Home/BlogThat tireless ecological zealot over at The Guardian, Dana Nuccitelli, took the opportunity of our 25th anniversary of satellite-based global temperature monitoring to rip us a new one.
Comparing John Christy and me to scientists who disputed the links between smoking and cancer, Dana once again demonstrates his dedication to the highest standards of journalism.
Well done, Grauniad.
I prefer to compare us to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who rejected the scientific consensus that peptic ulcers were due to too much stress or spicy food. While they eventually received the Nobel Prize after years of ridicule and scorn from the medical research community, we have no illusions that we will ever be credited for our long-standing position that global warming fears have been overblown. I’m sure the UN’s IPCC will find a way to take credit for that, and get another Peace Prize for it.
(I wonder if Marshall and Warren were being paid off by the spicy food lobby?)
The 97% of all climate scientists agree meme that Dana bitterly clings to has been thoroughly discredited…. as if scientific consensus on something so poorly understood as climate change (or stomach ulcers 15 years ago?) really means anything, anyway.
To prove that Dana should probably avoid trying to interpret simple graphs, lets examine this chart he so likes, which allegedly shows that our (UAH) global temperature dataset has been continually adjusted for errors over the years, resulting in an increasing warming trend:
Now, setting aside the fact that (1) we actually do adjust for obvious, demonstrable errors as soon as they have been found (unlike the IPCC climate modelers who continue to promote demonstrably wrong models), and (2) RSS gets about the same (relatively benign) warming trend as we do, lets examine some other popular temperature datasets in the same manner as the above graph:
Looks a lot like Danas plot, doesnt it?
Do you want to know why? Is it really because all those other temperature dataset providers were also busily correcting mistakes in their data, too?
No, its largely because as the years go by, the global temperature trend changes, silly.
About the only thing Dana got reasonably correct is his articles tag line, John Christy and Roy Spencer are pro-fossil fuel and anti-scientific consensus.
Youre damn right we are. But not because we are paid to say it, which we arent. (What are you paid to say for The Guardian, Dana?)
We are pro-fossil fuel because there are no large scale replacements available, wind and solar are too expensive, and you can’t just cut fossil fuel use without causing immense human suffering. Yes, I’ve talked to some of the top economists about it.
And indeed we are “anti-scientific consensus” because the consensus (which mostly just follows the average of the IPCC climate models) has been demonstrated to be wrong.
Finally, if Dana objects to me tiring of being called a global warming denier (with the obvious Holocaust connotations) for the last seven eight years and fighting back, read this and then tell me where I am wrong.
Your data Dr. Spencer ,does not conform to what AGW theory calls for therefore it is not correct.
sarcasm, Salvatore? That’s new.
lol +1
“What are you paid to say for The Guardian, Dana?”
You dont get to ask the questions here Roy, you are now part of a massive cover, overt? smear campaign against denying scientists in the lead up to the cracked crab buffets in Paris.
Welcome to the big leagues :-))
Although it is a tangential point to the main one you want to make — very effectively I might add — it also is interesting that the UAH series of trends are closer to the independently measured balloon trends than the other two series.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/mar/25/one-satellite-data-set-is-underestimating-global-warming
Dr. Spencer I hope you can address this again.
What is there to understand? Measurements have to be calibrated against climate change models. Dead simple.
Sue the barstewards….:o)
Dr. Spencer, just to make sure.
I was trying to say in my previous post that your data is correct but because it does not agree with what AGW wants it is therefore not correct to them.
I believe the data you put forth is accurate. I have always defended your data.
I do not see how balloon data could ever not be accurate.
For me the balloon data says it all.
there is no perfect dataset for temperature monitoring. Even the radiosondes have had changes in hardware and processing software, some of which was not well documented (I know, I used to work at a radiosonde balloon launch site). We need all of the datasets, as well as some idea of the error sources in those datasets.
This is what makes this so frustrating. How will we ever really know if no major changes take place in the global temperature trend?
I am starting to think maybe the old fashion observation of land ice/snow cover/sea ice extent,and duration on a year to year basis might be the best indicator.
“This is what makes this so frustrating. How will we ever really know if no major changes take place in the global temperature trend?”
Bingo!!! We can’t!! And quite probably we are just in the infancy of creating somewhat reliable datasets… until we have the next technological breakthrough in measurement.
Try to explain this to a politician. I have tried, the one that understood in no longer in politics, the rest still holds office
Hi Francisco,
You state:
“Bingo!!! We cant!! And quite probably we are just in the infancy of creating somewhat reliable datasets until we have the next technological breakthrough in measurement.”
Thank you for the post! Great point many of us have stressed as well. Finding a data-set uncontaminated by numerous ADJUSTMENTS will prove a challenge. Personally, I wish everyone the best of providence in that regard.
Have a great day!
Salvatore,
I recommend the Rutgers Snow Lab graphs to you.
This will get you close
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_vis.php?ui_year=2015&ui_month=1&ui_set=2
Snow cover for the northern hemisphere shows a slight average increase over the last few decades.
Best wishes,
Hey i used to launch Visala radio sondes once as well but not for weather related activities (obviously). I always thought the Visala sondes were pretty good as you would calibrate them just before launch. There was issues with freezing at altitude but they all suffer somewhat with that but still better than a thermometer bathed in jet wash etc
cheers
Climate change exists. What doesn’t exist is proof that humans are significantly driving said change. That is what I believe.
To prove that humans burning coal and petroleum are to blame would require a really accurate understanding of the climate fluctuations for at least the last several thousand years. Tree rings and ocean biota are not such impeccable thermometers. Those researchers who claim they are throw intellectually irritating political dust in everyone’s eyes.
There particularly is a shortage of data for remote regions everywhere, particularly the Southern hemisphere. To compensate for that the green blame-humanity fanatic comunity have done a lot of statistical hocus pocus to fill in empty data fields with numbers they essentially make up.
All that not being quite bad enough, to really prove that carbon and therefore mankind is to blame for either warming or cooling (however it seems to be trending lately) a really top-rate science establishment would have to rule out every other climate factor.
Oh yes, exclaim the green technocrat myth exploiters, we so did that already. We considered absolutely everything, including the chaotic interaction of seemingly distantly related factors, and we proved our pet theory (and lucrative career industry)is absolutely for sure the only relevant factor driving climate change at present.
Ha! I say. Or a lot of really obscene other words. Take your pick and plug them in. Dr. Spencer expose these shyster green ideologues for the pompous frauds that they are.
PS–I am MD and was around when we routinely cut out chunks of patients stomachs to “cure” their ulcers. More than a few times we would discover there was nothing to cut out and sew them back up–of course never tell the patient–imagine the law suit. Your analogy is perfect.
If the balloon and satellite data are in agreement and no fault is being found with the data from balloons how does one then conclude the satellite data is at fault?
I agree that the satellite and balloon trends being very similar increases our confidence in both datasets, but it’s not actual proof they are correct. Coincidences do happen.
True. This makes one want to scream because the SOLUTION is so elusive.
“…want to scream…”
No need for that. All is serene, just over our heads.
Thus:
“The upper air alters its temperature from diurnal and seasonal causes much more slowly than the lower air, and a mile above the earth the daily change of temperature, apart from the passage of “warm and cold waves,” is less than one degree Fahrenheit.”
From “Sounding the Ocean of Air,” 1900, by A Lawrence Rotch, Director of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, Mass., U.S.A.
From 3000 meters down in the sea, on up to the edge of space, the earth – except for the little bit of turbulent air in which we live – is a ponderous beast, which will not be hurried into disclosing its secrets
Elusive Sal? i dont think that is the right word, when that crook Santer? was it?….anyway he looked at the radio sonde data in an attempt to find the hot spot and could not so he threw away the temp data and used the wind shear data to prove the hot spot did in fact exist.
So no Sal the correct word to use is not elusive, i can however suggest a few other words………..
Dr. S., i’m not buying that… What are the chances of two very detailed data sets going in lock step for a third of a century? Will there ever arrive a time when one can definitively say that it is statistically impossible for one or both of these to be in error? (have you ever charged a mathematician to look into this?)
I wouldn’t wipe my behind with the Guardian.
I don’t know. Rubbing Nutticceli’s face in the brown stuff seems quite appealing
I’m next – we could get a lot of good (non)use of a Guardian this way.
Dear Dr Spencer,
Here is other thoughts on fossil fuels. One, you can’t move jobs overseas. You can manufacture wind turbines or solar panels in Chiana but try to move a coal mine or natural gas field overseas. Can’t be done. So any jobs dealing with fossil fuels are jobs that stay here.
Second thought, if CO2 is your worry; Natural gas is pretty good on that score which is why the US has seen CO2 emission drop or the past couple of decades. And can someone explain to me what is being denied? You have stated climate change is happening but then to paraphrase a US Senator, climate change has been occurring since biblical times and before man set foot on this planet
No, no, no! CH4 makes 2 H2O for every C02 when it burns, and H2O is a much stronger GHG. Ban water vapour!
Another week, another alarmist swing at observed evidence that continues to royally bugger up their pet theory of planetary Armageddon.
The reason Dana chose to attack you guys is your data is sooo ruining their claims of catastrophe. 18 years and counting…they HATE it so much!!!
Just keep doing what you guys are doing; presenting the evidence as it falls. Everyone else can see what’s what: you’re right, you know you’re right, and best of all THEY know you’re right.
Please, please you and Dr Christy keep “telling it like it is” rather than how you or they would like it to be.
It is worth noting that whilst the “97%” thing is subject to, ahem, more than a little debate that the “Graun” newspaper has a whole section devoted to it.
But Roy, speaking of “rejecting the scientific consensus” you yourself do in fact reject the scientific consensus that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is correct.
For example, you reject the inevitable conclusion that a gas subjected to a force field develops a temperature gradient which is its state of maximum entropy, and thus stable. (This is because of the Second Law.) We see this gradient in experiments with centrifugal force, as here for example, where gas cools to 1K (yes, -272C) due to centrifugal force, and likewise in the Ranque Hilsch vortex tube where rotating gas develops a radial temperature gradient which gets down to -50C in the center and over 100C at the edge.
These experiments can’t be ignored, Roy, as they have huge significance in the climate debate, because gravity causes the temperature profile to be elevated at the surface end, and the fact that this is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium enables us to explain what does supply the energy which back radiation does not supply, and never will.
After all, as you admit you know, Roy, back radiation does not penetrate water surfaces by more than a few nanometers. If every one-way pencil of radiation did in fact transfer thermal energy from the cold troposphere to the warm surface then that is indeed a violation of the Second Law, as explained in my paper three years ago. Instead its electro-magnetic energy never gets converted to thermal (kinetic) energy but is just used by the surface for some of its own quota of outward radiation, as per its Planck function.
Thus the rate of surface cooling by radiation is slowed, but the other rates of cooling (evaporative cooling and sensible heat transfer) just take over and accelerate, thus nullifying the effect of back radiation. In any event, none of this slowing alters the minimum temperature that night where cooling almost stops because the supported temperature is being approached. That temperature is supported by all the energy in the troposphere that is effectively “trapped” by gravity, Roy, not IR-active gases.
Doofus.
Time will tell. Unfortunately in science history judges the players differently than society did. At least you guys are not starving artist who’s works will be in a museum and worth millions. Plus your part of the conversation and relevant… not some wanna be writer or sunday morning quarterback blogger… being the villain in a good play is an exciting role.
“Sunday morning” referring to NCAA football of course… haha.
Roy,
You continue to make the claim that the change in trend is due to a longer data set but in fact that is only half the story. The other half of the story is that it is due to changes in the analysis.
When I looked at it several years back (using whatever version of the UAH was available at that time), I found the following:
* Your 1998 paper said that, prior to the update in the analysis that was presented in that paper, the trend for January 1979-April 1997 was -0.076 C/decade. [ http://www.homogenisation.org/files/private/WG1/Bibliography/Applications/Applications%20(C-E)/CHRISTY_etal_1998.pdf The relevant sentence is in the conclusions: The combination of these changes causes the 18+ year trend of T_2LT to be warmer by + 0.03 C /decade (-0.076 to
-0.046C / decade for January 1979April 1997).]
* I found that the trend in the current version (at the time I did the analysis, early 2009) for that same period was +0.029 C / decade.
* The trend in the current version (at the time I did the analysis, early 2009) for the entire period of data through Dec. 2008 was +0.127 C / decade.
So, to summarize: The best estimate of the trend had changed by +0.203 C/decade. Of that, 0.105 C/decade was due to changes in the analysis and 0.099 C/decade was due to having a longer data set. Or, in other words, the very substantial change in the trend was basically due half to changes in the analysis and half to having a longer data set.
I am not sure how much this may have changed if you repeated this analysis that I did 6 years ago, but my impression is that any updates that you have made since then have had only a small effect on the trends.
I think it would be most straightforward if you would acknowledge the fact that corrections to the analysis have in fact made a substantial difference in the changing trend, about as much as the longer data record has.
[By the way, even your own figure here http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Accum_Trend.png confirms my analysis. It shows that the trend through 1997 in UAH v.5.6 is around +0.03 C per decade, whereas your paper from 1998 said that before the correction to the trend in that paper, the trend for January 1979 – April 1997 was -0.076 C per decade. That works out to a change due to the analysis of ~0.106 C per decade, which is (within the accuracy I can read the trend off your graph) exactly what I said above.]
Joel,
“[By the way, even your own figure here http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Accum_Trend.png confirms my analysis.”
So, actually your analysis confirms Dr. Spencer’s graphic. (The data in Dr’ Spencer’s graphic came first). That’s nice that you out there doing confirmatory analysis of Dr’ Spencer’s most excellent original scientific work. It takes a big man to admit he is not doing any original work.
Perhaps you could confirm the trend analysis of the UAH & RSS lower Tropospheric temperatures the past 18 years and 4 months. That way we could all agree that you understand the Lower Troposphere is no longer “heating up.” Then perhaps you could tell us about that also?
Thank you.
Well, the problem with Dr. Spencer’s graphic is that it does not directly address the question of how much of the change in trend is due to the longer time series and how much is due to changes in the analysis.
As for your last question about the last 18 years and 4 months: What looking at the UAH and RSS data sets tells us is:
(1) There is still a fair bit of error in determining the trends because of differences in the analysis.
(2) It takes many years to determine a trend in temperature data when that trend is a combination of a trend + noise (due mainly to natural variability but also some measurement error) a hence if you compute a trend over such a period, it can be compatible both with the underlying trend (i.e., in the absence of noise) being zero or being nonzero. [And note that the noise is magnified in the lower troposphere relative to the surface because the effect of ENSO oscillations is greater there.]
(3) If you cherry-pick either or both of your beginning and endpoints in computing a trend in such a noisy data set, you can come up with values that fit your biases. And, when you choose your starting point to coincide with the El Nino of the century, that is one big cherry pick!
As for the originality issue, I would say that the little calculation I have done is essentially original, in that neither Spencer nor Dana explicitly did a calculation to show how much of the change is due to the changes in the analysis and how much is due to the longer time series. In retrospect, you can get that information out of Spencer’s graph if you add in the additional fact obtained from the 1998 paper of what the analysis showed back then, but Roy Spencer has never to my knowledge done that and has in fact made claims (that seem to suggest that the large majority of the change in trend is due to the longer time series) that I would hope he wouldn’t make if he had.
However, I don’t claim that my calculation is anything spectacular and, in fact, I am rather puzzled that in all of these discussions about why the trend has changed over time, I am the only one who has ever bothered to do the simple calculation to check. It is not difficult to do this and you’d think that amongst a group of “skeptics”, such a calculation would be the obvious one to perform, no matter what their initial biases.
Finally, I agree that Spencer and Christy’s work was original and I think it was good pioneering work, albeit not without some very significant errors (which are understandable when one is on the forefront of doing such analyses…but can also bring up issues of confirmation bias).
Interestingly, however, if the errors had gone in the other direction, i.e., if they had originally found that the trend was higher than at the surface and then subsequent corrections had brought it much closer to the surface trends, I am not that confident that you and many others here would still be calling it “excellent original scientific work”.
@Joel “…albeit not without some very significant errors…”
The flaw in your argument is that the IPCC agrees with the UAH data over the past 17 years with regard to no trend. Why are you not looking for flaws in their peer reviewed papers?
It amazes me that alarmists like yourself defend the IPCC until they claim as they did in 2013 that there as been a global warming hiatus since 1998. Then you become conveniently deaf.
Even IPCC grand poobahs like Kevin Trenberth begin muttering about the missing warming being absorbed by the oceans.
No…You misinterpret what is being said. The fact that you can go back 17 years and the uncertainty in the trend still includes the possibility of zero trend does not mean that there has been no warming. It just means that you can’t rule out no warming at a 95% confidence level over such an interval, which is always going to be true over some interval in data like this. (And, it also doesn’t rule out the possibility that the underlying warming has been the same as the long term trend over that interval.) Heck, even for periods when the central estimate for the trend is at or above what the rate has been since the 1970s, it takes at least a decade or so for the uncertainties on the trend line to become small enough to rule out 0 trend at 95% confidence.
So, using your logic, you could basically say, “There’s been no warming for the decade” for almost any decadal period you care to choose, which makes it a pretty empty and useless statement.
As for Kevin Trenberth, yes, he and others are trying to understand better the natural variability. That doesn’t mean that they believe the underlying warming has changed, but they just want to be able to better understand the unforced component (“the noise” if you will) that causes the variability about that longer term trend.
Tamino has done a good job explaining this, e.g., in posts like this one: https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/is-earths-temperature-about-to-soar/
Dr. Spencer, while I do disagree with you on some things your take on replacing “fossil fuels” with “renewable energy” is exactly correct. There is no conceivable way that the world as we know it is transitioning away from fossil fuels in the near future.
And it is not for lack of trying, I did a co-op stint back in college (late 1970’s) working on R&D for solar cells, very little has changed (or will change). It’s a dead end technology (for other than niche markets like sailboats and remote cabins). Wind turbines are an even bigger joke, you can’t even eliminate enough fossil fuel based emissions to recover all the fossil fuel emissions needed to build one. It’s all really a very sick joke, chopping and roasting birds in flight to save the planet (including the birds ??).
Oh, regarding Humans effect on the climate (outside of our concrete jungles), well let’s just call finding proof of that a unicorn hunt.
Sure it might be there……surely….it just must be there….someplace…somewhere….
Perhaps under a rock beneath a receding glacier, we might find proof in a few more decades of searching…..
Note that a snipe hunt is distinctly different from a unicorn hunt, a snipe is a real bird (I have seen them in the wild), in fact the term “sniper” was coined for people with the extraordinary ability to shoot snipes out of the sky. Snipes are very secretive and tend to burst up in front of you leaving you startled and unable to gather your wits quickly enough to draw a bead on them as they quickly fly away giving you a mighty fine look at their “behind”.
Keep up your good work, I do appreciate it (while trying to respectfully disagree).
Cheers, KevinK.
Kevin: Generating energy from burning fossil fuels kills far more birds than do wind turbines and solar. Especially coal:
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/08/22/pecking-order-energys-toll-on-birds
Nitwit Appell scores an own goal once again.
Wind turbines 4% of US energy use
Coal 39%
Estimated deaths relative to % of energy production, which is the correct way to calculate it, wind is by far the deadliest form of energy production to wildlife. And we’re talking about millions of extra bird deaths, not a trivial amount.
As usual, the numbers David Appell cites reveal the opposite of what he is claiming.
Not to mention that the figure cited for bird deaths due to coal include those that die due to climate change, which essentially means it’s a guess he pulled out of his posterior.
Correct. The numbers produced for fossil fuels and nuclear are pure speculation in nearly all cases. However, even if you consider, say, potential mercury poisoning from coal generating plants (primarily in the third and second world, such as China), the correct solution are scrubbers and Western style pollution control technology. NOT more wind generators. Other asinine speculations include deaths caused by nuclear power plants because birds fly into them. Seriously. So if the bird flys into a mountain or hill and kills itself, that’s not counted. But if it flys into some other large object, such as a building, that is counted. Hard to take the person who is writing this seriously.
And it really starts to get twisted when the policies advocated by people like Appell – the destruction of wildlife – gets covered up and distorted this way.
One change in PV generation since the 70’s is the use of semiconductor materials like CdTe that can scavenge PV generated electricity from heat sources. There’s no reason that PV generation should be restricted by solar input as an energy source; semiconductor materials are the real limiting factor.
I’ll just add that, while you might like to compare yourselves to Marshall and Warren, I think you have to look at the odds. What I like to say (paraphrasing what Paul Samuelson said about economists) is that those who dispute the current scientific paradigm has correctly predicted 500 out of the last 5 paradigm shifts. (This estimate of the ratio might be truer in the physical sciences than in medicine, where paradigm shifts are more common.)
Joel, 500 out of the last 5, wow I’ll take those odds who’s your bookie, I got a hot fiver I’ll lay down right now….
I think you may have missed the point of the joke, KevinK. But, if I have to explain it, it will sort of ruin it, so I will let you read it again and think about it.
Joel,I got the joke, I don’t need to read it again. It was not the least bit “witty”.
Cheers, KevinK.
Kevin, Joel’s joke refers to a joke by Paul Samuelson about economists and the predictions of recessions. Look it up.
When predicting paradigm shifts, I think you DO NOT have to look at the odds. It is wiser to look at the data.
As Dr. Spencer has pointed out, temperatures have been stable as CO2 has increased. For CAGW to be true, natural variability would have to be counteracting the CO2 increase. But if natural variability is strong enough to counteract the CO2 increases over the last 18 years, then it is strong enough to cause the warming that occurred before that.
There is simply no convincing reason to believe in high sensitivity to CO2. The feedbacks are extremely complex and not sufficiently understood, and the data so far support low sensitivity. The basis for high sensitivity comes down to models that use a very coarse grid, parameterize (rather than model) key phenomenon, and have turned out to be incorrect so far.
Is it possible that the climate is highly sensitive to CO2, and something is hiding that sensitivity for the time being? I suppose it is possible, but my point is that at this point there is no good reason to believe that this is the case. Instead the data suggest that climate sensitivity to CO2 is low.
Marshall and Warren did not look at the odds. They looked at the data. Eventually the paradigm did change. For the above reasons, I suspect something similar will happen with climate science.
Bryan wrote:
“As Dr. Spencer has pointed out, temperatures have been stable as CO2 has increased.”
That is NOT what the graph in the post shows. It shows that the total (upward) trend in tropospheric temperature hasn’t changed. Huge difference.
“But if natural variability is strong enough to counteract the CO2 increases over the last 18 years, then it is strong enough to cause the warming that occurred before that.”
What 18 years? Over 18 years, the UAH data for the lower troposphere shows +0.17 C of warming.
The graph in the post shows trends starting in 1979. I am talking about the last 18 years or so, a span for which the trend has been flat. The graph in the post is not related to what I am talking about.
“What 18 years? Over 18 years, the UAH data for the lower troposphere shows +0.17 C of warming.”
I don’t think it is valid to compare 2 data points that are 18 years apart and use that to define the trend over that time. Using that method I could pick early 1998 and say it has cooled by 0.4 C since then. Instead, I am referring to the trend for about the last 18 years or so, using least squares or whatever you want to use. Just look at UAH lower troposphere data over that range and you can tell it is basically flat.
Christopher Monckton regularly calculates “the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend”. Currently he gets 18 years and four months:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/06/el-nio-or-ot-the-pause-lengthens-again/
For UAH it is probably different, but if you calculate the linear regression in UAH over the same time span the trend would be close to zero.
Monckton is often accused of cherry picking, but the way he does it is anything but cherry picking. Interested readers can refer to the above link for his explanation.
David has answered your objection well. The fact is that trends over relatively short periods of time don’t tell us much when we have the amount of year-to-year variability (“noise”) that is present. And, when these trends are cherrypicked, e.g., by cherry-picking start dates and even data sets, then they tell us even less.
And, let’s face it, everyone who claims that the current scientific paradigm is wrong is going to say that the data shows them that this is the case. The fact that it is still the paradigm shows that most other scientists in the field do not agree.
@Joel “The fact is that trends over relatively short periods of time dont tell us much when we have the amount of year-to-year variability…”
Get off the fence for cripes sakes. You claim to be a scientist, behave like one and look at the facts instead of cherry-picking meaningless nonsense.
“David has answered your objection well.”
I disagree. See my reply to his answer.
“The fact is that trends over relatively short periods of time dont tell us much when we have the amount of year-to-year variability (noise) that is present.”
I agree with that, but would note that the hiatus in warming is now long enough that it is getting attention, and some researchers are going to the trouble of looking for explanations.
I would note that the endpoints are not cherry picked if you just see how far back you can go and still get a sub-zero trend. One end point is now, and the other is obtained by applying the rule. Of course the big el nino has an influence on what the start date ends up being, but as time goes on, its influence is getting smaller.
Neither is the data set cherry-picked. Use either RSS or UAH. The result will be similar. The land-based (thermometer) data sets yield a somewhat shorter (but still significant) hiatus. However, I think there are many problems with thermometer data, and satellite data is far better.
However, the bigger point (that I admittedly left out of my original post) is the growing divergence between model results and temperature observations. Go all the way back to 1979, and yes, there is some warming, but not nearly as much as predicted by climate models:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/
This is huge, because the PHYSICS of the “greenhouse effect” is widely agreed to cause about 1 Celsius deg. of warming per doubling of CO2 concentration. This is low sensitivity. To get high sensitivity, the feedbacks have to be net positive. No one understands the feedbacks well enough to definitively say whether they are net positive, neutral, or negative. The ONLY justification for the belief that feedbacks must be positive is the output of the climate models. (The models show high sensitivity, which means net positive feedbacks.) However, THE MODELS ARE FAILING, and the divergence from observations is getting larger every month. Readers, do you realize that this means that there is NO justification for the assertion that feedbacks must be net positive?
Is it possible that the feedbacks really are net positive, and that someday (because of a tipping point or something) observations will start zooming up with a vengeance and catch up with the models? In my opinion no one can predict global average temperatures decades into the future, so I would say it is possible that it could happen. However, there is NO GOOD REASON at this point to think it will.
THE MODELS ARE BUSTED. And that leaves nothing to support the theory of CAGW.
Your last paragraph reflects (I think) your argument that predictions of a paradigm shift tend to be wrong, since the large numbers required to establish a paradigm lead one to expect that the paradigm is probably on solid ground and therefore unlikely to be tossed out. I think it is a valid point. However, I would make a couple of observations.
First, scientists sometimes get stuck because they are using a paradigm that (unknown to them) is not in line with reality. If you “look at the odds” then you will always predict that the current paradigm will continue to prevail, so you will NEVER correctly predict a paradigm shift. A scientist who, in spite of his own investigations leading him in another direction, looked at the odds and decided to not challenge the existing paradigm would not be much of a scientist. Progress in science often requires a paradigm shift.
Second, from the point of view of a scientifically literate citizen, I still say that instead of looking at the odds, it is wiser to look at the data. Paradigm shifts happen, which is just another way of saying that “settled science” will not necessarily stay settled. Politicians are telling us that we should accept economy-harming and poverty-increasing policies on the basis of the (untrue) assumption that settled science always stays settled. It our civic duty to investigate and form our own opinions about the validity of claims that economically harmful policies are necessary to stave off disaster. (Actually, in my opinion, the policies that would be necessary to achieve the CO2 emission reductions that they claim are necessary would not be just harmful — they would be ruinous.) If politicians want us to make such sacrifices (and impose even greater sacrifices on the world’s poor), they are going to have to do better than claiming “settled science”.
@Bryan “Is it possible that the feedbacks really are net positive, and that someday (because of a tipping point or something) observations will start zooming up with a vengeance and catch up with the models?”
Bryan, there is no such thing as a true positive feedback in the atmosphere simply because positive feedback requires amplification plus a further requirement that a feedback signal be in phase with an input signal, and summed BEFORE AMPLIFICATION. Many people are under the false impression that positive feedback creates amplification. Not true. PF is just part of a signal chain that cannot operate without an external amplifier.
That’s how this thing about the 2nd law got started. The 2nd law was developed by Clausius to plug a hole in the 1st law that allows positive feedback and perpetual motion machines. A pioneer in heat engines, Carnot, had implied there were no losses in a heat engine. Clausius proved there were losses through the 2nd law.
With no losses in a heat engine, perpetual motion and positive feedback became a possibility. The 2nd law slammed the door on that loophole but the CAGW crowd, like Rahmstorf, have fallen prey to that loophole, as have modelers who employ it in their models.
Alarmists are claiming that a net positive infrared energy balance between the atmosphere and surface satisfies the 2nd law and that could not be further from the truth. IR is covered by the 1st law under the conservation of energy but the 2nd law is about heat only. Otherwise, Clasuius could simply have amended the 1st law. A law about energy conservation cannot satisfy a law about heat. Summing IR does not apply to summing heat transfers.
Clausius explained clearly in his treatise developing the 2nd law that heat can only be transferred from a warmer body to a cooler body without compensation. He also noted wrt radiative heat transfer that IR can flow both ways but that heat can only be transferred one way, without compensation.
Compensation means that if you withdraw heat from a cooler body you must replace the lost heat using external power. That process cannot occur naturally.
In the atmosphere, heat cannot be transferred from cooler GHGs to a warmer surface that warmed them. Anyone versed in basic physics knows that cannot take place because it represents a perpetual motion machine. In essence, the CAGW claim is that heat transferred to GHGs can be recycled back to the surface to raise the surface temperature beyond what it is warmed by solar energy.
That’s what is programmed into climate models.
The other side of that theory is that GHGs act as a heat-trapping blanket. Heat cannot be trapped, plain and simple. On the surface, heat is represented by the degree of excitation of surface atoms (their average kinetic energy) and those atoms cannot be transferred into the atmosphere. They radiate infrared energy, which cools the surface, and that IR can be absorbed by GHGs.
Since the atmosphere is 98% nitrogen and oxygen it would make far most sense to explain heat transfer in the atmosphere by means of heat conduction and convection featuring those two elements. Conversely, it makes very little sense trying to explain it through radiation using CO2, which accounts for about 4/100 of 1% of atmospheric gases.
Anthropogenic CO2 makes even less sense. Based on a concentration of 390 ppmv, ACO2 account for about 1/1000 of 1% of atmospheric gases.
Bryan:
(1) As I have explained above, in a data series with an underlying steady upward trend plus the amount of noise (internal variability) present in the climate system, there are always going to be periods of negative or near zero trend (as is seen also in climate models forced with steadily increasing greenhouse gases)..And, it is ALWAYS going to take a decade or two before the trend to become substantial enough that zero trend is ruled out at the 99% confidence level. That’s just the nature of the beast…and is something that is easy to understand: If this week was colder here in Rochester than the last, I am not going to conclude that the seasonal cycle theory is wrong or that the Rochester weather is very insensitive to the seasonal cycle.
(2) The article you linked to involves mid-troposphere temperatures in the tropics, of which there are extremely serious data issues, including contamination of the trend from the tail of satellite channel that extends into the stratosphere (where it has cooled) and so no, disagreement between models and data there does not necessarily mean that the models are wrong. In fact, because the two satellite analyses (UAH and RSS) have been averaged, the fact that the two disagree quite significantly for the trend is hidden from the reader. I would recommend reading a comment of mine in that thread http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/#comment-82558 (and the one above it by Glenn).
(3) You say: “Actually, in my opinion, the policies that would be necessary to achieve the CO2 emission reductions that they claim are necessary would not be just harmful they would be ruinous.” So, in other words, you disbelieve physical science that goes against what you would like to believe regarding the dangers of AGW and then you disbelieve economic science that goes against what you would like to believe regarding the costs of mitigation.
“The ONLY justification for the belief that feedbacks must be positive is the output of the climate models.”
I should add that this is not true either. There is lots of other data supporting this, including the paleoclimate data.
And, this illustrates why it is better to scientific evidence evaluated by the scientific community. There is a reason why governments have tried to insulate scientific advise from political and ideological nonsense through organizations like the National Academy of Sciences.
Hi Joel Shore,
You assert without evidence:
“So, in other words, you disbelieve physical science that goes against what you would like to believe regarding the dangers of AGW and then you disbelieve economic science that goes against what you would like to believe regarding the costs of mitigation.”
Apparently Joel Shore’s reductive mind confuses scientific argument with assumptions about Bryan’s motives. If you presented physical science and empirical evidence maybe he’d have something to reject at best you presented uncertainty about satellite data. As to economic science you presented none of that and since that happens to be my field I’d be more than agreeable to discussing it. Please provide any evidence at all, because I have yet to see it, that anyone anywhere has a rational efficacious plan to induce 7 billion people on this orb to reduce their atmospheric carbon output to levels not seen since the 19th century so as to supposedly ensure that atmospheric carbon levels do not continue to increase. Unfortunately for you atmospheric carbon growth mutations FOLLOW temperature change not the other way around. Btw, since you present yourself as knowledgeable on the subject, a dubious distinction at best, why don’t you further indicate what the costs and benefits would be to reducing carbon consumption. Imo you haven’t even begun to think it through, and I’ve read your posts in the past, Good luck. You’ll need it.
You go on:
“And, this illustrates why it is better to scientific evidence evaluated by the scientific community. There is a reason why governments have tried to insulate scientific advise from political and ideological nonsense through organizations like the National Academy of Sciences.”
So, in what you call a mind you’ve decided for reasons alien to rational discussion that the National Academy of Sciences exists apart from the power grubby rest of humanity in some rarified are of objective reason. Somehow it has evolved beyond territoriality and politics. Remarkably sad display of a willful self induced fantasy realm. Last I checked governments are political enterprises. The counterfactual belief that a political entity would seek to create an institution insulated from politics and consequent nonsense should make you re-cosider your own objectivity.
Have a great day!
JohnKl says:
“As to economic science you presented none of that and since that happens to be my field Id be more than agreeable to discussing it. Please provide any evidence at all, because I have yet to see it…”
The IPCC’s Working Group 3 assessment report covers mitigation and is a good source into the literature. However, it is also worth pointing out the illogic of market fundamentalists, who extole the virtues of markets but somehow believe markets will be completely ineffective if we dare to introduce what is essentially akin to artificial scarcity by putting a price on carbon emissions. After all, if we told you guys that we were running out of fossil fuels and we’ll thus all be impoverished, I sort of doubt you’d agree; instead, you would tell us about the wonderful mechanisms by which the ingenuity harnessed by the market system will come up with substitutes. And, putting a price on carbon emissions is a less severe case than scarcity of fossil fuels because it still allows the possibility of burning fossil fuels if you capture the carbon emissions.
And, of course, the efficiency of markets is the reason why, historically, estimates for the cost of EPA regulations to limit pollution have been higher than the actual cost. Industry estimates have been way high, but even the EPA’s own estimates tend to be high of the mark. (See, for example, here: https://prospect.org/article/behind-numbers-polluted-data )
What is true, of course, is that it is less costly to have to reduce emissions slowly (and from a lower baseline) than more quickly (and from a higher baseline), which is why the continued delay in implementing measures to put a price on carbon emissions is going to make it more and more costly.
“So, in what you call a mind youve decided for reasons alien to rational discussion that the National Academy of Sciences exists apart from the power grubby rest of humanity in some rarified are of objective reason. Somehow it has evolved beyond territoriality and politics.”
It is not perfect, but yes, it is much more insulated from politics than the alternative, which is why Abraham Lincoln, in his foresight, created the National Academy with the charge to provide impartial scientific information to the government. What exactly do you propose as an alternative that would be more insulated from the political process?
The only thing that I see coming from the Right is the implicit idea that we should trust the view of Right wing think-tanks and the few scientists they can find who agree with them to interpret the data and ignore the rest of the scientific community.
Well Joel Shore, I’m one who claims the hoax is wrong, so perhaps you might like to support Dr S and Will Nit in answering the questions I put to them in this comment. I look forward to all three of you “taking me on” over issues of physics.
Sorry – the link should be to this comment.
@Joel “…those who dispute the current scientific paradigm…”
Have you read Kuhn on paradigms? You speak of them as if they are something honourable whereas they are little more than scientists locking their brains in neutral and refusing to participate in real science. Paradigms are to science what conservatism is to politics.
Oh, my comments also apply to Dr. Christy’s work as well, of course.
KevinK
Dr. Spencer wrote:
“I prefer to compare us to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who rejected the scientific consensus that peptic ulcers were due to too much stress or spicy food.”
I hear this from contrarians a lot. It’s almost like they think this one example means any and all consensus is science is wrong — or, at least, the couple of consensuses they disagree with.
If you want to disprove AGW, or show it’s not a serious concern, you have to *show it’s not a serious concern*. You can’t refer to some historical scientific idea that was disproven as if it gives your claims of AGW disproof weight. It doesn’t.
There is no disproof by proxy. If contrarians want to prevail in the debate, they just need to produce evidence and science that is convincing. Not just convincing to them, because that easy and it’s too easy to fool oneself, but convincing to the scientific community. That has worked in science since it began — indeed, it’s HOW the peptic ulcer claims were corrected — by better evidence.
David A,
with respect, ALL of the burden of proving the “AGW” conjecture (it ceased being a hypothesis when it suddenly explained EVERYTHING including increases in the frequency of halitosis)is on those that proffer this conjecture.
The Null Hypothesis is that the climate of the Earth is remarkably stable (when considered over several human genertions)as would be expected with a massive thermal “heat sink” (aka the Ocean’s) and a relatively stable energy source (aka the Sun). All of the unbiased observations (i.e. my funding does not depend on me finding “Global Warming”)support the Null Hypothesis.
Get over it, a consensus does not overrule the Null Hypothesis.
Good luck hunting those unicorns, I think one dashed out in front of me on the Interstate the other evening, but it could have just been a member of the consensus herd, they are know to dash wildly about in the dark looking for a clue on were the next grant is located….
Cheers, KevinK.
As usual David Appell confuses himself and gets the scientific process exactly backwards. The burden of proof rests with the one making the claim. It’s not left up to everyone else to disprove the claim.
Dr. Spencer wrote:
I prefer to compare us to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who rejected the scientific consensus that peptic ulcers were due to too much stress or spicy food.
I hear this from contrarians a lot. Its almost like they think this one example means any and all consensus is science is wrong or, at least, the couple of consensuses they disagree with.
If you want to disprove AGW, or show its not a serious concern, you have to *show its not a serious concern*. You cant refer to some historical scientific idea that was disproven as if it gives your claims of AGW disproof weight. It doesnt.
There is no disproof by proxy. If contrarians want to prevail in the debate, they just need to produce evidence and science that is convincing. Not just convincing to them, because that easy and its too easy to fool oneself, but convincing to the scientific community. That has worked in science since it began indeed, its HOW the peptic ulcer claims were corrected by better evidence.
“If you want to disprove AGW, or show its not a serious concern, you have to *show its not a serious concern*”
Ok challenged accepted:
18 years and 4 months ago the atmospheric co2 levels were 370ppm, today they are 400ppm. Therefore we have had 18 years and 4 months of zero temp rise whilst co2 has risen by 30ppm. Ergo the theory is falsified.
In anticipation of your pedantic responses……
Argo data for the past 11 years tells us the upper 700 meters of the ocean has warmed by 0.002C per decade and down to 2kilometers warmed by a mere 0.005C per decade effectively when you consider the error bars a zero trend so no the oceans did not eat your global warming.
Do i need to explain the heat cant be at the bottom of the Mariana trench because ARGO would still have seen a temp spike? Perhaps you will attempt to state the oceans are so big but yet the heat is so small that the 0.002C IS THE HEAT you cant find but as the very fine owner of this blog has stated if you want to invoke natural ocean cycles for screwing your pet theory then you must also accept it is possible it was those very same natural ocean cycles that allowed your pet theory to flourish in the first place.
And no all the heat did not go into melting the Arctic ice for the Arctic ice extent is also experiencing its own little pause granted only 8 years long (but that never stopped you from extrapolating linear trends from a small sample did it).
What else is there……oh of course the record breaking Antarctic sea ice extent and the bitterly cold winters in the NTH hemisphere are blamed on AGW so perhaps you will claim all the heat has gone into making all the cold, if you take this approach then you will need to add a plausible explanation so good luck with that.
I cant think of any more stupid theories for you to come up with so give it your best shot Dave.
cheers
crakar24 says:
“Argo data for the past 11 years tells us the upper 700 meters of the ocean has warmed by 0.002C per decade and down to 2kilometers warmed by a mere 0.005C per decade effectively when you consider the error bars a zero trend so no the oceans did not eat your global warming.”
1) it’s not close to a “zero trend” — the trend for the 0-700 m region is 93 trillion Watts, and the 0-2000 m region doesn’t have data for that far back, but it is 300 trillion Watts since its data begins in 1Q2005.
2) you need to learn the difference between heat and temperature.
Dave,
How do we measure the “heat” of the ocean? How did you arrive at the figure 93 and 300 trillion watts?
How do you measure the amount of “watts” in the ocean?
I think you are full of carp and your post above is just another instalment of jibberish as you watch your pet theory get flushed down the toilet.
David displays his lack of knowledge of physics. “In physics, heat is energy in transfer other than as work or by transfer of matter. … Heat refers to a process of transfer between two systems, not to a state or property of a single system.” [source]
If it is thermal (molecular kinetic) energy to which you are referring, then that is not measured in “watts.”
You might do well to look up a Stefan Boltzmann on-line calculator and then to realize that the 168W/m^2 of solar radiation absorbed by the solid surface, mostly passes through the top surface layer of the ocean, whilst radiation from the atmosphere cannot be added to the insolation because back radiation does not penetrate water by more than a few nanometers. So tell me what temperature you think the Sun’s radiation is warming the surface water to. Hint: the blackbody temperature for 168W/m^2 is about -41C. (Yes the minus sign is not a typo.)
Those who want to learn what is really happening and why temperatures above and below any planetary surface are what they are, may read this website and the linked peer-reviewed papers of mine.
@David…”If you want to disprove AGW, or show its not a serious concern, you have to *show its not a serious concern*.”
You have it backwards. No one has ever proved that anthropogenic CO2 causes atmospheric warming therefore the onus is on the alarmists to not only prove it has an effect but to prove it is having a catastrophic effect.
ACO2 was programmed into climate models based on a theory that is obviously wrong. The IPCC has admitted there has been no warming trend since 1998 and there has been no trend since they claimed that in 2013. That’s all of 18 years with no warming.
Chin up Doc!
We have yet to see the full court press.
It is coming.
If we allow it to be successfully implemented, we will have an anthropogenicly modeled energy policy.
Think about it……
Just sayin, look for the Bullseye
Dr. Spencer wrote:
“I prefer to compare us to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who rejected the scientific consensus that peptic ulcers were due to too much stress or spicy food.”
I hear this from contrarians a lot. It’s almost like they think this one example means any and all consensus is science is wrong — or, at least, the couple of consensuses they disagree with.
If you want to disprove AGW, or show it’s not a serious concern, you have to *show it’s not a serious concern*. You can’t refer to some historical scientific idea that was disproven as if it gives your claims of AGW disproof weight. It doesn’t.
There is no disproof by proxy. If contrarians want to prevail in the debate, they just need to produce evidence and science that is convincing. Not just convincing to them, because that easy and it’s too easy to fool oneself, but convincing to the scientific community. That has worked in science since it began — indeed, it’s HOW the peptic ulcer claims were corrected — by better evidence.
Yes I’ve done that – produced evidence and science that is indeed convincing. Go to this comment, and the link therein, when you have a couple of hours to read, study and inwardly digest the new 21st Century paradigm in climate science that relates to all planets and moons.
Dana Nuccitelli a.k.a. Nutty Dana
Get some education on meteorology and climatology. You are not qualified to talk about the subject. Why don’t you just preach Scientology and alien abduction? They have more in common with your AGW religion/science fiction.
Well it’s a fine line isn’t it? You can’t be too bright, otherwise you wouldn’t be a global warming apocalyptic to begin with. On the other hand you got to find someone who can at least tie his shoe laces. A Nuccitelli or an Appell would be a perfect type of candidate.
Get some education (preferably a degree) in physics, Dr.S.
What happens regarding temperatures and energy flows in any planetary system is all about thermodynamics and radiative heat transfer – subjects that are totally within the realm of physics. Why meteorologists and climatologists think they know better than physicists about such science is beyond my (logical) understanding, though within my understanding when their motives and pecuniary interests in promoting the hoax are revealed.
It is they who should have produced in the first place an hypothesis which actually obeys the laws of physics. Instead they construct energy diagrams like the one at the foot of this page which shows that the top of the atmosphere receives 342W/m^2 of which 107W/m^2 is reflected back to space. Hence the effective input into the atmosphere is 235W/m^2. However, the same diagram then shows 492W/m^2 (168 + 324) being delivered out of the atmosphere into the surface. And they all retorted “Ahhh, but these are measured values.
So it seems we owe our whole lives to the hoax that the atmosphere amplifies energy from 235 to 492W/m^2 – far better than any perpetual motion machine could do.
I can give you a personal tutorial on physics but I’m afraid to go to the mental asylum. Maybe I will reconsider if you wear a straight jacket.
Dr S and Will Nit
I’m not interested in your bragging, Dr S – just evidence about what water vapor does, and perhaps discussion as to how we know entropy is maximized when all unbalanced energy potentials have dissipated.
But firstly, I will ask Will and you to just prove to me, in the face of all the empirical evidence to the contrary, that the most prolific “greenhouse gas” water vapor supposedly warms the surface by at least 15 degrees for each 1% in the atmosphere. After all, the IPCC claims it does most of 33 degrees of warming. So you’ll need to explain why (as we know) it reduces the temperature gradient (causing the thermal plot to rotate downwards at the surface end) and also why empirical studies (such as mine in my second paper on the Second Law of Thermodynamics here) also confirm that more moist regions have lower mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures. You also need to explain why Foehn winds warm as they lose water vapor.
Douglas Cotton, B.Sc.(physics), B.A.(econ), Dip.Bus.Admin
Sydney and Macquarie Universities (1963 to 1972)
Retired (part-time) physics and mathematics educator
and now private researcher in planetary physics
Dave, you keep going on and on about how skeptics must prove the theory is wrong. Both HADCRUT4 and UAH are running substantially cooler than the CMIP5 models. And as you know, starting in December 1996 to present, there is no global warming for 18 years and 4 months in both UAH and RSS. You probably also know Ben Santer has published work stating that 15 years makes a trend.
Secondly, Murray Salby’s work is extremely compelling. Man’s 5% contribution to co2 increases cannot be distinguished from the natural, especially when the IPCC has no idea how long co2 stays in the atmosphere, and heavily deviates from the peer reviewed literature on this topic.
The past 18 years 4 months has complete lack of warming only in RSS. According to http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1996.916/trend, the version of UAH used by Wood for Trees has its OLS linear trend having warming of .147-.148 degree C.
Atmospheric CO2 increase is less than it would be if manmade contribution all stayed there. Nature has been year-in, year-out, a net sink of atmospheric CO2 ever since the start of the record of atmospheric CO2 measurements at the Mauna Loa observatory.
Donald, there is no such thing as a “net sink”… Sources cause the rise in co2 and sinks (even though natural) merely degrade sources. The popular interpretation of ice cores is that an imbalance in nature (due to temperature increase) has caused a rise of 4 ppm since the inception of mauna loa (engelbeen). Without this natural imbalance the current level of co2 would be 4 ppm less than it currently is, thus 4 ppm of the rise is due to natural sources. If the popular understanding of ice cores is wrong, then the number could be much higher than 4 ppm. The “mass balance” argument (which you are putting forth) is a tricky one. One has to be very careful not to misrepresent reality when employing it. If you wish to reply to my comment, please be patient with me as i only spend a limited time here in the evening and may thus be slow with my reply in return…
David ALL of the objective data that is out there has already proven AGW theory is not correct.
Below from David . I am sending it here as well to make sure he will see it.
Salvatore, until you start evaluating why your past predictions went wrong, Im not interested in your new predictions.
My reply once again.
David the maximum of solar cycle 24 was much longer and stronger(although weak in comparison to earlier cycles)then what I was thinking it would be in early 2010. This resulted in all of the solar parameters which I feel are needed to cause an overall global cooling scenario to be much above the LOW AVERAGE SOLAR PARAMETER values I concluded were needed. The first part however is in, which is 10 years of sub-solar activity in general.(2005-2015)
Given this, according to my thinking/theory when the maximum of solar cycle 24 comes to an end which is occurring NOW, I expect my low average solar parameters will be met or at least approached.
David, listen carefully when this occurs I then expect the global temperature trend to turn into a jig saw down pattern. This should start to become notable around 6 months after my low average value solar parameters are meant.
David, listen again, IF my low average solar parameters are attained or even approached and the global temperature trend is still steady or rising then I will admit to being wrong.
How much clearer could I be? You tell me if this is not clear enough.
If you want my low average value solar parameters for your records I will send them to you, although I think you have them already.
Dave, there it is, let us see what happens. This is not personal so have a great day.
Reply
Roy and others
May I encourage you to read and study this comment copied from the Wikipedia talk pages.
For more detailed explanation, read the website and linked papers endorsed by our group of persons suitably qualified in physics.
RoyAs I said, please read the whole quote from Wikipedia talk pages and also note the end of the above linked comment (just above the Wikipedia quote) where I wrote …
Sooner or later Roy needs to realize that such assumptions imply violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, a subject that I have studied extensively and about which I have published two comprehensive peer-reviewed papers that have never been correctly refuted by anyone in over two years.
I know what I’m talking about, Roy, and you can learn physics which is critically important to your battle against the warmists from what I have explained. But you need to relinquish your “Luke” stand and realize that IR-active gases can only cool and never warm.
Douglas J.Cotton B.Sc.(physics), B.A.(econ), Dip.Bus.Admin
(Sydney and Macquarie Universities 1963 to 1972)
Retired part-time physics and mathematics educator
and now private researcher in planetary physics.
“That tireless ecological zealot over at The Guardian, Dana Nuccitelli, took the opportunity of our 25th anniversary of satellite-based global temperature monitoring to rip us a new one. ”
Well ripping a new suggest some degree of intelligence.
Dana just appears stupid.
97% are not terrified about global warming or climate change.
Excluding some 8 year who terrified watching a scary movie or adults clueless of everything, 99.9 of people [including Al Gore] don’t think that global climate is a threat. Bad weather can be dangerous, but this not the same as global climate.
Or 99.9% who are not retards don’t think Ted Turner and visions of future cannibalism is vaguely credible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54
A lot of jerks like Al Gore think people are stupid and must to scared to do the right thing.
But they don’t believe their own “drama license” narrative.
And I doubt Dana Nuccitelli is that stupid to buy Gore’s story.
He is quite dumb, generally speaking, but so are most reporters.
“Youre damn right we are. But not because we are paid to say it, which we arent. (What are you paid to say for The Guardian, Dana?)
We are pro-fossil fuel because there are no large scale replacements available, wind and solar are too expensive, and you cant just cut fossil fuel use without causing immense human suffering. Yes, Ive talked to some of the top economists about it.”
God bless you and John. You are 100% correct and no amount of name calling will change that.
The laws of physics and economics do not yield to the ideology of Eco-Socialism.
And modern environmentalism has as much to do with saving the planet and protecting humans and animals as Communism did with protecting workers. Which is exactly none.
Look on the upside, Roy. When a rag like The Guardian has to go after you and John with propaganda and pseudo-science, it means they have lost the battle. We are witnessing the death-throes of the anthropogenic warming theory.
Anyone still using errors in the satellites, which were insignificant and fixed circa 2005, and who appeals to consensus as a valid form of science is a plain pseudo-scientist.
From the wiki: “Pseudoscience is a claim, belief or practice which is falsely presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status”.
The describes “consensus as science” in a nutshell, and since they have no proof of errors in the satellite orbits that are significant, they are abject pseudo-scientists.
As to the propaganda, why should The Guardian care what you and John think? They care because you are hurting them and hurting them bad. That’s why people strike out at others, they feel powerless to respond with reason so they resort to propaganda and pseudo-science.
Dana’s getting desperate over declining polls
resorting to “pounding the table”
Gallup: More Americans Worried About Global Warming 15 Years Ago
A poll in Australia showed about two-thirds not worried. Even some of our politicians are starting to realize it’s all a hoax about one molecule of carbon dioxide in 2,500 other air molecules having any effect. The main IR-active gas, water vapor cools rather than warms the surface. It is known, for example, that Foehn winds warm because they lose moisture content. My survey also showed that water vapor cools, and the valid physics is also here with a $5,000 reward for the first in the world to produce a similar study showing water vapor warms by over 15 degrees for each 1% concentration (as is implied by the IPCC hoax) and also who proves the physics I present (which is based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics) to be substantially wrong.
Actually the whole part about Marshall and Warren is pretty much a myth. Other scientists caught on quickly, it’s just that it takes a long time to go from an unproven hypothesis to an established theory:
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/bacteria_ulcers_and_ostracism_h._pylori_and_the_making_of_a_myth/
Some people, often those who feel snubbed by the scientific community, loves these myths about persecuted scientists who eventually triumph against the establishment since they can use it to convince themselves that one day they will triumph in the same way.
New scientific ideas can meet anywhere from very little to near complete resistance, so I’ve never found specific examples helpful to generalise, as the circumstances of each vary considerably. But if we’re talking about “myths” probably the leading myth of our age is to declare that scientists can simply vote or offer up “expert opinion” to declare uncertain subjects certain. (Aa method that has an appalling track record for accuracy.)If you surveyed all the world’s leading economic experts just before the financial meltdown and asked them if we were heading towards a financial meltdown, very few would have thought so. If you asked all the qualified medical researchers what is the cause and best cure for a currently untreatable cancer, you would obviously get an answer and there would probably even be a ‘consensus’ on the most likely treatments. But that is hardly an approach we should take seriously. Let’s not study the cancer. Let’s vote. All matters ecological are much more deeply uncertain than even matters medical.
“Actually the whole part about Marshall and Warren is pretty much a myth”
Quotes from an interview with Dr Barry Marshall:
” Peptic ulcers were a RELIGION…The stress theory of ulcers turned out just to be something made up…You had to wait until the old-timers moved on and younger scientists took over…It took several years to convince the sceptics…I was pretty annoyed for many years…I always had one hundred subjects in my studies because I am not very mathematical…I experimented on myself because when you explain the rewards and risks to a volunteer, and basically it is ‘If things go well I get a great research paper and if things go badly you die…’…I knew my wife wouldn’t give me permission, so I didn’t tell her…”
“…several years to convince the sceptics…”
Several DECADES more like, when you consider that a doctor called John Lykoudis was succesfully treating ulcers with antibiotics from 1958 onwards. For his pains he was shunned,
his papers were rejected by journals in both Europe and America, and he was actually fined 4,000 drachmas by the Greek Medical Association. I call that persecution. Also, in view of the fact that 500,000 people a year died from ulcers for the next forty years… well done the scientific establishment!
Thanks Dr. Spencer, Dr. Christy and your teams at UAH. You have done great work, without you, we’d still be subject to homogenized and corrected thermometers on bad locations.
“…the 97% meme…”
This is, of course, an example of “setting the level.”
A well known negotiating and bargaining technique.
You take an unused, new, watch to a pawnbroker. As a sensitive soul, you are already at a disadvantage, because he is sneering “Loser!” at you, simply for being so broke you have come into his shop. You know the watch retails for $1,000 and wholesales for $500. You say diffidently to the tough, ugly, man “I want $450” secretly hoping to sell it for $400. He says brusquely “Hard to shift those! $100!” You gulp, and start negotiating near HIS announced level and not near yours. Shortly afterwards, you leave the shop with $125 and coupons for KFC in your hand, thinking confusedly “WTF just happened?” With a cynical grin, the broker puts the watch in the window with a price tag of $600, knowing he is going to sell it – shedding crocodile tears -to some greedy SOB for a hundred below wholesale – $400 – the next day. And the buyer will boast to all his friends how he beat the pawnbroker down, to the point where he wasn’t making a profit!
Sounds like Obama’s Iran negotiating team…
Joel Shore says:
“Bryan:
(1) As I have explained above, in a data series with an underlying steady upward trend plus the amount of noise (internal variability) present in the climate system, there are always going to be periods of negative or near zero trend (as is seen also in climate models forced with steadily increasing greenhouse gases)..”
Show me a climate model with a zero (actually zero, not can’t-be-ruled-out-as-zero-at-the-99%-confidence-level) or negative trend over the last 18 years, and I will show you a climate model with a fairly benign amount of warming going forward. If you look at a spaghetti graph of climate models, you will see that for earlier years many or all have some flat periods of perhaps around a couple of decades. But if you look at the last 18 years, I think you will find that the models that show serious warming going forward are already starting to take off. I don’t think you will find any zero or negative trends among them. Sure, you will find trends that can’t be shown to be >0 at the 99% confidence level, but that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about flat trends that actually come out to zero using least squares.
“(2) The article you linked to involves mid-troposphere temperatures in the tropics, of which there are extremely serious data issues, including contamination of the trend from the tail of satellite channel that extends into the stratosphere (where it has cooled) and so no, disagreement between models and data there does not necessarily mean that the models are wrong…”
Okay, how about comparing global satellite data to the model output. The article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/06/el-nio-or-ot-the-pause-lengthens-again/
has some comparisons. For example Fig. T1. It shows a spaghetti graph of 33 IPCC models, compared to global RSS.
“(3) You say: ‘Actually, in my opinion, the policies that would be necessary to achieve the CO2 emission reductions that they claim are necessary would not be just harmful they would be ruinous.’ So, in other words, you disbelieve physical science that goes against what you would like to believe regarding the dangers of AGW and then you disbelieve economic science that goes against what you would like to believe regarding the costs of mitigation.”
I don’t “disbelieve” this “physical science”. I am skeptical of assertions of “settled science” that I don’t think square with observations.
As for “economic science”, I don’t have time to argue it at length, but I hope it is obvious that alternatives to fossil fuels are much more expensive, to the point that a massive shift to nuclear (the only technology that is capable of replacing fossil fuels) would at the least constitute a huge drag on the economy that would greatly exacerbate poverty. What is particularly appalling is the effort to force the people of Africa to skip fossil fuels and use MUCH more expensive renewable energy as they try to develop their economy and achieve a standard of living that the West takes for granted.
April 9, 2015 at 6:50 PM
Joel Shore says:
[quoting me]
‘The ONLY justification for the belief that feedbacks must be positive is the output of the climate models.’
“I should add that this is not true either. There is lots of other data supporting this, including the paleoclimate data.”
I did not say that there is no other data supporting it. I said that the output of the climate models is the only justification for the assertion that feedbacks MUST BE net-positive. The “MUST” part is crucial to the claim of “settled science.” Sure, you can make other arguments for positive feedback, but my point is that politicians are attempting to create an illusion that there is some kind of certainty here that proves the necessity of economically damaging measures, and anyone who disagrees is a flat-earther. Data “supporting” net-positive feedbacks is not enough. Observations so far are more in line with low sensitivity, yet supposedly the “peer-reviewed, consensus, settled science” says it is high sensitivity. Climate models are the only thing that supposedly demonstrate the high sensitivity, and they are not looking accurate right now.
“And, this illustrates why it is better to scientific evidence evaluated by the scientific community. There is a reason why governments have tried to insulate scientific advise from political and ideological nonsense through organizations like the National Academy of Sciences.”
This sounds like a joke to me. “Insulate scientific advise from political and ideological nonsense through organizations like…”
Insulate? Governments and the UN shower researchers who find CAGW with money and opportunities. As Dr. Spencer has pointed out, it is not a conspiracy — it is all out in the open. Get results we like (or that at least can be spun to look scary), and you will get more grants. Get results we don’t like, and your chances aren’t so good, and you will be called names by the President and Secretary of State. Far from insulating scientific advice from political nonsense, they are instead doing their best to influence science by using political power, to achieve political goals.
As for scientific evidence being evaluated by the scientific community, of course that is the way it works. But there is no way that citizens should be left out of the loop. Totalitarian states are the ones that claim that they have some kind of official science that justifies their actions, and the public will just have to accept the “truth”. In democracies the leaders have to take their case to the public. Any consensus that exists among scientists would be an important part of that case, but transparent attempts to influence science damages public confidence in such a “consensus”.
Feedbacks are likely net positive on good theoretical grounds. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, for example. However, there is a world of difference between an overall positive feedback that produces an additional 0.5C above and beyond the 1.1C directly estimated for CO2 without considering feedbacks, which may take one or two centuries for that to be realized, versus a climate model that is predicting 0.5C every 2 decades.
Also keep in mind that we were told to believe that climate models were accurate predictors because all factors that could influence climate between 1980-1998 had been considered and there were no other explanations to account for the temperature rise during this period except for CO2. You can’t then turn around and declare the lack of warming between 1998-2015 is due to natural variability. The 1980-1998 claim ruled out natural variability. You can’t maintain both claims because they are mutually contradictory.
I agree with your comment about unforced variability. But on the feedback issue, the water vapor feedback is both positive and fast, and relatively well constrained. So the transient climate response will normally be higher than the 1.1 you mention. Other feedbacks do take longer, it’s true.
Still no mention of Po-Chedley et al., Roy? It’s been several weeks now.
It looks to me like there are serious problems with UAH TMT. People are beginning to wonder about TLT as well.
If there are ‘serious problems’ why do the trends for 4 independent data sets tend to converge over time? Didn’t you read this article?
If that’s a ‘serious problem’ it seems you are trying to pretend there is a problem where there is not much to worry about.
Of course I read the article. But you don’t seem to have understood it. The new paper by Po-Chedley et al. deals with the *middle* troposphere product. That is what I said there appear to be serious problems with.
Roy’s post here deals only with the *lower* troposphere product. As far as I can tell, Roy has said nothing about TMT or the work by Po-Chedley et al. in the weeks since the paper was published.
If the new study is correct, UAH TMT has serious problems. Those may or may not carry over to the LT product; I don’t know.
Ah OK. So you’re saying there are serious problems except you don’t know if there are serious problems. It’s been my observation that sat data gets occasional corrections from time to time and that’s always been the case. Why does this worry you so much? It’s not because you’re deeply concerned that the Earth isn’t warming as fast as you’d preyed for, I hope. 😉
If you read the UW paper, they make a seemingly convincing case that there are non-trivial errors in the UAH middle troposphere product, in large part due to poor methods for merging the data from different satellites.
I have read that. I am curious to hear Roy’s take on it. He however has not yet said anything about this. So at the moment, only one side of the case is being told. I find the evidence presented by the UW people convincing, but perhaps Roy has some response that will show they are wrong.
If you choose to translate that as ‘Johann is saying there are serious problems except Johann doesn’t know if there are serious problems’ that’s your prerogative. I prefer to listen to what other people say rather than to change what they say.
What I do not yet have an opinion of is whether or not this also affects the lower troposphere product. The UW group only addresses the middle troposphere issue. But since the problem lies with the intercalibration among satellites over time, it seems likely that this could cause havoc with LT as well.
In the UW analysis, fixing the problem made UAH’s MT data more similar to others, which is good. But if the correction also were to raise the LT trend, it would make the lack of agreement worse not better, by increasing the gap between RSS and UAH.
I am afraid this may be hard to follow, if you have not read the UW paper by Po-Chedley et al., and if you perhaps are not very familiar with the multiple MT and LT data sets.
Please read my comments on the newer thread, starting with this one, and noting the one to Roy with four numbered points.
A political question regarding Nuccitelli (and John Cook); has Dana’s job at Tetratech, a company that designs and builds green projects, ever been mentioned as a COI? or John Cook’s job as head of U of Queensland’s sustainability program? Am I missing something?
like Obama’s co-founding of the Chicago Carbon exchange?
This is just how desperate the authors of the misanthropic anti-science “consensus agenda” have become; IE the CFR types… the IPCC owners; the controllers of the proverbial one-percent and their minions.
“It’s a big club, and We ain’t in it.” -George Carlin
I come down heavily on the side of observation and experience weighed against practical experimentation; the so-called “AGW” zealots have absolutely nothing to suggest that mankind’s contribution to Earth’s climate is significant now, or ever will be.
We (people) may bungle more than we fix on average in our daily lives, but recall the allegory of Edward Teller’s suggestion that runaway thermonuclear reactions might “set the Earth’s atmosphere on fire”- but, HOW cooler heads like Drs. Oppenheimer, Bethe, and Fermi prevailed 80 years ago, and that fission and fusion research both continued, despite rumors and clearly-exaggerated risks of danger.
And- allow me to add in closing, that Hansen, Mann, and Pachauri (et al) certainly aren’t “Tellers.”
Dr. Lindzen’s estimates about general forcing and of minimal, negative feedbacks have proven to be quite true, and the very fact that he is still demonized to this day by the kooks who write these anti-scientific hit-pieces is just further proof that the whole “AGW Agenda” is utterly bankrupt, and that their architects and their followers alike are perhaps the craziest kind of bat-droppings-stupid in Human history.
“Temperatures all set to run away now; hot Hot HOT!!!”
Really? No.
I’ll also side with Dr. Giaever, thank you very much; that given that the planet has fluctuated between climate “extremes” that evidently induced and nurtured life for billions of years (despite repeated cataclysmic celestial and terrestrial events and extinctions), is proof that our planet’s climate is particularly and remarkably stable.
The Guardian isn’t even believable as a trash-rag or tabloid; you guys can count all such bare-naked ad hominem attacks as badges of honor.
Enjoy and Beware
To policy analysts Rolling Stoned 25 years ago by Spencer & Christy’s pseudomagisterial op-ed in Science , Roy’s rejection of the scientific common wisdom on climate change less recalls the revolutionary Gasrobacter pylori hypothesis than Steve Martin’s contention in his SNL medieval medico skit that ulcers are caused by a small demon or frog in the stomach.
Well, Russell, do you you not think that it is remarkable how closely UAH and balloon radiosondes track? I had not known this. Had you?