric column (enhanced greenhouse insulator?) to give a 3 degC rise at the surface.
I was grappling with the ‘insulator-absorber’ nature of the enhanced CO2-GHG effect in the Karaoke – and I still don’t fully understand the CO2 – water vapour interaction and sea surface temps etc.
This is a very complex issue – remember that what ‘average’ temperature and emission spectrum which Space sees Earth determines the outgoing longwave radiation and this brings into play the S-B relationship in some form. Higher temperatures mean higher outgoing longwave proportional to T^4.
Ken,
Useful hypotheses, but nowhere near falsifying the “be very alarmed” conclusions that we’re reaching based on the IPCCs reviews of science to date and the 20-1 ratio of recent scientific papers suggesting something like worst case scenarios rather than as expected or less than expected.
By the way, broadly speaking, you get theoreticians, modelers and field scientists as three separate kinds of beast. They’re not all the same, and to have a decent scientific consensus, you need all three camps producing results that are consistent with each other. As a theoretician, Lindzen’s pronouncements about the observations and models are rather at odds with the findings as they’ve actually been reported too.
Your statement that “All climate science is, in critical aspects – theoretical” strongly suggests that you don’t understand the scientific process very well by the way.
So Ken,
Let me get this straight. In the spirit of scientific scepticism, you suggest hypotheses that help us understand the cliamte response to greenhouse gases, based on the work of Lindzen, Trenberth and others. That’s fine.
However, you then go on to take these hypotheses and assume that at a later stage they will be supported, despite zero evidence supporting them in the present day. One would assume that the correct thing to do would be to continue to attempt to falsify the hypotheses while promoting political and economic action as if your hypotheses can not be supported (which is what the evidence points to in the present day). Correct?
Given the above I have much trouble digesting your argument as a coherent and consistent whole. You appear to jump the gun as to the apparent truth of your hypotheses. What do you think?
“However, you then go on to take these hypotheses and assume that at a later stage they will be supported, despite zero evidence supporting them in the present day.”
Lindtzen does not think that there is ‘zero evidence’ for his position. He says that the ‘lack of warming’ over the last 15 years is evidence for his hypothesis.
When I started out on this blog in April 2009, I thought from IPCC AR4 that AGW theory said there was a heating imbalance of +1.6W/sq.m applied to every sq.m of the Earth’s surface.
When I read Dr Trenberth in November I found that the net imbalance had theoretically reduced to 0.9 W/sq.m due to his assessment of feedbacks, but that he could only find 0.55 W/sq.m in his energy budget for the planet from surface warming, ice melts, ocean heat content etc.
So in one year of research (and fooling around with kdkd) I have reduced the problem from 1.6 to 0.55 (34% or where it started) using recognized IPCC sources and lead authors.
There is some evidence for you kdkd..
Aah
That will be evidence based on a fallacy or a lie then. You know if the evidence that you cite doesn’t actually exist then it’s not evidence at all.
Not sure what you’re doing confabulating with the Trenberth paper. I strongly suspect that you’re unscientifically over-extending your conclusions as usual, but I lack the expertise to assess it properly.
Conclusion: basing your argument on a persistent lie, and ignoring the 20:1 ratio of scientific papers which suggest things are currently worse than expected rather than the same or better. Weak case with minimal support from the available evidence.
Next!
kdkd #2056
If you are calling me a liar, then call Lindtzen a liar as well….this is what he said in the 8APR10 article cited previously:
Quote
“The IPCC claim that most of the recent warming (since the 1950s) is due to man assumed that current models adequately accounted for natural internal variability. The failure of these models to anticipate the fact that there has been no statistically significant warming for the past 14 years or so contradicts this assumption. This has been acknowledged by major modeling groups in England and Germany.
However, the modelers chose not to stress this. Rather they suggested that the models could be further corrected, and that warming would resume by 2009, 2013, or even 2030.
Global warming enthusiasts have responded to the absence of warming in recent years by arguing that the past decade has been the warmest on record. We are still speaking of tenths of a degree, and the records themselves have come into question. Since we are, according to these records, in a relatively warm period, it is not surprising that the past decade was the warmest on record. This in no way contradicts the absence of increasing temperatures for over a decade.”
endquote
looks like he agrees with me on the ‘warmest decade furphy’ and 14 years of no statistically significant warming……….
Are you going to argue with the AP Sloan Professor of Climatology at MIT kdkd???
Ken,
Show me where he’s made those claims in a peer reviewed journal article please, not some worthless newspaper op-ed.
As for the “few tenths of a degree”, that’s precisely what the models were predicting two decades ago, come to pass in the present day. Your ‘no warming for 15 years (or insert other cherry picked start date here)’ claim is thoroughly discredited, except when you use the epistemology of delusion.
So the pair of you are buggering around with the evidence for political purposes, no question about it. Lindzen is on the fringe here (and there’s suggestions that he’s been less than straightforward about the funding and motivation for his AGW activities too). Find me mainstream evidence in the sceintific literature supporting your claims, not some polemic nonsense in an op-ed.
Actually I’m extremely unimpressed with Lindzen’s statement that ‘We are still speaking of tenths of a degree, and the records themselves have come into question. ‘
First we have the independent confirmation of the records by the satellite data so this statement looks lie a political lie. Second let’s do some sums. If climate sensitivity is 3ºC and the co2 level in the atmosphere doubles over a 300 year period, then that’s 30 decades and we’d expect to see on average a rise in temperature of 0.1ºC per year. So ‘a few tenths of a degree’ is more warming than a naive interpretation of climate sensitivity would suggest we’re due.
Oh dear Ken, you’ve allowed a contrarian professor of meteorology to shoot himself in the foot while he’s simultaneously stomping on your toes! That’s got to hurt.
kdkd #2059
“Second let’s do some sums. If climate sensitivity is 3ºC and the co2 level in the atmosphere doubles over a 300 year period, then that’s 30 decades and we’d expect to see on average a rise in temperature of 0.1ºC per year.”
Wrong again kdkd…..
3 degC divided by 30 decades is 0.1 degC per *decade* not per *year*.
It is 0.01 degC per year. Hard to measure I would expect.
Only out by a factor of 10 this time kdkd…….certainly better than 1000 or was it 4000 last time you did sums??
Maybe Harold could explain why I am wasting my time fooling with an academic genius like kdkd who has trouble with the decimal system.
oops, originally posted this to the wrong thread.
Ken,
Don’t be such a pathetic loser and perseverate over typos. Obviously I meant decade rather than year. If that’s your best come back your argument is utterly lost.
“Don’t be such a pathetic loser and perseverate over typos.”
If this is a typo then your following point makes no sense ie:
“So ‘a few tenths of a degree’ is more warming than a naive interpretation of climate sensitivity would suggest we’re due.”
Should be: “So ‘a few *hundredths* of a degree’ is more warming than a naive interpretation of climate sensitivity would suggest we’re due.”
Hello?? What does that mean kdkd??
Nope, a few tenths of a degree per decade is entirely consistent with the models Ken. Your perseveration due to your political delusions are preventing you from discriminating between typos and real errors.
Thanks for demonstrating my point. Pathetic loser is indeed the correct terminology for what we are observing from Ken right now. Got anything of substance to add? No, didn’t think so. Can we end this yet?
kdkd #2063
0.1 degC is ‘one’ tenth of a degC per decade – that is not a ‘few’ tenths of a degC.
This is what Lindzen said in relation to the ‘warmest decade on record’:
“Global warming enthusiasts have responded to the absence of warming in recent years by arguing that the past decade has been the warmest on record. We are still speaking of tenths of a degree, and the records themselves have come into question.”
‘and the records themselves have come into question’ – Yes… a big question for Dr Phil and the CRU/NASA/GISS team.
You have my permission to take your bat and ball and leave the cage kdkd….
You can go cry on Harold’s shoulder about that monster in the cage……….
Lindzen is incorrectly claiming that the continuing the decadal trend is not evidence for global warming. He is claiming that “a few tenths of a degree per decade” of warming is not evidence for global warming. The fact that the models assuming a strong AGW effect predict about one tenth of a degree’s warming per decade, and have done so accurately for several decades (in advance) put the lie on Lindzen’s crappy politically driven contrarian claims.
And again you’re ignoring the multiple sources of independent corroboration of the GISS and HADCRUT data. Because not ignoring them would require that you to admit that your argument is a load of crap.
Perseveration and delusion Ken. Give me some real scientific evidence or go away.
kdkd #2065
“And again you’re ignoring the multiple sources of independent corroboration of the GISS and HADCRUT data.”
List the “multiple sources” kdkd….and give their calibrated warming numbers in degC to compare with the instrumental record.
Ken #2066
More irrelevant twaddle from the prince of delusional fuckwittery (still a way to go before you usurp Tamas’ crown I’m afraid). As you have constantly stated, absolute measures are impossible, so we’re stuck with relative measurements (i.e. trends). As the trends between the different data sources are not (statistically) significantly different from each other, then they independently corroborate each other. Open and shut case.
Why do you feel the need to constantly recycle your limited repertoire of discredited rubbish? Surely if your argument was at all robust you could come up with something new and interesting which was actually supported by the scientific literature.
So what’s the reason you can’t do that then? Must be because you’re talking out of your arse. Prove me wrong or as they say in Scotland, get tae fuck.
As Tamas would say if he wasn’t in long term care for his persistant delusional ideation, today’s fish in a barrel shot is: Bye-bye, global cooling myth: Hottest March and hottest Jan-Feb-March on record.
kdkd #2068
Quote from your link ‘Climate Progress’:
“Of course, there never was any global cooling — see Must-read AP story: Statisticians reject global cooling; Caldeira — “To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous.” Indeed, the overwhelming majority of the warming went right where scientists had predicted — into the oceans (see “How we know global warming is happening”):”
(Then is reproduced the OHC Chart)
Pity I can’t reproduce the OCH Chart (Dominigues et al, 2008) because it stops in 2005 – 5 years ago kdkd….
So here we have a report talking about the first quarter of 2010 being the ‘hottest on record’ and then saying that; ” Indeed, the overwhelming majority of the warming went right where scientists had predicted — into the oceans (see “How we know global warming is happening”) FROM A CHART WHICH ENDS IN 2005!!
Hello?? How do you get the heat from 2010 into a chart which ends in 2005 kdkd??
Warming has enlisted *time travel* on its side…………!!
It is as meaningfull as the coolest quarter in the last 10 years occurring in 2008.
If you read Dr Trenberth’s 2009 paper he specifically points out that the OHC divergence starts around 2005 and the last 4-5 years cannot be balanced.
You should read your ‘Climate Progress’ propaganda before posting it kdkd….and get out of the Tardis…….
KL #2069
Correction ……….on closer examination, the OHC Chart ends in 2003.5 not 2005.
Your Tardis is working better than I thought kdkd………..
Ken,
Good work on the confabulation. Did you see the UAH graph at the top? I think that’s more to the point. Pointing out the deficiencies in one graph while ignoring the evidence in another does not a valid argument make. Every time you make a claim you’ve got to ignore large amounts of the available evidence as otherwise your claims are immediately exposed as invalid.
Again, do you have anything that’s not totally stupid to say, or are you trying to impress us with your superlative abilities as a totally deluded fuckwit?
kdkd #2071
I never ignored the UAH Chart at the top kdkd……UAH and RSS are probably the only reliable temperature records we have got!
I said: “It is as meaningful as the coolest quarter in the last 10 years occurring in 2008.”
UAH Chart goes up and down and looks pretty flat since 1998 ENSO…
Would you like to explain the coolest quarter in 2008??
Notice viewers that kdkd has ignored his major boo boo with the 2003.5 OHC Chart.
Thats two in one day kdkd…………out by only a factor of 10 this morning ………but fading to a crook OHC finish tonite………
Aah, so now the shoe is on the other foot, you object to cherry picking data points. Let’s agree that looking at anything less than the thirty year trend is pretty meaningless.
Oops, there goes another massive quantity of your talking points.
Yes, this was a trap to highlight the inconsistency of your argument. If it suits your political motivations, anything goes, if it doesn’t we apply arbitrarily high standards.
You keep aiming at the knockout to find you’ve accidentally punched yourself in the face again Ken. Got anything new not based on delusion? No, didn’t think so.
Ken:
You said
Aside from the usual caveats that you’re not interested in the science, so I’m really wasting my time here, this statement warrants a bit more exploration, because it’s another excellent illustration of climate change delusional idiocy.
The correct thing to do here is to apply a correction for outlier values in time series. Or at the very least be aware that they will have an influence on the results. We know that 1998 is an outlier for two reasons:
1. It was a very strong El-Niño event.
2. We know that the satellite measures over-estimate temperature during El-Niño events compared to the instrumental record.
So we know that the temperatures in 98 are “too high” in this series, relative to the other values. We can correct for this aproximately by assuming that the temperature in ’98 was closer to that observed in the early 2000s. After having applied this correction (admittedly in a vague handwaving way, but it’ll do when talking to youse half-wits) we see that in fact in the early naughties the jump in temperature anomaly was rather sudden, despite the record solar minimum.
Conclusion: inappropriate cherry picking of spurious data leads to erroneous conclusions. In any case I’m happy to stick with the 30 year trend as a minimum, because at least we know we’re on solid ground there. Having accidentally shot yourself in the face again, you’re going to have to agree.
kdkd #2073,74
I am happy to wait another 10-15 years to see what the temperature will be before doing anything other than Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan, which would save us imported oil and belatedly put us into the nuclear age; hopefully before the Chinese turn us into white trash puppets.
Notice viewers that kdkd has ignored his major boo boo with the 2003.5 OHC Chart.
Ken,
I don’t think it’s a major boo boo, I think its an irrelevant side issue. Please note that I never actually referred to that chart – it had no relevance for to trap that I was setting you (although it does highlight your persistent attempts at misdirection I suppose).
CO2 reduction and climate change mitigation should have started two decades ago at least. So claiming there’s the need for delay in action due to insufficient evidence is yet more of the political delusionist speaking. Ken’s conservative softly softly approach will lead to economic pain and mitigation failure.
kdkd #2076
Thats if you really live in a deluded state yourself kdkd……….a state where Australia could shut down tomorrow and make a 0.02 degC difference to projected IPCC warming in 2050.
A state where Australia is likely to lead the world to salvation by its actions; a state where the three ring circus which was Copenhagen did not happen; and a state where the Chinese and fast developing world do what the developed West say is best for them.
That state kdkd is your old Disney favourite………..Fantasyland!!
Ken,
Actually it’s the Chinese and the Americans that need to attend to this problem most urgently. Your Australocentric perspective is not terribly useful in analysing what I said in #2076. The effects of toxic political lobbying (of which you seem to be an enthusiast given the enthusiasm with which you grab onto poor quality unscientific discredited arguments originating from the fossil fuel lobby) serve to impair progress in making this happen.
Again your post #2077 is yet another attempt to misrepresent my argument for what are essentially political purposes to promote the status-quo, using poor quality scientific and economic arguments.
Did you actually have anything new to say at all that doesn’t depend on misrepresentation or discredited unscientific arguments? No, didn’t think so. Anyway, I’m keen to bring this discussion to a close, ready when you are.
kdkd #2078
You have my permission to take your bat and ball and leave the cage kdkd….
Ken,
Considering the sound thrashing that you’ve had for the last 1500 or so posts, I guess that it’ is indeed a good time to stop
kdkd #2080
Promised something on sea levels:
Here are the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean (next post) sea level graphs:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/l2a.png
Looks like they have flattened out since about 2004.
And the Atlantic:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/l3a.png
As we had to agree following your entrapment, anything less than 30 years (i.e. 1980 onwards) is pretty meaningless without greater historical context. Also where’s the raw data for the charts? As far as I know you just made the graphs up.
kdkd #2083
Yeah, I got my HP plotter and a little red pen and programmed it…..
Well the flattening levels since around 2004 do coincide with flattening surface and atmospheric temperatures, so it could be ‘independent’ corroboration kdkd is always talking about.
….and which Dr Trenberth discusses in his 2009 paper.
I note that the CSIRO paper cited in Dr Trenberth’s paper getts a much better correlation of sea levels with a model *including* volcanic factors – which suggests that volcanic might not be a negligible transient in the scheme of things.
Ken,
But as we know to think about climate change we’re thinking in 30 year or so chunks, not a piddling 5 or 6 years where the ‘noise’ is clearly greater than the ‘signal’. Was there some profound point you were trying to make about the internal vairability of the system, or is this another distraction?
In other news more delusional talking points shown to be irrelevant. I do agree that the scientists should solicit more statistical support from the professionals. Like the CRU researchers I have my own disciplinary set of statistical methods that serve me well. On the other hand I work with professional statisticians from time to time, which gives me a broader view of the field. It would save the climate scientists some grief in dealing with the talking points (like Ken’s current favourite of no recent warming) if they got a good response to this from a real statistical pro, and not using their own amateur arguments.
kdkd #2085
If sea level rise has flattened in the last 5-6 years then the thermal expansion + land ice melt or both must have reduced.
As we know from Dr Trenberth’s budget – very little heat is absorbed globally in land ice melt (I think is was 1-2 E20 Joules out of 145), so the oceans are the giant heat sinks which react much much slower than the atmosphere or land to an applied heat imbalance.
The graphs reproduced by Domingues et al and von Schukmann show very steep rises and falls in OHC, which imply global rates of heat transfer which are stupendous. As BP pointed out in a reaction to the von Schukmann graph – there is a bump in 2007 which would imply an 8 degC temp rise in the tropics over a short period.
Climate scientists are unimpressed by the oceanographers at the minute (I have it on good authority).
I suggested this to JR at Climate Progress – but he/she suppressed my post – clearly not as brave as kdkd……….in facing up to a contrary viewpoint.
Ken #2085
Yes, the weather for the past 5-6 years has been a bit odd. We can only make sense of what this means for the climate by thinking in chunks of 30 or so years. A point which we have both conceded.
So again, nice try but not terribly relevant to the AGW hypothesis on such a short time scale.
kdkd #2087
Well then lets wait 25 years – see how OHC works out and in the meantime adopt Ken Lambert’s 10 point plan. Get away from the oil based sheikdoms and send them back to the desert, wean off coal as cleaner technologies become viable, and greatly improve overall efficiencies.
Sounds good to me kdkd…
Ken,
Given the models predicted the last 30 or so years well, after we first realised this might be a serious problem, your conservative approach seems 30 years too late.
Soundly thrashed, I suggest that you retire from the cage defeated.
Looks to me like Trenberth would be horrified at the misrepresentation that Ken’s been giving his work:
I know it’s bad form to kick a man when he’s down, but in this case I think it’s ethical.
kdkd #2091
The Guardian report is pretty accurate – Dr Trenberth has ‘found’ about 0.55W/sq.m of his purported 0.9 W/sq.m imbalance in his budget (mainly in the oceans) – roughly half.
BUT
He confirms that surface temperatures and atmospheric temperatures have NOT warmed as IPCC predicted and ONE of the explanations is that the ‘missing heat’ is locked in the oceans below 7-900m.
He laments the fact that we are not measuring the oceans NOR the energy balance at the TOA accurately enough to find the ‘missing heat flux imbalance’ or the total OHC.
He mentions in his paper that other possible explanations are that ‘clouds are brighter’ (reflecting more heat), OR heat may be radiating out of the atmosphere at higher than the ‘predicted’ levels, again because CERES data is not accurate enough to measure it.
But finally, being an IPCC author he plumbs for the missing heat being hidden deep in the oceans, and *”It is critical to track the build-up of energy in our climate system so we can understand what is happening and predict our future climate.”*
He would plumb for that because he probably genuinely believes it, but he has not mentioned in the Guardian article the possibility that the ‘missing heat’ never existed – isn’t there….because that would require a major adjustment to the theory of the purported warming imbalances.
He was unimpressed with the von Schukmann paper (John Cook’s anchor on this issue) which ‘finds’ most of the missing heat – or he would have mentioned it in the article.
If you applied Ockham’s Razor – the more likely explanation for something you try, but can’t measure is that *it isn’t there*.
And Ken,
What would be the probability that the missing heat isn’t there? Given the accuracy of the models, and the soundness of the physics and chemistry underlying global warming theory then? 50/50 at best. Yes, there’s a great big heat sink below 300m that we can’t really measure, and putting aside from the last handful of years of weather no theoretical basis for discarding the missing heat.
And given your history of arguing on the basis of political ideology is of prime importance, unwarranted assumptions, and misrepresentation of the facts, you expect us to take your argument seriously?
You really need to get this weather versus climate thing sorted in your head by the way, it’s preventing you from thinking clearly about the problem (but the fug of delusion probably doesn’t help either).
right… 3000m
kdkd #2093
“What would be the probability that the missing heat isn’t there? Given the accuracy of the models, and the soundness of the physics and chemistry underlying global warming theory then? 50/50 at best. Yes, there’s a great big heat sink below 300m that we can’t really measure, and putting aside from the last handful of years of weather no theoretical basis for discarding the missing heat.”
You have actually asked a reasonable question kdkd…..well done.
I don’t know that probability ….but would make the point that Dr Trenberth considers 5-6 years of lack of warming a notable enough event to write a paper with it as a central focus viv-a-vis the missing heat. Put another way, why mention it at all if the period was insignificant ‘weather’ which simply regurgitates existing heat in and out of the oceans.
As we already agreed a long time ago – there is no global warming or cooling without an external forcing imbalance, and the first law dictates that that heat must go somewhere.
Answer: “I don’t know”.
And you still can’t tell the differenence between weather and climate.
Thanks for making my point clearly for me.
KL #2094, kdkd #2095
“but would make the point that Dr Trenberth considers 5-6 years of lack of warming a notable enough event to write a paper with it as a central focus viv-a-vis the missing heat. Put another way, why mention it at all if the period was insignificant ‘weather’ which simply regurgitates existing heat in and out of the oceans.”
Looks like Dr Trenberth can’t tell the difference between climate and weather either kdkd?
Enlighten us with a reasonable answer to the above..
Ken,
See, you can be goaded to take a scientific path if you’re lead by the nose. Unfortunately your tendency to treat hypothesis as conclusion means that you wildly overstate your case as soon as possible.
At the moment, it appears that your hypothesis is that its not the deep ocean that is absorbed the heat between 2003 and 2008, but the beginning of a negative feedback effect caused by a range of atmospheric effects.
Well I think you can find empirical data online that can test your hypothesis. However the range of empirical evidence in at the moment suggests no support for it. Speaking scientifically you can try to stake your claim, but it does require collecting or collating data, and analysis. If you don’t do this, or get someone else to do it, your argument is currently based on a guess not terribly well supported by the data, but well supported by your ideological preconceptions.
Get to it, and come back when you’re done to tell us which peer reviewed journal you got the paper published into.
kdkd #2097
Have a read of this kdkd….
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Tracking-the-energy-from-global-warming.html
and follow the Pielke-Trenberth emails.
Neither John Cook, Kevin Trenberth nor von Schukmann are finding all the missing heat.
I have read some of the Willis and von Schukmann papers but it is very hard to discover their exact methodologies of bricking or tiling the oceans and then measuring the heat content of each tile. A tile might be 200m deep x 5nm x 5nm (nautical mile) or some such volume – I don’t know the resolution, but have made the point before that unless an instantaneous snapshot at time T1 was compared with a snapshot at T2 of the whole volume of the oceans (all the tiles) then it would seem hard to measure an accurate difference between the OHC increase or decrease between T1 and T2.
eg. for major currents like the gulf stream – running at 4-5 knots could move heat from one tile to another in minutes to hours.
The Argo buoys would have to report all at the same instant – eg. 12.00 noon GMT at T1 and then at T2 (probably on the same day of the year) and a buoy in the same place would have to report on that ’tile’ to be accurate.
I don’t know if the current Argo methodology can correct for the movement of the buoys, the time elapsed between measurements and estimate the ’tile’ heat content.
Right, so now you’re claiming that measuring the ocean heat accurately is diabolically hard. I’m sure you claimed previously that lack of precision in the ocean records was a sign of lazy and stupid oceanographers…
“I’m sure you claimed previously that lack of precision in the ocean records was a sign of lazy and stupid oceanographers…”
Where did I say ‘lazy & stupid’ kdkd….come on…. show me….
The variety of results from Willis, Domingues, von Schukmann et al indicate that global OHC is very hard to measure accurately.
The Argo buoys should be a big improvement, however I suggest that my proposed methodology is the ‘ideal’ to get an accurate measurement. It you had half a brain and an adult approach, you might like to critique my proposal.
The issue then becomes how closely can the Argo and other methods get to the ‘ideal’ and what valid statistical corrections could be made to give a valid result.
For example, since the Argo are not tethered to a particular spot, and float around in the currents, do we know if they are congregating in places which are warmer or cooler than the surroundings or does it make no difference?? Initial assumptions and experiment design would be critical here.
Well, you implied lazy and stupid with your comments on the Argo Buoy system previously – troubles with calibration and measurement of temperature at depth for example.
Unfortunately your idealised measurement system is not going to be possible, so you need to use sophisticated statistical methods to apply the correction and clean the data set. I have no idea how much of an improvement in measurement this would create, and I have no knowledge of the work being done here.
My point was that you have the hypothesis that the heat is missing because it’s not there. The location of the missing heat is a big unknown, and your hypothesis is one of several possibilities. What’s interesting to me is that the missing heat only becomes apparent when the measurment system changed. So is what we’re seeing the result of greater precision, or of calibration problems? I don’t have any answers on this, but given all the other available evidence (e.g. the temperature record showing a continued warming trend at the magnitude predicted by models over 20 years ago), that the heat is merely ‘not there’ is at best a good null hypothesis.
Conclusion: scientifically interesting, but hardly given the rest of the evidence we have about the size and magnitude of the AGW problem, it is does not provide data that shows we should worry less about it, merely that the measurement systems show great uncertainty.
kdkd #2101
kdkd keep track of the current discussions on Skeptical Science….it is a very good coverage of the state of play with OHC and energy balance issues.
The Pielke – Trenberth exchange is very interesting. Note that Trenberth is umimpressed with the current work on OHC – he mentions 6-8 analyses which do not give consistent results.
The answer to the OHC ‘divergence’ problem will be the key to the future of AGW theory.
I have canvassed many of the issues already in this blog.
John Cooks’ blog does confirm the ‘lack of warming’ of recent times in the discussion of the OHC divergence problem.
As BP correctly points out…..the OHC direct measurement is only being compared with the computer models – not the satellite data which is far too inaccurate for absolute measurement.
If you are comparing real measurement with theoretical computer models – which would you consider more important – the observation or the theory??
Ken,
That’s all quite interesting stuff. My impression from reading the discussion between climate scientists here is that the energy balance model is not sufficiently well understood to justify it as a significant driver as climate policy given we have a range of other good quality observations and models from multiple independent sources that tell us that we already have a substantial problem that will be difficult (but if done right not economically destructive) to solve.
Therefore in the absence of better information, we should have been doing our utmost to avoid the IPCC business as usual scenarios over the past 20 years, and we should certainly be ramping up our activity now, in view of the poor progress achieved to date.
As for your models question at the end, obviously models and observation complement each other. If there are inconsistencies, there is a problem in need of further investigation, starting with determining which end the biggest problems lie at. I think that your habitual politicisation of the scientific process leads you to want to believe things are much more black and white than they actually are.
“If there are inconsistencies, there is a problem in need of further investigation, starting with determining which end the biggest problems lie at.”
I thought the ‘scientific method’ was something like: observation – hypothesis – test hypothesis against further observation – modify hypothesis to correlate with observation – test new hypothesis – feedback – feedback – feedback – until hypothesis predicts closely and repeatably the observation.
Observation is the driver here – not hypothesis.
This should be up your academic alley kdkd…
So your first step is to develop a falsifiable hypothesis that will tell you which end of the model/observation system is going wrong the most. I think that’s what I said in different words.
kdkd #2105
“So your first step is to develop a falsifiable hypothesis that will tell you which end of the model/observation system is going wrong the most.”
How do you suggest that I do that kdkd?…
Ken,
No idea. Looks like the most likely culprit for the missing heat is the ocean though, so that’s the dataset to go prodding about in.
kdkd #2107
BP is coming up with some scary stuff on SS kdkd….
Very interested to see how JC and others like HR who seem to know some of this stuff respond to his latest posts.
I would like to see a resolution of BP’s last two graphs to each other – they don’t seem to fit.
Ken,
Looks like he’s measuring weather rather than climate to me – I think you see a similar pattern if you look at co2 levels versus temperature anomaly over the past decade too – the magnitude of signal and noise are rather similar. Certanily nothing I’d alter policy over, especially with continued publication of analysis indicating the urgency of the problem.
Ken,
I’ve posted something over at Skeptical Science looking at BP’s calculations statistically. My less moderated conclusion is that the so called climate sceptics are trying to beat this up to exaggerate the uncertainty by displaying data (but not looking at it statistically, as that would show the argument is suspect) over inappropriately short time scales. The comment / fairly crude analysis is over at the relevant skeptical science thread.
kdkd #2110
Keep your politics for this blog kdkd – and the technical argument for Skeptical Science.
It looks like you are trying to knock over BP’s argument with a flurry of statistics.
I ‘get’ what he has done with the graphs after his detailed explanation.
It will be very interesting to see how he deals with your statistics.
Clearly BP is unimpressed with the ‘deep ocean’ hidden heat storage argument – for lack of a short term mechanism to get it down there.
Ken,
What exactly do you think is wrong with using statistics for evaluating an argument based on noisy data? I suspect it’s merely that you don’t really understand what statistical methods show.
kdkd #2112
I would admit that my lack of understanding of statistics might be as wide as your lack of understanding of thermodynamics.
I get the feeling though that BP is on to something here.
We did agree that he was one to watch.
Actually I’ve been watching him, and there are a lot of mistakes that he makes driven by his ideological blinkers. It’s largely hidden by the fairly dense (yet often simultaneously under-developed) technical nature of his posts. Anyway, my understanding of thermodynamics, and what it’s useful for is better than your understanding of statistics.
Oh yeah …
Well the whole purpose of looking at the indicators of AGW is to formulate an appropriate policy response based on the scientific conclusions. So if you demonstrate that a certain dataset is inadequate for making changes to policy, then that should be stated explicitly. It’s not pure theoretical work, it’s applied, which is why my quick n’ dirty statistical methods are useful. They’re useless for proper theoretical work though.
“Actually I’ve been watching him, and there are a lot of mistakes that he makes driven by his ideological blinkers.”
So how did you work out BP’s ideology kdkd….??
I have not read anything but technical pieces from him…
Well Ken, the way that you work seems to be that you try to hide your political ideology behind technical ideas that superficially look plausible. BP (apparently a well educated Hungarian, but that’s what you get for one of the best education systems in the world…) seems similar, although he’s careful never to explicitly state his point of view. The technical pieces that he posts are rather underdeveloped by and large, and tend towards producing arguments that under-play the importance of anthropogenic causes of global warming. On the other hand he seems to have a good understanding (better than me) of the components that go together to make up the physics of the climate system. Note the careful wording of that last sentence.
Spotted Tamas with his usual uninformed delusional utter drivel in the comments in Crikey today. I’ve sent them a note asking them to put him out of his misery by removing the oxygen of publicity.
kdkd #2117
You are a much more reasonable chap these days kdkd…..Perhaps waking up that there really is a legitimate technical argument going on about the reality of AGW, when SS starts to showcase the real issue of ‘lack of warming’ in recent times – AND is brave enough to let a good discussion run.
John Cook is to be given full credit.
Contrast SS with the fascists at Climate Progress who snuffed out any dissenting opinion poste haste.
And Tamas is right as usual – Germans frightening us with 3 degC by 2100 just doesn’t cut it for Tamas and I after more than 12 months in the trenches of climate change.
Check the latest post at SS – I think I am on to what BP is talking about.
“BP (apparently a well educated Hungarian, but that’s what you get for one of the best education systems in the world…) seems similar, although he’s careful never to explicitly state his point of view.”
Don’t project your biased political analysis on BP kdkd…. he has aired his ideas of how the climate system works, and is evolving as the science is revealed in very recent papers on OHC etc.
A few of his ideas have been criticised (the thunderstorms theory) and he has been left high and dry with some higher maths to which no-one can respond – but I think his theory that OHC is the key to tracking the energy imbalances fits with Dr Trenberth’s papers, and the killer will be if the ‘missing heat’ is found below 700m depthor not. BP dismisses this idea – so the key will be the oceanographers getting their act together.
Ken,
Still repeating the “lack of warming” lie I see. Good luck with that.
Additionally you’re basically wrong about the ocean heat content measures being strong evidence against a severe and enduring problem that threatens civilisation, because you’re trying to treat a stochastic system as if it is deterministic. Doing so is a legitimate approach (given the acknowledgement of uncertainty), but requires rather more data than the 9 years available. Seeing as the only thing that you use uncertainty for is to promote your political agenda, and you avoid using uncertainty to understand the limitations of the science, I think it’s been fairly comprehensively shown that your opinions have very little in the way of validity.
Ken,
As you don’t like politics mixed with your scientific conclusions (presubably because the conclusions don’t agree with your unsurmountable ideological blinkers), here’s the base conclusion from my statisical analysis reiterated for you here:
Given that it appears to be entirely consistent with all of the other bits of the scientific consensus.
Ken – there’s a great article in the weekend Australian by Richard Lindzen.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/alarmists-keep-ringing-the-bell/story-e6frg6zo-1225857624661
Wow Tamas,
I see in your absence you’re just a gullible a moron as ever. At least Ken makes the pretense of being interested in the actual science from time to time.
Ah yes, THE SCIENCE.
Richard Lindzen is is professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.
Pretty credible, don’t you think?
And thanks for writing to Crikey asking them to shut me up. They don’t seem to listen to you though, do they?
Tamas,
You are aware that newspaper opinion pieces do not have to be factually correct? And presumably you’re aware that his credibility seems pretty piss poor these days?
As for Crikey continuing to publish your comments… They’re heartless bastards aren’t they – at least people like me have the compassion to try to prevent you from making a total idiot of yourself repeatedly.
kdkd #2120
Still repeating the “lack of warming” lie I see.
How do you interpret John Cook’s Figure 1 from the SS post:
Figure 1: Estimated rates of change of global energy. The curves are heavily smoothed. From 1992 to 2003, the decadal ocean heat content changes (blue), along with the contributions from melting glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice and small contributions from land and atmosphere warming, suggest a total warming (red) for the planet of 0.6 ± 0.2 W/m2 (95% error bars). After 2000, observations from the top of the atmosphere ( 9) (black, referenced to the 2000 values) increasingly diverge from the observed total warming (red).
“Figure 1 has many interesting features. The blue area shows the rate of ocean warming. Note that when it falls after 2005, this doesn’t mean the ocean is cooling but that the rate of warming slows. The red line is the total amount of net energy change. This means that all the energy going into the melting of sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers plus the warming of land and atmosphere is the tiny gap between the blue area and the red line. However, the most interesting feature of this graph is the divergence after 2005. From this point, the satellite data (black line) continues to show a growing energy imbalance. But the ocean seems to be accumulating less heat.”
Tamas – kdkd writing to Crikey trying to shut you up….
Laughable if it was not a serious indication that kdkd would be an informer for the secret thought police in his ideal totalitarian state.
Without seeing your pieces as threats to his ideology, which must be suppressed; one wonders why he would bother to expose his preposterous attack on free speech.
We must be messing with his mind Tamas…
Ken #2126
Yes, there is a problem here somewhere between the energy imbalance observations and the global mean temperature observations. I’m interested to see where it has come from over the coming years, but for now, we can’t make strong conclusions that will drive policiy decision from the OHC/TOA figures becuase they’re clearly not good enough to do so. Claiming a unequivicolal “lack of warming” from this data is over egging your custard rather.
#2127
No I just feel sorry for Tamas and his total disregard for the facts caused by his delusional ideation (Ken’s nearly as bad but not quite as anti-science, although he’s do well to study some statistics because without it he’s clearly lost). I think you’d find that in the totalitarian state you’d be the one with the trench coat and the jack boots, and I’d be the one with the molotov cocktails fighting for your freedoms to be an idiot.
Interesting that nobody bites about my argument on stochastic versus deterministic. Must be scared to engage me because I’m right.
Ken
Here’s an example of BP stuffing up due to problems with his ideological position that causes him to race to an erroneous conclusion. There were a couple of other examples I spotted elsewhere too.
kdkd: #2128
“Interesting that nobody bites about my argument on stochastic versus deterministic.”
So explain to us how this affects the temperature or energy balance numbers kdkd…?
BP stuff ups: Your example is a poor one kdkd…I think that he might be right about heat transfer directly to space. Dr Trenberth even suggests the possibility of heat being radiated out to space at a rate greater that predicted by theory.
Note that I am asking BP for more detailed explanations.
He could yet disappoint; he could be a bit of a ‘hit and run’ merchant without a fully resolved set of arguments. Let us see.
“Claiming a unequivicolal “lack of warming” from this data is over egging your custard rather”
I think your over-egging my over-egging metaphor kdkd…..
As for throwing molotov cocktails – your attempt to direct the editors of Crikey to stop publishing Tamas’ pieces smacks more of Climategate where the Mann-Jones clique had editors sacked and tried to suppress publication of papers by scientists with opposing views. Not exactly revolutionary kdkd…more like the KBG or the Stasi.
Ken,
So you’re claiming that Crikey is morally obliged to publish fact free delusional bullshit, because doing otherwise is censorship? That’s a strange argument.
I thought I’d annoy you with custard metaphors by pointing out that you repeatedly manage to mistake the recipe for omlette as the recipe for custard (metaphorically), such is your wild overenthusiasm for your own half baked conclusion tarts.
Ken – you must read this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/global-warming-the-oxburgh-inquiry-was-an-offer-he-couldnt-refuse/
The criminal side of the climate lobby is finally being exposed. Lord Oxburgh isn’t looking too good on this one…
Ken – her are some Climategate emails on the lack of warming we are experiencing:
3-Jan-2009, Mike MacCracken wrote to Phil Jones, Folland and Chris:
I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability–that explanation is wearing thin. I would just suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also do some checking on the sulfate issue, just so you might have a quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong. Otherwise, the Skeptics will be all over us–the world is really cooling, the models are no good, etc. And all this just as the US is about ready to get serious on the issue.
…
We all, and you all in particular, need to be prepared.
Similarly, in an email dated 24-Oct-2008, Mick Kelly wrote to Phil Jones [5]:
Just updated my global temperature trend graphic for a public talk and noted that the level has really been quite stable since 2000 or so and 2008 doesn’t look too hot.
…
Be awkward if we went through a early 1940s type swing!
Tamas,
Finishing off with a nice unscientific statement there. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen – so far 2010 is as warm as ’98 or warmer. Also remember the decadal trend shows exactly the opposite of what you’re claiming – the naughties were the warmest decase on record with the 90s second warmest, and the 80s slightly cooler … etc.
#2133 Crackpot conspiracy theory there. Tell you what, I’ll let you away with that if you acknowledge the big oil / tobacco lobby connections with the climate delusional camp.
Half arsed nonsense of dubious provenance devised by you to maintain your delusional ideation. Nothing to see here, move on.
Tamas #2134
Excellent posts Tamas…
kdkd is is getting over the ‘anger and denial’ phase about *lack of warming*.
He is getting steadily ground between the opposing mill stones of incriminating private Climategate conversations and the reports from respected scientists such as Dr Trenberth all talking ‘lack of warming’.
Ken #2136
Nah, I’m just amused at the depth and stupidity of your delusional ideation.
Ken #2136
Actually having thought about it a bit more, I’m even more amused at your continued delusional ideation.
Having comprehensively demonstrated that given the stochasticity of the TOA/OHC figures, that they do not differ in any statistically significant way from the CO2/temperature anomaly figures. Despite your continued assertions these figures indicate continued warming of sufficient magnitude to be of grave concern (as predicted by models about 20 or 30 years ago).
This was the only argument you had left, and given that I’ve demonstrated that your argument is clearly unsupported by the available data, you’re harping on about stuff that’s clearly based on wildly over-extended conclusions. Your badly baked conclusion tart is showing signs of being made of the wrong ingredients, and of being left in a far too hot oven for far too long.
Tamas,
I see your ludicrous post to Crikey comments on Friday has had a thorough doing – not a factual statement in your most recent spray. How pathetic.
Nice revisit of some slaps in the face for the delusional duo. What have you got to say about that dickheads?
Nothing? Thought so. Better stay shtum about things that don’t support our delusions, then the people we’re trying to persuade might not notice that our fact base is in fact a fiction base.
kdkd:
“Be awkward if we went through a early 1940s type swing!” is actually part of the quote from Kelly to Jones.
Seems those boys aren’t too confident eh!
Oh, and the comments in today’s Crikey abour Earth’s temperature are wrong:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/16/another-look-at-climate-sensitivity/
Tamas,
It’s amusing that you constantly cite the excerable, anti-scientific wattsupwiththat site as some kind of scientific authority. In fact, Watts has been shown to be wrong on seeveral counts (especially his urban heat island effect stuff) but repeatedly refuses to acknowledge that the data shows the opposite of what he claims.
But you rely on this anti-scientific bullshit to maintain your delusional ideation. So please, by all means publicly humiliate yourself with your fuckwitted nonsense all you like, but expect the humiliation to continue if you do.
Ken,
Looks like you’re getting a thorough beating concerning your numerological approach to climate science in the Skeptical Science thread too.
Hehe, numerology. Funny. Highlights the delusional moronicity of your argument nicely.
kdkd #2144
All it means is that you and Chris (same Chris late of this blog?) have felt threatened enough to try countering my arguments.
The result is a raft of your and Chris’ non-specific assertion; eg “that’s not quite right, Ken” stuff which fails to follow through with any substance.
Labelling my stuff as numerology is just another smear tactic because you can’t debate the substance of John Cook’s blog.
Why don’t you both label the OHC graph at the start of the SS blog as “numerology” as well – because it contains numbers which you don’t understand??
Ken #2145
Nope, it means for us armchair scientists, it’s clear as day that your argument is a load of crap, that is seemingly plausible because it hides behind a net of energy calculations that are shown to be totally irrelevant as they ignore the stochasticity of the system. Yeah, substantce. My argument is full of it. Your argument is superficial crap. End of story, try another one, or give up.
kdkd #2146
Why don’t you both label the OHC graph at the start of the SS blog as “numerology” as well – because it contains numbers which you don’t understand??
KeN,
you have not produced any argument, let alone a convincing one as to why you think it is appropriate to treat a stochastic system as if it is deterministic. Until you do so, your argument is based on a wildly over extended conclusion. Observing the divergence between data and theory is not the same as reaching an illogical conclusion based on the same. Which is what you appear to have done.
“you have not produced any argument, let alone a convincing one as to why you think it is appropriate to treat a stochastic system as if it is deterministic.”
Your new buzz words kdkd….trying to make you sound intelligent.
Explain to the viewers what is the difference in the two kdkd….with reference to the immutable first law of thermodynamics.
A stochastic system is one which is subject to the rules of probability – chance events effect outcomes. A deterministic system does not have this property.
Now answer my question from #2148 or is this another one you need to avoid answering to avoid exposing the fact that you’re a delusional fuckwit?
Is that ‘chance events effect outcomes’ or ‘affect outcomes’ kdkd…
And what has this to do with the first law??
Ken,
It means that it’s going to be very difficult to account for all of the variability, especially when you haven’t got very much data. Are you attempting to avoid justifying why your strong conclusions are warranted here?
effect (n): a change that is a result or consequence of an action or other cause
affect (v): have an effect on; make a difference to
Grammatical nit-picking — you must be desperate to avoid answering the question.
Well chance events effect how you go about measuring the system in a precise way, so you have to account for stochasticity in the measurement system. Looking at OHC/TOA alone would appear to be too simple a model be a suitably comprehensive measurement system.
The internal variability of the system is not the issue here kdkd..
Moving existing heat around in your ‘stochastic’ chaotic system is not going to change the ‘global’ heat sum of OHC, land, atmosphere, ice etc.
Heat popping up in an El Nino or AMO in one place must be missing from some other place unless there is external forcing (a net imbalance).
Forcings ‘external’ to the atmosphere, land, oceans, ice can only be Solar (TSI), Volcanic, and waste heat from exothermic reactions like burning fossil fuels, nuclear etc.
Ken,
Theoretically you are correct. The theoretical model underpinning the ohc/toa calculations is indeed deterministic. However in practice we seem to be missing about 30% of the parameters (expressed in amount of energy) for the theoretical model to describe the measurement system well enough. Claiming that the theoretical model is good enough by itself is incorrect, but this appears to be required for your argument to be valid.
Therefore your argument is not valid, given the limitations of the measurement model.
KL #2154
And, I almost forgot – In the ‘external forcings’ list we need add the ‘Enhanced GHG effect’ which purportedly exists in non-equilibrium conditions.
Non-equilibrium conditions (with no possibility of reaching equilibrium) are of course diagnostic of a complex system, which is the area of mathematics where the rules of calculus do not apply (http://necsi.org/projects/baranger/cce.pdf : Baranger, M. (2002) Chaos, complexity, and entropy – a physics talk for non-physicists. New England Complex Systems Institute.)
kdkd #2157
“However in practice we seem to be missing about *30% of the parameters*(expressed in amount of energy) for the theoretical model to describe the measurement system well enough.”
And what paramaters are these kdkd….??
Ken,
Your continuous questioning is tedious, its a pretty transparent attempt to avoid answering the questions that are put to you.
Your OHC/TOA model does not accurately reflect the full range of observations. It appears to be out by about 30%. The measurement model is inaccurate, either due to missing (unknown) parameters and/or due to innacurate measurement of known parameters. To improve accuracy you need better models, measurement systems, and more full annual cycles of observations. In the absence of the first two, we can increase the sample size of the third, but 30 annual cycles is a minimum with which we can make meaningful conclusions.
Now answer the question, or face more derision.
kdkd #2159
“Now answer the question, or face more derision.”
What was the question kdkd….??
Your derision is like a fart in a football crowd…..nobody cares..
More pathetic time wasting, and a strong indication that this is your main reason for being here – you don’t care about the science or the issues, just about point scoring from ludicrous grammatical nit picking and highlighting your own scientific misunderstandings.
Here, from #2148 was what you haven’t answered:
kdkd #2161
KL Answer:
“Moving existing heat around in your ’stochastic’ chaotic system is not going to change the ‘global’ heat sum of OHC, land, atmosphere, ice etc.
Heat popping up in an El Nino or AMO in one place must be missing from some other place unless there is external forcing (a net imbalance).
Forcings ‘external’ to the atmosphere, land, oceans, ice can only be Solar (TSI), Volcanic, and waste heat from exothermic reactions like burning fossil fuels, nuclear etc.”
kdkd response: “Theoretically you are correct. The theoretical model underpinning the ohc/toa calculations is indeed deterministic. However in practice we seem to be missing about 30% of the parameters (expressed in amount of energy) for the theoretical model to describe the measurement system well enough.”
Question: And what parameters are these kdkd….?? Where do you get the 30% number from??
Answer: Over to you kdkd…
The 30% figure the mismatch between the theoretical balance and that measured at the TOA. It’s a good enough estimate of the lack amount of precision/uncertainty of the theoretical model right now. The parameters include surface temperature, ocean temperature, melt etc. Anything that can contain heat. It’s obvious that the time span for decent ocean measurements, and insufficiently good estimates of many of the other parameters means that we’re unable to draw decent conclusions from the OHC/TOA figures at this stage.
Ken,
You’ll also notice that your habit of eyeballing graphs, and trying to pretend that objective conclusions can be drawn from your subjective perception is widely seen as a total load of crap, given the responses from me and others over at SS.
You really have to lift your game. Trying to make strong conclusions denying the scientific consensus from far too little data, and then trying to pretend that a subjective analysis is appropriate, where objective techniques are easy and well understood together show the shallowness of your argument, and highlight the fact that it’s really based on a total load of crap resulting from your delusional ideation…
I see that the more he goes on, the more BP’s arguments are shown to be pretty shallow as well – like you he seems to have a good grasp of some of the physics, but insufficient understanding of statistics.
kdkd #2164
I can’t get the SS blog to answer at the moment so you will have to do;
The CSIRO paper by Domingues et al..comes up with a global average sea level rise of 1.6+/-0.2mm (published 2008) viz:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/abs/nature07080.html
Dr Trenberth uses an ‘observed’ number of 2.5mm in his energy budget calculations made up of components with wide error bars eg. 0.8 +/-0.8mm.
Both the above are well below the average 3.2mm of Chris’ graph.
The CSIRO quotes the satellite sea level figures with error bars of +/-5mm.
This seems to be another case of high precision but low accuracy – only good for year to year measurements and the possibility of large offsets – as with other satellite data such as SORCE TIMS monitors.
In this case the year to year measurements have flattened in the last 7 years.
In order to demonstrate this you have to show that there is a statistically significant difference between the regression slope of the last 7 years versus time, and the prior available data. However, because this is time series data, the difference would have to be large to be statistically significant.
Again it’s an example of you trying to draw strong conclusions over far too short a time period. This is a fruitless area to try to and contradict the scientific consensus with because you lack statistical power.
kdkd #2166
Think of your legacy kdkd………..you could easily do this with your programs and prove my point. It is eyeballingly obvious that the sea levels have flattened in the last 7 years or so from Chris’ graph.
What do you want to do kdkd??…..run with the alarmist crowd and be a small red face in it…..or distinguish yourself as the star rational AGW sceptic in a small regional university…..national profile, increased research grants when Tony Abbott becomes PM etc etc etc..
Think about it..
Ken,
Once you correct for the fact that the data is only meaningful in annual chunks (due seasonal variability) the illusion that your chart shows something profound post 2007 disappears. Or put more precisely the grand regression line is not statistically significantly different from the pre-2007 regression line or the post 2007 regression line) once the seasonal effects have been removed.
Not a consensus buster.
kdkd #2168
Well if 7 years is not long enough then 17 years is not that much longer when you are claiming that 30 years is the minimum period for a valid statistical analysis. So toss out the sea level chart that Chris posted – not long enough.
I will agree with you that BP seems to be a hit and run merchant – he does not hang around for an in-depth to and fro. I have the impression that he thinks that our efforts are all beneath his tablets of wisdom delivered from on high. This does not mean that he is wrong – but that he is probably wrestling with the complexities and conflicts in the observations and trying to understand the system, just like the honest climate scientists out there.
Ken,
Either way, your argument is utterly discredited.
Well, lets wait for another 10 years or so to get a handle on the climate and the OHC and in the meantime start my 10 point plan.
Gotta be a better than Kevin07′s ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’…..well at least it was that last week until our Mandarin Candidate found a new moral challenge this week – the credibility gap between his top and bottom lips………….
You delusional idiots have been saying that for three decades now, and the amount of evidence against your argument increases all the time. Delay is not acceptable, and ironically the sane parts of your derivative 10 point plan are quite sensible things that should have been done two or three decades ago.
So your argument is discredited, demolished, toast, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it is an ex-argument. If you had not nailed it to its perch it would be pushing up the dasies etc…
Hey Ken, where’s you 10 point plan? Wouldn’t mind a look…
Eponymous: the ten point plan was last commented on by me here, and there’s a link to the original in that post.
EP #2173
Ken Lambert’s latest 10 point Plan in descending order of conservatism:
1) Reduce consumption of petrol and diesel by converting to gas. Convert coal fired plant to gas where feasible.
2) Encourage electric public transport – train and light rail – free and frequent as possible.
3) Encourage line haul road transport onto electric rail by tax concessions or differential taxation.
4) Encourage viable renewables such as solar hot water, geothermal, hydro, wind, and possibly solar-thermal with tax concessions.
5) Encourage electric car technology, particularly viable potential technologies such as ultra-fast recharging of batteries and battery exchange systems with tax concessions.
6) Encourage energy conservation by insulation, energy saving lighting, thermally efficient design, water storage systems, building management systems and star ratings etc.
7) Start a crash program of building nuclear power plants of viable scale (maxi and mini) using perhaps Dr Wang Fang’s pebble bed ‘non-melt downable’ reactor technology from China; as close to major loads as possible. Run electric rail and grid systems with nuclear power as soon as available.
9) Examine the feasibility of ‘power ships’ carrying multiple mini-nuclear plants to supply power local decentralized coastal grids and export locations. Ships could discharge spent fuel and fuel up at the dedicated port/reprocessing facility. Export energy not uranium. Pursue the nuclear producers coalition with USA and Canada to close the nuclear cycle.
10) Pump coal fired flue gases rich in CO2 into long skinny greenhouses, lakes of green slime or seawater farms and grow forests of salad greens for the greater and greener good. (surely speculative but maybe not as crazy as burying CO2 in holes in the ground)
You might note that the UK is planning 10 new nuclear power plants, the cool Swedes 1, and the Chinese plan 300 nuclear plants by 2050. The absurd moral and political position of selling uranium to the world, but not using it ourselves will be mugged by reality.
There is indeed some very interesting stuff going on in the nuclear area check out Bill Gates’ recent TED talk on the matter, and this talk from Stewart Brand at the Long Now Foundation about low maintenance nuclear solutions. However, Australia lacks the expertise in the area – I think development of these technologies as commodities are a good decade away, and best developed by the Americans and the French. With Australia’s abundant natural resources, we’re in the best position to develop geothermal, solar , wave, tied and wind resources.
kdkd #2176
When the Greens are going nuclear its time for some radical thoughts.
After the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’ was wimped by the Rudd kiddie, don’t be surprised if Tony Abbott forms a coalition with Bob Brown to implement my 10 point plan – at least direct action in a sane program would yield vastly more that the piss and wind of the Rudd-Wong wank.
Ken #2177
The chances of Abbot forming a coalition with the greens are about the same as the british Labour Party forming a coalition with the British National Party.
kdkd #2178
Or the Tories forming a coalition with the leftish Liberal Democrats.
Ken.
I know some Lib Dem activists, and while they’re surprised and confused by the end result, they seem pretty positive about it, mainly because they’ve got a lot of what they asked for, especially electoral reform of their hideously broken democracy.
Though you might catch up with the Mexliz fright…..
Is there nothing which benefits from a warmer world??
See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/13/now-its-lizards-going-extinct-due-to-climate-change/
Watts’ whole blog is pathetic unmitigated unscientific crap with indirect funding from anti-science morons like the Cato Institute. Perhaps you ment to reference a source with better credibility?
kdkd #2182
How about this for some more ‘pathetic unmitigated unscientific crap’:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/09/lindzen-earth-is-never-in-equilibrium/
From that ‘pathetic unmitigated unscientific’ Lindzen.
Ken #2183
Yes, more crap. If Lindzen is such a crash hot scientist why is that article refer to an op-ed in a shitty regional newspaper [1], and not something from a decent scientific journal.
Bu the way, another diagnostic of a complex system: the system will not reach equilibrium. Facile nonsense. You got any good sources for your delusions, or do you just fill the cavity in your head with crap to cope with the void?
[1] If you write to a newspaper about factual inaccuracies in their op-eds they’ll respond that it’s an opinion piece and therefore does not need to be fact checked.
kdkd #2184
kdkd, I think the issue is that Lindzen reckons that CO2 feedbacks are probably negative overall when the tropical and polar regions are accounted; whereas IPCC concensus scientists reckon that CO2 feedbacks are positive to drive the AGW theory.
The other main point is that theorized CO2 warming effects are logarithmic, whereas heat emissions from a warmer Earth are exponential (proportional to T^4). This also dictates that there can never be a runaway greenhouse.
Where the two curves cross is the new equilibrium, where warming and cooling balance. If the forcings are cyclical then the balance is trended towards but never reached.
Ken #2185
Lindzen may well be making (up) these claims, but he doesn’t actually have any evidence to back it up. The majority of evidence to date is that positive feedbacks dominate such as this one.
Lindzen’s record on predicting this kind of stuff from theory is pretty piss poor (apparently based on wishful thinking), which is why he’s reduced to having is op-ed in a crappy regional american newspaper re-reported in the execrable, inaccurate and anti-science Watts Up With That.
Apparently the only evidence you have to back up your position is your own wishful thinking.
kdkd #2186
I don’t know if anybody knows with certainty what the sign of the feedbacks is. For example, there is some interesting blog stuff going around which talks about the tropics not showing much temperature change and the higher colder latitudes doing more of the emitting to space.
Don’t forget that Dr Trenberth’s 0.9W/sq.m energy flux imbalance is still open, and that he did canvas the possibility that the ‘missing heat’ was being lost to space. Minus 273 degc is a helluva heat sink.
Notice that the thread on this SS blog petered out at #107 with yours truly having the last word:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=59&&n=178
I think that I did OK.
On the political front – notice that all the ‘heat’ has gone out of the climate change debate since Kevin07 wimped it and did a runner. All the kiddies who voted for the Mandarin Candidate are spewing into their iPods, iPads and iPhones and switched tweet following to Bobby Brown.
Ken:
Must be your delusions, but your last word certainly didn’t go unchallenged.
Your argument is looking pretty ropey. I don’t think you’ll find any good quality evidence pointing at the likelihood of negative feedbacks, although I would stand corrected if you did. All you have to go on here is cherry picking particular studies at totally inappropriate time ranges. But if that’s what the voices in your head tell you what you must do, then so be it.
Yeah, the heat’s all out of the debate, with the Chinese likely to implement a price on carbon by 2012 or so, and the Americans with a strong strategy to follow suit, sidestepping an irritable congress with bureaucratic regulation if necessary. As has been pointed out before , Australia is a minnow or smaller in this game, just one that’s squandering the opportunity to show some foresight and leadership.
Your argument has tenuous relationship to reality, has no legs, and deep down you know it.
kdkd #2188
Don’t think you got to page 3 and last word #107 kdkd…..
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=3&t=107&&n=178
Not a bad summary – come back with much better measurements.
Ken,
That’s just pathetic inflation of uncertainty in your “last word”. There’s very few ways to deal with that politely according to the comments policy of that blog. If it would make it I’d post “shut the fuck up and stop repeating yourself”. People just get bored of countering your tenuous claims masked in a cloak of illusory technical respectability.
Your argument is wafer thin and gnawed by rats, and you know it.
kdkd #2190
“There’s very few ways to deal with that politely according to the comments policy of that blog.”
There is one way kdkd – present a plausible technical argument which debunks what I have said here and on SS.
Notice that John Cook never comes out to play on my posts and Chris (same as our Chris?) never delivers a knockout argument either.
All in all, on both technical and political fronts – I would suggest that the sensible sceptics are winning hands down.
Ken,
You’ve had your argument, which you think is much broader scope than it actually is rebutted many many times. However your delusion index is so high you don’t recognise the fact and think you’re a genius pitched against those evil self-interested scientists.
p.s. as you’re clearly a liberal voter you will in denial about the fact that the libs are the party of the priveleged self-interested. As a result of this, your argument becomes inconsistent immediately and is rubbish based on paranoid delusional political ideology.
See you lost the argument thoroughly, but you’re too stupid to realise.
kdkd #2192
“Libs the party of the priveleged (sic) self-interested” – indeed that is why the two most successful Liberal Prime Ministers – governing for a total of 28 years out of the 39 years of Liberal Coalitions since 1949; were from very modest backgrounds.
Bob Menzies’ father was a small shopkeeper in Victoria and John Howard’s father ran a service station in NSW. Both achieved their positions from natural ability and hard work.
Hard work kdkd – something you might view from afar in your ivory tower.
$180 million Malcolm Turnbull – member for Goldman Sachs – happy child of an edifice of corporate greed and avarice on a monumental scale; was in fact jettisoned by the Liberal party in favour of a failed priest.
Thank God we missed out on the Rudd-Turnbull ETS – a bastard child and plaything for all those Goldman-like finance spivs in their carbon casino.
If you want to equate modern wealth with privilege – you could do no better than the Swiss Family Rudd. Mrs Rudd holds most of the family jewels – gained by what must have been quite profitable government contracts from John Howard’s reforms of the job placement system, and similar lucrative overseas contracts from the Blair-Brown and European socialist paradisos.
Ah, but the Rudd fortune is different – it was gained not from privilege – but under-privilege – all those difficult to place disabled and sheltered workers which nice Mrs Rudd helps into employment out of a Mother Teresa-like concern for their welfare. Just don’t mention the handsome taxpayer funding for her successful philanthropy to blossom into a beautiful smiling empire spreading across the seas.
Ken #2193
Blah blah blah boring. You are under several misaprehensions:
1. That I think the current political system produces appropriate political outcomes, and will leap to the defence of the Labor party. I’m not a member of any political party I’m afraid.
2. That I thought the ETS was in any way good policy.
3. That narrow self interest, the greed of big business and prioritising short term political gain over proper policy is the way to run a political party (and in the libs case poisoning the political debate by over-simplifying complex issues to appeal to people’s baser instincts).
Abbot is an impulsive dickhead, John Howard was a narrow minded selfish jerk, and Rudd is a coward.
At least you’ve stopped parading your scientific fictions as somehow valid, well thought out and relevant
Ken,
looks like that missing heat might be starting to turn up.
Putting aside that your argument is reliant on far to short a time frame to be intellectually coherent that is.
Ken, Tamas,
Another one of your delusional talking points demolished (via the bbc.
kdkd #2195
Dr Trenberth is not quite so sure that this is it::::
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/full/465304a.html
kdkd #2195
SS is running that same stuff:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Robust-warming-of-the-global-upper-ocean.html
At a glance there are several glaring problems with the data:
1) Argo has only been deployed since 2004 and the OHC from Argo is pretty flat for the last 6 years. Argo is supposed to be the most accurate by far. Nothing like the 0.64 W/sq.m claimed over 16 years tryng to chase Dr Trenberth’s 0.9W/sq.m of imbalance.
2) Argo does not run above or below 60 deg lat N or S – so is not monitoring a big chunk of the cooler oceans. I don’t think XBT ever got down there in any kind of numbers.
3) Mixing massaged XBT data with Argo is probably worthless. The big jump up to the Argo data in the 2002-2004 period is probably an offset, as it involves a huge rate of heat gain in a very short time if true.
Note that BP has jumped in with a comment showing a heat loss at the most recent end of the record – although I am not carrying a torch for BP after he ducked out of the last discussion just when it was getting interesting.
Ken,
You need to take a leap of faith/illogic to conclude that your argument that global warming has somehow stopped or slowed or whatever from Trenberth’s analysis, or from the analysis in the latest Nature paper. Here are some key quotes seeing as you don’t appear to have read the comment from Trenberth you linked to:
Which is the problem of the missing heat that he’s referring to, not some potential problem with the scientific consensus. Theres your main leap of illogic easily identified.
And here’s the final paragraph for you:
Short version: It’s the measurement system stupid. Instead, you’re setting a fire in your underpants and claiming that the scientific consensus is shot. So all you end up with is smouldering underpants and a total lack of credibility … well done!
kdkd # 2199
This saves you looking through the threads at SS. Don’t forget that the TOA imbalance proposed by Dr Trenberth is not ‘measured’ at all – the CERES is not accurate enough. It is based on MODELS.
Ken Lambert at 23:30 PM on 24 May, 2010
BP#6 has probably got the intepretation about right.
Figure 2 shows a huge increase in OHC from roughly a 2 year period 2001 to 2003 in which the OHC rises from the zero axis to about 7E22 Joules or about 700E20 Joules. This is about 350E20 Joules/year heat gain.
Dr Trenberth’s 0.9W/sq.m TOA energy flux imbalance equalled 145E20 Joules/year. Therefore a rise of 350E20 Joules/year in OHC equals about 2.1W/sq.m TOA imbalance – a seemingly impossible number.
Coinciding with the start of full deployment of the Argo buoys around 2003-04 this impossibly steep rise in 2001-03 looks like an offset calibration error. Similar would apply to Fig 3.
In such case, fitting a linear curve from 1993-2009 and calling it a ‘robust’ 0.64W/sq.m is just nonsense.
One might also note that the better the Argo coverage and analysis gets from about 2005 onward – the more the teams curves converge on a flattening trend – no OHC rise – no TOA imbalance.
Right Ken,
What you have in #2200 is fine, but it’s nothing to do with the scientific consensus, it’s to do with measurement uncertainty, a completely different beast. If there weren’t multiple independent lines of convergent evidence, then it might be to do with the scientific consensus, but because there are, it isn’t.
You lost the debate, now you’re just hanging around to be lightly beaten by an iron bar every now and again …
kdkd #2201
Roger Pielke Snr is onto the case with this:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/comments-on-nature-commentary-by-kevin-trenberth/
kdkd:
“If there weren’t multiple independent lines of convergent evidence, then it might be to do with the scientific consensus, but because there are, it isn’t.”
Your other lines presumably include sea level rise and ice melts etc – which would be indicators of warming – but not necessarily AG warming.
You can’t escape the fact that if there is little or no TOA imbalance then the CO2GHG forcing is being smothered or was exaggerated to start with – and the CO2GHG theory and modelling were inaccurate.
The argument that *its there but we just can’t measure it* is looking increasingly like wishful thinking kdkd.
Ecosystem changes, migration of species, increased rainfall and so on. The independent converging lines of data are actually broad, and the “include sea level rise and ice melts etc – which would be indicators of warming – but not necessarily AG warming” is really wishful delusional thinking seeing as the role of co2 in using models to predict actual observations is so strong.
We can’t measure it without 100% accuracy therefore it isn’t happening (or some variant) does indeed look like you’re engaging in delusional ideologically based wishful thinking.
kdkd #2203
“which would be indicators of warming – but not necessarily AG warming” is really wishful delusional thinking seeing as the role of co2 in using models to predict actual observations is so strong.”
That’s the trouble kdkd – the Models using CO2GHG forcing at 1.6 – 1.7 W/sq.m are not predicting the observations. As you know this number reduces to about 0.9W/sq.m according to Dr Trenberth and on his best estimate just over half of this has shown up in the oceans ASSUMING that the OHC measurements prior to 2004 are correct – which being massaged XBT measurements they probably are NOT.
Since 2004 the OHC on Argo analyses (top 700m) is pretty flat – so no imbalance there and the sole 2000m analysis of Von Shukmann finds about 0.54 W/sq.m (over the global surface) which is still just over half of Dr Trenberth’s figure, and it looks like VS could be troubled by strange bumps and offsets in its curve.
If you look at the satellite data for TOA over the last 10 years see BP#30;
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Robust-warming-of-the-global-upper-ocean.html
then there is nothing doing from year to year when giant leaps of OHC were supposed to occur in the 2001-2003 period.
The measurements show that the OHC and TOA imbalance are NOT as CO2GHG theory predicted.
No Ken,
For the ocean heat model (it’s a model) the CO2/GHG models don’t predict the noisy measurement model (it’s a measurement model) well over short time frames. Your frame of reference is wrong therefore your argument is intellectually bankrupt bullshit. Over longer time frames CO2 is required to predict the observed temperature anomolies, and your argument collapses in a pile of false premises.
We’ve been through this before your constant repetition of discredited crap is tedious and makes you look like an ideologically obsessed idiot.
kdkd #2205
“you look like an ideologically obsessed idiot.”
Takes one to know one kdkd.
Ken:
The important differences between my ideology and yours are:
1. Mine requires that a rigorous approach that relies on supported facts, non-selective use of scientific information and an appropriate time frame to understand the problem.
2. I don’t constantly repeat the same discredited crap over and over again.
kdkd #2207
As you can see on SS – nobody is able to offer a stong argument against what BP and I have said about OHC. The ‘consensus’ is that the measurement system is not good enough to accurately quantify the problem.
That being the case – then the argument that *its there but we just can’t measure it* is not science but more like “discredited crap” kdkd.
Ken,
You’ve complained about my usage of the term “false premises” in the past. However this is what you, BP and Lindzen’s latest load of crap are all using to maintain your argument. “False premises” means that the initial propositions upon which your base your argument are incorrect. Here’s why:
If the measurement system is insufficiently precise, then you need to either develop a better measurement system, or in the absence of that, use much longer time spans over which to perform the analysis. The scientific consensus is based on the use of appropriately long time spans and a slow incremental attempt to improve the measurement model. Your argument is based on inappropriately short time spans which results in your fitting signal with noise. Trenberth’s argument is not what you think it is about – it is exclusively about the quality of the measurement model.
Your argument is therefore devastatingly rebutted, and you still have not a leg to stand on.
kdkd #2209
I don’t think so kdkd. Your 15-30 year time spans are only working for OHC to show significant warming when instrumentation errors (offsets) are included. Take out the impossible jumps and not much OHC warming is going on at all – far less than predicted by CO2GHG.
Again the satellite data is high precision but low accuracy. CERES is showing an imbalance of something like 4.5-6.5W/sq.m – when Dr Trenberth’s number is 0.9W/sq.m. BP is showing that the year to year variation from the satellites are NOT showing enough change to get anything near the 0.9 number and this is borne out by flat OHC .
Dr Trenberth says in his papers that the 0.9W/sq.m is derived by MODELS.
So in effect what the climate science ‘consensus’ is saying is that when the observation does not match the MODEL – then the MODEL must be right and the observation is not good enough (wrong).
This turns the scientific method on its head.
The method of observation – model – observation – adjust model – observation – refine model: is turned into – MODEL and go away and find observations which match it.
Ken,
It’s all models, you’ve misunderstood the nature of measurement systems. Also until the reasons that the OHC contradicts the rest of the available data are understood and corrected, we don’t throw out everything else and rely on incomplete inaccurate data.
So I don’t think so indeed. Until the OHC models certainty improves, you can’t use it to draw conclusions about the state of the scientific consensus, and you’re misrepresenting the purpose of the work in that subfield.
“Until the OHC models certainty improves, you can’t use it to draw conclusions about the state of the scientific consensus, and you’re misrepresenting the purpose of the work in that subfield.”
Unless you think it supports “concensus” AGW theory and in that case – use it like crazy with headlines like “Robust warming of the global upper upper ocean”.
A couple of part-time amateurs like BP and yours truly seem to have shown that the ‘Robust’ was not that robust at all and that the claimed warming over the last 16 years was an illusion fed by instrumentation transition errors.
Medication time Ken. Taking youse guys analysis at face value (BP has been making some pretty elementary mistakes lately showing that his objective is to confirm his preconceptions – just like what you do) is like taking serious advice from a pair of metho-soaked street drinkers advice on home decor and maintaining good personal relationships.
kdkd #2213
Thanks for the compliments kdkd. Looks like today’s post in SS is giving Lord Monckton a run – and not claiming that he is barking mad.
Seems that even John Cook is even having some doubts about the ‘concensus’.
Ken, WTF
Monkton is barking mad, and and unethical liar to boot. You’re allowing your preconceptions to get in the way of being able to critically evaluate arguments again. If you won’t take your medication, I suggest you get yourself nice and comatose from the metho.
kdkd #2215
Good to see you are back in abuse mode kdkd – for a few days I had the impression you were actually absorbing the SS arguments.
It is clear that your religious belief in alarmist AGW is still blotting out the reality that the ‘concensus’ never existed.
The concoction of ‘concensus’ was an invention of green driven polemical scientists who verballed their media shy colleagues (thousands of IPCC participants) into minimising the great uncertainties of climate science and exaggerating anything which smacked of warming.
Ken,
I get sick of your endless repetition, and your abuse of data analysis in the service of nothing but confirming your preconceptions. The SS piece on Monkton’s least incredible claims still show that his argument is a failure, just in a way that’s more polite than it deserves.
Your claims about a lack of consensus are not borne out in the quality peer reviewed literature – again that’s you assuming that your preconceptions have primacy over any actual evidence. I think I’ve been very patient with you all things considered.
kdkd #2217
Notice that you and DougB and other AGW boosters ducked out the back door from the SS “Robust warming of the global upper ocean” discussion as soon as the numbers started showing up the large unknowns and uncertainties of the science and the measurement.
Also notice that SS is getting down to a political and ‘religious’ discussion in the latest issue; trying to divert attention from the weakness in the science by resorting to psychoanalysis of the sceptics.
Ken,
You’ve done this to death, it’s your only line of argument, and it’s reliant on the fact that you confound scientific uncertainty with measurement uncertainty in a manner to suit your preconceptions. It’s actually impossible to have a rational discussion with you about this topic precisely because you don’t understand the difference between these two points. You demand that people continue counter your repetitious arguments with the same old responses then you ignore them, because again their valid rejoinders do not fit your preconceptions.
But the real reason we know that your argument is in an awful state is that you align yourself with proven liars and delusionals like Chris Monkton, Anthony Watts, Tamas Calderwood and Ian Plimer.
Tamas,
Good to see that your moronic drivel is instantly recognised for what it is by the Crikey readership. There’s no hope for you, I hope you and your tiny mind are happy with your delusions.
Haha – thanks kdkd.
Your world sure is falling apart right now. The global warming scam is falling apart at the seams. And I’m loving it.
No tamas. What you’re loving is your fixed delusional ideation and your inability to descriminate between lies , politics and real science.
“fixed delusional ideation”?? What on earth does that mean?
Tamas,
It’s a term used in psychiatry to describe refactory delusions – i.e. those that are not responsive to treatment or presentation with the evidence. Aka you’re in cloud cookoo land, and I hope you enjoy yourself there.
kdkd #2219
“and it’s reliant on the fact that you confound scientific uncertainty with measurement uncertainty in a manner to suit your preconceptions.”
That’s the *it’s there but we just can’t measure it argument* kdkd and its wearing a bit thin.
Let’s get through the verification of the temperature records from CRU and NASA/GISS and then get much more accurate measurement of OHC and see how it goes. Jury out at the moment kdkd …… hopefully not being RatFu**ed by the Chinese.
Ken:
Nope it’s your argument – “one imprecise short term cryptic measurement is slightly inconsistent with the bigger picture, but it falsifies the large independent data sets available that contradict it somewhat” argument that never wore thin becuase it was transparrently unjustifiable in the first place. Because you don’t understand the importance of the difference between scientific uncertainty and measurment uncertainty
kdkd #2226
“the large independent data sets available that contradict it somewhat”….are these the CRU and NASA/GISS datasets kdkd??
Notice that the SS team are debating Monckton and his alleged ‘cherrypicking’ and distortion of data – but ignoring Nobel prize winner Al Gore; a similar propagandist on the alarmist side of the debate.
No Ken,
I’m bored now. All you have to say moronic repetitious crap in the defense of lying idiots. Aside from your somewhat reasonable understanding of thermodynamics (but total ignorance of statistical thermodynamic which is critical in this field) your position is bullshit, based on nothing but lies, misrepresentations, your idiotic preconceptions and rancid ideology.
You win because you lie in the cesspool of your own delusions. Monkton is a lying fool. Tamas is an idiot. Plimer is a vain self-agrandising moron etc.etc.etc. You win because your repetition of lies and stupidity can not be countered. The end. Now go away, I’m done with you, you geriatric fool.
kdkd #2228
Apart from that kdkd – I assume that you still want to publish our joint paper on climate change from a *statistical thermodynamic* viewpoint.
*Statistical thermodynamic* – a new branch of science invented on June 9, 2010 by kdkd.
BTW, have a look at comments #72 and #77 – it looks like BP has found a chunk of geothermal warming in the deep oceans: viz
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=76&&n=202#comments Comments
You’re an Ignorant fool it’s a well established field.
You also clearly know nothing about science and the scientific process. Which along with your right wing ideology driven preconceptions is why you’re understanding of climate science, and the scientific process is so piss poor.
As I said, you win. Go away now.
kdkd #2231
Is that you throwing the white towel into the cage kdkd??
In that case, shall I inform the delightful Sophie Black that I am the winner of the Cage Match.
Ken,
It’s a hollow victory, you’re the winner through your own stupidity and ignorance. You win because of your huge score in the Dunning Kroeger effect, your moronic repetition and your failure as a scientist. It has nothing to do with the quality of your argument, just your persistent ability to ignore the important facts. It’s a common pattern in climate delusionals.
Well done Ken. A deserved win. Persistence and logic win every time.
Nope, in fact we have demonstrated the opposite. Illogic and ignorance are powerful tools, and you’re still delusional fuckwits. But winning delusional fuckwits with medals made of shit.
Charming kdkd. Charming.
Tamas #2235
Thanks Tamas. Your bravery and persistence with Crikey Comments is amazing. kdkd has seen his ‘greatest moral issue of our time’ pissed up against a wall by the Rudd kiddie and his world of AGW racked with uncertainty, conformism and exaggeration.
No wonder kdkd is feeling Rat*fu**ed.
Ken
Go away, you won through the powers of self-deception, persistent delusions and rancid right wing ideology. That ought to be good enough for you. Now go and recycle your tedious discredited ideas elsewhere please.
kdkd #2237
I’m not going anywhere son – not while your foul-mouthed presence remains.
Ken,
Nope, I said that you’re replete in your hollow victory. It’s based on self deception, delusion and your rancid ideology, but it’s still a victory. This will have to do for you, as your actual argument is very insubstantial, and you have to appeal to figures that are totally discredited in order to maintain it.
kdkd #2239
You can tell when the dogs of AGW alarmism (kdkd included) are hunting in packs.
Looks like they are trying to tear down BP on SS …. but he is a doughty warrior.
Note that the avowedly non-political SS has started up attack threads on Monckton and Bolta and skeptics in general. So much for no ‘political or ad hominem comments’.
Ken,
You seem to be under a number of misapprehensions. First that BP on SS is some kind of authority. Like you, good on a couple of small aspects of the big picture, but the more you press him, the more his argument falls apart. But your main misapprehension is that you are convinced against all the evidence that your argument is somehow valid.
Also, if the climate delusional camp routinely lie, misrepresent and engage in highly selective reporting (which is clearly demonstrated repeatedly) there’s no shame in pointing this out repeatedly. Your delusional thought processes are what make you believe this to be an incorrect approach, but the problem here is with the way you think about this topic, and not anything else.
kdkd,
The arguments are simple.
The issue is global warming.
To have warming you need an excess of heat energy entering the biosphere over that leaving.
To raise overall temperatures the heat content of the biosphere must increase – tending toward a higher equilibrium.
The main place to store this heat is in the oceans.
The ocean heat content in fact should show up the integral WRT of most of the radiative imbalance at TOA.
The last 6 years of upper 700m OHC is flat and deeper 3000m is not much either (0.1W/sq.m according to latest Willis on Argo).
So finding an increase in OHC is critical to the whole theory of TOA heating imbalances – and the theory of AGW.
So far OHC content measurment before 2004 by XBT is fraught with error, poor coverage and probably useless. Argo is better – but the 6-7 analyses show OHC in the upper 700m converging on flatness.
NO increase in OHC – NO global warming. CO2GHG theory (and all the other estimated forcings) must be neutral for no warming to occur. AGW collapses.
Ken,
Your argument requires that I ignore large amounts of independently derived physical, biological and geological models, and ditch them in favour of your single very imperfect measurement model over an inappropriately short duration.
So, so as long as we ignore all the other data, then you’re correct. We can safely ignore some of it by appealing to crackpot conspiracy theory, but not all of it. Ergo, you win by remaining constantly beholden to your facile delusions. The end. Now go away and stop wasting my time.
kdkd #2244
The only inconsistency which needs thorough investigation is sea level rise.
With no increase in OHC – how do we explain sea level rise which is claimed to be a steady 3mm per year?? Ice melt can explain a portion – but not all of the 3mm.
Both the flat OHC and steady sea level rise can’t be right at the same time.
BP might be pointed to turn his attention to that issue.
If the CSIRO tolerance of +/-5mm for satellite measurement is taken seriously – what is the value of a measurement of 3 +/-5mm?? The Australian tide gauges (17 in all) with proper IBP correction and well sited should be reliable – but what of others around the rest of the planet’s coastlines?
Ken,
You’re incorrect. We’ve been through this ad-infinitum, yet you still repeat the small scale largely discredited arguments as if they refute a much larger body of knowledge. It’s your delusional thought system, and good luck with it, winner.
kdkd #2246
OHC is not small scale – neither is sea level rise kdkd. Neither are the arguments discredited.
Run past us the physical, biological and geological models kdkd – particularly the biological and geological ones.
Ken,
You’re more than welcome to read the IPCC reports yourself – an excellent introduction with a very small number of errors (especially when compared to the climate delusionals record). As far as the OHC/TOA models go, again you confound and fail to recognise the difference between scientific uncertainty and measurement uncertainty.
And its this tedious repetition of yours with nothing new to add (except for continuing to expose your poor grasp of science, and the lack of content in your argument), which is why I’m entreating you to fuck off.
kdkd #2248
Entreat all you like.
You are the vanquished – vanquish off then…
Ken #2249
Happy to. Just so long as we’re clear that your victory is the result of stupid propaganda and delusional fuckwittery rather than any actual substance to your argument. All you have to do to end it all is to stop wasting your and my time posting.
kdkd #2250
Notice that you are trying your statistical and Dunning Kruger arguments out on BP. He seems a remarkably well educated chap who is not impressed with your auto-fellated points.
Ken #2251
This post demonstrates your scientific ignorance rather nicely. You’ll also note that BP is getting a thorough going over over on SS regarding his insistence that scientific problems are essentially interchangeable with mathematical/logical/engineering problems.
But I wouldn’t expect you to understand this, you’ve displayed your scientific ignorance, and inability to acknowledge your lack of understanding of this area in spades, which is why your argument is such a winner – because you fail to deal with the evidence properly, but in such a way that maintains the illusion of intractable uncertainty rather nicely.
kdkd #2252
Looks like BP is doing OK in the latest posts. A healthy respect for each other in a civil discussion.
Pity your presence here has dragged this blog down to a punch-up – but hopefully when your foul mouthed self leaves – others will dramatically improve the tone.
Ken #2253
Nope thats your delusions taking over again. BP is doing very poorly and starting to expose his superficial approach to the subject (as you confounding measurement uncertainty with scientific uncertainty, and attempting to claim unsuccessfully that scientific problems are equivalent to engineering or mathematical problems).
And the reason you get a face full is because of your lack of attention to the evidence, and my total bordeom with and contempt for your argument. SS has a strong comments policy – I can’t be dragging any of the discussion down as none of my recent posts have been deleted. It’s your pathetic biases and delusional approach to this topic that have you shadow boxing at the moment.
You should be satisfied with your victory though and so should go away and stop wasting my time.
Ken
Anyway what happened to that “climate scientist” that you claimed to be talking to? Just bluster? Or someone with impeccable delusional credentials? Or did they just start telling you things that you didn’t want to hear?
Ken
Well you must have gone away to leave me alone, because you were spotted repeating the same old discredited crap elsewhere, but you couldn’t answer my simple question at #2255.
It’s general practice for the winner to hide themselves away like that. I must assume that your claimed expert also called you out as a foolish ideological delusional fuckwit.
#kdkd 2255,56
I have not got permission to quote ‘climate scientist’ by name. But he/she is a class act – whom I would not sully by exposure to your grubby invective.
Suffice to say that I received some revealing and serious answers which confirmed the large uncertainties in the science.
I will share this quote with you however to show where we are at; (comment is on the von Schukmann OHC paper)
Quote
“I am aware of at least 6 other analyses of ocean heat content that find
rather different results and there seems to be no doubt that the
oceanographers have not yet got their act together on processing and
analysis of data.” endquote
Ken:
This statement clearly supports my argument that you’re confusing measrurement uncertainty with scientific uncertainty, and that you can’t draw strong conclusions about AGW from the current OHC analyses. Ergo your argument is intellectually bankrupt and based on a delusional approach to the topic.
kdkd #2258
It’s there but we just can’t measure it?? Turning the scientific method on its head kdkd. Observe (measure) and then propose a theory – test it against further measurement.
OHC is uncertainty personified – not theorized nor measured in any coherent way.
Ken,
Thanks for supporting my point that it is not possible to draw strong conclusions from the OHC/TOA energy balance stuff due to the incoherence of the data. It’s certainly not a coherent argument to try to use this uncertainty to propose a variant of the it’s not happening argument, which is what you appear to be trying to do (or possibly the it hasn’t warmed since 1998 argument, which we’ve done to death and comprehensively demonstrated your idiocy on that score).
kdkd #2260
Ah! ….but the bit you are missing is that TOA imbalances must show up in the only significant storage device in the biosphere ……….the oceans.
And because you don’t understand basic thermodynamics —-the first law—-you can’t make the connection of how important OHC is in confirming ‘global warming’.
SS’s John Cook made the connection clearly in the “Robust warming of the global upper ocean” blog, where he correctly states that TOA imbalances must show up in the oceans.
The evidence he produced for global warming via OHC increase was seriously flawed; as amply demonstrated by BP and myself.
When OHC is measured comprehensively accurately and repeatably enough we will then have good evidence for the presence and extent of global warming.. that is when “oceanographers got their act together on processing and
analysis of data”……and wide, accurate collection of data.
Maybe new Prime Minister Julia will be able to summon up such evidence from her and Ms Wong’s extensive knowledge of the subject.
Ken,
My understanding of thermodynamics is far superior to your pathetic understanding of statistics (as seen by the way that you dismiss statistical arguments as irellevant despite their extreme importance). Both of these concepts are extremely important for understanding this system.
It’s obvious to everyone that the OHC/TOA measurement model is inadequate for drawing strong conclusions, which is why the work we see at the moment is exploratory rather than confirmatory, and therefore useless for drawing strong conclusions. However you keep trying to do so, despite the clear invalidity of your approach in the absence of a much better measurement model. Or put it another way, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Stop wasting your time until the measurement model is of better quality.
kdkd #2262
“Or put it another way, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
For once I agree; and the logical extension of that is:
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, nor evidence of presence.”
Boom…. boom..
Ken,
To make a strong conclusion about the absence of AGW based on this logical contortion means ignoring the multiple lines of independent evidence. You achieve this through a combination of selective blindness and a dash of ideologically driven paranoid conspiracy theory.
Again, stop wasting your time with the OHC stuff until the measurement model is better. Stick with the very large amount of remaining evidence – for reading, start with the Copenhagen Diagnosis.
actually a nice display of the moronic desperation of your argument. Let me paraphrase what you said for you:
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but absence of evidence.
I already said that idiot. Clearly desperately grasping at straws. Stop wasting my, and your time.
kdkd #2265
Evidence of warming is not evidence of AGW kdkd. The issue has always been about quantifying the CO2GHG effects and all the related effects.
I would not be too worried about catastrophe kdkd – CO2GHG effect is logarithmic and radiative cooling is exponential. The OHC and energy balance stuff simply points to there being a flattening of the warming, which puts in doubt the magnitude of the CO2GHG effect.
Temperature measurement is under review – CRU data is being investigated, USA land temperatures are probably distorted and exaggerated by the waste heat effects. I would have a punt on there being more scandals on the horizon with discovery of manipulation by advocacy scientists to sex-up the AGW story.
I notice than Tim Flannery has gone quiet since the drought has broken and there is more water in inland Australia than there has been for 20 years. Maybe global warming brings more rain – how good is that??
Ken #2266
Blah blah. Read the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Your latest post is just the usual discredited delusionist crap and misdirection. You can go away now.
kdkd
You should not team up with mate Chris to have a go at my numbers kdkd. Thats a good way to get a bloody nose..
Ken
I thought you’d gone away to have your shallow argument torn to shreds elsewhere. Anyway, we’ve clearly established that your argument is based on a lack of evidence, and a lack of understanding of critical things like statistics.
kdkd #2269
It looks like you are talking to yourself on SS kdkd. Notice how the blog owner John Cook never intervenes on any OHC discussion where BP or I am involved. Probably gone to have a hard look and think about his ‘ROBUST” and Von Schukmann posts. Anyway – SS is by far the best discussion despite recent tendencies to personalize and engage in rather silly smear tactics.
Ken,
I think you’re engaging in transference there. I think that the moderators are allowing your defective arguments to speak for themselves – especially in the way neithr you or BP never address the critical flaws with your arguments, rather maintaining the “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU APPROACH” to maintaining your deluded approach to the topic. At least you both spout better quality bullshit than Tamas I suppose though, so thank heavens for small mercies.
kdkd #2270
Well, by the poor quality of the recent topics on SS, I would say that the owner is running out of good science to throw up.
My job is just about done. The Rudd kiddie was riding for a fall, and even I did not anticipate the ruthlessness with which the Maid of Melbourne was induced into pulling the trigger. At least we will be spared the Rudd ETS – a potential plaything of finance spivs here and abroad. Anyone heard from Ms Wong lately? Is she a crouching tiger or a burnt out dragon??
I see you also have delusions of grandeur Ken. From an objective point of view your job was to retreat into your own delusional head space (aka up your own arse) even further than previously.
Looking forward to the Greens having the balance of power in the senate. Did you see how the chinese are trying to ratfuck us in a devious manner?. It certainly confirms your do as little as possible approach (sarcasm)!
Also this list is an excellent resource against the disinformation supplied by delusional fools such as you, Tamas and co.
Tamas,
I continue to be grimly amused at your delusional gibbering in the Crikey letters page. I hope it gives you some satisfaction. Just a couple of fact checks for you, followed by some suitable invective.
Firstly, ENSO has nothing to do with global temperature anomalies, it’s a phenomenon that is concerned with the redistribution of heat around the planet surface. First law of thermodynamics mate. You’ll note that the redistribution of energy is far in excess of the thermal imbalance.
Secondly, your “12 year flatlining” is a fiction. Not so long ago you were claiming that it was a decline, so I see that you delusional ideation has had to adjust to reality to some small extent.
Happy idiocy, delusion boy. You’ll see Ken (Captain Paranoia) having his illogical, delusion based arguments being thoroughly demolished over at Skeptical Science.
kdkd #2275
Looking for someone to talk to kdkd??
Pity about your knowledge of thermodynamics – the slight of which you must have got from me.
Is that a third of all Russian farmland on fire kdkd? You should be able to see that from up there on Kieren view………….
nah Ken, just crowing over my victory in the climate change cage match
Hope you are crowing over the next PM being one T. Abbott.
If you think the Greens are going to drive the ETS agenda from the Senate – watch one go through the Reps first with Bob Katter Jnr having his say…………
LOL Ken, Wishful thinking. I see no fat ladies, just an old idiot in the corner drooling over his beloved sexist racist backwards anti science religious freak leader. More examples of the poor company you keep
My prediction:
In the unlikely event that Abbot makes PM, they’ll do fuck all for eighteen months, and then call a double dissolusion election where they will be thoroughly thrashed due to all the accumulated anger at their backward do-nothing idiocy. But to be honest, I think sanity will prevail.
kdkd #2279
Oh dear kdkd………I hear T. Abbott speaks well of you.
Aah, Ken’s delusional nonsense exposed in Friday’s crikey. Also it looks like BP over at skeptical science is getting a thorough doing due to failure to address his assumptions/preconceptions. Over at SS, Ken’s just gone into empirically unsupported repetition mode
Following on from this thread …
The presentation that Jak linked to is in german! I don’t speak any german, so I can’t assess the claims in the presentation at all. Additionally, the video doesn’t show any of the slides from the presentation, just talking heads which is interesting, given that the claims made seem to be very similar to Christopher Monkton’s discredited (astro-turf lobby sponsored) claims.
Additionally, Professor Landfried seems to be a political scientist, which means that we should not take his pronouncements on climate science at face value. That really would be an argument from inappropriate authority.
Response to KD from closed thread. The economies of the world are in trouble. All magic bullets have been fired. Only super funds and New taxes are left. Carbon is the new possible tax. So yeah there is a vested interest to Make the AGW science look good, even if it does not. Conspiracy? depends on your defintion. You like the term lobby KD. astro turf lobby. . ‘Lobby’ is the plain sister of the sexy sister called ‘conspiracy.’
has AGW data been fiddled. Absolutely.
Jak: #2284(!)
Well it’s clear that the plain sister comes from the fossil fuel industry, not from grant giving bodies that fund the fundamental scientific research. What’s your point again? That the science can’t be trusted because of the anti science lobbying of Exxon, Koch industries, the Heartland institute and so on?
The sexy sister is winning…you got the plain sister with boring old AGW and cooked data. I got sexy sister and the bigger picture
Jak: # 2286
Presumably you mean you’ve been seduced by a Siren given that you haven’t given a single piece of credible evidence to support your view.
You didn’t answer my question: What are your failure criteria? What weather would you expect to see that would cause you to re-evaluate your position?
Nah no presuming…you got the dumb arse plain sister, the good old AGW scam. I got the hot naughty view…the whole picture.
You got suckered in, but your not alone
Jak #2288
This is quite strange, because you’ve been unable to provide a coherent explanation of why you are correct. If you manage an explanation that’s both coherent and supported by the scientific data then I’ll happily accept your argument as valid.
BTW, where’s that failure criterion I asked you about in #2287 and previously? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
But I will badger you incessantly about it if you don’t until you leave, if you don’t.
Badger all u like. KD life is strange. we are all going to die but who acts like we are?
The Science you have on your side is accepted by Govts. Hey millions of flies like shit too but its still shit. The beauty of this cunning plan is that it wont be until time rolls by that the shit science will be seen for what it is.
You dont believe in The Elite, in conspiracies, that 9/11 was an inside job. You never will. Your scared KD……..scared shitless to look. Thats Ok brother
short view = ugly sister = kd
Big view = hot sister = Jak
Jak:
It’s interesting how you won’t tell me your failure criteria. It seems like you’re using politicial posturing in lieu of evidence.
If you’ve thought your position through well, then it should be a simple matter for you to explain it. Otherwise you’re a troll and it would be better if I ignore you.
BTW, connecting the “9/11 was an inside job” argument to climate change is a prime example of a non sequitur. It doesn’t do your crediblity much good aside from that either.
short view = ugly sister = kd
Big view = hot sister = Jak
Jak,
Repeating something doesn’t make it true. Where’s your evidence? Where’s your failure criteria?
Oh dear you don’t have an argument, all you’ve got is the ability to repeat total crap again and again and again and again. SOL loser.
short narrow view = ugly sister = kd
Big global view = hot sister = Jak
Jak = idiot troll
kdkd = misguided loser
Kd = sucker
Jak = that boy he knows
jak = delusional
kdkd = bored now
no more feeding the trolls for me.
Jak= inspirational
KD = sad
Jak = last man standing
Jak, if you read back through the thread, you might find that all of your ‘concerns’ have been addressed… over and over and over and over again.
Being last man standing does not make you the winner. It might actually mean that everyone else finds you too incompetent to deal with. #JustSayin
Jesus I mean Epo
maybe Id read back and say my concerns are not met.
The Science for AGW is junk science cause its a conspiracy. The best lies are 90% truth. Thtas what u got. The ugly sister = the small dick view
Me I got the big view, how the Elite manipulate most things = hot sister
Jak:
but as you’ve been unable to show any credible evidence to support your ludicrous position, we can safely ignore you.
No you cant safely ignore me because what I am saying is going to impact you very heavily. You got your little hobby AGW and feel cosy and superior with what you think is cutting edge science. But the world is not as you think it is man affects weather alright but not just pollution (15% at most) theres HAARP too. Weather warfare
Jak: Evidence? No you haven’t shown any. Just a bunch of thinly disguised personal attacks. My attempts to engage you on the scientific literature have met with you transparently ignoring it. I think you like being ignorant and deluded. The end.
The other end: No..ooo. HAARP. Illuminati. freemasons. Media control. 9/11 inside job and the little sister…lets make up a new science and call it AGW. We know nature is rebelling and the sun is changing and HAARP warfare is changing the weather so it will be eay to get some data to make AGW seem like the total answer so we can Tax the shit outa them. Do your own research sheep
A gigantic disaster will overwhelm the world which will wipe out three-fourths of mankind. [8 November 1945, Angiras Rishi Hill, Tapovan to Adi K. Irani]
—Source: Meher Baba quoted in Lord Meher 9: 3081
AGW wont matter at all then
Hey its a cage fight. Grrrrrrr
As the FBI’s once former head, J. Edgar Hoover, once warned, “The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous that he can’t believe it exists;” or media “guru” Marshall McLuhan’s statement, “Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by sheer public incredulity.”
Well Wendy according to St Malachy we are on the last Pope before the end times. AGW is not going to matter
p.s even if most of it wasn’t just made up
HAARP over Australia. Weather control.
http://www.colinandrews.net/Melbourne-DroughtToSuperstorm-HAARP.html
It seems that even John Cook is struggling to russle up a good scientific story at SS. Getting a bit lightweight I think. Just when I produce the killer numbers everyone goes home.
I just popped in for a look at the Cage Fight kdkd – looks like you would be happy to have me visit after Jak and Wendy.
Gee I even accept that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK all on his own.
You wanna keep believing in that cause the alternatives are too scary. Its not that You dont know you dont know, its youtr too scared to really look. Even if you see videos showing another view.
http://www.magenergy.us/
It takes a certain type of bravery to contemplate it. Most people dont have that kind of bravery. Most people even climate change skeptics, God bless them, fall into this category.
Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal
you guys dont get it yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K9rXydMmfw
this is bigger than AGW.
Wake up. Your being sprayed
http://www.greatdreams.com/chems.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo8J1I7N87Y
Tamas. Regarding #919 and #920
I think You owe me a case of beer. I’ll take some of that stuff from the gold coast that Ken and I spotted in the Brisbane CBD a couple of months ago thanks.
Hi kdkd,
Look forward to a beer together with you and Tamas. Definitely missing you on SKS. Seems like the site is degenerating into AGW propaganda threads.