Two mechanisms are suggested. One is a global increase in production; another possibility is a decrease in levels of hydroxide ion in the atmosphere more in the Northern hemisphere.
Where does that hydroxide ion come from?
Old answer: UV breaking up water molecules, a global atmospheric effect.
Lazar, if you want to integrate a convolution, use the convolution theorem!
The integral over a function f from -inf to +inf is precisely the value of its Fourier transform F at frequency argument 0.
So, take the integral over Gauss — see above — and over Cauchy-Lorentz — pretty sure it exists in closed form too, in fact I know it does — and multiply them together.
Generally, it’s not a good idea to do things numerically if a simple analytical way exists.
Maybe you’re right and the science is a bit more complicated than it once appeared. Strange isn’t it that the science continues to move on perhaps leaving the supposed ‘consensus’ behind?
Just a heads-up (and thanks for your comments Hank, Ray, Eli, Steve, David, and others) – I’ve posted the transcript of Dr. Balling’s appearance on our local community radio station. It’s interesting, to watch a metamorphosis; and interesting, to see new arguments emerge.
(at least i think they are new arguments)
Dave A., You need to understand what is meant by “consensus”. You will have a “standard model” in any field that is sufficiently advanced–be it climate science or particle physics. Now that model will be change, but by definition, you will have consensus, or the model wouldn’t be the standard. In climate science, the consensus refers to the model whereby we understand ALL climatic phenomena. A corrolary of that model is that humans are behind the current warming trend.
Dave, do you imagine a ‘consensus’ is like a ‘founder’ — some fixture, some belief that has to be adhered to? Look up “Darwinist” or even “Mannist” and you’ll find that misapprehension, but you won’t find it in the sciences. Consider the source.
Consensus statements are quite commonly published in the sciences. Read in any field over time to get the picture of how they work — it takes time to get them into print, they’re known outdated when published, the known unknowns described, and valuable to the extent later work builds on them or uses them to kick off in a new direction well defined by reference.
Tamino, could you comment on Willis Eschenbach’s analysis over at CA where he uses what he calls a “Correlation Distribution Analysis” to test the robustness of Mann et al 2008 conclusios without tree rings? The Mann paper specifically notes that their conclusion is robust with or without tree rings.
Tamino, could you comment on Willis Eschenbach’s analysis over at CA where he uses what he calls a “Correlation Distribution Analysis” to test the robustness of Mann et al 2008 conclusios without tree rings?
Why? Tree ring data can only tell us what the conditions for growth were at the time. It can’t give an accurate representation of past temperatures. Temperature is only one of a number of factors. As far as tree growth is concerned too hot can be as bad as too cold.
Why? Tree ring data can only tell us what the conditions for growth were at the time. It can’t give an accurate representation of past temperatures.
It can when we know that temperature and other growth factors such as rainfall are correlated and that the geophysical characteristics of the region (such as the Great Basin of the US, where the infamous bristlecone pines) hasn’t changed meaningfully during the period of time in question.
Richard Steckis, actually for your contention to be correct, there would have to be an infinite number of phenomena that interact to give rise to climate. That you hold such a view, would be sufficient to dismiss any expertise you claim about the subject. Even if you do not view the influences as infinite, your flippant dismissal of the successes climate models have at explaining this complicated system shows you haven’t given the matter much consideration beyond what it takes to justify your politics.
The questions is though what influences the tree ring growth the most, is it proxy data for hours of sunshine, cloud cover, moisture, drought, fire, temperature, invasive species, beetles, aerosols, wind speed, wind direction, root depth?
GP,
Thanks for the response. I don’t understand the following though it may be of relevance.
The Voigt and Complex Error Function: A comparison of computational methods
F. Schreier
J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer Vol. 48, No. 516, pp. 143-762, 1992
The convolution integral defining the Voigt profile or the closely related complex error function cannot be evaluated in closed form and therefore has to be computed numerically.
[...]
[one approach] evaluates the Voigt function in the Fourier-transformed space, where the convolution integral is just the product of the Fourier transforms of the Lorentz and Gauss functions.
[...]
An interesting computational approach is provided by the simple representation of the Voigt function in the Fourier transform domain in combination with highly efficient Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithms. Furthermore it has been emphasized by Karp that, for an absorption coefficient with many contributing lines, only two transforms are required because of the frequency shift properties of the Fourier transformation. However, for the evaluation of the absorption coefficient at n[v] grid points in the wave number domain, the same number of evaluations is necessary in the Fourier domain, i.e. for n[i] contributing lines we have n[i]n[v] evaluations of the Fourier transformed Voigt function.
Efficient computation of spectral line shapes
A. H. Karp
J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer Vol. 105, No. 3, pp. 519-524, 1978
A method for computing spectral line shapes based on the Fourier representation of the Voigt profile is presented. The linearity of Fourier transforms is used to eliminate the need to evaluate the Voigt function repeatedly. Instead, the method requires computing only sines, cosines, and exponentials for each line and two Fourier transforms for the entire frequency range. The method is shown to be computationally more efficient than previous approaches for a wide variety of problems, particularly when there are many overlapping lines. In contrast to other approximations which have fixed error bounds, the accuracy of the transform method can be controlled by varying the frequency interval and number of points.
Humlicek’s algorithm…
The Voigt profile, integral [-inf, +inf] exp(-(t^2))/(y^2+(x-t)^2) dt
is equal to the Real part of the complex error function of z=x+iy.
y is the ratio of the pressure-broadened to Doppler-broadened half-width of the line, so the function is evaluated only in the +y half of the complex plane.
Humlicek (1982) splits the plane into four regions and approximates the Voigt profile in each by a rational function, the coefficients are determined by Gauss-Hermite quadrature. It seems simple enough to implement. At the end of the paper there’s a short Fortran code.
Scientific consensus is as fluid as it needs to be. Think of it this way: You are an ambitious, young scientist trying to get ahead. On the one hand, you’ll get nowhere by slavish devotion to the current understanding. You have to innovate. At the same time, there are some aspects to the theory you just can’t do without. For those aspects that pretty much everyone agrees they can’t do without, we have scientific consensus. That none of the current, successful climate models has a climate sensitivity less than 2 degrees per doubling is a pretty good argument that we have consensus there. This is particularly true since anyone who made a model work with such a sensitivity would be elevated to superstar status in the climate community–hell, they’d probably even get on Oprah!
The questions is though what influences the tree ring growth the most, is it proxy data for hours of sunshine, cloud cover, moisture, drought, fire, temperature, invasive species, beetles, aerosols, wind speed, wind direction, root depth?
Temperature can effect all of those except for (presumably human introduced) invasive species and pollution (aerosols).
Again, if there’s a good correlation between temperature and the total effect of various factors affecting growth, you’re set.
I suppose you’re one of those who believe that the usefulness of tree ring growth as a temperature proxy is just an evil unfounded assumption based on no evidence, right?
That no one has actually looked into these things before adopting tree ring growth as a proxy?
I assume you’ve “learned” this through CA or some other “irrefutable” source of “reliable” information on science?
The questions is though what influences the tree ring growth the most, is it proxy data for hours of sunshine, cloud cover, moisture, drought, fire, temperature, invasive species, beetles, aerosols, wind speed, wind direction, root depth?
or even CO2?
Tree ring data cannot capture the recent late 20th century warming. The extended reconstructions show post-1980 temperatues to be ~ 0.3 deg cooler than actual observations.
As the above post notes, temperature is only one of many factors which contribute to ring growth. Reconstructions based on tree ring data might, at best, estimate the temperature contribution to growth.
Of course, the downside is that the models are “wrong”. Shame they’re “wrong” in the “wrong direction” for people in the set termed “Watts’s acolytes”! (Sarcasm over.)
As the above post notes, temperature is only one of many factors which contribute to ring growth.
The scientists involved are extremely aware of this.
Now, how about a little comparison between, say, the robustness of proxy temperature reconstructions vs. that ‘ole denialist “trump card”, cosmic rays prove that the sun, not CO2, is the cause of recent warming?
hold on there… a professor of Waterloo uni was already predicting that Cosmic Rays would cause a record Antarctic Ozone hole this month. Something about particles reacting with the some GHG which then would deplete the O3. That we knew that those react with O3 is not novel, but it’s the rays driving it, not the sun’s UV.
dhogaza, if I had learned it on another site, I wouldn’t be asking it here, as there would be no reason to if I had “learned” it.. Take a pill..
It just seems an impossible task to pull a signal out of growth numbers and then discern that it was totally temperature that governed the growth, you can have a warm wet year and warm dry year, you can have cold wet year and cold dry year. Also as another said their is fertilization to be accounted for as well.
Most of the dendro sites are more about dating specific atmospheric events rather than determining a base temperature from the tree rings, its information on that I am after.
The scientists involved are extremely aware of this.
Are they? Then why do they seem to think they can estimate average temperatures with any accuracy by measuring tree ring widths.
Now, how about a little comparison between, say, the robustness of proxy temperature reconstructions vs. that ‘ole denialist “trump card”, cosmic rays prove that the sun, not CO2, is the cause of recent warming?
The worst correlation I’ve come across in climate research is the one between tree ring data and temperature in the post-1980 period. As this is the only period which can be used to validate tree rings as a temperature proxy this doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. The only reason the earlier temp record ‘fits’ is because it’s used as used as the calibration period.
Of course there is one other interesting possibility. That is, the current temperature record could be wrong – or, to be more precise, it could be wrong relative to the earlier part of the record. In other words the 1940 temperatures could have, in fact, been pretty much the same as current temperatures (as of course they were in US, the arctic, etc). That just leaves the PDO to explain 20th century fluctuations.
It just seems an impossible task to pull a signal out of growth numbers and then discern that it was totally temperature that governed the growth, you can have a warm wet year and warm dry year, you can have cold wet year and cold dry year.
Rather than assume, a priori, that the scientists involved are wrong, and that you’re right …
Hit the google, preferably the scholar one, look up the sources, do some reading in your local university, and go convince the world.
It takes a bit more than “it just seems an impossible task” to convince people that scientific results are in error.
Lazar, OK, I think I see your problem. If you want to evaluate the Voigt profile itself, V(x; sigma, gamma), you’re in for a rough ride. What I pointed out (and it may not be relevant for what you try to do) is that you can evaluate the integral from -inf to +inf over V(x)dx by using the convolution theorem, and you find it is the product of same integrals over the Gaussian and Lorentz functions, respectively.
But I don’t think it’s any use for what you want to do.
What ever started this whole PDO fad in the first place? It doesn’t even make sense– the PDO involves subtracting the global mean SST for each month, which amounts to subtracting off the global mean warming trend. By definition of the PDO, this whole reasoning is garbage.
A statement of the obvious. But we must cleanse ourselves of the need to respond to contrarians and denialists of whatever stripe.
Given the certaintly with which the label and its analogues are generously tossed throughout all alarmist discussions (including comments here) in order to dismiss the need for any further discussion, there are surely blood tests to which we can refer to predetermine whether the holocaustic denialists’ writings need even be perused.
We’d hate to give mass murderers any glimpse credibility.
[Response: In my opinion, global warming denialists are in denial, and usually motivated by ideology rather than rationality. But likening them to holocaust deniers, or to mass murderers, I believe is both unfair and unproductive.]
Tamino: [Response {to aliunde // November 25, 2008 at 11:18 pm}: In my opinion, global warming denialists are in denial, and usually motivated by ideology rather than rationality. But likening them to holocaust deniers, or to mass murderers, I believe is both unfair and unproductive.]
I should have used my tags as I hope you or others weren’t taking my hyperbole seriously, though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t used to try to demonstrate some seeming absurdities.
However, in response to your response: isn’t “likening them to holocaust deniers” exactly the point of the label. It seems specious to claim otherwise, especially when the so-called deniers usually don’t “deny” global warming to begin with–rather its causes and extent.
Unless you want to claim a static science, it seems “in denial” is completely undefinable and is simply a less egregious pejorative than the “holocaust denier” associative word game. Now they merely suffer from psychological problems.
To try to claim the high road of not “likening them to holocaust deniers” while at the same time trying to associate them with the obvious connotation of the word and, concomitantly, to people who would think like holocaust deniers is what seems so blatantly “unfair and unproductive.”
What other purpose does it serve except as an attempt to stereotype, denigrate, and thereby dismiss a need to deal respectfully with their arguments. The same is true of all labels. They are ad hominem arguments to convince others to remain in ignorance by not dealing with the alternative arguments themselves.
And as an aside, what evidence do you (or anyone–don’t mean to make it personal) have that they are motivated by ideology besides their disagreement with your own normative rules for what constitutes acceptable scientific orthodoxy?
[Response: No, "likening them to holocaust deniers" is most certainly NOT the purpose, or the intent, of labeling them "denialists." Nor is the "association" my intention, or that of the vast majority who use that moniker. The claim that it is, happens to be a common propaganda ploy by denialists themselves, in order to demonize their opposition.
They are called denialists because they're in denial. Example: those claim that "global warming stopped in 1998," and maintain that belief (or profess to) even after they've been shown the error of their ways. Another example: any and all who have tried to claim that 2008 arctic sea ice extent represents a "dramatic recovery" which is evidence against global warming. To believe that, you have to be so deep in denial that you have abandoned any connection with rationality.
I find your tone, and your implications, offensive. Was your comment nothing more than a ploy, an atempt to bait me and others here?]
What other purpose does it serve except as an attempt to stereotype, denigrate, and thereby dismiss a need to deal respectfully with their arguments.
I suggest that you take a good look at Tamino’s posts.
You will quickly realize how absurd (and foolish) your claim is — at least applied to Tamino (which you did above)
Tamino has bent over backwards — and done summer-saults, cartwheels and double twists — to deal with the so-called “arguments” and “science” of these people.
His willingness to address the misconceptions and pure ignorance is a testament to the fact that he has far more patience for nonsense than the vast majority of scientists with blogs.
But why should Tamino bother with someone who simply refuses to look at any of the detailed explanations he puts in so much effort (and time) to produce and instead simply repeats the same hackneyed claims over and over (and over): “Global warming stopped in 1998″.
“Denialist” is a particularly apt (and overly kind) description for the latter type of person, in my opinion.
I suspect Dr. Lu’s reaction to the news will be somewhat different than Dennis Avery’s. Due to the fact that Dr. Lu’s research seems to be focused on the Antarctic Ozone Hole and that the extrapolation of his prediction to “kills climate science!” appears to be due to Avery alone.
> But likening them to holocaust deniers, or to mass murderers, I believe is both unfair and unproductive.
It only feels that way now, because the Shoah is in the past and part of history, while the climatic holocaust is still to come. It’s basically a lack of imagination, like that of the nations refusing to let Jewish refugees in anno 1938 — they weren’t monsters either.
I’ll never understand those that object to the likening and not to the likeness.
[Response: I disagree. In my opinion, those who deny the holocaust do so because of racism and/or religiously hatred. Those who deny AGW do so out of fear of the sacrifices they'll be required to make, or fear of the horrible consequences if it's true. Which it is.]
quote Less urban smog, more methane surviving from natural gas leaks to get into the general atmospheric circulation?
It’s speculation on my part. unquote
I remember a paper sme years ago (no, sorry, memory only, no details) that studied suppression of methane production in tundra soils by acid rain.
Two years ago, on my website, I wrote ‘We’ve pumped out megatonnes of sulphur dioxide since the start of the Industrial Revolution, perfect cloud makers. However, this should have cooled things until we became worried about acid rain and curbed these emissions. Ironically, we may have exacerbated one problem by addressing another (and, incidentally, the sulphur has been holding back methane production in the arctic — when the sulphur brake comes off we’ll see an uptick in methane and another panic).’
While I’m on a roll…. the light carbon signal is caused by agricultural dust production which feeds the silicon starved ocean and allows more diatom growth. Diatoms differentiate less than C3 phytoplankton.
[Response {to aliunde // November 26, 2008 at 2:21 am}: No, "likening them to holocaust deniers" is most certainly NOT the purpose, or the intent, of labeling them "denialists." Nor is the "association" my intention, or that of the vast majority who use that moniker. The claim that it is, happens to be a common propaganda ploy by denialists themselves, in order to demonize their opposition.
[snip reasons they are called "denialists"]
I find your tone, and your implications, offensive. Was your comment nothing more than a ploy, an atempt to bait me and others here?]
I honestly regret that you found it so offensive, and was absolutely taken aback at the seeming hostility of the response. There was no hostility whatsoever on my part in trying to understand why the term was ever adopted or is so consistently used (and to which I admittedly do object). If you or others disagreed with any characterization I made, I was glad to have a civil disagreement and to be presented with a different point of view. I’d just ask for the benefit of the doubt before you come to conclusions as to my motivations. To be honest, I’m not sure what one would be “baited” into doing except explaining why they disagreed. Then again, each site has its own personality, and I just stumbled upon this one while perusing another.
I suppose I could say I take offense at the offense, which to a certain extent is true, as you assumed a “tone” when it is exactly those kinds of nuances that do not lend themselves to the printed word. I would have preferred you point out what caused you offense so that I might be given the chance to correct any misconceptions you may have presumed as well as assurances that I wasn’t trying to be deliberately so.
It was a very honest attempt to point out some of the real problems I see with using the particular label “denialist” (whose etymology I really do believe to be correct, whether you in particular use it for that purpose or not–I’ve seen all too many cases where it is). Likewise, my discussion wasn’t limited to the term “denialist,” but to the use of pejorative labels in general.
With that preface, I’ll try to make better sense.
Words have connotations whether we personally mean to attach them to those words or not, and “denialist” seems to be one of those words. I remember the first time I read it (don’t ask me when–too long ago), “holocaust denier” was the first and immediate connotation that came into my mind. I can’t help but think the same connotation is in the mind of the vast majority of those who read the word or who are on the receiving end of the label, rather than representing “a common propaganda ploy.”
Consequently, I don’t believe that to object to it is to “demonize” the person who uses it–one can object for reasons entirely separate from the intent of the user. I guess I would have less of a problem with it if the insistence on using it were absent. Were it not used as stereotypical of a group who may simply disagree with you or me, it seems much more in the scientific tradition to use a less “loaded” word such as skeptic. That stops no one from arguing in an individual discussion that it is their belief that someone is wrong (or in denial in you prefer) and to end the discussion as hopeless on that basis. But, again, I feel science is best served by the least adversarial approach.
My problem with the use of labels in general (and I should clarify that I mean pejorative ones) is that they are by very nature ad hominem since they tend to discredit the individual (or group) making the argument before the argument is made. For that reason, as well, I think science is better served by presenting at least the appearance of openness to discussion, rather than one of being unwilling to engage someone who might assume they are part of a group attached to the “wrong” label. I honestly do not see how the generalized application of any pejorative label is beneficial in any way to any field of science.
[Response: The word "skeptic" is not just less insulting, it's an actual compliment. But it does not apply to many who apply the term to themselves.
I don't mean everyone who disagrees with mainstream climate science; I mean those who keep saying "global warming stopped in 1998" and "2008 shows dramatic recovery in arctic sea ice which disproves global warming" and "climate is always changing, it's just natural cycles" or "computer models aren't worth the electricity required to run them" or "the increase in CO2 isn't due to human activity." These people aren't skeptics, they're in denial, and they don't deserve the name "skeptic" any more than those who claim that the earth is flat.
Yet they call themselves skeptics while arguing for the most outlandish theories with little or no support, or even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. Where's the "skepticism" about claims that we're certainly headed into another Maunder minimum, or global warming is only due to galactic cosmic rays, or clouds are sure to be a powerful negative feedback which will restore stability to the climate system? Denying AGW while swallowing half-baked theories hook, line, and sinker, isn't skepticism -- it's the worst form of self-serving gullibility.
I call them denialists because they're in denial. Perhaps you'd prefer the term "flat-earthers"?]
Aliunde, OK, you don’t like “denialist”. So what term would you suggest for those that CHOOSE to ignore the mountain of evidence–not to mention the physics–that we are changing the climate? Do you perhaps prefer “Willfully Ignorant”?
Aliunde, Oh please! You certainly have no trouble tossing out the label “alarmist” with all of its connotations. Again, I ask what you would call someone who ignores the mountain of evidence that we are altering climate? “Skeptic” implies that they have acknowledged and understand the evidence but have a plausible alternative explanation for it. This is not the case. Frankly, calling them denialist is giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are not motivated by mendacity. I call that charitable in many cases.
I find the willingness to put formal AGW under the microscope while accepting half-baked theories troublesome. Mostly it is a characteristic of the hoi polloi. The jae’s, the Watts’s. But you see some of it from the old retired set (McI, Singer, etc.) at times.
I believe Tammy has been a bit prone to this tendancy when using his blog posts as “educational expositions” of some aspect of Mannianism (PCA, etc.) where what he does is basically accept a Mann explanation from RC and try to explain it in more detail, but never really test it himself (this got him in trouble with Jolliffe).
It’s human nature. You see the same things in politics. Anti-war opponents who buy into Truther theories or Democrats who believe in Diebold cheating. (On the right, you have the ones who kept thinking we would find MWD in every abandonded bunker…and looked silly touting claims that didn’t hold up.)
It’s a lonely thing to be genuinely skeptical and curious and especially to apply it to your own “side”. That’s TRAITOROUS! Because we are social animals, most of the interaction on blogs tends to be around finding similar thinkers who can provide supports to our own views.
Anti-war opponents who buy into Truther theories or Democrats who believe in Diebold cheating.
If by truther theories you mean 9/11 crap, that’s another version of denialism for sure.
Diebold (and certain other brand) vote-counting computers are demonstrably insecure and not built with reliable software components (access, forsooth!), so I’m not sure I’d put suspicions of foul play there in the same category. It is possible to be skeptical of a count by Diebold machines on purely defensible technical grounds. After all it was computer science security types who quite early on blasted Diebold’s vote counting equipment on such grounds.
Sure. And it’s legitimate to worry about Democraps voting graveyards and helping illegals get ballots. But neither has swung any elections. It’s just red meat for the nitwit base (Kos kidz or Freepers).
TCO, There is a reason why some propositions are uncontroversial among those who understand the underlying science. Evolution does not rest on the provenance of any one fossil or any one study. Likewise anthropogenic causation of the current warming doesn’t rest on the latest Ouvre of Mann et al. or any other single study. If we aren’t warming the planet, then everything we know about climate is wrong. It is difficult to credit that given the success climate science has had in explaining things from paleoclimate to response to perturbations like volcanic eruptions. This is not to say that we don’t have a lot to learn about climate–we do. It is just that what we learn is extremely likely to alter the conclusion that we’re altering the climate.
[Response: I'd guess that you meant to say, "extremely unlikely."]
I disagree. In my opinion, those who deny the holocaust
do so because of racism and/or religiously hatred. Those who deny
AGW do so out of fear of the sacrifices they’ll be required to
make, or fear of the horrible consequences if it’s true. Which it is.
Yes. So? In both cases, emotion trumping fact, the classical definition of psychological denial.
You make my point :-)
I do understand that the Holocaust metaphor is politically incorrect in the U.S. situation.
Dave A // November 26, 2008 at 10:50 pm — There is a big difference between the inquiring student attempting to learn climatology and the denailist who keeping popping in here (and elsewhere) with their absolute rubbish.
Some parts of science are quite definitive. Nobody doubts Newton’s work at non-relativistifc speeds. No one should doubt the fundamentals of atmospheric physics, worked out since around 1829 CE.
The big remaining questions in climatology appear to be clouds and areosols. But I don’t see many inquiring students coming here (or elsewhere) to ask questions about clouds or aerosols. Instead I see … well, you know.
Because, ya know, you’ve made it abundantly clear here and elsewhere that you have no political bias whatsoever, and whatever you post is the unbiased, unvarnished truth.
No, “Diebold didn’t steal Ohio”. Yes, there’s a good reason why elections officials across the country have been quietly switching to systems that allow for reasonable auditing of reported results.
“Those who deny AGW do so out of fear of the sacrifices they’ll be required to make, or fear of the horrible consequences if it’s true.”
Yes, this is the nub of the matter. Do you think that rational good faith disagreement with the AGW hypothesis is possible? Rational good faith disagreement with the proposition that the Holocaust happened, as an historical fact, is not possible.
Do you really think that AGW is evidentially like this, so obvious, so proven, with such a dearth of contrary evidence? No, not really. I think there is evidence on both sides, and that the science is not settled, and don’t think I’m in denial to have come to this conclusion.
> Do you think that rational good faith disagreement with the AGW hypothesis is possible?
No, no informed rational good faith disagreement.
> Do you really think that AGW is evidentially like this, so obvious, so proven, with such a dearth of contrary evidence?
Yes. If we talk about the reality of the thing and not about the technical details, Yes. And I would hold that anyone questioning this is either not being honest (i.e., a denialist), or has failed to do his or her homework, just like in the Holocaust case. Fortunately in Western countries, it is difficult to escape doing your homework on the Holocaust, as it is part of history teaching. That’s why its denial is the lunatic fringe, not because of any intrinsic greater certainty. Yet, if you were to ask the average citizen what he bases his belief on that the Holocaust really happened, you would either get indignation, or a question mark look, but rarely a real answer… “everybody knows”. Not very robust. And not so for AGW.
In fact, the questions and objections I hear from denialists of both ilks (and from evolution denial BTW) are so eerily similar in their dishonesty, that you’d have to be pretty confused not to spot the similarity. They’re from the same playbook.
(”How can they be so certain it was six million? There was a war going on, for crying out loud. And who is doing the counting? No vested interests there, suuure. And how would you count a Jewish gay communist victim? You don’t have an answer to that, huh?” I feel dirty even writing this.)
Dhogza: You are shifting the debate from one of impact to one of concerns. I am making fun of people who think Ohio was stolen in 2004. If you want to argue about concerns, then there are plenty on the well known habit of “walking around money” for turning out the inner city vote.
If you want to argue about concerns, then there are plenty on the well known habit of “walking around money” for turning out the inner city vote.
Let’s have a little proof of fraud, here, then. You like to sling shit to see what will stick to the wall, well, show us that the shit you’re slinging is sticky.
Let’s have some numbers, firm numbers. What percentage of the inner city vote is bought and paid for?
I am making fun of people who think Ohio was stolen in 2004.
There’s quite clear evidence of Republican efforts to minimize the minority vote in Ohio. The fact that Kerry lost by more than the cumulative impact of such efforts doesn’t make such efforts right.
Efforts to suppress the black vote is a matter of history, not opinion, in much of this country.
Aliunde, Oh please! You certainly have no trouble tossing out the label “alarmist” with all of its connotations.
Having no appropriate links myself, would you mind tossing out (if they’re allowed here–sorry I’m ignorant on that point) links to the examples of my “tossing out” the “alarmist” label. If I ever tried inhibiting debate by using the term (which I don’t believe I have), we could certainly then discuss it in context.
Again, I ask what you would call someone who ignores the mountain of evidence that we are altering climate?
I think you missed the entire point of my post. I’m not suggesting any label except the one that deals with the arguments themselves. If you want to generalize as if all those who do not agree with you as to the extent of human influence on climate must, by definition, fit into a single category, you can always use the label “those who disagree with me.” The point of science and all rational discussion is to keep emotions as far away from the debate as possible. Anything else suggests a vested interest in a particular outcome.
As for the “mountain of evidence,” I suppose it depends on whose mountain is being gored (no pun intended). I tend to take “mountains of evidence” arguments with the same seriousness as did the jury in the OJ Simpson trial. Statements like this simply make me discount the credibility of the person making the argument (given I have familiarized myself with the science). It’s sounds too much like someone claiming their big brother is standing behind them ready to enforce their point of view if they can’t make the point themselves.
The difference between you and I, it seems at this point, is that I’m capable of accepting the fact that good science lies on both sides of the argument and am willing to be swayed by both. I also gladly point out the weaknesses I see in either side of the debate. I have a viewpoint, but I am not wed to it till death do us part. You are free to disabuse me of my present impression.
An individual or group who declares their favored scientific theory beyond reproach is a group that has just crossed the line from science to religion. Real science is always skeptical of its conclusions; it has no way of progressing otherwise.
“Skeptic” implies that they have acknowledged and understand the evidence but have a plausible alternative explanation for it.
While an ignoramus can be skeptical of a great deal, I take your point to mean you’re arguing that your case can’t be made without ad hominems thrown in for good measure?
> Do you think that rational good faith disagreement with the AGW hypothesis is possible?
No, no informed rational good faith disagreement.
> Do you really think that AGW is evidentially like this, so obvious, so proven, with such a dearth of contrary evidence?
Yes. If we talk about the reality of the thing and not about the technical details, Yes. And I would hold that anyone questioning this is either not being honest (i.e., a denialist), or has failed to do his or her homework, just like in the Holocaust case.
“The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.”
…
“The research does not absolve those who are responsible for promoting myths in the first place. What the psychological studies highlight, however, is the potential paradox in trying to fight bad information with good information.
Schwarz’s study was published this year in the journal Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, but the roots of the research go back decades. As early as 1945, psychologists Floyd Allport and Milton Lepkin found that the more often people heard false wartime rumors, the more likely they were to believe them.
The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious “rules of thumb” that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.
The experiments also highlight the difference between asking people whether they still believe a falsehood immediately after giving them the correct information, and asking them a few days later. Long-term memories matter most in public health campaigns or political ones, and they are the most susceptible to the bias of thinking that well-recalled false information is true.
The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind’s bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.
The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people’s minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.
Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain’s subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true”
…
“Furthermore, a new experiment by Kimberlee Weaver at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and others shows that hearing the same thing over and over again from one source can have the same effect as hearing that thing from many different people — the brain gets tricked into thinking it has heard a piece of information from multiple, independent sources, even when it has not. Weaver’s study was published this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The experiments by Weaver, Schwarz and others illustrate another basic property of the mind — it is not good at remembering when and where a person first learned something. People are not good at keeping track of which information came from credible sources and which came from less trustworthy ones, or even remembering that some information came from the same untrustworthy source over and over again. Even if a person recognizes which sources are credible and which are not, repeated assertions and denials can have the effect of making the information more accessible in memory and thereby making it feel true, said Schwarz.
Experiments by Ruth Mayo, a cognitive social psychologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, also found that for a substantial chunk of people, the “negation tag” of a denial falls off with time. Mayo’s findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2004.”
…
Mayo found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that “Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did,” Mayo said it would be better to say something like, “Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks” — and not mention Hussein at all.
The psychologist acknowledged that such a statement might not be entirely accurate — issuing a denial or keeping silent are sometimes the only real options.
So is silence the best way to deal with myths? Unfortunately, the answer to that question also seems to be no.
Another recent study found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true ….
Myth-busters, in other words, have the odds against them.”
——-
Well worth nine and 3/4 minutes of listening time, particularly for sound clips showing how much the Heartland folks loved the word “denial” and use it to paint themselves as victims — they have clip after clip of the speakers each doing the concern troll routine:
Aliunde, OK, you claim to have studied the science and that there is good science on “both sides”. Perhaps you would be so good as to cite a peer-reviewed (an abominably low threshold, by your own contention) journal article that credibly argues for a climate sensitivity much less that, say 2 degrees C per doubling. And can you point me to a climate model that assumes such a low value and can reproduce observed trends in the current climate and paleoclimate. Now, to save time, please don’t cite say Schwartz’s recent work or that by Spencer. These have been taken on so many holes since they were published, that they are effectively perforated.
OK, Aliunde. Big chance. Educate us.
Michel, please specify what you mean by “AGW”. Do you mean the contention that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Do you mean the contention that the globe is warming? Do you mean the contention that humans are largely behind the warming trend? These are all pretty much nailed tight. If they are wrong, then everything we think we know about climate is wrong.
I would contend that it is also beyond question that climate change will have negative consequences that will have to be mitigated at great cost. How bad these consequences are and what to do about them is still open to debate.
It’s about evidence. Whatever you have cogent evidence for is open.
Following on from Wobbles , part 1, I wanted to know how much of an effect our current eccentricity had on the Earth’s temperature.
Plotting 30 year averages for each month of the year, I found that there is an annual temperature peak around the end of February (about 0.1°C above the rest of the year). This doesn’t coincide with perihelion, but allowing for some thermal lag of the oceans it seems reasonable.
There isn’t a corresponding dip in late (NH) Summer, but I would put that down to the difference in land masses between the two hemispheres.
I’m a novice at this stuff, though.
I’m sure there is literature out there that has already looked at this, but I lack Hank’s Google skills. :)
If anyone can point me to papers (preferably not pay- walled ones) that explore this, I would be grateful.
Hank, very interesting discussion of denial. No doubt it is all true. But it doesn’t address the question of who it is who is actually in denial.
You’re assuming that it is someone like me, but I could equally counter that it is someone like you because you accept AGW totally and are in denial about any other possibility.
I Googled TCO and Democraps (not ever having seen the expression before) yesterday and wasted several valueless hours (I am long retired from LBNL) reading his comments. Mostly political sites.
Assuming it is “our” TCO, he goes back to at least 2005. Probably read a lot of Ayn Rand and Nation Review.
Was going to provide quotes but thought better of it.
But it doesn’t address the question of who it is who is actually in denial.
You’re assuming that it is someone like me, but I could equally counter that it is someone like you because you accept AGW totally and are in denial about any other possibility.
Those are words that could only ever be written/spoken by someone drowning in a warming, acidifying sea of denial.
We-eelll, Dave A. there is a slight difference between your point of view and ours. On the one hand we have huge amounts of evidence that actually supports our position–literally volumes of it. We have basic physics that says that when you increase CO2, things have to heat up. We have detailed climate simulations that explain everything from paleoclimate to the response of climate to volcanic eruptions. Oh, yeah, and the overwhelming preponderance of opinion among people who actually do all this stuff for a living–you know, the experts.
And you base your opinion on…uh…hmm…well, what exactly?
What I find common, is the you get denial because consequences of AGW being true appear unbearable. It also oddly seems to more a question of political ideology than self-interest though that must motivate some. All proposed solutions for slowing warming except geoengineering appear to be an anathema to some political positions. It seems almost like “the political solution is wrong so AGW must be wrong”. Cognitive dissonance? Like creationists, there are resources around that reassure the denialist. Beliefs are far more important than data. Perhaps what separates scientists from others is the training to decide propositions on data.
Humans a lousy at risk analysis but it is surely self-evident that acting as if true is far safer for future generations than refusing to act now. With so many natural feedbacks at work, I worry that we might already be beyond any significant slowing of warming. Wiser future generations may have to work for a couple of generations, with terrible losses and self-sacrifice, before any noticable change will occur – all because we didnt act now. What did Vonnegut claim would be mankind’s epitaph? “We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard … and too damn cheap,”
In one sentence, the hypothesis that CO2 atmospheric ppm is a volume control for average global temperature. The parameters appear to include the view that current levels of rise will deliver a 2C/century rise in AGT, and that lowering levels to 285ppm will maintain AGT at a steady state.
Later you say “We have basic physics that says that when you increase CO2, things have to heat up”. Well no. You have undeniable basic physics on your side when it comes to CO2 infra red absorption. But that does not deliver the degree of warming needed. You also need feedback. Now, that may or may not exist in the form and scale you need, but to think its existence is subject to debate is not at all like doubting proven well known historical events like the Holocaust or the battle of Waterloo.
To maintain that it is is to be, as we say in the trade, ‘in denial’.
I also think that the reverse control mechanism is more subject to controversy than the upward one. Where is there a case when lowering CO2 has lowered temperatures? Maybe it will, I am not saying positively that it won’t, but it does need some evidential support.
On the one hand we have huge amounts of evidence that actually supports our position–literally volumes of it.
1. You have no explanation for what caused the early 20th century warming.
2. You have no explanation for the cooling (or lack of warming) in the post-1940 period.
3. No-one has actually quantified the warming expected from a doubling of CO2. (the only evidence appears to be from the last GCM when temp changes preceded CO2 changes).
4. No-one, as far as I am aware, has managed to explain how the LW radiation from increased GHGs warms the oceans.
5. A number of models using ocean oscillations only show that most of the 20th century warming can be explained by ENSO and AMO.
[Response: Every one of your claims is wrong. You're an example of what is meant by "so deep in denial that you've abandoned all connection with rationality."]
Do you really think that AGW is evidentially like this, so obvious, so proven, with such a dearth of contrary evidence? No, not really. I think there is evidence on both sides, and that the science is not settled, and don’t think I’m in denial to have come to this conclusion.
I am making fun of people who think Ohio was stolen in 2004.
An old friend of mine who lives in East Liverpool, Ohio, reports that Kent State students were bused to incorrect polling places and did not have enough time left to get to the correct ones and vote. The student vote was, of course, heavily pro-Kerry.
Yes, I think the GOP stole the vote in Ohio. I think the GOP stole both the 2000 and 2004 elections. I think the current GOP is the most fundamentally dishonest major party in American history with the possible exception of the Know-Nothings or the antebellum southern Democrats.
I’m capable of accepting the fact that good science lies on both sides of the argument and am willing to be swayed by both.
Are you capable of accepting the fact that good science lies on both sides of the evolution argument or the Holocaust argument or the HIV-causes-AIDS argument? By even saying something like the above you show how little you understand about the entire field.
2. Are you saying there has not been a single conviction for vote fraud related activities in inner city politics for the last several years? Why fucking put me to the work to dig it out, if you don’t contest that? Is it a trick of rhetoric? Go google Miami vote fraud, for starters.
TCO: If you want to argue about concerns, then there are plenty on the well known habit of “walking around money” for turning out the inner city vote. ”
Dhogza: “Let’s have a little proof of fraud, here, then. (excised irrelevant ad hom.)” Let’s have some numbers, firm numbers. What percentage of the inner city vote is bought and paid for?
————————–
Do you understand the difference between concerns and a proven case, showing exact numbers?
————————-
TCO: “I am making fun of people who think Ohio was stolen in 2004.”
Dhog: “There’s quite clear evidence of Republican efforts to minimize the minority vote in Ohio. The fact that Kerry lost by more than the cumulative impact of such efforts doesn’t make such efforts right. Efforts to suppress the black vote is a matter of history, not opinion, in much of this country.”
————————-
1. You ask for exact numerical proof on one hand, but then on your side, just make a bald assertion. Saying it more emphatically, “dog”, does not make it a stronger case.
2. Historical suppression of minority voting (much by Democrats in the South) is…historical. How can the truth of that, prove that Republicans are doing that in Ohio? Perhaps, I can use Tammany from history to prove that Democrats are cheating now? No. You have a mistake in logic.
3. If you know for sure that this happened in Ohio, how do you know the extent of it? Maybe those tin foil wearers are right…and the extent was enough to shift the vote for Bush! Certainly, there are KosKidz who think so. And how do you know that the extent of this “minority suppression” (which has not been proven by say…criminal conviction) was less or more than the “walking around money fraud” that Tom Wolfe writes about?
Where is there a case when lowering CO2 has lowered temperatures? Maybe it will, I am not saying positively that it won’t, but it does need some evidential support.
Somewhat circumventing (and ignoring — I’ve got better things to do with my time today, thank-you) the well-worn contrarian contortions on CO2 into and out of stadials, this graphic provides some evidence… surely.
I’m not arguing that AGW is not happening. What I am prepared to argue is that the proposition that feedback effects exist in the quantity and kind required to make the rise in CO2 deliver the IPCC forecast of 2C/century is not proven to the same level of certainty as the proposition that the battle of Waterloo took place.
We can, for instance, inspect the site, read the memoirs of participants. In the case of the Holocaust we can visit the camps. One, Dachau, is a few miles outside Munich and readily accessible.
In the case of the feedback mechanism we have to rely on models and a long chain of indirect reasoning. It may all be true. It is not as obviously true or undeniable as the history cases. Reasonable informed people may have doubts about how probable it has been proved to be.
You can see this by asking what we would have to abandon were we to abandon it. It would require fairly minimal revisions of the rest of science. We would simply have to conclude that all the laws of physics worked just as we had thought they did, but that as it happened, the world was slightly differently constituted to how we had thought. The kind of fairly minor revision that happens all the time when we are trying to decide not what are the laws of physics, but how is the planet constituted.
P Lewis – your link provides no evidence that turning down the CO2 volume will turn down the temperature. It provides no evidence that it ever has. Again, I am not asserting that it definitely will not. I am asserting that it less well evidenced than the proposition that raising CO2 will raise temperature, and very much less well evidenced than the proposition that the battle of Waterloo took place. Put it another way, I would need quite a bit more proof if this were an investment scenario and I were being asked to put money into it. Oh, wait a minute, guess that is exactly what is being asked….
P Lewis – your link provides no evidence that turning down the CO2 volume will turn down the temperature. It provides no evidence that it ever has. Again, I am not asserting that it definitely will not. I am asserting that it less well evidenced than the proposition that raising CO2 will raise temperature, and very much less well evidenced than the proposition that the battle of Waterloo took place.
Well, that’s pretty much the reply I was expecting.
BPL: I have had the experience of not knowing my polling place (which I should have figured out before the day of the election) and then being frustrated running around looking for it, relying on an expired address. I would like a little more proof that the Kent State students were deliberately “misbussed” (by whom, etc.) than your friend’s report.
Also, you are beleiving what it is in your interest to believe. You are emotional about this. This is a common human trait called wishcasting. While you would love it to be true, you need to be open to the possibility that it is not true. Especially as it has not been settled in court or by incontrovertible academic studies or the like.
The second question is easy to answer, Scottish verdict, “not proven” when tested statistically, and examination by individual machine, county or state isn’t going to happen for 2004:
> Where is there a case when lowering CO2 has lowered temperatures?
Most spectacularly, Snowball Earth. Lowering… and raising. Four times over on last count. Do your homework.
I would need quite a bit more proof if
this were an investment scenario and I were being asked to put
money into it. Oh, wait a minute, guess that is exactly what is
being asked.
You’re shorting the scenario when you continue to build real estate or infrastructure close to sea level, or poorly insulated and wastefully heated, or a long drive from city centres… remember, depreciation on real estate is up to half a century. It’s a lot of money, the planet’s built-up environment.
2. Any evidence that in fact fraud was committed in Ohio with
Diebold manipulation by Republicans.
Lack of paper trail is a bug, TCO, not the feature you seem to take it for… It’s the potential for undetected fraud that should get your neck hairs up.
I’ll grant though that most of the vote theft in Ohio happened with time-tested non-cyber methods.
John Finn, just for fun I noticed that four of your five claims are directly refuted by a single picture in the last IPCC WG1 report: Figure 9.5. The shape of the curve in 9.5a refutes claims 1 and 2, the position of the observed temp curve bang in the middle of the models meta-ensemble (coloured band) in 9.5a refutes claim 3 (wouldn’t happen if the models implied the “wrong” doubling sensitivity), and finally, the failure of observed temps to do the same in figure 9.5b refutes claim 5. It is surely rare for refutation to come in such a small package ;-)
As for claim 4, it really is no claim but rather an admission of ignorance, and we shall take it at face value :-)
P Lewis: michel’s correct, there’s not even any mention of temperature in that graph…
michel: of course it’s not as certain as waterloo, waterloo has already happened. But in the days leading up the the battle of waterloo, many people would have reasonably accurately predicted the time and place of the battle.
Michel says “It would require fairly minimal revisions of the rest of science. It would require fairly minimal revisions of the rest of science. We would simply have to conclude that all the laws of physics worked just as we had thought they did, but that as it happened, the world was slightly differently constituted to how we had thought. ”
Michel, that right there shows you don’t have even the foggiest notion of how the science works. You don’t even understand how absurd you suggestion is. If it were possible to construct such a model it would have been done. Whoever did so would be famous.
Here’s a hint: there aren’t any loopholes in the laws of physics.
and go on to read Annan & Hargreaves, wherein you will learn about paleoclimatological evidence which helps support that the mnost likely value for equilibrium (Charney) climate sensitivity is close to 3 K.
As for claim 4, it really is no claim but rather an admission of ignorance, and we shall take it at face value :-)
Ok let’s start with claim 4 .
How does/has the increased downwelling IR warm/ed the ocean?
Help me overcome my ignorance , GP.
No 1: early 20th century warming.
this, of course, is due to the sun, lack of volcanos, factor X with perhaps a sprinkle of CO2 – err probably! In other words no-one has a clue. Even if the likely factors
I’ll grant though that most of the vote theft in Ohio happened with time-tested non-cyber methods.
How do you know what “most” happened? How many convictions were there? What are the inputs for your comparative (”most”) statement.
BTW: I fully accept that Diebold lacks traceability. Of course, so do a lot of other methods. And diebold has some advantages over other methods (hanging chads). I’m not even a fan of Diebold. It’s just funny watching you latch on to it. I want to continue with this Socratic dialogue to drive you into a more analytical habit.
Ray (please stop with putting on the airs about science…both of us have left active science…and both have worked in it.) The Earth is an incredibly complex “multi-body” problem. Determining that some aspect of the system had not been modelled properly would not drive us to abandoning fundamentals of gas laws or the like.
P Lewis: michel’s correct, there’s not even any mention of temperature in that graph…
You have a point in some respects. I should have waited until I located the graphic I really wanted to link to. However, ask yourself what the temperatures (ranges) are in interstadials and in stadials. Take a guess and plot them in your mind on the left-hand y-axis. It shouldn’t take a genius to work out what’s happening.
But, with a bit more time on my hands this evening I’ve located the graphic I was actually after; it’s here.
Anyone really interested in John Finn’s question? You can get the fringe blog stuff by looking up Stephen Wilde and checking whether anything he blogs can be found in the science journals. Good luck with that.
After that, look at the published journal articles and you won’t go wrong.
How do you know what most” happened? How many convictions were
there? What are the inputs for your comparative (”most”) statement.
None… precisely my point. That’s why I’m “granting” the point: No use arguing based on an absence of evidence. But if you want to argue the opposite point, I’ll be happy to “grant” that too.
Chapter 6 (”Do Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases Heat the Oceans?”), if we
take it literally, asks a rather embarrassing question (’No grasshopper!
The greenhouse gases are ‘gases’. They heat the atmosphere and surface
and a warmer atmosphere transfers some of that heat to the ocean below.
You still have much to learn.’).
> In the case of the Holocaust we can visit the camps.
> One, Dachau, is a few miles outside Munich and readily accessible.
And there’s a “Creation Museum” just seven miles outside Cincinnati.
That’s not the stuff evidence is made of mate… what I’m arguing is, that you’re missing how even the “obviously true” is behind non-trivial chains of inference.
P. Lewis // November 28, 2008 at 11:29 pm — What was the point? I seemed to have missed it.
Anyway, those temperature deltas must be for Dome C itself; much too large a range for global temperatures; I suggest dividing by two will be about right.
TCO, Of all the global climate models, not one works with a CO2 sensitivity less than 2 degrees per doubling. Do you contend that is due to lack of trying? A working climate model with a low sensitivity would be an interesting beast from a scientific perspective–even absent its important societal implications. If you think people just haven’t tried, you are deluded. The fact is that our both the role of CO2 and the feedbacks are inherent to our understanding of climate. If they are wrong, our understanding of climate would have to be drastically wrong, and that is simply not supported by the evidence.
The code takes HITRAN2004 lines together with molecular and atmospheric properties (molecular mass and geometry, number density, atmospheric temperature and pressure), and will output the absorption coefficient at a given point or, to calculate a line profile, a range of points specified in number of half-widths and the sampling frequency. The user can also specify line parameters in place of HITRAN2004 (such as reference integrated line strength, reference half-width, transition frequency, lower-state energy etc…)
Absorption line profile behaviour with temperature, pressure, and atmospheric composition…
Here is an example of two H2O line profiles for the 337.84 cm-1 transition. The area under the curve, the position of the curve, and the shape of the curve vary.
The area is the integrated line strength, which varies with temperature as collisions between molecules change the distribution of rotational energies. Line strength can increase or decrease with increasing temperature. At atmospheric temperatures it tends to decrease as 1/T. At some temperatures it will increase rapidly, these are called “hot bands”! In the current example, the line strength decreases from 9.89e-28 cm-1 at an altitude of 3 km to 8.62e-28 cm-1 at ground level.
Curve position (line transition frequency) varies with pressure. The effect is only slight, shifting the curve from 337.8448 cm-1 to 337.8444 cm-1 going from 3 km to ground level.
Shape depends on pressure- and Doppler- broadening. Pressure broadening is due to…
Impact broadening. Collisions with other species during absorption/emission effects the transition, and depends on pressure and temperature.
Self broadening, where resonant interactions with the same species occur. Here the dependency is on partial pressure and temperature. In the example, the partial pressure of H2O varies quite considerably from 380 Pa at 3km to 1892 Pa at ground level.
Doppler broadening is due to doppler-shift by the velocities of the absorbing molecules, and is temperature dependent.
The R code can calculate ~ 1 million points in 4 minutes, hence a ballpark figure for line-by-line atmospheric IR transfer, in a 20-layer plane-parallel atmosphere, of about half an hour on a desktop 1.6 Ghz AMD.
I’ve also created a perl script to format the HITRAN2004 database into something that R can read.
If anyone would like copies of the programs, drop a comment or send an email to lazaracflickr [at] yahoo [dot] com.
John Finn – do you actually want to know the truth enough to do some serious study? If not, then argument here is pointless. Your 5 points are mind-boggling in misunderstanding. You need to know more than blog postings.
Michel – you have to look to paleoclimate models. Yes, these are frustratingly unconstrained with respect to relative importance of various feedbacks but just the Pleistocene record would show how important atmosphere concentrations and feedback are. Ditto the larger picture of warming sun but cooling earth looking over a 100 million year or so. Lowering CO2 concentration is cooling the planet.
P. Lewis // November 28, 2008 at 11:29 pm — What was the point? I seemed to have missed it.
You can chase it if you’ve a mind to with Search on this web page if you have FF. To aid you more directly:
I said this in reply to this message from michel. I then replied to naught101, which you’ve already seen.
The graphics were purely illustrative of evidence of CO2 levels and temperature excursions in response to michel’s assertion of a need for “evidential support” in this matter.
——excerpt follows——-
Data from the mid-Pliocene period suggest average temperatures were about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) warmer than today. A 2-degree Celsius increase is within the range that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast for the end of the 21st century.
….
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2, the main man-made greenhouse gas, were about 400 parts for every million parts of air in the mid-Pliocene. CO2 levels rose to 383.1 parts per million in 2007….
——–end excerpt—–
Article points, vaguely, without a link, to: http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/l67121161284/?p=20082f4a58b144e38bb5ec8f957a63ee&pi=1
Number 1886 / January 13, 2009
Theme Issue ‘The Pliocene. A vision of Earth in the late twenty-first century?’ compiled by Alan M. Haywood, Harry J. Dowsett and Paul J. Valdes
Guest Editors Alan M. Haywood, Harry J. Dowsett and Paul J. Valdes
And, of course, they follow up with interview blather from an ex-meteorologist at the Cato Society that amounts to saying climate models shouldn’t be used since they’re imperfect.
Well, I examined a chart which had no temperature scale or mention of temperature anywhere on it. I failed to see how this proved it likely that lowering CO2 would lower temperature. The reply was, I was a sophist and not worth talking to further.
This is really quite interesting as a style of argument. No rational person would be persuaded that a chart making no mention of A could possibly prove that A causes B, and no reasonable person would dismiss someone failing to be convinced by such a chart as in some way either incompetent or in bad faith.
Now I am handed a different chart and an article which is supposed to prove the point. At the risk of being accused of further intellectual sins or deficiencies, I’m sorry, but it does not prove any such thing. Recall, what I asserted was that the proposition that lowering CO2 would lower average global temperatures may be true, but is less well evidenced than the proposition that rises have produced and will produce rises in average global temperatures.
The chart cited only permits a very vague eyeball scrutiny of the record, but seems to show in some cases the temperature anomaly decline preceding the CO2 decline. More seriously however, it cannot prove what it is said to prove, since the temperature anomaly is of Antarctic and not global average temperatures. The authors of the article make no claim in the text that this is what they have proved.
Doubtless one will come in for vituperative abuse for this, but it is not reasonable to regard a chart showing that in some cases atmospheric CO2 falls coincided with falls in Antarctic temperatures and in some cases followed them, as constituting proof beyond any doubt that if we turn down atmospheric CO2 today, the result will be a fall in average global temperature.
I agree, it seems reasonable that if rising CO2 produces a rise in average global temperature, a fall might well produce a fall in temperature. It is a reasonable hypothesis. I do not think it completely proven without proper evidence however, and find the style of argument which insists that only bad faith could prevent one from seeing from non-existent evidence and an article which does not assert it, that it is proven, more reminiscent of religious dogma or political intolerance than scientific debate.
On the question of investment, recall that this is about turning down the CO2 control at vast expense. I fully agree that it is silly to positively bet on warming not happening, and rising CO2 having no effect, eg by building on the coasal flood plain. That is however not the investment that we are discussing. We are discussing spending huge amounts of money to turn down the CO2 volume control. Before making THAT investment, we need real proof of a kind I have not yet seen that it will actually deliver the results claimed. I agree its plausible. Many failed hypotheses are plausible however, and this may be one of them.
This is a quote from the article. Apart from the fact that the authors never discuss the question I have raised, lets note that it does not suggest the level of total certainty and complete understanding of their different chosen topic that my critic seems to thinks it does.
It was suggested earlier4 that there is a strong stationary relationship between Antarctic temperature and CO2. But our data reveal a significant deviation from this behaviour: The atmospheric concentration of CO2 during MIS 17 remains significantly below the levels during MIS 13, 15 and 19; this is expected neither from the temperature variations which always reach comparable levels during these interglacials nor from carbon cycle models …… Whereas averaged temperature anomalies of these four intervals (-5.5, -5.1, -4.9 and -5.5 °C, respectively) only slightly differ from one another, the mean value of CO2 between 799 and 650 kyr (212 p.p.m.v.) is 4–9% lower than for the ensuing periods (227, 234 and 222 p.p.m.v.; see further illustrations in the Supplementary Information).
This shift is unexpected and takes place where the new measurement interval for this study begins. However, it seems to be a robust feature and not a measurement artefact….
The greenhouse gases are ‘gases’. They heat the atmosphere and surface
and a warmer atmosphere transfers some of that heat to the ocean below.
GP
From your link “warmer atmosphere transfers *some* of that heat to the ocean below”.
I never trust the word “some” particularly when used by scientists. So how much is “some”?
Bearing in mind that 99% of LW radiation (between 10 – 20 micron) is absorbed in the first milllimetre (actually more like the first few micron) of liquid water, I’ll ask my original question again (slightly rephrased).
How has the recent increase in ghg forcing warmed the world’s oceans?
You should be interested in the question. The heat capacity of the oceans is massively greater than that of the atmosphere . If the oceans don’t warm then GW is a non starter.
Apologies to those who have referred to some of my other points but I do need to get to grips with the ocean issue.
GP
Not sure who you’re referring to when you say “I also know where you got the claim from”. It’s not the one Hank mentioned, though I have read the piece.
1. You have no explanation for what caused the early 20th century warming.
Partly increased greenhouse gases, partly a slight increase in the luminosity of the sun.
2. You have no explanation for the cooling (or lack of warming) in the post-1940 period.
Industrial production ramped up very fast as World War II started and in the absence of pollution controls, sulfate aerosols lofted into the stratosphere blocked sunlight.
3. No-one has actually quantified the warming expected from a doubling of CO2. (the only evidence appears to be from the last GCM when temp changes preceded CO2 changes).
About 3 K, with an uncertainty from about 1-1.5 K.
4. No-one, as far as I am aware, has managed to explain how the LW radiation from increased GHGs warms the oceans.
Water absorbs infrared light.
5. A number of models using ocean oscillations only show that most of the 20th century warming can be explained by ENSO and AMO.
No they don’t. Those are oscillations, meaning they don’t affect the trend.
P Lewis – your link provides no evidence that turning down the CO2 volume will turn down the temperature. It provides no evidence that it ever has. Again, I am not asserting that it definitely will not. I am asserting that it less well evidenced than the proposition that raising CO2 will raise temperature,
You should be interested in the question. The heat capacity of the oceans is massively greater than that of the atmosphere . If the oceans don’t warm then GW is a non starter.
What is your explanation for the ocean’s measured expansion (measured as sea-level rise)?
If it’s not due to it warming, what is causing it?
P.S., remember the Pliocene has been well studied and assiduously modeled by the petroleum industry as a way to figure out where to drill — search for “Pliocene +petroleum” (there’s not much bullshit produced on that subject combination, you’ll find very similar results with plain Google and then with Scholar for comparison). While the sequence of events occurs over a very long natural time span, unlike the century scale of human fossil fuel burning, that makes the details easier to work out since there were more years, so more layers in the strata, for each condition as conditions changed.
“… This paper describes the results of a
new palaeoclimatic modelling study,
focused on the USA, for the middle
Pliocene using a state-of-the-art GCM.
… this is the first to examine, in
detail, the nature and dynamics of the
palaeoclimate and the validity of model
predictions on a regional scale.
The geological record of the USA dur-
ing the middle Pliocene is diverse and well
suited for the regional assessment of
GCM predictions (Figure 1). A wealth of
geological data are available, derived from
tectonic basins that contain long sedimen-
tary records of palaeoenvironmental
change. In addition, numerous localities
display evidence for Pliocene lacustrine,
fluvial, and shallow marine environments
(Thompson 1991; Thompson and Fleming
1996). “
From your link warmer atmosphere transfers *some* of that heat to
the ocean below”.
I never trust the word some” particularly when used by scientists.
So how much is some”?
Good question, but not one having a very simple answer. Currently, as the temperature anomaly is doubling approximately every 30 years, about half of the extra heat goes down into the ocean, while the other half stays in the air. That’s why we see only half of the “potential” (i.e., equilibrium”) warming realized as transient warming. But that is contingent on the current exponential warming. In reality the hear transfer to the ocean happens on a broad range of time scales, see below.
Interesting article, though easily misunderstood. Consider that the “skin layer”, while directly controlling the longwave radiative exchange between atmosphere and ocean, does not actually control ocean warming. That role is played by the mixing processes, operating on many different time scales, from a few years for the top few 100 m, to many thousands of years for the full ocean volume. Water from the skin layer gets continually mixed with deeper layers also, and is thus actually controlled by this mixing.
There isn’t really any mystery there. Of course many of the details remain uncertain as always, for the usual reasons. But there are no contradictions here that I am aware of.
Not sure who you’re referring to when you say “I also know where
you got the claim from”. It’s not the one Hank mentioned, though I
have read the piece.
John Finn, my guess was spot on: our old friend Siegfried F. Singer has been diligently spreading this meme — that there is something fishy with our understanding of ocean warming — as testified by your RC link. The same Siegfried F. Singer that continues to spread the meme in the service of the Heartland Institute, which was the subject of my RC reference…
Hook, line and sinker. This would have been the place for a little skepticism ;-)
What is your explanation for the ocean’s measured expansion
(measured as sea-level rise)?
Glacier melting?
Seriously, both contribute. The glacier (mass change) contribution is a bit larger than the thermosteric (expansion) contribution. Separating the two is not entirely trivial, but has been attempted with some success in recent years using satellite altimetry, GRACE and ARGO buoys. The time series are still very short.
Google for “sea level rise” grace thermosteric
A more to-the-point question would be: what ocean mixing mechanism is capable of carrying one-half of human CO2 emissions away from the atmosphere-ocean interface, while failing to carry down heat as well?
We are discussing spending huge amounts of money to turn down the CO2 volume control.
No we’re not. Homework exercise: read up in the IPCC WG3 (Mitigation) on costs of mitigation for several less or more aggressive scenarios. Don’t dig deeper than the Summary.
I’ll spill the answer: a few percent of GDP. Same ball park as the projected costs of doing nothing. Lots of dollars and cents, but the kind of money the nations of Earth spend routinely on military security, much of which is just as uncertain and speculative.
If it’s really just a few percent of GDP why are China and India so reluctant to join the party and scale back their CO2 emissions?
Indeed why has Pachauri backed India’s drive for growth, involving much CO2 producing energy and industrial development, if climate change is really the serious problem you would have us believe?
> what ocean mixing mechanism is capable of
> carrying one-half of human CO2 emissions away
> from the atmosphere-ocean interface, while
> failing to carry down heat as well?
Um, thermohaline? Warm surface water moves toward the poles, loses heat to the atmosphere, picks up gases that dissolve better in colder water, sinks. That gives us the current situation — seawater is well oxygenated all the way down to the deep water, and organisms live even at great depths.
Peter Ward’s concern is that in a somewhat warmer world, surface water will be sinking at mid-latitudes, while still low in oxygen — that leads to a transition to anoxic deep water conditions, creating another band of black sediment (like the four he’s described in the paleo record).
P. Lewis // November 29, 2008 at 4:05 am — Thanks,
I fear it is almost hopeless to try to explain atmospheric physics to those who do not seem to want to learn. (I have a hard time accepting to number of truely elementary mistakes I found whilst scanning through toady’s comments.)
Indeed why has Pachauri backed India’s drive for growth, involving much CO2 producing energy and industrial development, if climate change is really the serious problem you would have us believe?
Maybe politicians in India are fully capable of being as short-sighted and ignorant as western politicians?
Are you seriously suggesting that the fact that some third-world (or first-world) politician might ignore the warnings of science somehow demonstrates that the science is weak?
Inhofe’s ignorance means the earth is flat, after all?
I think John Flynn wrote this boner: “3. No-one has actually quantified the warming expected from a doubling of CO2. (the only evidence appears to be from the last GCM when temp changes preceded CO2 changes).”
The first mistake is wrting ‘GCM” for what appears ought to have been “LGM”, Last Glacial Maximum. Now the LGMN lasted long enough to be quite certain that the climate was in equilibrium; this giaves an important limitation on Charney sensitivity; it cannot be very large.
Another example is the attempt to model LIA; climate models with low sensitivity (1.9 K) did not produce enough cooling; models with high sensitivity (4.7 K) produced too much.
Once again, read Annan & Hargreaves. You’ll see why all lines of evidence lead to the conclusion that Charney sensitvity is most likely about 3 K.
Dave A., Both India and China have populations that are still increasing, especially among young people. They are concerned with putting these young folks to work, so that they don’t become a disgruntled timebomb that disrupts social stability. It is clear that we cannot reduce greenhouse gases without coopration from developing nations, so these problems are also our problems.
Duh! Stadial: CO2 down, temperature down (else no ice sheet advance).
Duh! Interstadial: CO2 up, temperature up (else no ice sheet retreat).
And no, it’s not the whole story. I said that. And it’s not necessarily the initiator of change. Everyone “knows” that!
There’s none so blind as those who do not wish to see, or who are too thick to engage brain, or who are only interested in sophistry. Some, it seems, embrace all three.
Steve McI is posting posts that make me want to “poke my eye out”. He writes stuff in such an “in group manner” that all kinds of preceding assumptions, names, etc. are unclear. Also, he has often just sections of name calling “poke your eyes out” that distract from actually evaluating his claims. In addition, he meanders and includes previous “bad things” in the context of a given new claim. It then becomes a guessing game to figure out if that particulary “meandered issue” is relevant, is necessary to the given new claim. Or just a non sequiter.
In an earlier post I made a number of comments (bold) . BPL has kindly responded to them (italics). These are my responses to BPL.
1. You have no explanation for what caused the early 20th century warming.
Partly increased greenhouse gases, partly a slight increase in the luminosity of the sun.
Not the sun according to Leif Svalgaard – But if the sun was a factor in the early 20th century warming then it was certainly a factor in the late 20th century warming (inc. ocean warming) since activity was higher in the latter part of the century. If you’re saying CO2 (or solar) forcing was a factor you really need to quantify the relative contributions. By the 1940s, it’s just about conceivable that CO2 forcing was ~0.5 w/m2 but for that to have any effect on global temperature you have to dismiss the notion that there is a “lag” and must assume that the CO2 effect is immediate. This, though, presents a problem with the current situation in that global temperatures should be much higher than they are. The reason usually given is that there is “warming in the pipeline”. The numbers don’t stack up.
[Response: Have you ever actually studied solar irradiance data -- from Lean, from Svalgard, the PMOD or ACRIM satellite measurements, or from any source whatsoever? Solar output has been stable since about 1950. The absence of a trend in forcing does not produce a trend in response -- and it especially does not produce a trend which has accelerated since 1950!
2. You have no explanation for the cooling (or lack of warming) in the post-1940 period.
Industrial production ramped up very fast as World War II started and in the absence of pollution controls, sulfate aerosols lofted into the stratosphere blocked sunlight.
The aerosols from major volcanic eruptions do enter the stratosphere. Industrial aerosols, in general, do not. I’ve written this so many times before but here it is again:- the effect of indusrial aerosols is “regionally specific”. This is a phrase I’ve ‘borrowed’ from a paper by Michael Mann & Phil Jones – it’s not something I’ve made up. AGW scientists are well aware that that the aerosol cooling theory is seriously flawed and while they don’t actually refute it you won’t find too many of them promoting it.
BPL (or anyone) – get the GISS (zonal) temp data and check the 1940-75 temp trends by latitude band. Note that the Arctic (64-90 deg N) cools at around 3 or 4 times the rate of any other band. If aerosols were a factor the greater cooling would be found in the mid-latitude (i.e. 24-44 & 44-64) bands. But if you’re still not convinced – try this. What evidence is there that there was actually an increase (significant) in the early WWII years. The truth is the increase came in the post war years from about 1950 onwards. As Tamino has pointed out elsewhere on this blog the only ’significant’ cooling occurred between 1944-1951.
[Response: Have you ever actually studied the GISS zonal data? More to the point, have you compared the hemispheric data? Do you have any idea how big the "regions" are in the "regional" response? I don't think so.]
3. No-one has actually quantified the warming expected from a doubling of CO2. (the only evidence appears to be from the last GCM when temp changes preceded CO2 changes).
About 3 K, with an uncertainty from about 1-1.5 K.
I’m not trying to duck this one but I am going to leave it for now.
4. No-one, as far as I am aware, has managed to explain how the LW radiation from increased GHGs warms the oceans.
Water absorbs infrared light.
This (your response) is a rather empty statement. It’s a bit like saying “fire generates heat” – true but how much heat. If I light a match in the Albert Hall (or similar in the US) I suppose it will warm the building – assuming all other factors remain constant. But will we be able to actually measure the increase in temperature?
99% of Infrared light is absorbed within a few micron in liquid water. Just hold that thought for a moment and think what a “few micron” represents. A reasonable comparison is the thickness of a human hair. Now imagine the vast depths of the oceans and the trillions of gallons of water they hold. I’m not going to say anymore on this because the argument invariably tends to shift course. In an earlier post I provided a realclimate link for GP. I suggest anyone who’s interested in taking this further should read the realclimate post and then come back with any comments.
BTW, GP – it wasn’t Singer. I read an exchange on RC some time ago between Gavin and ‘my source’ and it was pretty clear the RC case was on shaky ground. In any case I’m not sure this is an issue that requires ‘expert’ opinion one way or the other. The facts are as stated. The depth of IR penetration in water is tiny plus the increase in ghg forcing since ~1850 is < 2 w/m2. I find the idea that the increased GHG forcing is responsible for bulk heating of the oceans totally implausible – but as GP says I may be ignorant on the issue and he and others may well disagree with me.
[Response: RC did a fine job -- as they always do -- explaining the warming of the oceans. Your "shaky ground" claim is utterly groundless; you just don't like the answer.]
5. A number of models using ocean oscillations only show that most of the 20th century warming can be explained by ENSO and AMO.
No they don’t. Those are oscillations, meaning they don’t affect the trend.
Yes they do (or can). Do a least sq fit on the following data {0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1}.
[Response: Have you EVER even LOOKED at the data? Do you even know what ENSO and AMO are? They're nothing at all like your "sample." What about the fact that if climate behaves as you claim, then the ENSO and AMO will have been fluctuating for thousands of years. Do you think temperature has been rising for thousands of years? Or are you a member of the "it's all cycles" school?
Since you claim "a number of models show," exactly what models would they be?
You are so confused, I'm dazed; your ability to rationalize is almost beyond belief. I might just have to do a whole post about it.]
TCO, it doesn’t matter how badly a McScientist writes. Nobody who matters reads his crap anyway. There is plenty of good science out there, why waste your time on poor science, poorly presented.
> I find the idea that the increased GHG forcing is responsible for
> bulk heating of the oceans totally implausible – but as GP says I may
> be ignorant on the issue
Ocean water mixing processes. That’s where your ignorance lies. Do your homework. I tried to give you pointers, now it’s your turn. Carl Wunsch’s writings are a good starting point.
If it’s really just a few percent of GDP why are China and India so
reluctant to join the party and scale back their CO2 emissions?
Perhaps because many Indians and Chinese are still desperately poor, literally starving?
We in the West have no such excuse.
Indeed why has Pachauri backed India’s drive for growth, involving much
CO2 producing energy and industrial development, if climate change is
really the serious problem you would have us believe?
And I agree that both nations have a right, and a duty to their people, to grow their economies. Why should they pay the price for something that, at this point, is still almost completely our (the West) fault?
But the time will come, with growing prosperity, that also those countries will see the necessity to do something about climate change. Actually they already do, e.g., glacier loss in the Himalayas interfering with food production. If only there is global leadership — and there is hope for that now — they’ll come on board.
Yes – as much as anyone posting here does at least
[Response: No, obviously you don't.]
They’re nothing at all like your “sample.”
I know my sample was to illustrate a point.
[Response: What point? That you don't know what the data are like?]
What about the fact that if climate behaves as you claim, then the ENSO and AMO will have been fluctuating for thousands of years
Yes but we only have a decent range of temp observations for about ~100 years. Over that period of time my binary sample does give a very crude representation of what’s actually happened. (i.e ~30 yrs negative; ~30 yrs positive etc)
[Response: You really don't know.]
Since you claim “a number of models show,” exactly what models would they be?
Spencer , Bill Illis (on WUWT) I’ m sure I can dig out others.
[Response: Is that Spencer the creationist -- isn't he the guy who whined when GRL rejected his paper? Is that Bill Illis the "sock puppet," aka John Willit, whose idea of trend analysis is this?
Seriously: if these guys are your references for "a number of models show," then you don't have a leg to stand on. You really embarrassed yourself on this one.]
The point about ocean oscillations is this. We know about ENSO, that is the El Nino/La Nina ‘cycles’. We’ve seen plenty of evidence for their effect on climate over the last couple of years. On top of the irregular multi-year ENSO pattern there’s good reason to believe that a multi-decadal cycle exists, i.e. periods when we get more El Nino events than La Nina and vice versa. This is the cycle that I loosely refer to as the PDO though this is almost certainly too simplistic.
Now then if you accept the existence of the first order cycles and also accept the possible existence of the second order cycles . How do you know there isn’t a third order cycle , i.e. a multi-century cycle? Remember, as Carl Wunsch the oceanographer said, “just because you see changes happening in the oceans now it doesn’t mean what caused it happened now – what caused the changes may have happened decades or hundreds of years earlier”.
Ocean circulation is linked to all (or 1,2,4 at least) my other points. You simply can’t quantify the relative contribution of the various factors, i.e. solar, oceans, aerosols, ghgs with anythig like a reasonable level of confidence.
[Response: Your ability to rationalize really is almost beyond belief. You don't want to accept greenhouse-gas forcing even though it's basic physics that's proven in the laboratory, but you do argue for "a third order cycle" that has a delayed-action "what caused the changes may have happened decades or hundreds of years earlier" impact. Face the truth: you've taken every buzzword about ocean "oscillations" that you can find and strung them together to create a fantasy forcing, just so you don't have to face the truth about greenhouse gases.
This much is clear: you aren't a skeptic. If you were you wouldn't be so gullible when it comes to crackpot "ocean oscillation theories."]
You are so confused, I’m dazed; your ability to rationalize is almost beyond belief. I might just have to do a whole post about it.]
Do – and while your at it include reference and comments about the ocean “skin” theory. That’s the one which explains how increased GHGs cause the oceans to warm.
In fact cover the lot – let’s lay the mid 20th century aerosol theory to rest while were at it.
[Response: I'll probably post on some of the misinformation you've talked yourself into. But not for you. You aren't a skeptic, you're a hopeless flat-earther, who won't listen, so you'll never learn.]
the example given by P. Lewis isn’t the best possible, as the CO2-caused temperature variation is overlaid by a much larger albedo forcing. But then, does it really matter? The Earth doesn’t care what forcing is causing the temperature change. Your claim, or suggestion, or suspicion, or not-ruling-out, that the climate system reponds differently to a negative than to a positive forcing should apply irrespective of the nature of the forcing.
Actually we know quite a lot about how these things work. Here’s a differential equation:
C dT/dt = k(T – T0) + F.
No, don’t try to solve it (though it’s not hard). Just note that it’s linear, and that replacing the forcing F by -F will get you the same solution T(t), but with opposite sign.
The climate system can be described by systems of equations like this. Much more complex, but just as linear wrt forcings. If this were wrong, we would be in deep trouble. For starters, any such asymmetry would mean that if CO2 went up, then down, we wouldn’t return to the same level… not what we see the real paleo record do. Ever.
You know, if I had a spare Earth to experiment with, I would show you. But the only examples we have are from the messy real Earth. The three, four historical Snowball Earth episodes are good examples though, even if happening very long ago, on a planet in many ways different from today. Study it ( htpp://www.snowballearth.org ). Here we have volcanic CO2 slowly building up to huge levels to pull the Earth out of the snowball against the albedo cooling; then, in the global hothouse that follows, CO2 is rapidly washed down to deposit Cap Carbonates, bringing temperatures down to pre-snowball levels. A temperature cycling of 60 degrees plus, with CO2 in a starring role equally in both directions. It works.
You seem to want us to insult you, and I’ll think of some suitable expressions, but for now, “silly” will have to do.
Michel, that right there shows you don’t have even the foggiest notion of how the science works. You don’t even understand how absurd you suggestion is. If it were possible to construct such a model it would have been done. Whoever did so would be famous.
Here’s a hint: there aren’t any loopholes in the laws of physics.
Tell me then, what law of physics would we have to abandon, and why, were we to conclude that the average temperature showed signs of rising by only 0.5C per century in the fact of CO2 rising on IPCC forecasts?
I’m prepared to be argued out of my view, but not prepared to be shouted out of it.
“the only basic physics in the models are the pressure gradient force, advection and the acceleration due to gravity. These are the only physics in which there are no tunable coefficients. Climate models are engineering codes and not fundamental physics”
Roger Pielke, post of Nov 28 on his climate science blog.
99% of Infrared light is absorbed within a few micron in liquid water.
Just hold that thought for a moment and think what a few micron”
represents. A reasonable comparison is the thickness of a human hair.
Now imagine the vast depths of the oceans and the trillions of gallons
of water they hold. I’m not going to say anymore on this because the
argument invariably tends to shift course.
Water is a liquid. It flows. It mixes.
Sleep on that, and don’t come back to embarrass yourself any further before you figure it out. Sheesh.
Indeed why has Pachauri backed India’s drive for growth, involving much CO2 producing energy and industrial development, if climate change is really the serious problem you would have us believe?
Hmmm, why would politicians ignore a serious long-term problem in favor of doing popular stuff now? Gosh, that’s a stumper. I’ll have to think really hard about that.
Not the sun according to Leif Svalgaard – But if the sun was a factor in the early 20th century warming then it was certainly a factor in the late 20th century warming (inc. ocean warming) since activity was higher in the latter part of the century.
No. That’s a non sequitur. You have “high” confused with “rising.”
The aerosols from major volcanic eruptions do enter the stratosphere. Industrial aerosols, in general, do not. I’ve written this so many times before but here it is again:- the effect of indusrial aerosols is “regionally specific”. This is a phrase I’ve ‘borrowed’ from a paper by Michael Mann & Phil Jones – it’s not something I’ve made up. AGW scientists are well aware that that the aerosol cooling theory is seriously flawed and while they don’t actually refute it you won’t find too many of them promoting it.
BPL (or anyone) – get the GISS (zonal) temp data and check the 1940-75 temp trends by latitude band. Note that the Arctic (64-90 deg N) cools at around 3 or 4 times the rate of any other band. If aerosols were a factor the greater cooling would be found in the mid-latitude (i.e. 24-44 & 44-64) bands. But if you’re still not convinced – try this. What evidence is there that there was actually an increase (significant) in the early WWII years.
The fact that industrial production, as recorded by the Bureau of Economic Statistics, was orders of magnitude higher in 1942 than in 1932?
“Water absorbs infrared light.”
99% of Infrared light is absorbed within a few micron in liquid water. Just hold that thought for a moment and think what a “few micron” represents. A reasonable comparison is the thickness of a human hair. Now imagine the vast depths of the oceans and the trillions of gallons of water they hold. I’m not going to say anymore on this because the argument invariably tends to shift course. In an earlier post I provided a realclimate link for GP. I suggest anyone who’s interested in taking this further should read the realclimate post and then come back with any comments.
There’s a process called “conduction” by which heat can be transferred among objects in physical contact. The ocean absorbs about 95% of 324 watts per square meter of atmospheric back-radiation and 168 watts per square meter of sunlight. That’s a lot of heat. If it’s not going into the ocean, where is it going?
Yes they do (or can). Do a least sq fit on the following data {0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1}.
The longer the series runs, the more any effect on the trend disappears. This is statistics 101. Note, also, that the proper period for climate data is 30 years or more, not 12. Oscillations don’t affect the trend; that’s why they’re called oscillations.
(I have a hard time
accepting to number of truely elementary mistakes I found whilst
scanning through toady’s comments.)
David, who’s “toady”? — no, don’t tell :-)
[Response: As if we didn't know.
But David's comment makes an important point. It's time we spent less effort letting the creationist/denialist/flat-earthers set the agenda. Real science is far more interesting.]
It’s time we spent
less effort letting the creationist/denialist/flat-earthers set
the agenda. Real science is far more interesting.
Oh, I completely agree Tamino. But denialism isn’t going away. I am always writing not to the denialist I am “debating” with, but to the quiet readers that might be taken in by their nonsense. It’s always a teaching opportunity. Sometimes temper takes over. But that just anger at those trying to soil this beautiful thing. At least it shows that we have something we honestly believe in (and no, that’s not AGW :-) .
Michel asks: “Tell me then, what law of physics would we have to abandon, and why, were we to conclude that the average temperature showed signs of rising by only 0.5C per century in the fact of CO2 rising on IPCC forecasts?”
Well, for starters, there’s conservation of energy. I’m kinda partial to that one as it saved my tuckus in Mechanics, Stat Mech and Quantum Mechanics many a time. The direct forcing by CO2 is very tightly determined. The feedbacks are determined by a broad range of evidence. They don’t depend on what the original source of the energy is. If you assume either of these are wrong, you have to explain why Earth isn’t a giant snowball. I’m not willing to accept divine intervention as a cause just yet.
You’d also have to explain how all those photons run the gauntled of 40 miles of CO2 molecules and still manage to escape the atmosphere. Neat trick that.
Neither Pielke knows much about climate modeling. I find myself just shaking my head when I read some of their tripe–and I’m a rank amateur when it comes to climate science.
There is as much evidence supporting the thesis that we are changing climate as there is supporting evolution. As we only have eye witness accounts, and eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable, I’d say there is considerably more evidence for anthropogenic causation than there is for our history of Nelson’s role in the battle of Trafalgar. The Holocaust has an astounding amount of forensic evidence. It is about on a par.
Pachauri isn’t a politician, he is the head of the IPCC, the supposed keeper of the ’scientific consensus’ about climate change. Is the science true or can it be dispensed of in favour of political/economic arguments according to the situation?
Your response seems to suggest the answer is ‘yes’
Of course I know the arguments put forward by China and India etc and I agree that their prioritites are necessarily different.
But the point remains that if the ’science’ is as conclusive as you say it is, and as Hansen obviously believes it is, then unfortunately there can be no opt outs, we are all in the same boat and one man’s CO2 is as dangerous as another’s. In this respect there can be no different approach – the problem is either real or it is not.
BTW, I don’t accept that Western development has nothing but downsides – it has brought immense prosperity to many billions of people on a worldwide basis.
[Response: That's nothing but a "straw man" argument. Few if any advocates of action to mitigate global warming claim that "Western development has nothing but downsides."]
Dave A., You seem to be unable to distinguish between the science and our response to the science. It is the fact that you don’t like the potential response that makes you reject good science you don’t even understand. Climate science and our response to climate change are two different things. Pachauri, as a scientist, recognizes this. He also undoubtedly recognizes that if we quench growth in developing countries, they will burn whatever they can get their hands on to simply survive. Climate change is a threat, but it is far from the only threat we face. Overpopulation, underdevelopment, peak oil, environmental degradation, climate change, etc. are all part of the same ultimate problem–the need to develop a sustainable economy. Addressing these threats is not optional. We can’t address 9 out of 10, because the one we don’t address will be the one that brings down human civilization. This is humanity’s midterm and we haven’t been doing that well going into it.
That is not what the AGW theory says. Read it and then you sleep on it. The article in RC is quite clear i.e that the ocean skin (which is the thickness of a human hair) creates a layer which slows the rate of cooling from below. Read the frigging article please.
In actual fact I partly agree with you – some (a tiny minuscule amount) will get mixed but most will either be re-radiated or else contribute to a negligible increase in the rate of evaporation. (this also answers BPL’s question re: where does the heat go)
BPL
No. That’s a non sequitur. You have “high” confused with “rising.”
No I’m not. Activity was higher. I think you’re tryng to say there wasn’t a rising trend but this makes no sense. Why do you imagine that when the sun’s activity reaches a certain level then warming would stop. Is that what happens to a pot of water on a gas stove? Are you saying that if we leave the flame at a fixed level then the water will remain at the same temperature. According to the AGW case, CO2 apparently has a delayed effect despite the fact IR cannot penetrate more than a few micron into the ocean. The sun’s energy , on the other hand, cannot be stored even though visible light penetrates to ocean depths of tens of metres.
In an earlier post, I misquoted Carl Wunsch. He actually said that changes at the surface might not be detected in the deeper ocean for hundreds or even thousands of years.
The fact that industrial production, as recorded by the Bureau of Economic Statistics, was orders of magnitude higher in 1942 than in 1932?
1. Are these world stats or US only.
2. A good proxy for world-wide industrial activity would seem to me to be CO2 emissions. The 1930s and 1940s were much the same. There wasn’t a significant rise until the 1950s.
3. You still haven’t answered the question as to why the Arctic cooled more (much more) than the industrialised mid-latitude regions. There’s a process called “conduction” by which heat can be transferred among objects in physical contact. The ocean absorbs about 95% of 324 watts per square meter of atmospheric back-radiation and 168 watts per square meter of sunlight. That’s a lot of heat. If it’s not going into the ocean, where is it going?
I’ve partly answered this above. As well as “conduction” there are also processes called “evaporation”, “re-radiation” and “convection” all of which act to remove heat from the earth’s surface (both land and ocean). These processes are particularly efficient over oceans as can noticed in high summer where coastal areas are far more pleasant than inland areas. I provided a link to a RC article which relates to this topic. Read it and we can pursue this further. My problem, at the moment, is that I’m having to present the AGW case and argue against it at the same time. The longer the series runs, the more any effect on the trend disappears. This is statistics 101.
Yes I know. But we don’t have a long period we only have about ~100 years in which 2 oscillations (4 changes of phase) are evident. Note, also, that the proper period for climate data is 30 years or more, not 12. Oscillations don’t affect the trend; that’s why they’re called oscillations.
Uh! Look, BPL, my “data” wasn’t intended to represent anything it was just intended to show that you will get a trend if your data begins in the negative phase and ends in the positive phase of a cycle. In 2008, your 30 year period means we start at the end of a negative phase. Ideally, therefore, we should be looking at data over a ~60 year period.
Tamino – You are wrong about the timescales of changes in the oceans. Read the Wunsch comment above. Note that I’m not saying there are 3rd order oscillations just that the possibility exists. If someone like Lazar or GP can work out the relative heat capacity of the oceans compared to the atmosphere then we might make some progress. If I do it – it will just be ignored.
1. I don’t get you. How does conservation of energy require that the earth either be warming at the rate in IPCC or be a snowball. Why no intermediate choice?
2. The Earth is a very complex system. Surely it’s possible that if the numbers are different from GCM modeling, that perhaps some apsect of the complexity in the system was not properly modeled, rather than declaring conservation of energy dead? Let’s say for thought experiment it plays out like this, do you seriously think a paper saying conservation of energy was violated will be submitted or get through PRL? Don’t you think the more natual thing would be to look for flaws in the simulation of the system?
It is simply not plausible that were we to discover over the next 50 years that the planet in fact is warming at the rate of 0.5C per century, rather than 2C, we would abandon the principle of the conservation of energy. It would be a totally irrational way of proceeding, and not the way science has worked, historically. We would change our view of how the climate works. TCO’s point #2 is obviously right. If this is the best argument that can be made, IPCC is in deep doody.
It is not of course. There are serious arguments for the AGW hypothesis, and in particular even for 2C/century. This is just not one of them.
I note that yet again people, this time in the case of Pielke Sr, seem not to realize that abuse directed at an individual is not argument directed at his position, and so cannot refute it.
But the point remains that if the ’science’ is as conclusive as you say it is, and as Hansen obviously believes it is, then unfortunately there can be no opt outs, we are all in the same boat and one man’s CO2 is as dangerous as another’s. In this respect there can be no different approach – the problem is either real or it is not.
I have “slept on it” as GP suggested and I think both of you (and me) could be wrong about downward mixing (conduction) of IR energy in the oceans. Apart from the fact that conduction is less efficient than radiation – aren’t IR lasers used in skin treatment processes? Despite these lasers having thousands of times more intensity than atmospheric back radiation, no underlying tissue is damaged during treatment.
It could be that there is good reason why the AGW case relies on the ’skin layer’ theory to explain ocean warming.
I’ve partly answered this above. As well as “conduction” there are also processes called “evaporation”, “re-radiation” and “convection” all of which act to remove heat from the earth’s surface (both land and ocean). These processes are particularly efficient over oceans as can noticed in high summer where coastal areas are far more pleasant than inland areas.
Right, and the input and output balance or the temperature of the ocean would be continuously changing. But global warming increases the back-radiation from the atmosphere and does not increase the rest enough to compensate. The oceans must heat up. When they reradiate enough for input and output to match again, the system will again be in equilibrium.
The question is why you think this process doesn’t affect the ocean’s temperature. The more thermal energy in the system, the hotter the system is going to be. That’s kind of what thermal energy means.
Uh! Look, BPL, my “data” wasn’t intended to represent anything it was just intended to show that you will get a trend if your data begins in the negative phase and ends in the positive phase of a cycle.
And my response was intended to show that that effect lessens the more you have of the time series, which you still don’t appear to get. Look, I’ll do the math for you.
12 years: 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1
signal = 0.091 + 0.062 year, coefficient t 1.53 (i.e., insignificant).
30 years: 00011 10001 11000 11100 01110 00111
signal = 0.345 + 0.010 year, coefficient t 0.93 (i.e., even less significant).
If climate sensitivity of CO2 was less than ≈1.5C/2x CO2 then snowball earth would still be with us. If greater than ≈6.0C, then it would never have formed. 3.0C is an intermediate value.
The Earth’s climate is complex. The TOA radiation budget, not so much. Additional energy in the system has to go somewhere. If less goes into heating the surface, then more goes into driving the General Circulation System (subjectively experienced mostly as the weather. It’s what GCMs model).
So it’s really a matter of surface temperatures rising vs. increasingly disruptive weather patterns.
So why is it you are rooting for a lower temperature sensitivity?
John Finn says: “Apart from the fact that conduction is less efficient than radiation – aren’t IR lasers used in skin treatment processes? ”
Bzzzzzt! But thank you for playing. Sorry, John, but of the methods of heat transfer, the most efficient is convection, followed by conduction, with radiation coming in a distant last. So, now a question for you: Why not learn some of the basic physics first before trying to disprove stuff people have spent decades researching?
TCO,
For AGW to be wrong, one of 3 things must be true.
1)CO2 does not provide nearly as much direct forcing as was thought. This is problematic, since this is something one can calculate from laboratory measurements and first principles.
2)Feedback is much less than thought. This is quite problematic, since it affects not just CO2 forcing, but ALL forcings. Very hard not to wind up with a snowball Earth under this scenario.
3) Some negative feedback kicks in right around 300 ppmv or at the current temperature that dissipates the extra heat absorbed by CO2 without heating the planet. There is zero evidence for this, and what is more it is contra-indicated by the paleoclimate.
AGW is an inescapable consequence of our climate models. If we are somehow not warming the planet, then pretty much everything we know about climate must be wrong. That would seem not to be the case given the successes climate models have had.
Quite agree we face a number of serious problems which we need to address. Don’t agree with the priority you put on climate change or the pessimistic outlook that you seem to inhabit.
The sun’s energy , on the other hand, cannot be stored even though visible light penetrates to ocean depths of tens of metres
Why ‘cannot be stored’?
Lazar – it can.
It’s BPL who thinks that because solar activity peaked in ~1960 then no warming (solar) can occur after that. Everyone seems to accept that there is a lag with CO2 warming (i.e. there is still heating in the pipeline) – but reject the idea that solar heating will also have a time lag. I think they’re wrong particularly when you consider that any lag can only be due to thermal inertia in the oceans (SW radiation penetrates deep into the oceans; LW radiation does not )
Ray
Bzzzzzt! But thank you for playing. Sorry, John, but of the methods of heat transfer, the most efficient is convection, followed by conduction, with radiation coming in a distant last
We are talking about 2 different media, i.e water (downwards) and air (upwards).
I would be interested in your view on the point about dermatological laser treatment and why an intense IR laser beam can be directed at the skin surface but not penetrate and damage deeper tissue. Does this not suggest that very little downward conduction will take place. The RC scientists seem to agree with me on this as their theory on how IR warms the oceans does not appear to involve downward mixing.
I have asked readers to look up the RC post on this, but no-one seems keen to do this.
BPL
Please forget my data. I understand your point. My point is that even if you have perfectly oscillating data (e.g. sine wave) you won’t necessarily get a zero trend. It will depend on the start and end points used in the analysis.
1. Ray your recent posts show a more nuanced approach to the supports for AGW. Realio trulio, if we find that the rate is less than expected, I bet that we look into complex aspects of the system…not into repealing consevation of energy. But in making your new remarks, you make some nice supports for AGW. I just don’t think AGW is yet at the stage of the 3 laws of Thermodymanics. This is because I can see nuances. I would actually “Bayesian bet” on AGW occuring. I just don’t put it with Boltzman and Gibbs and Einstein.
Segue (funny story). There is a famous chemical called Ferrocene whichf has a ring of carbon around an Iron atom (or some such). It is an iconic compound in inorganic chemistry. A famous Harvard researcher and synthesist asked his theorist colleague if that molecule could be made. The theorist went and did some calculations and came back and said, no…it could not exist. The famous synthesist was reading a journal one day and saw the announcement of that compound being made. The famous synthesist called the man who found ferrocene and asked how he came to make it when all the theory said it was impossible. That fellow said “I didn’t have the luxury of a collaboration with a theorist, so I just tried making it.” He asked the theorist about it….and that guy went back and looked at the paper and his calcs and came back and said…”Oh…I guess it can be made”. If you’re ever at Harvard in the Chem Department, you can ask to see the journal article on ferrocene: there is the imprint of a shoe on that article from the famous synthesist.
1)CO2 does not provide nearly as much direct forcing as was thought. This is problematic, since this is something one can calculate from laboratory measurements and first principles.
Have you a reference for this. The only clear exposition I’ve seen was a paper by Jack Barrett who showed that doubling atmospheric CO2 in the lower 100m of the atmosphere would increase the amount of IR absorption from the current 72.9% to 73.4%.
2)Feedback is much less than thought. This is quite problematic, since it affects not just CO2 forcing, but ALL forcings. Very hard not to wind up with a snowball Earth under this scenario.
michel // November 30, 2008 at 11:19 am — Pielke (whether Sr or Jr) is simply wrong (if you quoted him correctly). Gavin Schmidt has at least two recent papers (one co-authored) on what is in the GISS ModelE GCM. In addition, there is a start of a FAQ:
There is a bood with a title something akin to “The Development of General Circulation Models”, or maybe the history thereof. Some of this can also be found in “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:
aren’t IR lasers used in skin treatment processes?
I would be interested in your view on the point about dermatological laser treatment and why an intense IR laser beam can be directed at the skin surface but not penetrate and damage deeper tissue. Does this not suggest that very little downward conduction will take place.
Oh boy! It suggests nothing of the sort.
They control the depth of treatment by scanning and pulsing/modulating the energy output, so that heat can dissipate from the tissue rather than build up to dangerous levels when used in skin/hair treatments.
Might I suggest you stand in front of 50-100 W CO2 laser scalpel to see how deep it penetrates? Or if that output is considered too piffling, how about standing in front of a 1.5 kW (peak) CO2 laser used for cutting metals?
Yeah. Knowns, unknowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, and ostrich-ass-in-the-air-unacceptable opportunities to learn that must be stopped. Sigh.
That makes clearer than anything I ‘d seen earlier what I thought obvious long ago — that Triana/DSCOVR would have answered the one big question nobody’s been able to answer clearly and simply — because we’ve had to keep trying by patching together multiple records from many satellites in low Earth orbit over many years, a statistical dog’s breakfast.
That’s what the Administration wanted — to avoid the tool that would answer the question.
Amazing. We need to do what we can do for other planets, just by sitting far enough away to image the whole planet, consistently.
Like we can image the other planets — in one frame, the whole thing.
Not to mention of course the power of the sunlit Earth image live and continuously available.
Maybe Disney will put it up. There must be some way they can take it out of the public domain, sell the rights, copyright it forever, and make it pay-per-view.
The Tenth Annual Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI) Conference
Session 5 Electronic Access to Atmospheric Science Information
Chair: Gene Major, Global Change Master Directory, SSAI, Lanham, MD
5.1 The New Model for Library Services at the Environmental Protection Agency
Evelyn Poole-Kober, ASMD Library, USEPA, Research Triangle Park, NC
5.2 From the Warehouse to the Information Super Highway: Digitizing NOAA Documents wrf recording
Kari Kozak, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
5.3 Update on Digitization of Air Force Documents: A New Portal
Susan Tarbell, Librarian, Air Force Weather Technical Library, Asheville, NC
1)CO2 does not provide nearly as much direct forcing as was thought. This is problematic, since this is something one can calculate from laboratory measurements and first principles.
“Have you a reference for this. The only clear exposition I’ve seen was a paper by Jack Barrett who showed that doubling atmospheric CO2 in the lower 100m of the atmosphere would increase the amount of IR absorption from the current 72.9% to 73.4%.”
Perhaps you should have read the rebuttals of Barrett’s paper on the subject in Spectrochimica Acta:
1) Keith Shine, “Barrett [l] acknowledges my “constructive criticism” of his paper. My comments were made in a review of an earlier version of his paper which was submitted to another journal. I firmly recommended rejection of that paper and continue to profoundly disagree with the conclusions he reaches.”
and by 2) John Houghton , “A further point which Barrett makes is to suggest that because most of the absorption by carbon dioxide of radiation from the surface occurs within 30 m of the surface, the enhanced greenhouse warming due to increase of carbon dioxide in the lower atmosphere is negligible. In fact, most of the enhanced greenhouse effect occurs not because of changed absorption of radiation from the surface (although some change does occur in
the wings of the carbon dioxide band where absorption is weaker) but because as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the average height
(around 6 km) from which carbon dioxide emits radiation to space also increases…….”
3) Braterman, “I now wish to point out, from first principles of physical chemistry, that Barrett’s central thesis is wrong, leads to predictions for model systems in conflict with the second law of thermodynamics, and is not a valid contribution to this most complex and important of current scientific debates…..”
I think many of the infra-red rays bounce off the white paint, much like visible light does.
Is that true?
Scattering strength depends on the ratio of the particle circumference to the wavelength of light. Since infrared wavelengths vary from 2-40,000 times the wavelength of visible light, particles which are good at scattering visible light ought to be less so in the IR region.
My point is that even if you have perfectly oscillating data (e.g. sine wave) you won’t necessarily get a zero trend. It will depend on the start and end points used in the analysis.
It will depend a hell of a lot more on the sample size, which was my point.
Have you a reference for this. The only clear exposition I’ve seen was a paper by Jack Barrett who showed that doubling atmospheric CO2 in the lower 100m of the atmosphere would increase the amount of IR absorption from the current 72.9% to 73.4%.
This is the old “saturation” argument originally made by Knut Angstrom and J. Koch in 1900. Here’s why it’s irrelevant (remove the hyphen before cutting and pasting):
John Finn, On the question of heating of the oceans, of course there is mixing, especially in the upper portion. It is a question of time scale, etc. The important thing though is that the oceans are in thermal contact with the rest of the world. If the world warms, the oceans have to as well. If you’ve ever swam in the oceans, you will have noted the difference between June and August.
John and TCO,
Of course they won’t abandon conservation of energy. My point is that it is not a simple matter of twiddling a couple of parameters to come up with a climate model with a lower CO2 sensitivity. Feedbacks do not discriminate as to forcing–they’re the same for insolation as for CO2. And feedbacks are a necessary piece of understanding the climate puzzle and explaining why we’re not a snowball Earth. The direct forcing of CO2 is basically a matter of putting the laboratory measured properties of the gas into a climate model. Even most “skeptics” accept this value. Anthropogenic causation is a direct consequence of our understanding of climate. If we are not warming the planet, then the correct climate must be drastically different than our understanding. Moreover, it is not just a matter of putting in a new forcer. CO2 has some pretty unique properties that make it rather difficult to replace. Remember, any new model has to explain the data as well or better than the current one. The fact that there really isn’t an alternative explanation ought to speak volumes.
Hank, FWIW, I don’t think the post in Desmogblog really tells us that much we don’t already know. For one thing, most of the information is hearsay. I have no doubt that it’s true. However, folks like Dick Cheney are pretty careful not to leave finger prints. To Cheney, the facts are irrelevant. He has a conception of the way the world needs to be, and if there are consequences down the world, we’ll deal with them then. It’s exactly the sort of thinking that leads to debacles like Iraq. However, rather than learn from his mistake, Cheney’s approach is to profit from them (via Haliburton et al.). I’m sure he thinks he’ll be able to turn a buck or two off of climate-related disasters–maybe selling lifeboats in New Orleans. He is a man of no scruples, little imagination and no concept of a reality that cannot be bent to his will. He’s like W without the privileged upbringing.
John Finn, On the question of heating of the oceans, of course there is mixing, especially in the upper portion. It is a question of time scale, etc.
Yes of course there is but it’s not mixing which causes the IR warming. Have you been paying attention, Ray.
I asked this question:
How has the increase in GHGs warmed the world’s oceans.
The important thing though is that the oceans are in thermal contact with the rest of the world. If the world warms, the oceans have to as well. If you’ve ever swam in the oceans, you will have noted the difference between June and August.
I have swam in the ocean, Ray and the reason it’s warmer in August is the sun. The sun’s energy does penetrate deep into te top layer of the ocean. LW (from GHGs) radiation does not.
I think the saturation argument fails also in the lowest layers of the atmosphere. Supposing that for a hypothetical atmosphere one chose to integrate from the ground up to the first km, and found that the layer is ’saturated’ with a transmission close to zero. That does not imply that the first 500 metres are saturated. Or if the first 500 m are saturated, what about the first 200? 100? 50? Certainly one can find layers which are not saturated, given the choice of the ‘layer’ / optical depth is arbitrary.
Lazar, the “white paint” described was on the jar of water that warmed the least, so the explanation given was based on the observation.
Most paint contains a wide range of particle sizes and we don’t know what paint the kid used, we just know the result observed.
Of course any absorbed photons of any energy would be converted to heat. But given it was an incandescent bulb, most of the output was in the infrared range.
I recall mention there will soon be good heat-reflecting paints for automobiles, selectively reflecting infrared while allowing the variety of colors the customers like. That must be a nice trick to accomplish.
The article in RC is quite clear i.e that the ocean skin
(which is the thickness of a human hair) creates a layer which
slows the rate of cooling from below. Read the frigging article
please.
I did, and told you so already. Interesting but not making the point you think it makes. You see, a “boundary layer” is not a physical object. It’s not like a skin. It’s like the turbulent boundary layer around an aircraft wing: any single parcel of air spends only a fraction of a second in it, hopping in, flowing through and hopping out.
In the water surface layer motions are a little slower but still a parcel of water will not stay more than a fraction of a second in the few-micron boundary. After a second, we’re already talking about different water — same boundary layer, different matter.
If you have ever been on a ship on the high seas, you know what it looks like. There is no “film” of surface water that stays intact for more than a fleeting moment. water is a liquid. And on the high seas, a pretty wild liquid.
There’s a number of mixing processes working to get the heat from higher to lower layers. Convection in the traditional sense does not happen much, as typically the warm layers overlay the cold ones. Processes involved are turbulent mixing due to storms, Ekman pumping, and very localized but surprisingly important mixing processes due to tidal motion interacting with rough bathimetry. These processes exchange heat throughout the top 200 m or so of ocean depth, on a timescale of a few years to a decade or so.
Mixing with the deep ocean again takes much longer and is mediated mainly by the general ocean circulation. There exists literature on this John, it’s a real science. Even quantitatively, in spite of the obvious challenges of measurement.
Perhaps you should have read the rebuttals of Barrett’s paper on the subject in Spectrochimica Acta:
Phil
I did read them some time ago but from what I remember there was nothing which invalidated Barrett’s paper. Just as though quotes you provide say precisely nothing.
But as it happens it was not the actual paper I was referring to but an essay which discusses ghgs, their spectra and role.
I’ve never seen a clear explanation from the IPCC nor any other similar body.
I agree (I think) with what you’ve written. But I don’t think the RC post is saying this.
From the article:
Reducing the size of the temperature gradient through the skin layer reduces the flux. Thus, if the absorption of the infrared emission from atmospheric greenhouse gases reduces the gradient through the skin layer, the flow of heat from the ocean beneath will be reduced, leaving more of the heat introduced into the bulk of the upper oceanic layer by the absorption of sunlight to remain there to increase water temperature
I accept, as you say, that RC are not talking about a “permanent skin”, but they are implying that it is the increased skin temperature which reduces the temp garadient through the skin layer and, hence, reduces the flux.
It is this, they argue, which keeps more of the absorbed solar heat in the ocean. They even provide the following linear relationship (though I doubt the trend is significant),
The slope of the relationship is 0.002ºK (W/m2)-1.
but do concede that
Of course the range of net infrared forcing caused by changing cloud conditions (~100W/m2) is much greater than that caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases (e.g. doubling pre-industrial CO2 levels will increase the net forcing by ~4W/m2)
Or around ~1.6 W/m2 to date, which using their trend implies that the 15 micron thick “skin” is about 3 thousandths of a degree warmer than it was in 1850 .
There exists literature on this John, it’s a real science. Even quantitatively, in spite of the obvious challenges of measurement.
Absolutely. But I can’t see any justification for the claim that a tiny increase in ghg forcing is responsible for bulk heating of the oceans over the past 50 years.
If you have a better (or another) interpretation of the RC post I’ll be happy to read it.
John Finn, you are focusing on one warming mechanism when there are many. Also, the warmer water in August has as much to do with warmer air temperatures as it does with increased insolation. You have to consider ALL the physics, not just a tiny piece of it.
N0t to change the subject, but does anybody know if Ceylon was in a severe drought in 1963 and 1964 – when DDT had reduced malaria to 17 cases and no deaths just before environmentalists started killing millions of people by banning DDT?
“However, folks like Dick Cheney are pretty careful not to leave finger prints….Cheney’s approach is to profit from them (via Haliburton et al.). I’m sure he thinks he’ll be able to turn a buck or two off of climate-related disasters–maybe selling lifeboats in New Orleans. ”
Ray, I worry when I see stuff like this about your political opinions that you may not be scrupulous about examining science results without bias. Feel same way about hoi polloi on CA. Watching RC initially say that they were apolitical and would not have any political slant and then pull that caveat down and do a Kos interview distressing as well.
I like it when I see people like me (gung ho baby killer conservative) checking on colder claims…and liberals like Atmoz checking warmer claims.
TCO, since when is a scientist not allowed to have an opinion on politics? What is more, I have followed Cheney’s career since he was merely a right-wing nutjob from Wyoming who actually thought we could shoot down missiles with lasers–in 1988!
His record as VP speaks for itself, and I think he has been one of the most damaging political figures of the current administration–damaging both the country and the Republican party. Dubya is just a spoiled, little rich kid who finally found a mess his daddy couldn’t bail him out of, but Cheney is a man who never should have been allowed a place in “public service”.
TCO_i_b – While I agree that feelings shouldn’t trump thinking and I am also a “skeptic” (I guess), I feel that Ray is right on Cheney. I have long believed that the Bush presidency would have been much different if it weren’t for Cheney and was arguing with friends in 2003 that Bush should drop Cheney as VP for the second term. Cheney is just not right.
The slope of the relationship is 0.002ºK (W/m2)-1.
OK, now we’re talking.
Read the RC article again. The K in the above coefficient refers to the temperature difference across your wafer thin boundary layer, not the bulk ocean temperature. (Actually they did their measurements at the surface and 5 cm deep.)
So it is very well possible that since 1850, mean ocean temperatures have increased by 0.7K, while the difference in temperature between at the surface and immediately under the surface has only increased by, as you correctly state, 3 mK.
This difference would be a useful diagnostic for the energy stream going into / coming out of the ocean — if it wasn’t so damn small :-) . In fact in order to measure it, the folks in the RC article use the much larger variable forcing by cloud cover. Doing the math, 100 W/m2 gives 0.2K, which is readily measurable.
And feedbacks are a necessary piece of understanding the climate puzzle and explaining why we’re not a snowball Earth.
Ray, are you saying that if feedbacks were at a level which will not amplify a forcing of 1C (in response to a doubling of CO2 or anything else) to 2-3C, then we would be living on snowball earth?
I admit to not quite understanding why this is so. But keeping firmly to the track of the original argument, I understand even less why, if one does not agree with this, it is proof of stupidity, ignorance or wilful denial, and on a level with denying the historical reality of the Battle of Waterloo.
On the difference between Pielke and Schmidt on models, yes, of course they differ. Pielke says as much. However, abuse of Pielke is not an argument against his view, which is explained in some detail in his course materials also linked to from the posting. My point again is not that Pielke is necessarily right, but that thinking there is an issue here is not the same as being sceptical about Waterloo.
N0t to change the subject, but does anybody know if Ceylon was in a severe drought in 1963 and 1964 – when DDT had reduced malaria to 17 cases and no deaths just before environmentalists started killing millions of people by banning DDT?
JCH, DDT was never banned in the third world. This is a propaganda line made up by right-wingers and has zero evidence behind it.
DDT isn’t even banned in the United States as long as you use it for malaria control.
DDT did indeed bring down malaria in Sri Lanka — following which malaria went right the hell back up again because they overused it and the malaria in the area developed immunity through natural selection. How about that. Modern advances against malaria have been mostly through (careful) use of malathion.
Ray, are you saying that if feedbacks were at a level which will not amplify a forcing of 1C (in response to a doubling of CO2 or anything else) to 2-3C, then we would be living on snowball earth?
I admit to not quite understanding why this is so
The point has to do with our understanding of paleoclimatology, in particular “what caused snowball earth to warm?”.
Nothing at all to do with AGW per se. Just basic climate science, which I suspect that you, like many skeptics/denialists, don’t realize has a much wider application than simply trying to understand what will happen to climate as we continue to pour ever-increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
If everything we know about climate science is wrong, then it’s not just our understanding of the situation today that’s wrong. It’s our understanding of a lot of past (pre-)history, too.
The edifice that you folks must overturn is much larger than you imagine, in other words.
TCO, Feelings trumping thinking is not something those who know me well worry about. Indeed, it is often those who suppress their feelings who are in danger of losing objectivity. I would think that as a conservative, you, too would be upset at the effect Cheney has had on the Republican party if not the country. I have no problem with conservatives. Hell, I’m a fiscal conservative, myself. What I do have a problem with is public officials who don’t think they are accountable to the public. Don’t know about you, but I take my oath to preserve and defend the Constitution seriously.
“I worry when I see you discount Ray’s factual post as being merely “opinion”.
Cheney’s record’s long and well-documented.”
Ray is light. If I want to read something on the liberal side, will go to Dershowitz or Krugman or the like. But Ray’s light…and you’re…kinda short and snippety. No offense, though. God still loves you.
Reading the comments in the original RC piece is also instructive, I think.
It seems to me that people should pay more attention to the people that really count, rather than to Web essayists with aspirations to fully utilise their only brain cell.
If only all blogs could utilise killfiles, which sadly it seems they can’t.
However, abuse of Pielke is not an argument against his view,
It’s not a view, dammit. It’s a fact, more precisely an untrue fact. Not the first and hardly the last.
Who actually works with global circulation models at the leading edge of the science, Pielke or Schmidt? Who would actually know this from first-hand experience?
The nonsense about environmentalists as mass murderers wossname above is peddling is hardly being heard even on the most right wing foaming-mouth talk radio any more. If there were no outlet for such nonsense people who can’t stop producing it would just ’splode.
The simplistic attacks I’ve read on environmentalists make no mention of the role precipitation plays in the incidence of malaria in Ceylon.
I’m simply trying to find out if weather may have aided in the reduction of malaria in Ceylon leading up to the cessation of DDT spraying in 1964, and the resurgence of malaria in subsequent years. For instance, was some of the resurgence going to happen regardless because of severe drought, or heavy rainfall?
Ray, I worry when I see stuff like this about your political opinions that you may not be scrupulous about examining science results without bias….I just worry about “feelings” trumping thinking.
followed directly by
Then again, who said Colorado physicists were anything special?
topped off with this
Ray’s light…and you’re…kinda short and snippety. No offense, though. God still loves you.”
That’s a funny train of thought, TCO, and more than a little ironic.
I suggest you read Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” some time.
Having political (and other) opinions is hardly inconsistent with being a good scientist.
In fact, many historians believe that Einstein’s political opinions — particularly his distaste for authoritarianism of all types — had a major impact on his approach to science. It led him to question the leading authorities in science as well as politics.
As the author of a recent biography of Einstein, Walter Isaacson, wrote:
“Einstein knew the source of his great creativity was his defiance of authority, but as an older man he was the authority. His thinking became more conventional.”
The idea that “good scientists are totally objective” with regard to every aspect of their lives is pure, unadulterated myth.
Read the RC article again. The K in the above coefficient refers to the temperature difference across your wafer thin boundary layer, not the bulk ocean temperature. (Actually they did their measurements at the surface and 5 cm deep.)
GP -yes I know. It’s this ‘layer’ which presumably slows the rate of cooling from the ocean below. I think I’ve understood what the RC post is saying. But as you said earlier the sea is pretty wild and I find the theory totally implausible. Particularly as the change in forcing up to 1958 (from pre-industrial times) was only ~0. 6 w/m2.
It seems to me that people should pay more attention to the people that really count, rather than to Web essayists with aspirations to fully utilise their only brain cell.
P. Lewis
Let me guess I am one of those to which you refer.
I’ve looked at the links you provided and although I’ve not read them in depth I can’t see anything which contradicts what I’ve written. In any case the RC post is presumably an authoratitive piece and it seems reasonably straightforward. But if there’s something I’ve missed or misunderstood – let me know.
By the way, and this is to all who post on this blog (including the host) . Despite what you may think I don’t just argue against the AGW side. Whenever any of the so-called sceptics come up with anything I consider nonsense – I argue the case with them as well. If you look on the Warwick Hughes site you’ll find a number of posts from me slating David Archibald’s ‘papers’. I also agree with you lot that there is no evidence of cooling and have said so on WUWT. Where we might differ is that I do think there is a ‘plateau’ and it may be more significant than you are prepared to accept.
But for someone with only one brain cell, I think I’m pretty open-mind.
Volunteer your computer’s spare CPU cycles @ http://www.malariacontrol.net/ and ask the question to the scientists who are researching the mosquito behavior which requires supercomputer gridded power to model.
And you are asking that question here why? Even the Open Thread here is hardly the place to get reliable epidemiological advice about Ceylon and malaria.
Try looking it up; try asking a reference librarian for help with locating the information.
Online, you can use Scholar (that at least will reassure a reference librarian that you’re in the right ballpark in phrasing your questions, without mentioning the mass-murderer notion for example).
What follows is not an answer, I can’t give you a knowledgeable one. It’s an example of what you can get by starting with a relevant question.
Epochal changes in the association between malaria epidemics and El Niño in Sri Lanka
Lareef Zubair et al.
Malaria Journal 2008, 7:140doi:10.1186/1475-2875-7-140
from which I offer the following small excerpt, again, as an example of what you can find looking this up:
————–excerpt follows————
Results
The relationship between El Niño and epidemics from 1870 to 1927 was confirmed. The anomalies in monthly average rainfall during El Niño events resembled the anomalies in monthly average rainfall during epidemics during this period. However, the relationship between El Niño and epidemics broke down from 1928 to 1980. Of the three epidemics in these six decades, only one coincided with an El Niño. Not only did this relationship breakdown but epidemics were more likely to occur in periods with a La Niña tendency. After 1980, three of four epidemics coincided with El Niño.
Conclusion
The breakdown of the association between El Niño and epidemics after 1928 is likely due to an epochal change in the El Niño-rainfall relationship in Sri Lanka around the 1930’s. It is unlikely that this breakdown is due to the insecticide spraying programme that began in 1945 since the breakdown started in 1928. Nor does it explain the occurrence of epidemics during La Niña phase from 1928 to 1980. Although there has been renewed coincidence with El Niño after 1980, this record is too short for establishing a reliable relationship.
——–end excerpt————–
Now, if you want to learn how long a record is needed to establish a reliable relationship in this particular question, Tamino may have help for you here.
You know, Cheney’s sins aren’t liberal vs. conservative, they’re just sins.
I voted Republican for more years than I suspect you’ve been alive, to be honest. Not uniformly, but often based on the person, not the party.
Cheney’s an asshole who would’ve been entirely comfortable living in a Godwin’s law world.
His very notion of the power of the Vice Presidency is the very antithesis of the TRADITIONAL conservative view.
The fact that you buy into his bullshit pretty much tags you as being not a conservative in any sense that I grew up with, or that is still current in Europe.
John Finn, given your ” earlier 5 points”, I thought you were a hopeless denier, unwilling to even learn. My apologies.
Michel, if you want to scale back feedbacks in current models, then by what mechanism do you suddenly ramp them up to explain the pleistocene record? Maybe a “unknown unknown” but betting on that is too big a risk for our future. Your posts seems to indicate that you think effects might be limited to a bit of coastal inundation. Migration, loss of water (already in trouble) and food production disruption are major issues with a high risk of creating conflict. People dont just die quietly out of your sight when other options are available. When there isnt much to live for, then the call of some loony offering a better life becomes rather attractive.
Goerge, I’m about a lap and a hlaf ahead of you. i suggest looking at those who place most value in their Ph.d.s versus those who are most marginal. Let me kno0w hoiw Colorado tranks versus Chicago and Cal Tech while at it…STUD!
I live about 6 blocks from Rice University, which, listening to your advice, I’ve visited many many times to learn about things discussed on RC and Open Mind. Scholar is useful, but the library has it all for free.
I’m on vacation in a place that is about 400 miles from a reference library.
I’ll just let my relative continue believing environmentalists have killed more people than Hitler.
John Finn, you’re aware the plateau is among the climate model predictions?
Global warming: Met Office predicts plateau …simulations used to create the world’s first global warming forecast suggests temperature rises will stall in the next two years …The forecast from researchers at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre in Exeter reveals that natural shifts in climate will cancel out warming produced by greenhouse gas emissions and other human activity until 2009 …. The high-resolution forecast also reveals how global warming will happen in fits and starts, and that for the next year or two, temperatures are likely to remain stable before rising.
“A number of the sceptics are saying there’s no warming because they look at the temperature record and see a peak in 1998 and cooler years after that. But we know the peak was because of an El Niño event and that comes out in this forecast,” said Prof Jones.
Who actually works with global circulation models at the leading edge of the science, Pielke or Schmidt? Who would actually know this from first-hand experience?
Well, if its going to be argued a priori on the basis of the personalities, I am not sure there is much in it. Schmidt we all know about, he’s associated with a prestigious institute, has peer reviewed papers to his credit. He is also closely associated with the RC, advocacy site. Pielke holds office and teaches at a well known university, has peer reviewed papers to his credit, has published books and testified before Congressional Committees. His site has a point of view which is different from that of RC, and assigns far more weight to other factors than CO2. But this does not show he is wrong about models. Schmidt has certainly worked more closely with models, but Pielke is teaching a course on them, and is presumably regarded by his peers as being competent to do so.
A reasonable visitor from Mars would simply say, they differ, they have different backgrounds and records, only one can be correct, and we probably have to examine the facts and their assertions to find out which it is. A priori, there is no particular reason to accept the account of one in preference to the other.
As usual, the argument from authority is invoked, and as usual, it gets no place. The next move might be to plead that there are so many nutty things asserted by so many nuts that one cannot endlessly refute all of them… Which will not convince any more than the argument from authority, its just a variant of it, assuming that Pielke is one of these nuts, which is what was to be proved.
The issue we are debating is, what is in the models, and this can only be settled by reference to the facts of what is in them, not by reference to the personalities of those asserting the different propositions.
TCO, might I suggest that science is not “fair and balanced”. You look at how the vast majority of the evidence stacks up and go with that. Fortunately, once you gather enough evidence, the conclusion is rarely ambiguous.
Also, as to my alma mater, ever heard of Carl Wieman? Probably not. You don’t seem to have much interest in science.
As usual, the argument from authority is invoked, and as usual, it gets no place.
Well, no, not true.
…arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have detailed knowledge of a great many topics, we must often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true…
When it comes to deciding whether or not to have open heart surgery, one’s far more likely to listen to an argument from an authority such as a heart surgeon rather than Pielke [S/J]R.
And when it comes to climate modeling, I at least will give much more weight to climate modelers, not people like Pielke [S/J]R whose ranting make it clear that they have not mastered the subject.
It’s only an “argument from authority” if that is all (or at least the primary thing) the argument is based on.
Pielke(s), Schmidt et al have produced lots of stuff (in scientific papers, on blogs, etc) by which their knowledge and understanding of climate models (and math and science in general) can be judged.
For example, a demonstrated failure to understand that a slowly increasing exponential looks very much like a straight line for a small change in the abscissa would be more than sufficient to throw into question an individual’s understanding of climate models (eg, James Hansen, ‘88) — or their understanding of basic high school math, for that matter.
“the only basic physics in the models are the pressure gradient force, advection and the acceleration due to gravity. These are the only physics in which there are no tunable coefficients.” [Roger Pielke Sr.]
Tunable coefficients… any constant coefficient not obtained from a purely mathematical relationship is, from a technical viewpoint, tunable, including all the physical constants apart from the vacuum speed of light. E.g. Boltzmann’s constant, used a lot in radiative transfer, is a ‘tunable coefficient’ within an uncertainty range. ‘Tunable’ may mean ‘technically tunable’, ’sensibly tunable’, ‘tuning this coefficient has important impacts’, ‘this coefficient is often tuned’… for each person it will have a different meaning. The more tightly defined and interesting question, discussed in the RealClimate article, is what coefficients are actually tuned in climate modelling, and at what stages.
A coefficient can be purely tuned, in which case it’s an arbitrary parameter used to fit model output to data. A coefficient which has a direct physical interpretation and is solely obtained as the most likely value given a set of empirical measurements, is tunable but not tuned. A partly tuned coefficient is both measured and tuned within plausible physical values.
Tuning occurs at the component level, where the component output is evaluated against the subset of the climate system it models, and at the model level, after the components have been put together the emergent model output is tuned with a subset of coefficients.
RealClimate claimed that the number of coefficients used to tune model output is less than ten.
there are tuning parameters that control aspects of the emergent system. Gravity wave drag parameters are not very constrained by data, and so are often tuned to improve the climatology of stratospheric zonal winds. The threshold relative humidity for making clouds is tuned often to get the most realistic cloud cover and global albedo. Surprisingly, there are very few of these (maybe a half dozen) that are used in adjusting the models to match the data.
RP Sr. claimed that the above…
is incorrect. The students in each of my modeling classes (see for the classes for modeling and scroll to the bottom of each for the students’ class presentations where they decomposed parameterizations in order to quantify the number of tunable parameters)
RP Sr. can’t distinguish between ‘tunable’ and ‘tuned’, or between tuning at the component-construction and model-evaluation stages (his students were evaluating coefficients tuned in the former stage, e.g. here).
Michel,
The next move might be to plead that there are so many nutty things asserted by so many nuts that one cannot endlessly refute all of them
Pointing out that a fool is a fool is effective. There are actually fools, and they are intent on spreading confusion, doubt, disinformation, and slowing everything down by manufacturing an approachingly infinite number of foolish claims, and demanding that each claim be seriously evaluated. Pointing out their methods and their foolish aims is a public service.
but I actually don’t think that models can predict like that…nor should we take too much stake in the 2010 plateau prediction. For instance, if 2010 comes in very warm, will we then say that this means less support for AGW, since model efficacy was shown poor? ;-)
I know it is dissatisfying to both warmers and colders and to human nature, but we need to take a much more “stand back” attitude about individual warm or cold spells, years or even decades. Looking at the record of the last hundred years is more relevant. Also physical theory (to include models).
A note of clarification: my citation above of Hansen ‘88 was notintended to indicate that Hansen himself does not understand the difference between a slowly increasing exponential and a straight line.
It was meant to indicate that there are some others who do not understand as much, as demonstrated by their “analysis” of Hansen ‘88.
My comment about your uni was catty. I apologize. I swore to myself that I would not do stupid stunts like that, but fell from grace. Your response very mild.
Weiman is a good guy. Haven’t done anything with him.
Have done a little discussion with Carl Patton on a complicated microwave problem. What’s your take on him?
“Argument from authority”: when ALL the authorities in a field agree (climate modellers), then the possiblity that they are ALL wrong and a non-expert is right becomes nil.
Schmidt has certainly worked
more closely with models, but Pielke is teaching a course on them,
and is presumably regarded by his peers as being competent to do so.
So the answer is…?
Teaching a course on something is one thing, being in the frontline of research is quite another. I teach lots of courses outside my core competency, getting my material from the real authorities.
george: I think that if you have a discriminating faculty, you can judge people’s knowledge/intelligence on the observations and then this becomes a useful frame for…not exactly evaluating their work, since you need to do that on the merits…but for your first guess on how good their next peice of science/analysis will be and how much time/attention to give.
For instance, it’s clear that McI is brighter than Watts. Not to say that every trial balloon from McI will be right or from Watts wrong. But useful.
I don’t think we should be “gotcha” about individual errors. For instance, have heard a lot of cackling from “your side” on the cosin error (which was one of coding, of unit analysis…not of a failure to understand what a radian is. Does anyone seriously think that full professors in economics, not know basic trigonometry. There are many examples of over-cackling and generalization from my side versus yours as well. I think more relevant is a pattern of behavior/comprehension versus a single error, even a single error in logic.
… I find the theory totally implausible. Particularly as the
change in forcing up to 1958 (from pre-industrial times) was only
~0.6 w/m2.
John, what you believe is between you and your conscience, but what you know would benefit from pencil and paper. You did these sums in high school / grammar school. You can calculate what 0.6 W/m2 does to a layer of water 200 m thick over a century or so…
michel // December 4, 2008 at 11:22 am — ModelE is open source from GISS. You could read the code yourself.
OIr yu could do as I previously suggested: go to Gavin Schmidt’s web site; there he has two papers, one co-authored, which explain what is actually in ModelE (and other climate models). (I also suggested other places to reae about climate models.)
It completely clear that (assuming the quotation is correct) Piekle (S|J)r has not done any of the above.
TCO, no offense taken. While CU doesn’t need my aid, it’s not a bad school, and the physics department is pretty good and relatively (note, I say relatively) humane. EE department, not so much. Most women I know who went there wound up leaving.
The experience of getting my PhD there served it’s purpose–it taught me I can learn pretty much anything I have to on my own if necessary.
I already knew that ahead of my union card (which I got late in life) thus I found the whole process pretty easy and pretty…slack, really. But I can see for kids that are 22 and have never really been out on their own, that the union card gives some of the growing up experience that a first job does.
4 paramaters allows modeling an elephant. And the 5th allows wiggling his trunk, no?
[...]
we don’t have the luxury of out of sample testing on that scale
Ratio of parameters to degrees of freedom?
Physical processes interacting. Emergent behaviour. Innumerable degrees of freedom. It took ~ two decades work to obtain reasonable simulations. I feel the physics has to be mostly right.
TCO, I presume you mean George Patton. He was probably the best general for armored cavalry the allies had in WW II. Not a great psychologist. I think he got a bad rap in the incident with that shell-shocked soldier. He probably also suffered from PTSD. A hard man in a hard situation, just where he had to be. I rather think of him as being a bit like Sherman, though Sherman was, on balance, I think a better strategist.
Dave A. asks “How “counterfactual” is beliving in anon existent deity?”
No more counterfactual than disbelieving in said deity. Belief in things that transcend the physical world is a choice. I would not say that it was the wrong choice for people like Gandhi or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Eric Rudolf or James Dobson, maybe so.
Ray, are you reading my posts? Sheesh. No the other Patton.
That it took them so long to get them to run, does not give me a warm fuzzy, Laz. Nor no real reason to think that stability alone is a good test of model effectivness. Also check out Blind Lake by Charles Wilson.
Ray, sometimes you say some weird stuff, btw. Like how is the non-toughness or the kindness to womennes an answer as to the prestige of a physics department. also, wtf on Patton slapping that soldier? Who cares in the scheme of his career?! When you mix issues like this it worries me about your ability to do issue analysis. to do curly d calculaus on multi-variable problems…
[Response: I think he was just reminiscing a bit ... don't read so much into it.]
chriscolose asked (November 24, 2008), “Tamino, could you comment on Willis Eschenbach’s analysis over at CA where he uses what he calls a ‘Correlation Distribution Analysis’ to test the robustness of Mann et al 2008 conclusions without tree rings? The Mann paper specifically notes that their conclusion is robust with or without tree rings.”
I’ll take an amateurish first shot to prompt more learned commentary:
1) His novel statistical analysis is irrelevant, because there already were plenty of ways to see which proxy data contribute the most to the hockey stick shape. It’s easy enough to see even in the Mann, et al. (2008) PNAS article that not all the proxies even cover the most recent decades, so obviously they are incapable of showing the hockey stick blade or not. Even more detailed analyses are in the SuppInfo.pdf file that the PNAS article’s authors have had publicly posted along with the raw data and so on, from the start.
2) For the same reason of the already public availability of the data, Eschenbach’s revelation that only some of the proxy data have a hockey stick shape is no revelation at all.
3) Eschenbach is incorrect in thinking that a proxy can support the conclusion of a hockey stick shape only if that proxy has the hockey stick blade portion (the recent upswing). Proxies that don’t cover recent decades are useful nonetheless for establishing temperatures for the dates that those proxies do cover, and therefore for calibrating the proxies that do extend into recent decades.
I think the supports for AGW, most strong are
1. Co-happening of CO2 rise with temp rise in 20th century.
2. Inuitive effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas as well as
simplifying assumption of constant relative humidity percent for
amplifying feedback.
I wouldn’t call 2. “intuitive”… for a 1-D model atmosphere with a negative temp gradient it is provably true. The intuition comes then in assuming that this describes (well enough) the real atmosphere.
As for 1., without 2. I suspect we wouldn’t think much of it. It takes actually some nontrivial analysis to extract 1. against the background of everything else going on (but after 1975 or so you’re mostly right). For me, Figure 9.5 of the IPCC WG1 contains 1. and 2. but is stronger than both together.
also, wtf on Patton slapping that soldier? Who cares in the scheme of his career?!
It cost him his job for a year or so, and a star … it led to him not being part of D-Day, and only commanding the 3rd Army, rather than all US ground forces in Europe, which was given to his subordinate Bradley instead.
Indeed, Eisenhower wasn’t entirely sold on giving him command of even an Army in Europe. Patton had to work hard in the mea culpa department to overcome the bad press and embarrassment to the Army caused by such incidents (there was more than one).
TCO, Isn’t it fortunate for me that I don’t require validation from you as to my degree of success or failure–in anything. I’ll let my publications speak as to my status as a happy oompa-loompa of science. I was reading quickly and didn’t even see the “carl” in your first post, so I am sorry for the confusion. Carl didn’t really overlap with me at CSU. My general impression is that he was well thought of. I know the CSU faculty were quite happy to get him.
We don’t need proxies to tell us the temperatures for the past 150 years, because we’ve got instruments for that. Proxies are needed to tell us the temperatures from earlier times. A proxy is useful even if it covers only a pre-blade time range, as long as that proxy can be calibrated using either other proxies or instruments.
GP: For me, one of the most cogent signatures of a ghg mechanism is simultaneous tropospheric warming coupled with stratospheric cooling. That’s a tough one to fake.
Published online 3 December 2008 | Nature 456, 558-559 (2008) | doi:10.1038/456558b
Greenhouse gases hit modern-day highs
Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases reached new highs in 2007, according to the most recent analysis by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — which together contribute 88% of the anthropogenic global-warming effect — were last year 37%, 156% and 19% above pre-industrial levels, respectively.
Since 1990, total radiative forcing … has increased by 24%, the WMO reports.
Yes, Dave, I got your tired old militant-atheist gist. Did you really expect me to answer it for the 987th time? I get enough practice with that on the AOL message boards. Go spam another board. Nobody here cares about your religious prejudices.
I respect your right to your religious views and don’t normallyhave a ‘go’ at people for such(although I have often been accused of being a creationist by inference because I am a climate change sceptic, despite having no religion)
A few months ago I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out why Lucia’s chosen method of OC seemed to consistently show a negative trend in temperature.
Not being a statistician I didn’t make any progress, but today I came across a description of Simpson’s Paradox (where regression lines can be reversed if two series are blindly combined even though both series are positive).
I recalled that Lucia simply combines all anomalies from all series and fits them all in one shot.
Can I ask you for your opinion on whether her results could be an example of Simpson’s Paradox?
[Response: I'd have to look at it in detail to know, but I'd guess that it's possible. It's also possible that the different data sets have different trends (in fact they should!), and of course different analyses may give different results, but if they're valid they should be within each others' error limits.
By "OC" do you mean "CO" (i.e., Cochran-Orcutt)? If so, that assumes an AR(1) model for the random part, which is not a valid approximation.]
Thanks Tamino, yes I did mean Cochran-Orcutt, slippery fingers.
“if they’re valid they should be within each others’ error limits.”
Isn’t that the basis of her entire argument? That because CO is outside the limits of other fits that the others are “falsified”?
[Response: But as I said, C-O assumes that the random part follows an AR(1) model, which is demonstrably false. I don't know if that's the basis of her entire argument. I'd have to study her stuff in detail, which frankly, I'm not motivated to do.]
There’s actually some interesting stuff going on in CA in terms of cavesicle discussions (several recent threads). McI mostly tries to do a “gotcha” regarding an inconsistency of Loehle and Mann (where he basically assumes any good skeptic like himself is aligned with Loehle, and that anything Gavin says must match papers of Mann). He selectively quotes Gavin, but there’s a link to Gavin’s longer remarks on proper calibration of cavesicles to temp.
Hu (a skeptic, but at least an academic, writes econ papers) picks up on Steve’s passive aggressive omission and says Gavin is right to hold Loehle to account for a calibration on almost no data (something which Steve would criticize if Mann did it, but remember Steve is all about sides).
Speleo specialists (Paul Deniss and Jud Partin) jump in with some nice posts and share some info on the state of the art in cavesicles, confounding factors, etc. that is helpful from a tutorial standpoint on mechanisms as well as sort of a “review” standpoint.
Steve mischaracterizes Jud and mislabels some graphs and then is passive aggressive (not correcting them…begrudgingly correcting some things but not others). He’s such a weasely sea lawyer.
Partin went to the Citadel. Wish he had Steve there as his rat. Some sessions of extend arms with the M-1 would be good for Steve. Obvious that he never had it.
I realize I might be a bit late to this, but earlier in this thread I notice there was a bit of a debate about comparing climate denialists to holocaust denialists during which Gavins Pussycat said
(Sorry GP, this is not a dig, just a clarification)
“How can they be so certain it was six million? There was a war going on, for crying out loud. And who is doing the counting?”
The Nazi’s were. There is an astonishing amount of documentary evidence from the bureaucracy. Hitler might have kept his mittens off any paper that could be traced to him but everyone else meticulously recorded what they were up to.
The second way of counting is more general but still pretty accurate, population data (including census’s) before and after the war. The Jews of Europe are no longer with us.
“And how would you count a Jewish gay communist victim”
Again, the Nazi’s identified, classified and tabulated their victims.
I wonder how much non-science things drive the appeal of researchers to the AGW sciences. Please note, this is not a dig, per se. Dano, a warmer, made the point to Steve, that these people love their field trips and that some aspects of the stats and math are drudgery. That Steve should consider the different nature and different psyches of his opponents.
I can see how the being outdoors thing would be cool. Also the “helping the earth” thing. I mean…well not to be sexist…but look at all the hot chicks who do marine biology so they can pet dolphins.
I have always had this romantic image of oil geology. Listen to me for a sec libs and try to think in my mocasins.
I mean you get to do science and all…so it’s good for us math geeks. But you also get to wear blue jeans. Hang out in sunny deserts and such. Chew a little soil and then make a bet on where to spud in. Add in the drama of big financial bets requiring large stones. Plus some random wars with Bedouin bandits. I mean…it sounds pretty frigging macho.
“I mean you get to do science and all…so it’s good for us math geeks. But you also get to wear blue jeans. Hang out in sunny deserts and such. Chew a little soil and then make a bet on where to spud in. Add in the drama of big financial bets requiring large stones. Plus some random wars with Bedouin bandits. I mean…it sounds pretty frigging macho.”
Hmm. Wrong era. I do a lot a different stuff where math/physics/geology combine, but my actual position is in petroleum/coal part of institute and a lot of time spent in thermal modelling of basins. Oil exploration is dominated by geophysics, heavily offshore unless in north africa/middle east, and its practise is largely done at a computer. Yes, the sedimentary guys get to study onshore outcrop if they are lucky but seismic interpretation and well log geophysics are the big players. That and lots of computer horsepower.
TCO, just make sure your lungs don’t turn out like those of the Marlboro man…
Additionally, I do get your point on the marine geology chick. One of them made for me the kind of memories we all wish to recall upon leaving this world…
Besides, I know guys who have traded the Italian convertible against a prius, for a chick magnet. They are pragmatists; according to them, it just works better for that purpose. Could our better halves enjoy once again some wisdom hidden from us cartesian types?
In any case, nice to see that people here seem to spontaneously bring the snark down and keep a baseline courtesy higher than other blogs. Another point Tamino should get credit for.
Thank you for an informative post on parameters, tunable and otherwise, and for giving a reasoned and factual account of what you find wrong with Pielke’s assertions. You’re right to conclude that exposing foolishness is useful. The only point I was making on this is that one does not generally achieve this by just calling people fools, one achieves it by exposing why their positions are foolish.
Hey TCOIB. Love your work. I can’t help but wonder though, what a good thing it would be if you were to apply all of that brainpower, time, and typing ability to actually pulling together a coherent, and scientific, account of what is really going on. Watching your work for the past few years now, you seem to come up with a litany of destructive criticism of McI and CA, but do precious little that is constructive.
Also, more generally to the Tamino team, there seem to me to be downsides in letting CA and the other sites continue to tug at the AGW hypothesis without challenge. And to be direct, the welcome participation of Paul Dennis and Jud Partin at CA, if anything, seems to be confirming the sceptical view that all is not right with the Team position on AGW. Why do you let the CA challenges go unanswered? It sure makes it look like the Team position on AGW is a house of cards.
PS, I speak as a Rudd/Obama supporter, and one who is genuinely concerned about man’s impact on local, regional and global climate.
The Nazi’s were. There is an astonishing amount of documentary evidence from the bureaucracy. Hitler might have kept his mittens off any paper that could be traced to him but everyone else meticulously recorded what they were up to.
Once while in Amsterdam I stumbled upon an exhibit of Nazi paperwork somewhere around Nieuw Markt. Meticulous hand-typed (complete with x’d out corrections, white-out wasn’t invented until after the war) lists of Jews who were deported, compiled by the logistics type.
There’s something chilling at times about teutonic efficiency (perhaps being 100% ethnic German has something to do with my reaction).
The second way of counting is more general but still pretty accurate, population data (including census’s) before and after the war. The Jews of Europe are no longer with us.
Amazingly, a few thousand Jews survived the war living in Berlin. I only know this because the grandfather of an acquaintance was one of them, and not surprisingly while alive he was interviewed for a few documentaries. Survived with the help of friends, false papers, his non-stereotypical looks, etc. Quite an amazing story. The fact that he managed to remain sane despite the experience amazes me nearly as much as the fact that he survived physically. Surely he lived in a constant state of fear of betrayal.
Of course, 5,000 may sound like a lot, but given that there were around a couple hundred thousand Jews living in Berlin when Hitler came to power …
I can see how the being outdoors thing would be cool. Also the “helping the earth” thing. I mean…well not to be sexist…but look at all the hot chicks who do marine biology so they can pet dolphins.
Well, this is one reason why this very male compiler writer has done years of field work with raptors during the fall migration season…
Why do you let the CA challenges go unanswered? It sure makes it look like the Team position on AGW is a house of cards.
What makes you think they’re unanswered? Because working scientists don’t wish to subject themselves to the misery which is named CA? That doesn’t mean the claims go unanswered…
So, for the hell of it, “curious”, I took a quick peek at Climate Audit.
The top post at the moment? Yet another barely-veiled accusation of scientific fraud and dishonesty on the part of “The Team”.
And you wonder why genuine climate scientists don’t participate there? McIntyre’s been claiming scientific fraud, dishonesty, illegal behavior, and the like on the part of climate scientists for on the order of a decade.
If he had something, surely some of these charges would’ve been investigated in court, or reviewed by granting agencies, and if true heads would’ve rolled by now.
But … there’s nothing. Just empty claims of dishonesty and scientific fraud on the part of hard-working professionals.
If you don’t understand whose house is made of cards, here, well, don’t assume that the rest of the world shares this lack.
Lazar and Michel, It appears to me that RP Sr. is confusing the concepts of tuned parameters with adjustable parameters–very different beasts. If he doesn’t know the difference, he really shouldn’t be teaching a course on modeling of any kind.
“And to be direct, the welcome participation of Paul Dennis and Jud Partin at CA, if anything, seems to be confirming the sceptical view that all is not right with the Team position on AGW.”
curious, I’m not sure what you mean by this. Jud Partin in particular has pointed out a number of errors in Steve M’s ramblings on spleothems.
I’ve got to hand it to Jud for sticking with it, but why should “Team” members, whose views have been grossly misrepresented and who have been the subject of barely veiled accusations of fraud, even bother? It would be a full time job to correct all the misinformation.
There are a lot of followers of RC and this blog who have tried their hand at bringing some balance to CA. You need a really thick skin and it’s a thankless task. Most of us just give up after a while.
Now, to be clear, I believe that there are some reasonable crticisms to be made of the work of Mann et al. Von Storch’s contention that the original MBH work underestimated climate variability has been borne out by subsequent work, for instance. But the CA signal-to-noise ratio is very weak indeed, to say the least.
Unfortunately CA is very popular, and draws more readers than RealClimate (and WattsUp is even more popular). What to do about this unfortunate state of affairs is a real conundrum.
curious,
You know, I stumbled through the CA looking glass precisely once. I learned a lot, but it was about human psychology, not climate. CA has become an echo chamber. All it does is reinforce the paranoid delusions of the participants. I don’t know of anyone but the most ardent of climate skeptics who can stomach it, so I think it’s influence is likely to remain limited to those who are already convinced that the evil scientists are trying to rule the world. Personally, I think it’s nice that the tinfoil hat types have a place they can congregate.
> (Sorry GP, this is not a dig, just a clarification)
JM, no offence taken… I was playing devil’s advocate. Arguments don’t have to be valid or even cogent to be effective with some.
You’re very right of course, and you just summed up two of the three most convincing, independently confirmatory items of evidence. The third would be interviews with survivors, which sets a lower bound on the victim count.
What surprises me a bit is how long it took for somebody to make your point.
Another way to look at it: Forcing the intercept of the 2001-2008 period to the endpoint of the 1979-2000 period gives a trend of well above .2 deg/decade in 2001-2008.
Anyway you slice it, there’s an*increasing* trend in this decade relative to past decades.
curious, an interesting mental exercise is to consider what would happen if the fondest dreams of the CA crowd were realized and it turned out that climate variability over the last 2,000 years was a little greater than presently thought. It turns out that this has very minor implications. Being of a cynical bent, I would suggest that McI selected the HS as a focus precisely because the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation. Quoting from the linked article:
‘Discussion about the temperature evolution of the past millennium will no doubt continue in the coming years. The most fundamental problem – the sparseness of data – will not be fixed quickly, but eventually better reconstructions with smaller uncertainties will become available. However, this discussion needs to be conducted in a sober and unexcited manner; it does not help to overburden the “hockey stick” with symbolic meaning. In some media reports, the “hockey stick” has even been hyped as “a pillar of the Kyoto protocol” (which was agreed in 1997 and thus predates it) or as “proof that humans are warming the Earth”. This is a serious misunderstanding of the scientific meaning of these data.’
DC, the “unfortunate state of affairs” you mention could be largely remedied by a more regular (meaning more like daily) posting schedule. That’s a different blog concept, however.
Lutz is firmly on the record …. He has dismissed global warming as “a total crock of shit,” saying that he puts his faith in the signatories of the laughable Oregon petition.
Lutz has tried to reassure us in the past by saying, “My thoughts on what has or hasn’t been the cause of climate change have nothing to do with the decisions I make to advance the cause of General Motors.” Which raises an interesting question: why would Congress bet billions on a policy maker who would dismiss out of hand the biggest environmental crisis in human history, and then go on making self-destructive decisions that drive his company to the brink of bankruptcy?
—————– http://www.desmogblog.com/gm-vp-bob-lutz-green-pose-total-crock-shit-global-warming
and
“To blame the American automobile executives for this frankly is ridiculous,” Mr. Lutz said, suggesting an unforseen downturn in the economy and housing market are the culprits. “How were we supposed to forecast this when the government doesn’t forecast it and the financial institutions couldn’t?” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122875608562688401.html
TCO, I doubt that Watts’ “experimental” work was ever truly formalized or yielded any usable results. There was a lot of fanfare at some point on his site about the all thing, then it all fell into oblivion. Leads me to believe that, if there was anything at all there, none of it could possibly support his views, even with the loosest standards.
I realize I might be a bit late to this, but earlier in this thread I notice there was a bit of a debate about comparing climate denialists to holocaust denialists
It is a common theme in AGW discussions. Advocates take the view that the AGW hypothesis is so well evidenced and proven that scepticism or agnosticism about it is simply not possible on the merits of the case. It is then compared to other cases of this kind, particularly to the smoking/cancer link, and to the Holocaust. In both of these cases we have seen advocacy of an essentially dishonest kind by interest groups. Evidence and statistics have been denied or misrepresented. In both cases the motives were the justification of institutions – the Nazi regime or the industry. Both are highly emotive cases, on the one hand because of the vileness of the regime, on the other because of the horrible nature of the disease.
The question is whether AGW is like this. The problem is, the chain of reasoning behind AGW is quite complex, its dependent on models, the evidence is often obscure to lay people and is highly interpreted. The same is true of much of science – going as far back as the Greek calculations of the size of the earth. But it is not true of the particular cases to which its being compared. The statistical basis of the smoking/lung cancer connexion is very accessible. The proofs of the existence of the Holocaust are readily available in the form of journals, sites, films, exhibits. Its like WWI – there’s evidence all over Europe. You will not however come on an enormous cemetary someplace that shows you clearly that the average global temperatures of the last 20 years are both unprecedented and due to rising CO2.
In the effort to show the similarity, advocates therefore engage in some illegitimate forms of argument themselves. They seek to show that scepticism is funded by fossil fuel interests. Some undoubtedly is, but not enough to show the parallel. A typical form of this occurs when McIntyre is denigrated because he worked in the mining industry: there never has been any evidence that he or CA is funded in any way by fossil fuel interests, but this is thought to be a slur which is close enough. They seek to denigrate the individuals on personal grounds. Spencer for instance is ridiculed because of his religious beliefs. McIntyre on this thread is inferred to have “selected the HS as a focus precisely because the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation”. They defend to the bitter end the most dubious and peripheral elements of the hypothesis, of which the most egregious are the assertion of the perfection of the surface station network despite its obvious and documented flaws, and the Hockey Stick. Though, in the comment quoted, we seem to be moving to a more balanced position on that! They appear to exaggerate, in Oreskes’ work, the extent to which there is universal consensus. They also have sought to make a connection between scepticism and political views which they think less than respectable: conservatism, Republicanism, a devotion to minimal regulation.
An odd consequence of the strategy has appeared in the UK recently. The argument has been gaining ground that the case is so well proven, but also so corruptly denied, that illegal sabotage of CO2 generating activities is legitimate as being the only solution. And so we have efforts to stop airports functioning or generating plants be constructed. Its also begun to be argued, in the US and UK, that perhaps those in charge of companies generating CO2 should be prosecuted. This is rather disturbing to those of us who think we are living in a democracy and that the law should either be complied with, or changed in the usual way, and that people should only be prosecuted for breaking well defined laws, statutorily established. But it is a natural conclusion of the strategy of argument.
The result is rather paradoxical. For much of the lay public, the issue becomes political rather than scientific. It comes increasingly to seem as if AGW is a Democratic Party hypothesis. This then makes opposition seem more legitimate to a large section of the population, but less to another. But you can see the motivation: were it true that the science was settled, consensus universal, all opposition funded by the fossil fuel lobby, the consequences of inaction proven to be catastrophic, all sceptics either corrupt or in the grip of creationism, then it really would be true that scepticism would be on a level with scepticism about the tobacco/cancer connexion.
The central problem with the strategy however is that it is not possible to convince the lay public of this simply by the power of frequent strident assertion. It simply provokes more strident counter assertion. This site becomes the mirror of CA. Watts’ site appears and gains huge readership. Every error in the GISS surface station record attracts furious sceptical coverage, out of all proportion to its real significance. It is totally counter productive. And to make the case in a rational properly argued way takes one back to the science. This then has not been made any easier to explain by the previous politicization.
It is frankly a mess whichever side of the debate is correct scientifically. It does not seem as if the strategy is working. Which was predictable. In an open society, it never was going to work. And I am an example of its not working. It seems to me that the correct parallel is not smoking/lung cancer, but may be the saturated fat/cholesterol/heart disease connexion. This was universally accepted until very recently. Arguments to the contrary were ridiculed. The evidence appeared overwhelming. And yet, if you read the recent Business Week article on statins, and you were in the corn or soybean lobbies, a small shiver would have gone down your spine. Could it be that things were not quite as well understood as we had thought?
Steve Bloom said: “…I would suggest that McI selected the HS as a focus precisely because the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation.”
I believe it is about credibility and a difference of opinion. I have sound mathematical credentials and I dismiss the statistical basis of the Hockey Stick. The fact that many (if not the majority) of climate scientists can not see the problems with the underlying data sets and methodology is, in my humble opinion, a detriment to their intellectual credibility.
How can we ‘move on’ from this? It is difficult to give merit to scientific endeavours undertaken by those who can not see, what is to me (again in my opinion), blatant and obvious scientific baloney.
That is why the Hockey Stick is a sticking point and not for the reason you asserted.
I have sound mathematical credentials and I dismiss the statistical basis of the Hockey Stick. The fact that many (if not the majority) of climate scientists can not see the problems with the underlying data sets and methodology is, in my humble opinion, a detriment to their intellectual credibility.
Well, “SDW” sure has convinced me! Hand-waving trumps any amount of science, every time. Forevermore I’ll depend on anonymous people posting to blog sites and ignore those uncredible cretins who work in science and publish peer-reviewed work.
I’m glad to see you call out the “hoi polloi” of skeptic-land who fasten onto the minutest things and blow them out of proportion…or who basically just talk to each other like a reinforcing echo chamber. A real skeptic questions even skepticism. This is not meant as some sort of philosophical endless recursion…but of a general attitude of open mindedness and of inquisitiveness for “killer analyses” that “cut the Gordian knot” and give insight. I see this as something very different from running with things that look bad, but have little impact. The one is PR and game-playing…and the other is the analytical, curious faculty which should be applied to all science problems…heck to all business problems, too.
It particularly distresses me to see skeptics (Steve is often guilty of this, Watts is even worse) fasten on minutia without interest (or even an opposition to discussion of) in the relative impact of different things. In this sense, Steve and Ross’s work and blogging where they conflate different issues, where they resist clarification of PC1 versus “hockey stick” stands as a poor comparison to the more inquisitive full factorial within Burger05. BTW, Burger and Zorita are in some ways sympathetic to the spirit and even the movement of Steve’s probing, and the desire to push sounder exploration by climatologists like the RC “gang”, but also critical of Steve’s skewed and amateur reporting.
On the warmer side, I think it’s pretty clear that climate systems are complex and not completely understood, but this is not adequately acknowledged. And note, if a system is complex and you don’t completely understand it, then this does not mean something as simple as “it will get warm, but we’re not sure where more”. It could also mean that “we’re not sure how much it will really warm”. For instance although Milankovitch theory is probably mostly right, there are still a number of unexplained things and contrary results. In this sense, both the skeptics who say “we’ve had ice ages and dinosaurs) as well as their responders who say “you idiots, Milankovitch” are short of real description of the state of knowledge.
I also think the association of AGW with political liberalism and policy promotion is non-ideal. There is a danger of conflict of interest and bias and just not looking at things carefully enough to make an independant decision, because the “consensus science” drives in a direction (statism, environmentalism) that political leftists already espouse. Similarly the joy from conservative bloggers and WSJ and Rush and the like in seeing results from Steve or Watts, when those conservatives don’t even understand things at a “hoi polloi level” is troubling.
It should technically be possible to be a conservative and think that the bulk of evidence supports AGW or a liberal and think the jury is still out. Or even just be a scientist who thinks, “this is a neat problem, I’m going to figure out how it works and report it” and not give a damn what happens to the planet.
Ah, a little revisionist history and science from Michel. Actually, Michel, the case behind anthropogenic causation is pretty simple, and unless you can get a greenhouse gas to stop acting like a greenhouse gas at 280 ppmv or at a global temperature of ~285 degrees K, it’s pretty hard to argue against it.
Scientific consensus occurs on an aspect of the theory when it becomes indispensable for understanding the world around us. CO2 as a greenhouse gas is just such a concept. It also has the unfortunate and unavoidable consequence that when you increase its concentration in the atmosphere, then you raise the planet’s temperature.
Personally, I consider thermodynamics and radiative physics of planetary atmospheres to be as well established as any physical evidence–but then, that is because I understand them.
The fact that many (if not the majority) of climate scientists can not see the problems with the underlying data sets and methodology is, in my humble opinion, a detriment to their intellectual credibility
The fact that all scientists (climate or otherwise) are continuously working to better understand the genuine and not contrived problems and uncertainties of data and methods, as it is the underlying process defining their day to day professional work, and the fact that sdw doesn’t understand this, is, IMHO, evidence of a complete lack of sdw’s intellectual credibility.
Well, Steve Bloom has convinced me. I am finally seeing a committed AGW advocate admit that “the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation”. Just what I suspected, thanks for the confirmation. We are making progress. It was not long ago that it was said to be irrefutable scientific proof that the present was catastrophically different from any time in the historical past. We are getting to the bottom of this thing. Painfully, slowly, but we are getting there.
Both aspects in your comment are troubling. First, the big fanfare without the willingness to do the work to complete an analysis. Second, the possiblity that contrary data is not being shown (or shown more slowly).
Phil (additional thoughts from Watts failure to complete analyses whose opening stages had a big to do):
I think this has to do with what is often wrong about “blog science”. There is a lot of gratification from the social aspect of the enterprise and the quick feedback. In one sense, this might be good in mpotivating some work. But in another it is bad, because bloggers throw the first analysis up and often don’t finish their work. The bad result of this form of “publishing” is that the casual readers emerge with views like “wow! there’s all these posts and stuff, there must really be something here.”
There is this fascination with starting projects (a human nature, a human failing), but often lack of will to finish them. What we get is this dynamic call of “let’s put on a show” (cf. White Christmas). But I have seen that many of these things never finish up. For instance look at open source game projects like those on Apolyton–they spring up anew like weeds, but none have gotten anywhere.
In a sense, it is one of the disadvantages of Web 2.0 versus the normal model of scholarship, analysis, writing, editing, reviewing and publishing. (There are also some benefits in terms of interaction and the like…I just think we should not fail to recognize the disadvantages.) Wegman was right on target when he said science should not be done on blogs, that people should write normal science papers.
I think there is a role for blogs and forums and the like…but that when they eclipse papers, it’s bad. Ideally, they should be “additional.” In this sense, RC is GOOD…because the authors still write papers. (I know I find a lot of fault with that blog and its moderators, so I am happy to be able to find a positive point.)
Segue: I took a class on history of American foreign policy once. It was the only TRUE seminar course I ever took. Where we had a limit of 12 people, led by a famous book-writing historian, where we sat around a round table and actually debated each day’s topic (which would be some event in history, but with write-ups from historians of different political slants). On the Tuesday sessions, we had to turn in a 2-page paper (no longer than, typed, comparing/contrasting). On the Thursday classes, we just read and discussed. Someone noted, how much BETTER the discussions were on Tuesday because of the benefit of the work that had gone into the papers. In this sense, I am happy that RC is and ADJUNCT to real science papers, not a substitute.
The issue is that on the internet a lot of the activity is social and can become overwhelmingly social (chat and chat games) and a sort of almost video game like feedback. Look at Wikipedia and the people drawn to being administrators and the like.
Heck, I think it is generally acknowledged on that site (and studies also show) that most great articles are the work of a single person who buckles down on a topic and produces real scholarship…and that the best articles are made so, by bringing in non-internet sources rather than reliance on Google alone. The conundrum is if you are really going to go to all that effort (and it is a solitary task to do so) why not get a byline, have it archived, edited, published, etc.? Instead much of the active stuff on Wikipedia is related to gnome activities and to talk pages, the growing phenena of userspace aping blogspace, etc. Add in the fascination of heirarchies and merit structures and edit counts and the whole thing starts to seem more like a discusison forum with trolls, postcount fixation, people wanting to be moderators and the like.
It was not long ago that it was said to be irrefutable scientific proof that the present was catastrophically different from any time in the historical past.
By Whom? Men made from straw?
The contention is that average global temperatures are higher than any time in the last millenium plus.
~0.7C warmer. The significant subjectively observable effect in the temperate NH is slightly warmer nights, slightly milder winters, slightly earlier springs and longer lasting autumns, and, perhaps a slight increase in the intensity of already intense storms.
However, we are beginning to see catastrophic effects in the Polar regions as increases in the collapse of coastal ice shelves and the possible catastrophic loss of the summer Arctic icecap.
That is from an objective scientific understanding what catastrophy means.
As for the normative subjective meaning of catastrophe, melting of the permafrost is proving catastrophic many for many Inuit as well as causing major problems on the North Slope oil fields.
For those of us who live in the temperate zones, perturbations in the climate aren’t expected to produce widespread catastrophic effects until warming exceeds ~2.0C.
And another thing I don’t like about Climate Audit or Watts Up…is not describing experiments before they are run. Not setting up true tests to run, running them…and then just timely reporting of the data for whatever it’s worth:
For instance, Steve McI for a long time made a big to-do about how easy it is to get dendro samples, for a while (the “Starbucks” hypothesis, that you can drink coffee in civilization on the same day, you gather samples). Eventually, he actually put together an expedition and gathered some samples, to test the “Starbucks concept”. He reported on that, here (and in other posts, he weaves a tangled meandering web):
While the Stevolloi congratulated Steve on having described the expedition before the results were in, I actually had the OPPOSITE impression. I notice that the purpose was to “test the Starbucks hypothesis”, but that the experiment was only described AFTER the test was run. If the test had failed, would we have seen a publication on his blog? But over in the echo chamber, no one brought that up. They were too busy acting like good monkies of the same tribe peacefully grooming each other.
(segue1) That whole expedition also suffers in that Steve does not really acknowledge some of the results that go against his hypothesis…for instance they damaged their vehicle, because the area was more remote than they supposed. The issue arose because Steve is essentially looking for “gotchas to tout” rather than hypotheses to test (and then report how they came out either way). Note, it’s not necessary to have a lack of opinion on how the test will come out. It’s just necessary to have an attitude of “I’m going to check whether I’m right and report the result either way, because even if I find my initial opinoin wrong, I’ve learned something.”
Segue 2: The results of that dendro survey have still not been completed in terms of compiling and publishing (let alone analyzing) all the ring width data. The expedition had some issues with the samples they took…but instead of noting the interesting result that one of Dano’s point was validated (”you always end up wanting to resample and need to do a go-back expedition”), they just sort of slunk away.
Michel, to take what Steve said out of context is dishonest. To do so on the same page where the context is present is just flat stupid! No one is saying that climate is not complicated. Aspects of paleoclimate–the subject Steve was addressing–are among them. However, there are some aspects of it that we understand unequivocally. The physics of greenhouse gasses is unequivocal. The paleoclimate of greenhouse gasses is also pretty unequivocal (albeit less so than the physics). The temperature record is also pretty unequivocal–when viewed in context as a signal in a noisy system. And finally, the publication record is absolutely unequivocal–those few papers that reject the consensus never go anywhere because they do nothing to advance understanding. Even more than the volume of publication, the subsequent citations of the papers are even more impressive. The few skeptical scientists who do publish don’t have much to offer. That’s why they tend to be ignored.
I had to hassle the heck out of Watts to get some reports on his paint experiment. He was reticent to share contrary data and/or problems in the field. In addition, he ran a long (many month) experiment in the field, but did not bother notifying people what he was going to do before hand.
In addition to the benefit of pre-test prediction, doing this would have actually allowed him to devise a better experiment. As you can see, here…
Note the photo: Watts is testing different paints for inter-instrument differences, but only does so with one instrument per sample! Thus if there are enclosure to enclosure or thermometer to thermometer differences, that will be confounded with paint variable!
This is a pretty common sense point, which he should have thought of. But even failing that, he should have had his design reviewed by a real experimentalist before just hacking away and spending months of data gathering.
Perhaps the point is pedantic and I have no way of knowing that intrinsic differences swamp, but it blows my mind that someone would not think about this, before months of secret data gathering. What a waste! This is a bit scary, too, when you consider the guy runs a (small) weather station company.
FYI: here is a better study done by real scientists. Note the photo and see how multiple instruments were included (so real scientists get this kind of issue). Perhaps if Watts had looked at this ahead of time, he would have run a better experiment. A day in the library can save a month in the lab…
*aaargh! I can’t find the reference and the photo. It was a really sweet one, though. I think it was in Europe somewhere and they were testing various instruments side by side, with 3 of each…anyone find it?*
On the warmer side, I think it’s pretty clear that climate systems are complex and not completely understood, but this is not adequately acknowledged. And note, if a system is complex and you don’t completely understand it, then this does not mean something as simple as “it will get warm, but we’re not sure where more”. It could also mean that “we’re not sure how much it will really warm”.
So, when climate scientists give a range for expected warming of, oh, 2.5C to 4C for each doubling of CO2 they’re not acknowledging that “we’re not sure how much it will really warm”, and aren’t properly acknowledging the fact that this complex system of climate isn’t fully understood?
Huh. We must be using different dictionaries.
It should technically be possible to be a conservative and think that the bulk of evidence supports AGW or a liberal and think the jury is still out.
Sure, both are possible. What’s not possible is to be *honest* and believe that the jury is still out on AGW. How much warming? Piffling over uncertainties? Sure. But that’s not what you’re saying …
My Bayesian bet is that AGW is happening. I just don’t have a level of certitude on it. This is because the system is complex and it is difficult for a layman to review the rationale without huge time investment. My basic assumption is that I see higher credibility *in general* with the professionals and less with the amateurs. But I note elements of “wishcasting” with each. And neither completely blow me away in terms of brainpower or logic. The Heartland types vary from old retired wazrhorses to nutters. The professionals seem like guys who couldn’t cut it in mathematical physics (Mann).
dhog: No contest that the uncertainty of 3-6 (or whatever) temp is indicated. I’m not debating that. My point of view is more subtle. That given the system is so darn complex. That the main tool (GCMs) rely on deterministic forecasts (but are not validated over the period of interest), that it is hard to know if they even know how uncertain they are (particularly systemic uncertainty as opposed to run to run uncertainty. I am MUCH more a fan of EBMs, basic physics intuitions, the record of temp rise, sealevel rise, etc…than of the ginormous Richard Wilson Blind Lake like GCMs.
Remember the guys at LTCM thought they knew what they were doing too. Are we existing in the one of 10,000 universes where a perfect storm occurred? Or are there more basic things (like co-correlation of risks) that they failed to bake into their models? Hint: basic things is the right answer.
Even more than the volume of publication, the subsequent citations of the papers are even more impressive
Are those citations made because the authors endorse what is therein or because they feel they must include them, or because they feel it gives some gravitas to their papers to use them ?
To use an analogy, it is well known that journalists will write anything if it has been used in at least two other media areas.
dhogaza said: “Oh, and for those who misuse the “argument from authority” gambit, SDW’s post is the perfect example of an argument from personal authority. I have credentials! Therefore, believe me, because I’m right!”
Yes, it is unfortunate that a scientist must present their opinion anonymously, however, this is a obvious result of ‘denier’ name-calling over the years. An environment has been established where honest opinion can not be presented, without harming an academic career. Dhogoza, you have contributed to this environment. I do not apologise for my anonymity.
I do apologise for my reference to ‘their intellectual credibility’, this was uncalled for. In my defense, those on this side of the argument are the subject of similar abusive terms and this can result in an inappropriate discourse.
Finally, I did not say that one should “believe me”. I repeatedly said that I was expressing an opinion with respect to the HS. Many posts in this forum are subjective opinion – is that reserved for you Dhogoza?
Have you ever been involved in a critical examination of a journal article with the conclusion that the results are incorrect? Does this mean that you are required to publish a rebuttal? Must you refrain from discussing the results because you disagree with the science?
I see the HS as an oddity derived from an inappropriate use of mathematical tools. Whether with respect to assumptions of stationary processes, the use of ‘uncentered’ PCA, incorrect use of the underlying proxies, inappropriate calibrations and weighting of series which ‘mines’ for upturns, and a resu
383 responses so far ↓
Hank Roberts // November 23, 2008 at 5:57 pm |
Here’s an interesting pair:
Methane level increased after being flat for a decade:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL036037.shtml
Two mechanisms are suggested. One is a global increase in production; another possibility is a decrease in levels of hydroxide ion in the atmosphere more in the Northern hemisphere.
Where does that hydroxide ion come from?
Old answer: UV breaking up water molecules, a global atmospheric effect.
Newer answer: add in another mechanism — visible light catalyzing a reaction in urban smog.
http://www.eponline.com/articles/60147/
Less urban smog, more methane surviving from natural gas leaks to get into the general atmospheric circulation?
It’s speculation on my part.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 23, 2008 at 6:26 pm |
Lazar, if you want to integrate a convolution, use the convolution theorem!
The integral over a function f from -inf to +inf is precisely the value of its Fourier transform F at frequency argument 0.
So, take the integral over Gauss — see above — and over Cauchy-Lorentz — pretty sure it exists in closed form too, in fact I know it does — and multiply them together.
Generally, it’s not a good idea to do things numerically if a simple analytical way exists.
Dave A // November 23, 2008 at 9:09 pm |
Hank,
Maybe you’re right and the science is a bit more complicated than it once appeared. Strange isn’t it that the science continues to move on perhaps leaving the supposed ‘consensus’ behind?
Anna // November 23, 2008 at 11:20 pm |
Just a heads-up (and thanks for your comments Hank, Ray, Eli, Steve, David, and others) – I’ve posted the transcript of Dr. Balling’s appearance on our local community radio station. It’s interesting, to watch a metamorphosis; and interesting, to see new arguments emerge.
(at least i think they are new arguments)
Ray Ladbury // November 23, 2008 at 11:41 pm |
Dave A., You need to understand what is meant by “consensus”. You will have a “standard model” in any field that is sufficiently advanced–be it climate science or particle physics. Now that model will be change, but by definition, you will have consensus, or the model wouldn’t be the standard. In climate science, the consensus refers to the model whereby we understand ALL climatic phenomena. A corrolary of that model is that humans are behind the current warming trend.
Hank Roberts // November 23, 2008 at 11:52 pm |
Dave, do you imagine a ‘consensus’ is like a ‘founder’ — some fixture, some belief that has to be adhered to? Look up “Darwinist” or even “Mannist” and you’ll find that misapprehension, but you won’t find it in the sciences. Consider the source.
Consensus statements are quite commonly published in the sciences. Read in any field over time to get the picture of how they work — it takes time to get them into print, they’re known outdated when published, the known unknowns described, and valuable to the extent later work builds on them or uses them to kick off in a new direction well defined by reference.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=scientific+consensus+statements
chriscolose // November 24, 2008 at 3:30 am |
Tamino, could you comment on Willis Eschenbach’s analysis over at CA where he uses what he calls a “Correlation Distribution Analysis” to test the robustness of Mann et al 2008 conclusios without tree rings? The Mann paper specifically notes that their conclusion is robust with or without tree rings.
Richard Steckis // November 24, 2008 at 7:07 am |
Ray:
“In climate science, the consensus refers to the model whereby we understand ALL climatic phenomena.”
We do not even understand a fraction of the phenomena that influence climate and climate change.
John Finn // November 24, 2008 at 9:35 am |
Tamino, could you comment on Willis Eschenbach’s analysis over at CA where he uses what he calls a “Correlation Distribution Analysis” to test the robustness of Mann et al 2008 conclusios without tree rings?
Why? Tree ring data can only tell us what the conditions for growth were at the time. It can’t give an accurate representation of past temperatures. Temperature is only one of a number of factors. As far as tree growth is concerned too hot can be as bad as too cold.
dhogaza // November 24, 2008 at 3:05 pm |
Oh, really? Taken literally that statement is meaningless, since it expresses a range from zero to absolute knowledge …
dhogaza // November 24, 2008 at 3:07 pm |
It can when we know that temperature and other growth factors such as rainfall are correlated and that the geophysical characteristics of the region (such as the Great Basin of the US, where the infamous bristlecone pines) hasn’t changed meaningfully during the period of time in question.
Ray Ladbury // November 24, 2008 at 3:08 pm |
Richard Steckis, actually for your contention to be correct, there would have to be an infinite number of phenomena that interact to give rise to climate. That you hold such a view, would be sufficient to dismiss any expertise you claim about the subject. Even if you do not view the influences as infinite, your flippant dismissal of the successes climate models have at explaining this complicated system shows you haven’t given the matter much consideration beyond what it takes to justify your politics.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 24, 2008 at 7:46 pm |
Richard Steckis writes:
Measured how?
We understand a good deal about the climate. Not all of it, of course. We never will. But not knowing everything is not the same as knowing nothing.
HankRoberts // November 24, 2008 at 9:14 pm |
Invaluable advice here:
http://scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey/2008/11/how_not_to_write_a_scientific.php
Maxt // November 24, 2008 at 10:03 pm |
The questions is though what influences the tree ring growth the most, is it proxy data for hours of sunshine, cloud cover, moisture, drought, fire, temperature, invasive species, beetles, aerosols, wind speed, wind direction, root depth?
Dave A // November 24, 2008 at 11:06 pm |
Hank,
Ok, ‘consensus’ is fluid in science. Why then doesn’t IPCC communicate this fluidity to the politicians and media?
HankRoberts // November 24, 2008 at 11:15 pm |
Dave, you’re just wasting time here starting with presumptions you can’t support then asking people to explain why they’re true.
Try finding examples — not just examples of what you believe but examples of what people believe — and test what you’re assuming.
Lazar // November 25, 2008 at 12:44 am |
GP,
Thanks for the response. I don’t understand the following though it may be of relevance.
The Voigt and Complex Error Function: A comparison of computational methods
F. Schreier
J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer Vol. 48, No. 516, pp. 143-762, 1992
Efficient computation of spectral line shapes
A. H. Karp
J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer Vol. 105, No. 3, pp. 519-524, 1978
Humlicek’s algorithm…
The Voigt profile, integral [-inf, +inf] exp(-(t^2))/(y^2+(x-t)^2) dt
is equal to the Real part of the complex error function of z=x+iy.
y is the ratio of the pressure-broadened to Doppler-broadened half-width of the line, so the function is evaluated only in the +y half of the complex plane.
Humlicek (1982) splits the plane into four regions and approximates the Voigt profile in each by a rational function, the coefficients are determined by Gauss-Hermite quadrature. It seems simple enough to implement. At the end of the paper there’s a short Fortran code.
Ray Ladbury // November 25, 2008 at 1:53 am |
Scientific consensus is as fluid as it needs to be. Think of it this way: You are an ambitious, young scientist trying to get ahead. On the one hand, you’ll get nowhere by slavish devotion to the current understanding. You have to innovate. At the same time, there are some aspects to the theory you just can’t do without. For those aspects that pretty much everyone agrees they can’t do without, we have scientific consensus. That none of the current, successful climate models has a climate sensitivity less than 2 degrees per doubling is a pretty good argument that we have consensus there. This is particularly true since anyone who made a model work with such a sensitivity would be elevated to superstar status in the climate community–hell, they’d probably even get on Oprah!
HankRoberts // November 25, 2008 at 1:57 am |
PS, Dave, this should help — you’ll have to find it in your local library if you’re not a subscriber (I’m not, I can’t provide it to you).
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/317/5844/1505
dhogaza // November 25, 2008 at 8:17 am |
Temperature can effect all of those except for (presumably human introduced) invasive species and pollution (aerosols).
Again, if there’s a good correlation between temperature and the total effect of various factors affecting growth, you’re set.
I suppose you’re one of those who believe that the usefulness of tree ring growth as a temperature proxy is just an evil unfounded assumption based on no evidence, right?
That no one has actually looked into these things before adopting tree ring growth as a proxy?
I assume you’ve “learned” this through CA or some other “irrefutable” source of “reliable” information on science?
John Finn // November 25, 2008 at 9:47 am |
The questions is though what influences the tree ring growth the most, is it proxy data for hours of sunshine, cloud cover, moisture, drought, fire, temperature, invasive species, beetles, aerosols, wind speed, wind direction, root depth?
or even CO2?
Tree ring data cannot capture the recent late 20th century warming. The extended reconstructions show post-1980 temperatues to be ~ 0.3 deg cooler than actual observations.
As the above post notes, temperature is only one of many factors which contribute to ring growth. Reconstructions based on tree ring data might, at best, estimate the temperature contribution to growth.
P. Lewis // November 25, 2008 at 11:00 am |
Just to bang the ocean acidification gong a little:
An 8-year study by Wootton et al. (Dynamic patterns and ecological impacts of declining ocean pH in a high-resolution multi-year dataset) suggests pH is “going down 10 to 20 times faster than the previous models predicted”.
Of course, the downside is that the models are “wrong”. Shame they’re “wrong” in the “wrong direction” for people in the set termed “Watts’s acolytes”! (Sarcasm over.)
John Finn // November 25, 2008 at 12:52 pm |
Temperature can effect all of those except for (presumably human introduced) invasive species and pollution (aerosols).
It might be more correct to say that all of those (e.g. sunshine, cloud cover, etc) affect temperature.
dhogaza // November 25, 2008 at 1:05 pm |
The scientists involved are extremely aware of this.
Now, how about a little comparison between, say, the robustness of proxy temperature reconstructions vs. that ‘ole denialist “trump card”, cosmic rays prove that the sun, not CO2, is the cause of recent warming?
Sekerob // November 25, 2008 at 1:47 pm |
hold on there… a professor of Waterloo uni was already predicting that Cosmic Rays would cause a record Antarctic Ozone hole this month. Something about particles reacting with the some GHG which then would deplete the O3. That we knew that those react with O3 is not novel, but it’s the rays driving it, not the sun’s UV.
Ray Ladbury // November 25, 2008 at 2:52 pm |
John Finn, No, it would not be “more correct,” as both statements are equally correct. Like it or not, science works.
Ray Ladbury // November 25, 2008 at 2:57 pm |
Sekerob, kind of reminds you of teenagers in the level of effort they’ll put into arguments for why nothing is their fault.
Maxt // November 25, 2008 at 3:02 pm |
dhogaza, if I had learned it on another site, I wouldn’t be asking it here, as there would be no reason to if I had “learned” it.. Take a pill..
It just seems an impossible task to pull a signal out of growth numbers and then discern that it was totally temperature that governed the growth, you can have a warm wet year and warm dry year, you can have cold wet year and cold dry year. Also as another said their is fertilization to be accounted for as well.
Most of the dendro sites are more about dating specific atmospheric events rather than determining a base temperature from the tree rings, its information on that I am after.
Ian Forrester // November 25, 2008 at 3:47 pm |
Sekerob, are you describing a science paper which you have read or are you telling us about a dream you had last night?
It is difficult to determine which one.
John Finn // November 25, 2008 at 3:47 pm |
The scientists involved are extremely aware of this.
Are they? Then why do they seem to think they can estimate average temperatures with any accuracy by measuring tree ring widths.
Now, how about a little comparison between, say, the robustness of proxy temperature reconstructions vs. that ‘ole denialist “trump card”, cosmic rays prove that the sun, not CO2, is the cause of recent warming?
The worst correlation I’ve come across in climate research is the one between tree ring data and temperature in the post-1980 period. As this is the only period which can be used to validate tree rings as a temperature proxy this doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. The only reason the earlier temp record ‘fits’ is because it’s used as used as the calibration period.
Of course there is one other interesting possibility. That is, the current temperature record could be wrong – or, to be more precise, it could be wrong relative to the earlier part of the record. In other words the 1940 temperatures could have, in fact, been pretty much the same as current temperatures (as of course they were in US, the arctic, etc). That just leaves the PDO to explain 20th century fluctuations.
dhogaza // November 25, 2008 at 4:02 pm |
Rather than assume, a priori, that the scientists involved are wrong, and that you’re right …
Hit the google, preferably the scholar one, look up the sources, do some reading in your local university, and go convince the world.
It takes a bit more than “it just seems an impossible task” to convince people that scientific results are in error.
luminous beauty // November 25, 2008 at 4:06 pm |
Maxt,
This might help:
http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/principles.html
Gavin's Pussycat // November 25, 2008 at 5:47 pm |
Lazar, OK, I think I see your problem. If you want to evaluate the Voigt profile itself, V(x; sigma, gamma), you’re in for a rough ride. What I pointed out (and it may not be relevant for what you try to do) is that you can evaluate the integral from -inf to +inf over V(x)dx by using the convolution theorem, and you find it is the product of same integrals over the Gaussian and Lorentz functions, respectively.
But I don’t think it’s any use for what you want to do.
dhogaza // November 25, 2008 at 6:14 pm |
Because when one understands a problem, one doesn’t necessarily need to throw up their hands, screaming “unsolvable! unsolvable!”.
Yes, of course the biosphere, melting glaciers, and all of the other corroborating evidence are (wink! wink!) just part of the conspiracy.
HankRoberts // November 25, 2008 at 7:18 pm |
Sekerob, cite please? Or pointer to wherever you read about it if you’re using a secondary source?
> a professor of Waterloo uni …
> predicting that Cosmic Rays …
> record Antarctic Ozone hole this month.
Not enough there to locate whatever it is (which month, for one thing)
chriscolose // November 25, 2008 at 7:59 pm |
What ever started this whole PDO fad in the first place? It doesn’t even make sense– the PDO involves subtracting the global mean SST for each month, which amounts to subtracting off the global mean warming trend. By definition of the PDO, this whole reasoning is garbage.
Phil. // November 25, 2008 at 9:15 pm |
Ian Forrester // November 25, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Sekerob, are you describing a science paper which you have read or are you telling us about a dream you had last night?
It is difficult to determine which one.
Googling “university of waterloo cosmic rays antarctica” revealed the following among many press reports:
http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.php?id=4997
tamino // November 25, 2008 at 9:51 pm |
Others disagree.
aliunde // November 25, 2008 at 11:18 pm |
Others disagree.
A statement of the obvious. But we must cleanse ourselves of the need to respond to contrarians and denialists of whatever stripe.
Given the certaintly with which the label and its analogues are generously tossed throughout all alarmist discussions (including comments here) in order to dismiss the need for any further discussion, there are surely blood tests to which we can refer to predetermine whether the holocaustic denialists’ writings need even be perused.
We’d hate to give mass murderers any glimpse credibility.
[Response: In my opinion, global warming denialists are in denial, and usually motivated by ideology rather than rationality. But likening them to holocaust deniers, or to mass murderers, I believe is both unfair and unproductive.]
aliunde // November 26, 2008 at 2:21 am |
Tamino: [Response {to aliunde // November 25, 2008 at 11:18 pm}: In my opinion, global warming denialists are in denial, and usually motivated by ideology rather than rationality. But likening them to holocaust deniers, or to mass murderers, I believe is both unfair and unproductive.]
I should have used my tags as I hope you or others weren’t taking my hyperbole seriously, though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t used to try to demonstrate some seeming absurdities.
However, in response to your response: isn’t “likening them to holocaust deniers” exactly the point of the label. It seems specious to claim otherwise, especially when the so-called deniers usually don’t “deny” global warming to begin with–rather its causes and extent.
Unless you want to claim a static science, it seems “in denial” is completely undefinable and is simply a less egregious pejorative than the “holocaust denier” associative word game. Now they merely suffer from psychological problems.
To try to claim the high road of not “likening them to holocaust deniers” while at the same time trying to associate them with the obvious connotation of the word and, concomitantly, to people who would think like holocaust deniers is what seems so blatantly “unfair and unproductive.”
What other purpose does it serve except as an attempt to stereotype, denigrate, and thereby dismiss a need to deal respectfully with their arguments. The same is true of all labels. They are ad hominem arguments to convince others to remain in ignorance by not dealing with the alternative arguments themselves.
And as an aside, what evidence do you (or anyone–don’t mean to make it personal) have that they are motivated by ideology besides their disagreement with your own normative rules for what constitutes acceptable scientific orthodoxy?
[Response: No, "likening them to holocaust deniers" is most certainly NOT the purpose, or the intent, of labeling them "denialists." Nor is the "association" my intention, or that of the vast majority who use that moniker. The claim that it is, happens to be a common propaganda ploy by denialists themselves, in order to demonize their opposition.
They are called denialists because they're in denial. Example: those claim that "global warming stopped in 1998," and maintain that belief (or profess to) even after they've been shown the error of their ways. Another example: any and all who have tried to claim that 2008 arctic sea ice extent represents a "dramatic recovery" which is evidence against global warming. To believe that, you have to be so deep in denial that you have abandoned any connection with rationality.
I find your tone, and your implications, offensive. Was your comment nothing more than a ploy, an atempt to bait me and others here?]
Hank Roberts // November 26, 2008 at 4:08 am |
> 2008-09-16 10:09:59
> New theory predicts the largest ozone hole
> over Antarctica will occur this month
Well that should be easy to check.
Did it?
Hank Roberts // November 26, 2008 at 4:09 am |
http://www.google.com/search?q=ozone+hole+record+2008
george // November 26, 2008 at 4:11 am |
Aliunde said:
I suggest that you take a good look at Tamino’s posts.
You will quickly realize how absurd (and foolish) your claim is — at least applied to Tamino (which you did above)
Tamino has bent over backwards — and done summer-saults, cartwheels and double twists — to deal with the so-called “arguments” and “science” of these people.
His willingness to address the misconceptions and pure ignorance is a testament to the fact that he has far more patience for nonsense than the vast majority of scientists with blogs.
But why should Tamino bother with someone who simply refuses to look at any of the detailed explanations he puts in so much effort (and time) to produce and instead simply repeats the same hackneyed claims over and over (and over): “Global warming stopped in 1998″.
“Denialist” is a particularly apt (and overly kind) description for the latter type of person, in my opinion.
Hank Roberts // November 26, 2008 at 4:15 am |
Well, the ozone hold prediction was endorsed by the Hudson Institute as a test of the idea that it’s the sun and cosmic rays that are causing global warming.
http://www.cgfi.org/2008/10/03/record-south-pole-ozone-hole-predicted-by-dennis-t-avery/
The word “inoperative” comes to mind.
“Mistakes were made.”
dhogaza // November 26, 2008 at 7:56 am |
I suspect Dr. Lu’s reaction to the news will be somewhat different than Dennis Avery’s. Due to the fact that Dr. Lu’s research seems to be focused on the Antarctic Ozone Hole and that the extrapolation of his prediction to “kills climate science!” appears to be due to Avery alone.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 26, 2008 at 10:15 am |
> But likening them to holocaust deniers, or to mass murderers, I believe is both unfair and unproductive.
It only feels that way now, because the Shoah is in the past and part of history, while the climatic holocaust is still to come. It’s basically a lack of imagination, like that of the nations refusing to let Jewish refugees in anno 1938 — they weren’t monsters either.
I’ll never understand those that object to the likening and not to the likeness.
[Response: I disagree. In my opinion, those who deny the holocaust do so because of racism and/or religiously hatred. Those who deny AGW do so out of fear of the sacrifices they'll be required to make, or fear of the horrible consequences if it's true. Which it is.]
Julian Flood // November 26, 2008 at 10:47 am |
re Hank Roberts // November 23, 2008 at 5:57 pm
quote Less urban smog, more methane surviving from natural gas leaks to get into the general atmospheric circulation?
It’s speculation on my part. unquote
I remember a paper sme years ago (no, sorry, memory only, no details) that studied suppression of methane production in tundra soils by acid rain.
Two years ago, on my website, I wrote ‘We’ve pumped out megatonnes of sulphur dioxide since the start of the Industrial Revolution, perfect cloud makers. However, this should have cooled things until we became worried about acid rain and curbed these emissions. Ironically, we may have exacerbated one problem by addressing another (and, incidentally, the sulphur has been holding back methane production in the arctic — when the sulphur brake comes off we’ll see an uptick in methane and another panic).’
While I’m on a roll…. the light carbon signal is caused by agricultural dust production which feeds the silicon starved ocean and allows more diatom growth. Diatoms differentiate less than C3 phytoplankton.
JF
aliunde // November 26, 2008 at 10:47 am |
[Response {to aliunde // November 26, 2008 at 2:21 am}: No, "likening them to holocaust deniers" is most certainly NOT the purpose, or the intent, of labeling them "denialists." Nor is the "association" my intention, or that of the vast majority who use that moniker. The claim that it is, happens to be a common propaganda ploy by denialists themselves, in order to demonize their opposition.
[snip reasons they are called "denialists"]
I find your tone, and your implications, offensive. Was your comment nothing more than a ploy, an atempt to bait me and others here?]
I honestly regret that you found it so offensive, and was absolutely taken aback at the seeming hostility of the response. There was no hostility whatsoever on my part in trying to understand why the term was ever adopted or is so consistently used (and to which I admittedly do object). If you or others disagreed with any characterization I made, I was glad to have a civil disagreement and to be presented with a different point of view. I’d just ask for the benefit of the doubt before you come to conclusions as to my motivations. To be honest, I’m not sure what one would be “baited” into doing except explaining why they disagreed. Then again, each site has its own personality, and I just stumbled upon this one while perusing another.
I suppose I could say I take offense at the offense, which to a certain extent is true, as you assumed a “tone” when it is exactly those kinds of nuances that do not lend themselves to the printed word. I would have preferred you point out what caused you offense so that I might be given the chance to correct any misconceptions you may have presumed as well as assurances that I wasn’t trying to be deliberately so.
It was a very honest attempt to point out some of the real problems I see with using the particular label “denialist” (whose etymology I really do believe to be correct, whether you in particular use it for that purpose or not–I’ve seen all too many cases where it is). Likewise, my discussion wasn’t limited to the term “denialist,” but to the use of pejorative labels in general.
With that preface, I’ll try to make better sense.
Words have connotations whether we personally mean to attach them to those words or not, and “denialist” seems to be one of those words. I remember the first time I read it (don’t ask me when–too long ago), “holocaust denier” was the first and immediate connotation that came into my mind. I can’t help but think the same connotation is in the mind of the vast majority of those who read the word or who are on the receiving end of the label, rather than representing “a common propaganda ploy.”
Consequently, I don’t believe that to object to it is to “demonize” the person who uses it–one can object for reasons entirely separate from the intent of the user. I guess I would have less of a problem with it if the insistence on using it were absent. Were it not used as stereotypical of a group who may simply disagree with you or me, it seems much more in the scientific tradition to use a less “loaded” word such as skeptic. That stops no one from arguing in an individual discussion that it is their belief that someone is wrong (or in denial in you prefer) and to end the discussion as hopeless on that basis. But, again, I feel science is best served by the least adversarial approach.
My problem with the use of labels in general (and I should clarify that I mean pejorative ones) is that they are by very nature ad hominem since they tend to discredit the individual (or group) making the argument before the argument is made. For that reason, as well, I think science is better served by presenting at least the appearance of openness to discussion, rather than one of being unwilling to engage someone who might assume they are part of a group attached to the “wrong” label. I honestly do not see how the generalized application of any pejorative label is beneficial in any way to any field of science.
[Response: The word "skeptic" is not just less insulting, it's an actual compliment. But it does not apply to many who apply the term to themselves.
I don't mean everyone who disagrees with mainstream climate science; I mean those who keep saying "global warming stopped in 1998" and "2008 shows dramatic recovery in arctic sea ice which disproves global warming" and "climate is always changing, it's just natural cycles" or "computer models aren't worth the electricity required to run them" or "the increase in CO2 isn't due to human activity." These people aren't skeptics, they're in denial, and they don't deserve the name "skeptic" any more than those who claim that the earth is flat.
Yet they call themselves skeptics while arguing for the most outlandish theories with little or no support, or even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. Where's the "skepticism" about claims that we're certainly headed into another Maunder minimum, or global warming is only due to galactic cosmic rays, or clouds are sure to be a powerful negative feedback which will restore stability to the climate system? Denying AGW while swallowing half-baked theories hook, line, and sinker, isn't skepticism -- it's the worst form of self-serving gullibility.
I call them denialists because they're in denial. Perhaps you'd prefer the term "flat-earthers"?]
Ray Ladbury // November 26, 2008 at 1:13 pm |
Aliunde, OK, you don’t like “denialist”. So what term would you suggest for those that CHOOSE to ignore the mountain of evidence–not to mention the physics–that we are changing the climate? Do you perhaps prefer “Willfully Ignorant”?
Sekerob // November 26, 2008 at 2:46 pm |
Ian F/HankRoberts/Phil. yes Phil found the blurb I read… not a dream thus.
Sorry for forgetting the tongue in cheek sign, for that was what I thought at time of reading it.
The record did not happen as confirmed.
Ray Ladbury // November 26, 2008 at 4:13 pm |
Aliunde, Oh please! You certainly have no trouble tossing out the label “alarmist” with all of its connotations. Again, I ask what you would call someone who ignores the mountain of evidence that we are altering climate? “Skeptic” implies that they have acknowledged and understand the evidence but have a plausible alternative explanation for it. This is not the case. Frankly, calling them denialist is giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are not motivated by mendacity. I call that charitable in many cases.
JCH // November 26, 2008 at 4:24 pm |
Well, where I grew up we called them squareheads.
It’s truly not an insult. Well, okay, it’s an insult.
TCOisbanned? // November 26, 2008 at 5:04 pm |
I find the willingness to put formal AGW under the microscope while accepting half-baked theories troublesome. Mostly it is a characteristic of the hoi polloi. The jae’s, the Watts’s. But you see some of it from the old retired set (McI, Singer, etc.) at times.
I believe Tammy has been a bit prone to this tendancy when using his blog posts as “educational expositions” of some aspect of Mannianism (PCA, etc.) where what he does is basically accept a Mann explanation from RC and try to explain it in more detail, but never really test it himself (this got him in trouble with Jolliffe).
It’s human nature. You see the same things in politics. Anti-war opponents who buy into Truther theories or Democrats who believe in Diebold cheating. (On the right, you have the ones who kept thinking we would find MWD in every abandonded bunker…and looked silly touting claims that didn’t hold up.)
It’s a lonely thing to be genuinely skeptical and curious and especially to apply it to your own “side”. That’s TRAITOROUS! Because we are social animals, most of the interaction on blogs tends to be around finding similar thinkers who can provide supports to our own views.
dhogaza // November 26, 2008 at 6:01 pm |
If by truther theories you mean 9/11 crap, that’s another version of denialism for sure.
Diebold (and certain other brand) vote-counting computers are demonstrably insecure and not built with reliable software components (access, forsooth!), so I’m not sure I’d put suspicions of foul play there in the same category. It is possible to be skeptical of a count by Diebold machines on purely defensible technical grounds. After all it was computer science security types who quite early on blasted Diebold’s vote counting equipment on such grounds.
TCOisbanned? // November 26, 2008 at 6:04 pm |
Sure. And it’s legitimate to worry about Democraps voting graveyards and helping illegals get ballots. But neither has swung any elections. It’s just red meat for the nitwit base (Kos kidz or Freepers).
Ray Ladbury // November 26, 2008 at 7:47 pm |
TCO, There is a reason why some propositions are uncontroversial among those who understand the underlying science. Evolution does not rest on the provenance of any one fossil or any one study. Likewise anthropogenic causation of the current warming doesn’t rest on the latest Ouvre of Mann et al. or any other single study. If we aren’t warming the planet, then everything we know about climate is wrong. It is difficult to credit that given the success climate science has had in explaining things from paleoclimate to response to perturbations like volcanic eruptions. This is not to say that we don’t have a lot to learn about climate–we do. It is just that what we learn is extremely likely to alter the conclusion that we’re altering the climate.
[Response: I'd guess that you meant to say, "extremely unlikely."]
Gavin's Pussycat // November 26, 2008 at 8:32 pm |
Tamino:
Yes. So? In both cases, emotion trumping fact, the classical definition of psychological denial.
You make my point :-)
I do understand that the Holocaust metaphor is politically incorrect in the U.S. situation.
dhogaza // November 26, 2008 at 8:38 pm |
Because, quite clearly, it’s not happening. ACORN is a seed that only falls on a fertile mind, fertilized with … well, you figure it out.
On the other hand, problems with no-audit-trail voting systems, in particular, such as those marketed by Diebold, are actually real.
And I don’t say so due to any particular political bias, I do so as a software engineering professional.
David B. Benson // November 26, 2008 at 8:44 pm |
Yes, climate denialists are willfully ignorant.
TCOisbanned? // November 26, 2008 at 10:08 pm |
dhogza: You’re as unbiased as a little dog is unyappy.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 26, 2008 at 10:47 pm |
TCO, you stop calling Democrats “Democraps” and I’ll stop calling Republicans “Republicassholes.”
Dave A // November 26, 2008 at 10:50 pm |
GP and Tamino
Those who deny
AGW do so out of fear of the sacrifices they’ll be required to
make, or fear of the horrible consequences if it’s true.
This is rubbish. There are many valid questions that can be raised about AGW and the associated science. Since when has any science been definitive?
David B. Benson // November 26, 2008 at 11:39 pm |
Dave A // November 26, 2008 at 10:50 pm — There is a big difference between the inquiring student attempting to learn climatology and the denailist who keeping popping in here (and elsewhere) with their absolute rubbish.
Some parts of science are quite definitive. Nobody doubts Newton’s work at non-relativistifc speeds. No one should doubt the fundamentals of atmospheric physics, worked out since around 1829 CE.
The big remaining questions in climatology appear to be clouds and areosols. But I don’t see many inquiring students coming here (or elsewhere) to ask questions about clouds or aerosols. Instead I see … well, you know.
HankRoberts // November 27, 2008 at 12:45 am |
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2008/11/is_name_calling_an_effective_c.php
HankRoberts // November 27, 2008 at 1:16 am |
Interesting to see what happened with this prediction. Google for:
waterloo prediction ozone cosmic ray
Deep Climate // November 27, 2008 at 6:54 am |
Whence “denial”? Try these Google searches
Google searches:
tobacco denial
1,590,000
“climate change” denial
895,000
’nuff said.
dhogaza // November 27, 2008 at 8:22 am |
Well, TCO, read analysis of the Diebold voting machines in questionand if you have the expertise to counter the concerns, post ‘em here.
Because, ya know, you’ve made it abundantly clear here and elsewhere that you have no political bias whatsoever, and whatever you post is the unbiased, unvarnished truth.
No, “Diebold didn’t steal Ohio”. Yes, there’s a good reason why elections officials across the country have been quietly switching to systems that allow for reasonable auditing of reported results.
michel // November 27, 2008 at 10:09 am |
“Those who deny AGW do so out of fear of the sacrifices they’ll be required to make, or fear of the horrible consequences if it’s true.”
Yes, this is the nub of the matter. Do you think that rational good faith disagreement with the AGW hypothesis is possible? Rational good faith disagreement with the proposition that the Holocaust happened, as an historical fact, is not possible.
Do you really think that AGW is evidentially like this, so obvious, so proven, with such a dearth of contrary evidence? No, not really. I think there is evidence on both sides, and that the science is not settled, and don’t think I’m in denial to have come to this conclusion.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 27, 2008 at 3:07 pm |
> Do you think that rational good faith disagreement with the AGW hypothesis is possible?
No, no informed rational good faith disagreement.
> Do you really think that AGW is evidentially like this, so obvious, so proven, with such a dearth of contrary evidence?
Yes. If we talk about the reality of the thing and not about the technical details, Yes. And I would hold that anyone questioning this is either not being honest (i.e., a denialist), or has failed to do his or her homework, just like in the Holocaust case. Fortunately in Western countries, it is difficult to escape doing your homework on the Holocaust, as it is part of history teaching. That’s why its denial is the lunatic fringe, not because of any intrinsic greater certainty. Yet, if you were to ask the average citizen what he bases his belief on that the Holocaust really happened, you would either get indignation, or a question mark look, but rarely a real answer… “everybody knows”. Not very robust. And not so for AGW.
In fact, the questions and objections I hear from denialists of both ilks (and from evolution denial BTW) are so eerily similar in their dishonesty, that you’d have to be pretty confused not to spot the similarity. They’re from the same playbook.
(”How can they be so certain it was six million? There was a war going on, for crying out loud. And who is doing the counting? No vested interests there, suuure. And how would you count a Jewish gay communist victim? You don’t have an answer to that, huh?” I feel dirty even writing this.)
TCOisbanned? // November 27, 2008 at 4:30 pm |
Dhogza: You are shifting the debate from one of impact to one of concerns. I am making fun of people who think Ohio was stolen in 2004. If you want to argue about concerns, then there are plenty on the well known habit of “walking around money” for turning out the inner city vote.
dhogaza // November 27, 2008 at 5:51 pm |
Let’s have a little proof of fraud, here, then. You like to sling shit to see what will stick to the wall, well, show us that the shit you’re slinging is sticky.
Let’s have some numbers, firm numbers. What percentage of the inner city vote is bought and paid for?
There’s quite clear evidence of Republican efforts to minimize the minority vote in Ohio. The fact that Kerry lost by more than the cumulative impact of such efforts doesn’t make such efforts right.
Efforts to suppress the black vote is a matter of history, not opinion, in much of this country.
aliunde // November 27, 2008 at 5:58 pm |
Ray Ladbury // November 26, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Aliunde, Oh please! You certainly have no trouble tossing out the label “alarmist” with all of its connotations.
Having no appropriate links myself, would you mind tossing out (if they’re allowed here–sorry I’m ignorant on that point) links to the examples of my “tossing out” the “alarmist” label. If I ever tried inhibiting debate by using the term (which I don’t believe I have), we could certainly then discuss it in context.
Again, I ask what you would call someone who ignores the mountain of evidence that we are altering climate?
I think you missed the entire point of my post. I’m not suggesting any label except the one that deals with the arguments themselves. If you want to generalize as if all those who do not agree with you as to the extent of human influence on climate must, by definition, fit into a single category, you can always use the label “those who disagree with me.” The point of science and all rational discussion is to keep emotions as far away from the debate as possible. Anything else suggests a vested interest in a particular outcome.
As for the “mountain of evidence,” I suppose it depends on whose mountain is being gored (no pun intended). I tend to take “mountains of evidence” arguments with the same seriousness as did the jury in the OJ Simpson trial. Statements like this simply make me discount the credibility of the person making the argument (given I have familiarized myself with the science). It’s sounds too much like someone claiming their big brother is standing behind them ready to enforce their point of view if they can’t make the point themselves.
The difference between you and I, it seems at this point, is that I’m capable of accepting the fact that good science lies on both sides of the argument and am willing to be swayed by both. I also gladly point out the weaknesses I see in either side of the debate. I have a viewpoint, but I am not wed to it till death do us part. You are free to disabuse me of my present impression.
An individual or group who declares their favored scientific theory beyond reproach is a group that has just crossed the line from science to religion. Real science is always skeptical of its conclusions; it has no way of progressing otherwise.
“Skeptic” implies that they have acknowledged and understand the evidence but have a plausible alternative explanation for it.
While an ignoramus can be skeptical of a great deal, I take your point to mean you’re arguing that your case can’t be made without ad hominems thrown in for good measure?
aliunde // November 27, 2008 at 6:09 pm |
Gavin’s Pussycat // November 27, 2008 at 3:07 pm
> Do you think that rational good faith disagreement with the AGW hypothesis is possible?
No, no informed rational good faith disagreement.
> Do you really think that AGW is evidentially like this, so obvious, so proven, with such a dearth of contrary evidence?
Yes. If we talk about the reality of the thing and not about the technical details, Yes. And I would hold that anyone questioning this is either not being honest (i.e., a denialist), or has failed to do his or her homework, just like in the Holocaust case.
Q.E.D.
Hank Roberts // November 27, 2008 at 7:32 pm |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090300933_pf.html
“The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.”
…
“The research does not absolve those who are responsible for promoting myths in the first place. What the psychological studies highlight, however, is the potential paradox in trying to fight bad information with good information.
Schwarz’s study was published this year in the journal Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, but the roots of the research go back decades. As early as 1945, psychologists Floyd Allport and Milton Lepkin found that the more often people heard false wartime rumors, the more likely they were to believe them.
The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious “rules of thumb” that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.
The experiments also highlight the difference between asking people whether they still believe a falsehood immediately after giving them the correct information, and asking them a few days later. Long-term memories matter most in public health campaigns or political ones, and they are the most susceptible to the bias of thinking that well-recalled false information is true.
The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind’s bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.
The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people’s minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.
Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain’s subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true”
…
“Furthermore, a new experiment by Kimberlee Weaver at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and others shows that hearing the same thing over and over again from one source can have the same effect as hearing that thing from many different people — the brain gets tricked into thinking it has heard a piece of information from multiple, independent sources, even when it has not. Weaver’s study was published this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The experiments by Weaver, Schwarz and others illustrate another basic property of the mind — it is not good at remembering when and where a person first learned something. People are not good at keeping track of which information came from credible sources and which came from less trustworthy ones, or even remembering that some information came from the same untrustworthy source over and over again. Even if a person recognizes which sources are credible and which are not, repeated assertions and denials can have the effect of making the information more accessible in memory and thereby making it feel true, said Schwarz.
Experiments by Ruth Mayo, a cognitive social psychologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, also found that for a substantial chunk of people, the “negation tag” of a denial falls off with time. Mayo’s findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2004.”
…
Mayo found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that “Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did,” Mayo said it would be better to say something like, “Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks” — and not mention Hussein at all.
The psychologist acknowledged that such a statement might not be entirely accurate — issuing a denial or keeping silent are sometimes the only real options.
So is silence the best way to deal with myths? Unfortunately, the answer to that question also seems to be no.
Another recent study found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true ….
Myth-busters, in other words, have the odds against them.”
——-
Well worth nine and 3/4 minutes of listening time, particularly for sound clips showing how much the Heartland folks loved the word “denial” and use it to paint themselves as victims — they have clip after clip of the speakers each doing the concern troll routine:
http://www.theworld.org/audio/1121088.mp3
Denial near and far (9:45)
November 21, 2008
About one in five Americans still doubt that the Earth is warming.
Ray Ladbury // November 27, 2008 at 7:57 pm |
Aliunde, OK, you claim to have studied the science and that there is good science on “both sides”. Perhaps you would be so good as to cite a peer-reviewed (an abominably low threshold, by your own contention) journal article that credibly argues for a climate sensitivity much less that, say 2 degrees C per doubling. And can you point me to a climate model that assumes such a low value and can reproduce observed trends in the current climate and paleoclimate. Now, to save time, please don’t cite say Schwartz’s recent work or that by Spencer. These have been taken on so many holes since they were published, that they are effectively perforated.
OK, Aliunde. Big chance. Educate us.
Ray Ladbury // November 27, 2008 at 8:06 pm |
Michel, please specify what you mean by “AGW”. Do you mean the contention that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Do you mean the contention that the globe is warming? Do you mean the contention that humans are largely behind the warming trend? These are all pretty much nailed tight. If they are wrong, then everything we think we know about climate is wrong.
I would contend that it is also beyond question that climate change will have negative consequences that will have to be mitigated at great cost. How bad these consequences are and what to do about them is still open to debate.
It’s about evidence. Whatever you have cogent evidence for is open.
S2 // November 27, 2008 at 9:32 pm |
Following on from Wobbles , part 1, I wanted to know how much of an effect our current eccentricity had on the Earth’s temperature.
Plotting 30 year averages for each month of the year, I found that there is an annual temperature peak around the end of February (about 0.1°C above the rest of the year). This doesn’t coincide with perihelion, but allowing for some thermal lag of the oceans it seems reasonable.
There isn’t a corresponding dip in late (NH) Summer, but I would put that down to the difference in land masses between the two hemispheres.
I’m a novice at this stuff, though.
I’m sure there is literature out there that has already looked at this, but I lack Hank’s Google skills. :)
If anyone can point me to papers (preferably not pay- walled ones) that explore this, I would be grateful.
Dave A // November 27, 2008 at 10:47 pm |
Hank, very interesting discussion of denial. No doubt it is all true. But it doesn’t address the question of who it is who is actually in denial.
You’re assuming that it is someone like me, but I could equally counter that it is someone like you because you accept AGW totally and are in denial about any other possibility.
Hank Roberts // November 28, 2008 at 12:43 am |
And you looked this up how, Dave?
What’s your source for this belief?
ChuckG // November 28, 2008 at 12:43 am |
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/open-thread-8/#comment-24297
I Googled TCO and Democraps (not ever having seen the expression before) yesterday and wasted several valueless hours (I am long retired from LBNL) reading his comments. Mostly political sites.
Assuming it is “our” TCO, he goes back to at least 2005. Probably read a lot of Ayn Rand and Nation Review.
Was going to provide quotes but thought better of it.
P. Lewis // November 28, 2008 at 1:04 am |
Those are words that could only ever be written/spoken by someone drowning in a warming, acidifying sea of denial.
Ray Ladbury // November 28, 2008 at 3:39 am |
We-eelll, Dave A. there is a slight difference between your point of view and ours. On the one hand we have huge amounts of evidence that actually supports our position–literally volumes of it. We have basic physics that says that when you increase CO2, things have to heat up. We have detailed climate simulations that explain everything from paleoclimate to the response of climate to volcanic eruptions. Oh, yeah, and the overwhelming preponderance of opinion among people who actually do all this stuff for a living–you know, the experts.
And you base your opinion on…uh…hmm…well, what exactly?
Gavin's Pussycat // November 28, 2008 at 5:09 am |
> Q.E.D.
Hmmm. Where I come from, you have to do your homework first before writing this ;-)
Phil Scadden // November 28, 2008 at 8:04 am |
What I find common, is the you get denial because consequences of AGW being true appear unbearable. It also oddly seems to more a question of political ideology than self-interest though that must motivate some. All proposed solutions for slowing warming except geoengineering appear to be an anathema to some political positions. It seems almost like “the political solution is wrong so AGW must be wrong”. Cognitive dissonance? Like creationists, there are resources around that reassure the denialist. Beliefs are far more important than data. Perhaps what separates scientists from others is the training to decide propositions on data.
Humans a lousy at risk analysis but it is surely self-evident that acting as if true is far safer for future generations than refusing to act now. With so many natural feedbacks at work, I worry that we might already be beyond any significant slowing of warming. Wiser future generations may have to work for a couple of generations, with terrible losses and self-sacrifice, before any noticable change will occur – all because we didnt act now. What did Vonnegut claim would be mankind’s epitaph? “We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard … and too damn cheap,”
michel // November 28, 2008 at 8:24 am |
Michel, please specify what you mean by “AGW”.
In one sentence, the hypothesis that CO2 atmospheric ppm is a volume control for average global temperature. The parameters appear to include the view that current levels of rise will deliver a 2C/century rise in AGT, and that lowering levels to 285ppm will maintain AGT at a steady state.
Later you say “We have basic physics that says that when you increase CO2, things have to heat up”. Well no. You have undeniable basic physics on your side when it comes to CO2 infra red absorption. But that does not deliver the degree of warming needed. You also need feedback. Now, that may or may not exist in the form and scale you need, but to think its existence is subject to debate is not at all like doubting proven well known historical events like the Holocaust or the battle of Waterloo.
To maintain that it is is to be, as we say in the trade, ‘in denial’.
I also think that the reverse control mechanism is more subject to controversy than the upward one. Where is there a case when lowering CO2 has lowered temperatures? Maybe it will, I am not saying positively that it won’t, but it does need some evidential support.
John Finn // November 28, 2008 at 9:56 am |
On the one hand we have huge amounts of evidence that actually supports our position–literally volumes of it.
1. You have no explanation for what caused the early 20th century warming.
2. You have no explanation for the cooling (or lack of warming) in the post-1940 period.
3. No-one has actually quantified the warming expected from a doubling of CO2. (the only evidence appears to be from the last GCM when temp changes preceded CO2 changes).
4. No-one, as far as I am aware, has managed to explain how the LW radiation from increased GHGs warms the oceans.
5. A number of models using ocean oscillations only show that most of the 20th century warming can be explained by ENSO and AMO.
[Response: Every one of your claims is wrong. You're an example of what is meant by "so deep in denial that you've abandoned all connection with rationality."]
Barton Paul Levenson // November 28, 2008 at 1:07 pm |
michel writes:
No. Just abysmal ignorance.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 28, 2008 at 1:11 pm |
TCO writes:
An old friend of mine who lives in East Liverpool, Ohio, reports that Kent State students were bused to incorrect polling places and did not have enough time left to get to the correct ones and vote. The student vote was, of course, heavily pro-Kerry.
Yes, I think the GOP stole the vote in Ohio. I think the GOP stole both the 2000 and 2004 elections. I think the current GOP is the most fundamentally dishonest major party in American history with the possible exception of the Know-Nothings or the antebellum southern Democrats.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 28, 2008 at 1:13 pm |
aliunde writes:
Are you capable of accepting the fact that good science lies on both sides of the evolution argument or the Holocaust argument or the HIV-causes-AIDS argument? By even saying something like the above you show how little you understand about the entire field.
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 1:45 pm |
1. Let’s have proof of fraud with Diebold.
2. Are you saying there has not been a single conviction for vote fraud related activities in inner city politics for the last several years? Why fucking put me to the work to dig it out, if you don’t contest that? Is it a trick of rhetoric? Go google Miami vote fraud, for starters.
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 1:55 pm |
TCO: If you want to argue about concerns, then there are plenty on the well known habit of “walking around money” for turning out the inner city vote. ”
Dhogza: “Let’s have a little proof of fraud, here, then. (excised irrelevant ad hom.)” Let’s have some numbers, firm numbers. What percentage of the inner city vote is bought and paid for?
————————–
Do you understand the difference between concerns and a proven case, showing exact numbers?
————————-
TCO: “I am making fun of people who think Ohio was stolen in 2004.”
Dhog: “There’s quite clear evidence of Republican efforts to minimize the minority vote in Ohio. The fact that Kerry lost by more than the cumulative impact of such efforts doesn’t make such efforts right. Efforts to suppress the black vote is a matter of history, not opinion, in much of this country.”
————————-
1. You ask for exact numerical proof on one hand, but then on your side, just make a bald assertion. Saying it more emphatically, “dog”, does not make it a stronger case.
2. Historical suppression of minority voting (much by Democrats in the South) is…historical. How can the truth of that, prove that Republicans are doing that in Ohio? Perhaps, I can use Tammany from history to prove that Democrats are cheating now? No. You have a mistake in logic.
3. If you know for sure that this happened in Ohio, how do you know the extent of it? Maybe those tin foil wearers are right…and the extent was enough to shift the vote for Bush! Certainly, there are KosKidz who think so. And how do you know that the extent of this “minority suppression” (which has not been proven by say…criminal conviction) was less or more than the “walking around money fraud” that Tom Wolfe writes about?
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 2:01 pm |
Dhog:
I finally skimmed that article. The article lacks:
1. A comparison of vulnerabilities of Diebold to other common methods.
2. Any evidence that in fact fraud was committed in Ohio with Diebold manipulation by Republicans.
P. Lewis // November 28, 2008 at 2:07 pm |
Somewhat circumventing (and ignoring — I’ve got better things to do with my time today, thank-you) the well-worn contrarian contortions on CO2 into and out of stadials, this graphic provides some evidence… surely.
michel // November 28, 2008 at 3:56 pm |
I’m not arguing that AGW is not happening. What I am prepared to argue is that the proposition that feedback effects exist in the quantity and kind required to make the rise in CO2 deliver the IPCC forecast of 2C/century is not proven to the same level of certainty as the proposition that the battle of Waterloo took place.
We can, for instance, inspect the site, read the memoirs of participants. In the case of the Holocaust we can visit the camps. One, Dachau, is a few miles outside Munich and readily accessible.
In the case of the feedback mechanism we have to rely on models and a long chain of indirect reasoning. It may all be true. It is not as obviously true or undeniable as the history cases. Reasonable informed people may have doubts about how probable it has been proved to be.
You can see this by asking what we would have to abandon were we to abandon it. It would require fairly minimal revisions of the rest of science. We would simply have to conclude that all the laws of physics worked just as we had thought they did, but that as it happened, the world was slightly differently constituted to how we had thought. The kind of fairly minor revision that happens all the time when we are trying to decide not what are the laws of physics, but how is the planet constituted.
P Lewis – your link provides no evidence that turning down the CO2 volume will turn down the temperature. It provides no evidence that it ever has. Again, I am not asserting that it definitely will not. I am asserting that it less well evidenced than the proposition that raising CO2 will raise temperature, and very much less well evidenced than the proposition that the battle of Waterloo took place. Put it another way, I would need quite a bit more proof if this were an investment scenario and I were being asked to put money into it. Oh, wait a minute, guess that is exactly what is being asked….
dhogaza // November 28, 2008 at 4:41 pm |
Why would it? That’s a screwy complaint. If I write a paper on the common cold I’m a bad boy if I don’t also discuss the risks of pregnancy?
I have never made the claim that in fact fraud was committed in Ohio through Diebold manipulating the result in favor of Republicans.
Quit projecting.
P. Lewis // November 28, 2008 at 5:36 pm |
Well, that’s pretty much the reply I was expecting.
You are in denial, and you are a sophist.
Bye-bye.
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 5:37 pm |
Dhog: Glad for the clarification. Quit projecting on me.
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 5:41 pm |
I thought Michel’s points were well made. I did not detect sophistry.
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 5:47 pm |
BPL: I have had the experience of not knowing my polling place (which I should have figured out before the day of the election) and then being frustrated running around looking for it, relying on an expired address. I would like a little more proof that the Kent State students were deliberately “misbussed” (by whom, etc.) than your friend’s report.
Also, you are beleiving what it is in your interest to believe. You are emotional about this. This is a common human trait called wishcasting. While you would love it to be true, you need to be open to the possibility that it is not true. Especially as it has not been settled in court or by incontrovertible academic studies or the like.
Hank Roberts // November 28, 2008 at 6:10 pm |
> The article lacks …
Gee, do you know any way to get good information other than posting bad information on the Internet and awaiting correction?
There’s this new thing called Google. Let’s try it:
http://www.google.com/search?q=comparison+of+vulnerabilities+of+Diebold+to+other+common+methods
Well, that’s convincing enough.
The second question is easy to answer, Scottish verdict, “not proven” when tested statistically, and examination by individual machine, county or state isn’t going to happen for 2004:
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/rest.89.4.660
John Finn’s claims are equally easy to refute and have been refuted so many times it’s pointless to retype.
It’s the holidays, time for the usual sport:
hauling cartloads of stuff, dumping them at climate sites, and proclaiming
“With all this, there HAS to be a pony here somewhere, and it’s up to you scientists to FIND MY PONY!”
Gavin's Pussycat // November 28, 2008 at 6:15 pm |
> Where is there a case when lowering CO2 has lowered temperatures?
Most spectacularly, Snowball Earth. Lowering… and raising. Four times over on last count. Do your homework.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 28, 2008 at 6:28 pm |
You’re shorting the scenario when you continue to build real estate or infrastructure close to sea level, or poorly insulated and wastefully heated, or a long drive from city centres… remember, depreciation on real estate is up to half a century. It’s a lot of money, the planet’s built-up environment.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 28, 2008 at 6:41 pm |
Lack of paper trail is a bug, TCO, not the feature you seem to take it for… It’s the potential for undetected fraud that should get your neck hairs up.
I’ll grant though that most of the vote theft in Ohio happened with time-tested non-cyber methods.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 28, 2008 at 7:05 pm |
John Finn, just for fun I noticed that four of your five claims are directly refuted by a single picture in the last IPCC WG1 report: Figure 9.5. The shape of the curve in 9.5a refutes claims 1 and 2, the position of the observed temp curve bang in the middle of the models meta-ensemble (coloured band) in 9.5a refutes claim 3 (wouldn’t happen if the models implied the “wrong” doubling sensitivity), and finally, the failure of observed temps to do the same in figure 9.5b refutes claim 5. It is surely rare for refutation to come in such a small package ;-)
As for claim 4, it really is no claim but rather an admission of ignorance, and we shall take it at face value :-)
naught101 // November 28, 2008 at 7:22 pm |
P Lewis: michel’s correct, there’s not even any mention of temperature in that graph…
michel: of course it’s not as certain as waterloo, waterloo has already happened. But in the days leading up the the battle of waterloo, many people would have reasonably accurately predicted the time and place of the battle.
Ray Ladbury // November 28, 2008 at 8:20 pm |
Michel says “It would require fairly minimal revisions of the rest of science. It would require fairly minimal revisions of the rest of science. We would simply have to conclude that all the laws of physics worked just as we had thought they did, but that as it happened, the world was slightly differently constituted to how we had thought. ”
Michel, that right there shows you don’t have even the foggiest notion of how the science works. You don’t even understand how absurd you suggestion is. If it were possible to construct such a model it would have been done. Whoever did so would be famous.
Here’s a hint: there aren’t any loopholes in the laws of physics.
David B. Benson // November 28, 2008 at 8:56 pm |
michel // November 28, 2008 at 8:24 am — Gavin’s Pussycat points out you haven’t done your homework. You could start with
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateBook.html
and go on to read Annan & Hargreaves, wherein you will learn about paleoclimatological evidence which helps support that the mnost likely value for equilibrium (Charney) climate sensitivity is close to 3 K.
John Finn // November 28, 2008 at 8:59 pm |
GP
As for claim 4, it really is no claim but rather an admission of ignorance, and we shall take it at face value :-)
Ok let’s start with claim 4 .
How does/has the increased downwelling IR warm/ed the ocean?
Help me overcome my ignorance , GP.
No 1: early 20th century warming.
this, of course, is due to the sun, lack of volcanos, factor X with perhaps a sprinkle of CO2 – err probably! In other words no-one has a clue. Even if the likely factors
John Finn // November 28, 2008 at 9:02 pm |
Ignore the bit in the previous post which starts with “No1:”. I meant to delete it.
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 9:31 pm |
I’ll grant though that most of the vote theft in Ohio happened with time-tested non-cyber methods.
How do you know what “most” happened? How many convictions were there? What are the inputs for your comparative (”most”) statement.
BTW: I fully accept that Diebold lacks traceability. Of course, so do a lot of other methods. And diebold has some advantages over other methods (hanging chads). I’m not even a fan of Diebold. It’s just funny watching you latch on to it. I want to continue with this Socratic dialogue to drive you into a more analytical habit.
TCOisbanned? // November 28, 2008 at 9:33 pm |
Ray (please stop with putting on the airs about science…both of us have left active science…and both have worked in it.) The Earth is an incredibly complex “multi-body” problem. Determining that some aspect of the system had not been modelled properly would not drive us to abandoning fundamentals of gas laws or the like.
P. Lewis // November 28, 2008 at 11:29 pm |
You have a point in some respects. I should have waited until I located the graphic I really wanted to link to. However, ask yourself what the temperatures (ranges) are in interstadials and in stadials. Take a guess and plot them in your mind on the left-hand y-axis. It shouldn’t take a genius to work out what’s happening.
But, with a bit more time on my hands this evening I’ve located the graphic I was actually after; it’s here.
Hank Roberts // November 28, 2008 at 11:52 pm |
Anyone really interested in John Finn’s question? You can get the fringe blog stuff by looking up Stephen Wilde and checking whether anything he blogs can be found in the science journals. Good luck with that.
After that, look at the published journal articles and you won’t go wrong.
This will get you into the general area to start:
http://books.google.com/books?id=DxR2nEp0CUIC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=How+does+downwelling+IR+warm+the+ocean%3F&source=web&ots=ScFCiJmfAa&sig=b1GAlA8EAEKYhww289eZ91k9oO4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=forward-links&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0469(1967)024%3C0269%3ATTATOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 12:10 am |
None… precisely my point. That’s why I’m “granting” the point: No use arguing based on an absence of evidence. But if you want to argue the opposite point, I’ll be happy to “grant” that too.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 12:18 am |
John Finn, you’re so lucky as that RC just has a post referring to it… and now I also know where you got the claim from.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/not-the-ipcc-nipcc-report/
TCOisbanned? // November 29, 2008 at 12:21 am |
we’re cool, dude.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 12:28 am |
TCO: :-)
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 12:57 am |
> that the battle of Waterloo took place.
Eye witnesses? I’d love to meet them ;-)
> In the case of the Holocaust we can visit the camps.
> One, Dachau, is a few miles outside Munich and readily accessible.
And there’s a “Creation Museum” just seven miles outside Cincinnati.
That’s not the stuff evidence is made of mate… what I’m arguing is, that you’re missing how even the “obviously true” is behind non-trivial chains of inference.
David B. Benson // November 29, 2008 at 1:03 am |
P. Lewis // November 28, 2008 at 11:29 pm — What was the point? I seemed to have missed it.
Anyway, those temperature deltas must be for Dome C itself; much too large a range for global temperatures; I suggest dividing by two will be about right.
Ray Ladbury // November 29, 2008 at 1:48 am |
TCO, Of all the global climate models, not one works with a CO2 sensitivity less than 2 degrees per doubling. Do you contend that is due to lack of trying? A working climate model with a low sensitivity would be an interesting beast from a scientific perspective–even absent its important societal implications. If you think people just haven’t tried, you are deluded. The fact is that our both the role of CO2 and the feedbacks are inherent to our understanding of climate. If they are wrong, our understanding of climate would have to be drastically wrong, and that is simply not supported by the evidence.
Hank Roberts // November 29, 2008 at 2:41 am |
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0HiXKAFhRJ4/SS9sQ-FB3xI/AAAAAAAAAos/ALAAc9nxWmU/s1600-h/Tuvalu.JPG
Hank Roberts // November 29, 2008 at 2:41 am |
That’s from:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/11/lying-figures-eli-recently-wondered.html
Lazar // November 29, 2008 at 3:16 am |
R code for calculating absorption line profiles…
The code takes HITRAN2004 lines together with molecular and atmospheric properties (molecular mass and geometry, number density, atmospheric temperature and pressure), and will output the absorption coefficient at a given point or, to calculate a line profile, a range of points specified in number of half-widths and the sampling frequency. The user can also specify line parameters in place of HITRAN2004 (such as reference integrated line strength, reference half-width, transition frequency, lower-state energy etc…)
Absorption line profile behaviour with temperature, pressure, and atmospheric composition…
Here is an example of two H2O line profiles for the 337.84 cm-1 transition. The area under the curve, the position of the curve, and the shape of the curve vary.
The area is the integrated line strength, which varies with temperature as collisions between molecules change the distribution of rotational energies. Line strength can increase or decrease with increasing temperature. At atmospheric temperatures it tends to decrease as 1/T. At some temperatures it will increase rapidly, these are called “hot bands”! In the current example, the line strength decreases from 9.89e-28 cm-1 at an altitude of 3 km to 8.62e-28 cm-1 at ground level.
Curve position (line transition frequency) varies with pressure. The effect is only slight, shifting the curve from 337.8448 cm-1 to 337.8444 cm-1 going from 3 km to ground level.
Shape depends on pressure- and Doppler- broadening. Pressure broadening is due to…
Impact broadening. Collisions with other species during absorption/emission effects the transition, and depends on pressure and temperature.
Self broadening, where resonant interactions with the same species occur. Here the dependency is on partial pressure and temperature. In the example, the partial pressure of H2O varies quite considerably from 380 Pa at 3km to 1892 Pa at ground level.
Doppler broadening is due to doppler-shift by the velocities of the absorbing molecules, and is temperature dependent.
The R code can calculate ~ 1 million points in 4 minutes, hence a ballpark figure for line-by-line atmospheric IR transfer, in a 20-layer plane-parallel atmosphere, of about half an hour on a desktop 1.6 Ghz AMD.
I’ve also created a perl script to format the HITRAN2004 database into something that R can read.
If anyone would like copies of the programs, drop a comment or send an email to lazaracflickr [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Phil Scadden // November 29, 2008 at 3:45 am |
John Finn – do you actually want to know the truth enough to do some serious study? If not, then argument here is pointless. Your 5 points are mind-boggling in misunderstanding. You need to know more than blog postings.
Michel – you have to look to paleoclimate models. Yes, these are frustratingly unconstrained with respect to relative importance of various feedbacks but just the Pleistocene record would show how important atmosphere concentrations and feedback are. Ditto the larger picture of warming sun but cooling earth looking over a 100 million year or so. Lowering CO2 concentration is cooling the planet.
And please, what does a risk analysis tell you?
P. Lewis // November 29, 2008 at 4:05 am |
David B. Benson said
You can chase it if you’ve a mind to with Search on this web page if you have FF. To aid you more directly:
I said this in reply to this message from michel. I then replied to naught101, which you’ve already seen.
The graphics were purely illustrative of evidence of CO2 levels and temperature excursions in response to michel’s assertion of a need for “evidential support” in this matter.
TCOisbanned? // November 29, 2008 at 4:26 am |
I feel very sure that if somehow when the movie plays out, the number ends up being 1.5C, that PV will still equal NRT.
Hank Roberts // November 29, 2008 at 6:19 am |
In today’s business news:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&refer=home&sid=a61C3MoVAAMA
——excerpt follows——-
Data from the mid-Pliocene period suggest average temperatures were about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) warmer than today. A 2-degree Celsius increase is within the range that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast for the end of the 21st century.
….
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2, the main man-made greenhouse gas, were about 400 parts for every million parts of air in the mid-Pliocene. CO2 levels rose to 383.1 parts per million in 2007….
——–end excerpt—–
Article points, vaguely, without a link, to:
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/l67121161284/?p=20082f4a58b144e38bb5ec8f957a63ee&pi=1
Number 1886 / January 13, 2009
Theme Issue ‘The Pliocene. A vision of Earth in the late twenty-first century?’ compiled by Alan M. Haywood, Harry J. Dowsett and Paul J. Valdes
Guest Editors Alan M. Haywood, Harry J. Dowsett and Paul J. Valdes
and to
http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/prism/index.html
And, of course, they follow up with interview blather from an ex-meteorologist at the Cato Society that amounts to saying climate models shouldn’t be used since they’re imperfect.
michel // November 29, 2008 at 7:03 am |
Well, I examined a chart which had no temperature scale or mention of temperature anywhere on it. I failed to see how this proved it likely that lowering CO2 would lower temperature. The reply was, I was a sophist and not worth talking to further.
This is really quite interesting as a style of argument. No rational person would be persuaded that a chart making no mention of A could possibly prove that A causes B, and no reasonable person would dismiss someone failing to be convinced by such a chart as in some way either incompetent or in bad faith.
Now I am handed a different chart and an article which is supposed to prove the point. At the risk of being accused of further intellectual sins or deficiencies, I’m sorry, but it does not prove any such thing. Recall, what I asserted was that the proposition that lowering CO2 would lower average global temperatures may be true, but is less well evidenced than the proposition that rises have produced and will produce rises in average global temperatures.
The chart cited only permits a very vague eyeball scrutiny of the record, but seems to show in some cases the temperature anomaly decline preceding the CO2 decline. More seriously however, it cannot prove what it is said to prove, since the temperature anomaly is of Antarctic and not global average temperatures. The authors of the article make no claim in the text that this is what they have proved.
Doubtless one will come in for vituperative abuse for this, but it is not reasonable to regard a chart showing that in some cases atmospheric CO2 falls coincided with falls in Antarctic temperatures and in some cases followed them, as constituting proof beyond any doubt that if we turn down atmospheric CO2 today, the result will be a fall in average global temperature.
I agree, it seems reasonable that if rising CO2 produces a rise in average global temperature, a fall might well produce a fall in temperature. It is a reasonable hypothesis. I do not think it completely proven without proper evidence however, and find the style of argument which insists that only bad faith could prevent one from seeing from non-existent evidence and an article which does not assert it, that it is proven, more reminiscent of religious dogma or political intolerance than scientific debate.
On the question of investment, recall that this is about turning down the CO2 control at vast expense. I fully agree that it is silly to positively bet on warming not happening, and rising CO2 having no effect, eg by building on the coasal flood plain. That is however not the investment that we are discussing. We are discussing spending huge amounts of money to turn down the CO2 volume control. Before making THAT investment, we need real proof of a kind I have not yet seen that it will actually deliver the results claimed. I agree its plausible. Many failed hypotheses are plausible however, and this may be one of them.
This is a quote from the article. Apart from the fact that the authors never discuss the question I have raised, lets note that it does not suggest the level of total certainty and complete understanding of their different chosen topic that my critic seems to thinks it does.
It was suggested earlier4 that there is a strong stationary relationship between Antarctic temperature and CO2. But our data reveal a significant deviation from this behaviour: The atmospheric concentration of CO2 during MIS 17 remains significantly below the levels during MIS 13, 15 and 19; this is expected neither from the temperature variations which always reach comparable levels during these interglacials nor from carbon cycle models …… Whereas averaged temperature anomalies of these four intervals (-5.5, -5.1, -4.9 and -5.5 °C, respectively) only slightly differ from one another, the mean value of CO2 between 799 and 650 kyr (212 p.p.m.v.) is 4–9% lower than for the ensuing periods (227, 234 and 222 p.p.m.v.; see further illustrations in the Supplementary Information).
This shift is unexpected and takes place where the new measurement interval for this study begins. However, it seems to be a robust feature and not a measurement artefact….
John Finn // November 29, 2008 at 10:28 am |
The greenhouse gases are ‘gases’. They heat the atmosphere and surface
and a warmer atmosphere transfers some of that heat to the ocean below.
GP
From your link “warmer atmosphere transfers *some* of that heat to the ocean below”.
I never trust the word “some” particularly when used by scientists. So how much is “some”?
Bearing in mind that 99% of LW radiation (between 10 – 20 micron) is absorbed in the first milllimetre (actually more like the first few micron) of liquid water, I’ll ask my original question again (slightly rephrased).
How has the recent increase in ghg forcing warmed the world’s oceans?
To help you out, try this link at RC
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
John Finn // November 29, 2008 at 10:41 am |
Anyone really interested in John Finn’s question?
Hank
You should be interested in the question. The heat capacity of the oceans is massively greater than that of the atmosphere . If the oceans don’t warm then GW is a non starter.
Apologies to those who have referred to some of my other points but I do need to get to grips with the ocean issue.
GP
Not sure who you’re referring to when you say “I also know where you got the claim from”. It’s not the one Hank mentioned, though I have read the piece.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 29, 2008 at 1:02 pm |
John Finn writes:
Partly increased greenhouse gases, partly a slight increase in the luminosity of the sun.
Industrial production ramped up very fast as World War II started and in the absence of pollution controls, sulfate aerosols lofted into the stratosphere blocked sunlight.
About 3 K, with an uncertainty from about 1-1.5 K.
Water absorbs infrared light.
No they don’t. Those are oscillations, meaning they don’t affect the trend.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 29, 2008 at 1:05 pm |
michel writes:
dhogaza // November 29, 2008 at 2:31 pm |
What is your explanation for the ocean’s measured expansion (measured as sea-level rise)?
If it’s not due to it warming, what is causing it?
Hank Roberts // November 29, 2008 at 3:11 pm |
P.S., remember the Pliocene has been well studied and assiduously modeled by the petroleum industry as a way to figure out where to drill — search for “Pliocene +petroleum” (there’s not much bullshit produced on that subject combination, you’ll find very similar results with plain Google and then with Scholar for comparison). While the sequence of events occurs over a very long natural time span, unlike the century scale of human fossil fuel burning, that makes the details easier to work out since there were more years, so more layers in the strata, for each condition as conditions changed.
Look at how this works through the information to sort out what was happening, as an example:
http://www.geologi.no/data/f/0/08/30/1_22301_0/57685_NGT_kap4.pdf.
Watch the PR puff up, then look into the science.
Hank Roberts // November 29, 2008 at 3:19 pm |
And for the kids still looking for material for school, you can’t go far wrong by taking the names of the authors in the news and trying them in Scholar. This gets you some full text and PDF papers by the same people including the background and details used for the studies in today’s news:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%2Bpliocene+%2BHaywood+%2BDowsett+%2BValdes&num=50&as_ylo=2003
This is a good summary from 2001, for example — certainly not current work, but gives an idea what they base the new work on, and full text available:
http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/300/palaeontologia/02-02-04/2001_1/climate/climate.pdf
Palaeontologia Electronica
http://palaeo-electronica.org
Haywood, Alan M., Valdes, Paul J., Sellwood, Bruce W., Kaplan, Jed O., and Harry J. Dowsett, 2001. Modelling Middle Pliocene
Warm Climates of the USA. Palaeontologia Electronica, vol. 4, issue 1, art. 5: 21pp., 933KB.
http://palaeo-electronica.org/2001_1/climate/issue1_01.htm.
“… This paper describes the results of a
new palaeoclimatic modelling study,
focused on the USA, for the middle
Pliocene using a state-of-the-art GCM.
… this is the first to examine, in
detail, the nature and dynamics of the
palaeoclimate and the validity of model
predictions on a regional scale.
The geological record of the USA dur-
ing the middle Pliocene is diverse and well
suited for the regional assessment of
GCM predictions (Figure 1). A wealth of
geological data are available, derived from
tectonic basins that contain long sedimen-
tary records of palaeoenvironmental
change. In addition, numerous localities
display evidence for Pliocene lacustrine,
fluvial, and shallow marine environments
(Thompson 1991; Thompson and Fleming
1996). “
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 4:18 pm |
John Finn,
Good question, but not one having a very simple answer. Currently, as the temperature anomaly is doubling approximately every 30 years, about half of the extra heat goes down into the ocean, while the other half stays in the air. That’s why we see only half of the “potential” (i.e., equilibrium”) warming realized as transient warming. But that is contingent on the current exponential warming. In reality the hear transfer to the ocean happens on a broad range of time scales, see below.
Interesting article, though easily misunderstood. Consider that the “skin layer”, while directly controlling the longwave radiative exchange between atmosphere and ocean, does not actually control ocean warming. That role is played by the mixing processes, operating on many different time scales, from a few years for the top few 100 m, to many thousands of years for the full ocean volume. Water from the skin layer gets continually mixed with deeper layers also, and is thus actually controlled by this mixing.
There isn’t really any mystery there. Of course many of the details remain uncertain as always, for the usual reasons. But there are no contradictions here that I am aware of.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 8:01 pm |
John Finn, my guess was spot on: our old friend Siegfried F. Singer has been diligently spreading this meme — that there is something fishy with our understanding of ocean warming — as testified by your RC link. The same Siegfried F. Singer that continues to spread the meme in the service of the Heartland Institute, which was the subject of my RC reference…
Hook, line and sinker. This would have been the place for a little skepticism ;-)
Ah well. My good deed for today…
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 8:20 pm |
dhogaza:
Glacier melting?
Seriously, both contribute. The glacier (mass change) contribution is a bit larger than the thermosteric (expansion) contribution. Separating the two is not entirely trivial, but has been attempted with some success in recent years using satellite altimetry, GRACE and ARGO buoys. The time series are still very short.
Google for “sea level rise” grace thermosteric
A more to-the-point question would be: what ocean mixing mechanism is capable of carrying one-half of human CO2 emissions away from the atmosphere-ocean interface, while failing to carry down heat as well?
Gavin's Pussycat // November 29, 2008 at 8:30 pm |
michel:
No we’re not. Homework exercise: read up in the IPCC WG3 (Mitigation) on costs of mitigation for several less or more aggressive scenarios. Don’t dig deeper than the Summary.
I’ll spill the answer: a few percent of GDP. Same ball park as the projected costs of doing nothing. Lots of dollars and cents, but the kind of money the nations of Earth spend routinely on military security, much of which is just as uncertain and speculative.
Dave A // November 29, 2008 at 9:54 pm |
GP,
If it’s really just a few percent of GDP why are China and India so reluctant to join the party and scale back their CO2 emissions?
Indeed why has Pachauri backed India’s drive for growth, involving much CO2 producing energy and industrial development, if climate change is really the serious problem you would have us believe?
Hank Roberts // November 29, 2008 at 10:01 pm |
> what ocean mixing mechanism is capable of
> carrying one-half of human CO2 emissions away
> from the atmosphere-ocean interface, while
> failing to carry down heat as well?
Um, thermohaline? Warm surface water moves toward the poles, loses heat to the atmosphere, picks up gases that dissolve better in colder water, sinks. That gives us the current situation — seawater is well oxygenated all the way down to the deep water, and organisms live even at great depths.
Peter Ward’s concern is that in a somewhat warmer world, surface water will be sinking at mid-latitudes, while still low in oxygen — that leads to a transition to anoxic deep water conditions, creating another band of black sediment (like the four he’s described in the paleo record).
David B. Benson // November 29, 2008 at 11:06 pm |
P. Lewis // November 29, 2008 at 4:05 am — Thanks,
I fear it is almost hopeless to try to explain atmospheric physics to those who do not seem to want to learn. (I have a hard time accepting to number of truely elementary mistakes I found whilst scanning through toady’s comments.)
dhogaza // November 29, 2008 at 11:15 pm |
Maybe politicians in India are fully capable of being as short-sighted and ignorant as western politicians?
Are you seriously suggesting that the fact that some third-world (or first-world) politician might ignore the warnings of science somehow demonstrates that the science is weak?
Inhofe’s ignorance means the earth is flat, after all?
David B. Benson // November 29, 2008 at 11:16 pm |
I think John Flynn wrote this boner: “3. No-one has actually quantified the warming expected from a doubling of CO2. (the only evidence appears to be from the last GCM when temp changes preceded CO2 changes).”
The first mistake is wrting ‘GCM” for what appears ought to have been “LGM”, Last Glacial Maximum. Now the LGMN lasted long enough to be quite certain that the climate was in equilibrium; this giaves an important limitation on Charney sensitivity; it cannot be very large.
Another example is the attempt to model LIA; climate models with low sensitivity (1.9 K) did not produce enough cooling; models with high sensitivity (4.7 K) produced too much.
Once again, read Annan & Hargreaves. You’ll see why all lines of evidence lead to the conclusion that Charney sensitvity is most likely about 3 K.
Ray Ladbury // November 29, 2008 at 11:29 pm |
Dave A., Both India and China have populations that are still increasing, especially among young people. They are concerned with putting these young folks to work, so that they don’t become a disgruntled timebomb that disrupts social stability. It is clear that we cannot reduce greenhouse gases without coopration from developing nations, so these problems are also our problems.
P. Lewis // November 30, 2008 at 12:54 am |
Duh! Stadial: CO2 down, temperature down (else no ice sheet advance).
Duh! Interstadial: CO2 up, temperature up (else no ice sheet retreat).
And no, it’s not the whole story. I said that. And it’s not necessarily the initiator of change. Everyone “knows” that!
There’s none so blind as those who do not wish to see, or who are too thick to engage brain, or who are only interested in sophistry. Some, it seems, embrace all three.
TCOisbanned? // November 30, 2008 at 1:03 am |
Steve McI is posting posts that make me want to “poke my eye out”. He writes stuff in such an “in group manner” that all kinds of preceding assumptions, names, etc. are unclear. Also, he has often just sections of name calling “poke your eyes out” that distract from actually evaluating his claims. In addition, he meanders and includes previous “bad things” in the context of a given new claim. It then becomes a guessing game to figure out if that particulary “meandered issue” is relevant, is necessary to the given new claim. Or just a non sequiter.
John Finn // November 30, 2008 at 2:31 am |
In an earlier post I made a number of comments (bold) . BPL has kindly responded to them (italics). These are my responses to BPL.
1. You have no explanation for what caused the early 20th century warming.
Partly increased greenhouse gases, partly a slight increase in the luminosity of the sun.
Not the sun according to Leif Svalgaard – But if the sun was a factor in the early 20th century warming then it was certainly a factor in the late 20th century warming (inc. ocean warming) since activity was higher in the latter part of the century. If you’re saying CO2 (or solar) forcing was a factor you really need to quantify the relative contributions. By the 1940s, it’s just about conceivable that CO2 forcing was ~0.5 w/m2 but for that to have any effect on global temperature you have to dismiss the notion that there is a “lag” and must assume that the CO2 effect is immediate. This, though, presents a problem with the current situation in that global temperatures should be much higher than they are. The reason usually given is that there is “warming in the pipeline”. The numbers don’t stack up.
[Response: Have you ever actually studied solar irradiance data -- from Lean, from Svalgard, the PMOD or ACRIM satellite measurements, or from any source whatsoever? Solar output has been stable since about 1950. The absence of a trend in forcing does not produce a trend in response -- and it especially does not produce a trend which has accelerated since 1950!
And are you completely unaware of the lull in volcanic activity?]
2. You have no explanation for the cooling (or lack of warming) in the post-1940 period.
Industrial production ramped up very fast as World War II started and in the absence of pollution controls, sulfate aerosols lofted into the stratosphere blocked sunlight.
The aerosols from major volcanic eruptions do enter the stratosphere. Industrial aerosols, in general, do not. I’ve written this so many times before but here it is again:- the effect of indusrial aerosols is “regionally specific”. This is a phrase I’ve ‘borrowed’ from a paper by Michael Mann & Phil Jones – it’s not something I’ve made up. AGW scientists are well aware that that the aerosol cooling theory is seriously flawed and while they don’t actually refute it you won’t find too many of them promoting it.
BPL (or anyone) – get the GISS (zonal) temp data and check the 1940-75 temp trends by latitude band. Note that the Arctic (64-90 deg N) cools at around 3 or 4 times the rate of any other band. If aerosols were a factor the greater cooling would be found in the mid-latitude (i.e. 24-44 & 44-64) bands. But if you’re still not convinced – try this. What evidence is there that there was actually an increase (significant) in the early WWII years. The truth is the increase came in the post war years from about 1950 onwards. As Tamino has pointed out elsewhere on this blog the only ’significant’ cooling occurred between 1944-1951.
[Response: Have you ever actually studied the GISS zonal data? More to the point, have you compared the hemispheric data? Do you have any idea how big the "regions" are in the "regional" response? I don't think so.]
3. No-one has actually quantified the warming expected from a doubling of CO2. (the only evidence appears to be from the last GCM when temp changes preceded CO2 changes).
About 3 K, with an uncertainty from about 1-1.5 K.
I’m not trying to duck this one but I am going to leave it for now.
4. No-one, as far as I am aware, has managed to explain how the LW radiation from increased GHGs warms the oceans.
Water absorbs infrared light.
This (your response) is a rather empty statement. It’s a bit like saying “fire generates heat” – true but how much heat. If I light a match in the Albert Hall (or similar in the US) I suppose it will warm the building – assuming all other factors remain constant. But will we be able to actually measure the increase in temperature?
99% of Infrared light is absorbed within a few micron in liquid water. Just hold that thought for a moment and think what a “few micron” represents. A reasonable comparison is the thickness of a human hair. Now imagine the vast depths of the oceans and the trillions of gallons of water they hold. I’m not going to say anymore on this because the argument invariably tends to shift course. In an earlier post I provided a realclimate link for GP. I suggest anyone who’s interested in taking this further should read the realclimate post and then come back with any comments.
BTW, GP – it wasn’t Singer. I read an exchange on RC some time ago between Gavin and ‘my source’ and it was pretty clear the RC case was on shaky ground. In any case I’m not sure this is an issue that requires ‘expert’ opinion one way or the other. The facts are as stated. The depth of IR penetration in water is tiny plus the increase in ghg forcing since ~1850 is < 2 w/m2. I find the idea that the increased GHG forcing is responsible for bulk heating of the oceans totally implausible – but as GP says I may be ignorant on the issue and he and others may well disagree with me.
[Response: RC did a fine job -- as they always do -- explaining the warming of the oceans. Your "shaky ground" claim is utterly groundless; you just don't like the answer.]
5. A number of models using ocean oscillations only show that most of the 20th century warming can be explained by ENSO and AMO.
No they don’t. Those are oscillations, meaning they don’t affect the trend.
Yes they do (or can). Do a least sq fit on the following data {0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1}.
[Response: Have you EVER even LOOKED at the data? Do you even know what ENSO and AMO are? They're nothing at all like your "sample." What about the fact that if climate behaves as you claim, then the ENSO and AMO will have been fluctuating for thousands of years. Do you think temperature has been rising for thousands of years? Or are you a member of the "it's all cycles" school?
Since you claim "a number of models show," exactly what models would they be?
You are so confused, I'm dazed; your ability to rationalize is almost beyond belief. I might just have to do a whole post about it.]
Ray Ladbury // November 30, 2008 at 3:25 am |
TCO, it doesn’t matter how badly a McScientist writes. Nobody who matters reads his crap anyway. There is plenty of good science out there, why waste your time on poor science, poorly presented.
TCOisbanned? // November 30, 2008 at 5:42 am |
It’s still kinda interesting.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 30, 2008 at 7:39 am |
> I find the idea that the increased GHG forcing is responsible for
> bulk heating of the oceans totally implausible – but as GP says I may
> be ignorant on the issue
Ocean water mixing processes. That’s where your ignorance lies. Do your homework. I tried to give you pointers, now it’s your turn. Carl Wunsch’s writings are a good starting point.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 30, 2008 at 9:33 am |
Perhaps because many Indians and Chinese are still desperately poor, literally starving?
We in the West have no such excuse.
And I agree that both nations have a right, and a duty to their people, to grow their economies. Why should they pay the price for something that, at this point, is still almost completely our (the West) fault?
But the time will come, with growing prosperity, that also those countries will see the necessity to do something about climate change. Actually they already do, e.g., glacier loss in the Himalayas interfering with food production. If only there is global leadership — and there is hope for that now — they’ll come on board.
John Finn // November 30, 2008 at 10:18 am |
Have you EVER even LOOKED at the data?
Yes
Do you even know what ENSO and AMO are?
Yes – as much as anyone posting here does at least
[Response: No, obviously you don't.]
They’re nothing at all like your “sample.”
I know my sample was to illustrate a point.
[Response: What point? That you don't know what the data are like?]
What about the fact that if climate behaves as you claim, then the ENSO and AMO will have been fluctuating for thousands of years
Yes but we only have a decent range of temp observations for about ~100 years. Over that period of time my binary sample does give a very crude representation of what’s actually happened. (i.e ~30 yrs negative; ~30 yrs positive etc)
[Response: You really don't know.]
Since you claim “a number of models show,” exactly what models would they be?
Spencer , Bill Illis (on WUWT) I’ m sure I can dig out others.
[Response: Is that Spencer the creationist -- isn't he the guy who whined when GRL rejected his paper? Is that Bill Illis the "sock puppet," aka John Willit, whose idea of trend analysis is this?
Seriously: if these guys are your references for "a number of models show," then you don't have a leg to stand on. You really embarrassed yourself on this one.]
The point about ocean oscillations is this. We know about ENSO, that is the El Nino/La Nina ‘cycles’. We’ve seen plenty of evidence for their effect on climate over the last couple of years. On top of the irregular multi-year ENSO pattern there’s good reason to believe that a multi-decadal cycle exists, i.e. periods when we get more El Nino events than La Nina and vice versa. This is the cycle that I loosely refer to as the PDO though this is almost certainly too simplistic.
Now then if you accept the existence of the first order cycles and also accept the possible existence of the second order cycles . How do you know there isn’t a third order cycle , i.e. a multi-century cycle? Remember, as Carl Wunsch the oceanographer said, “just because you see changes happening in the oceans now it doesn’t mean what caused it happened now – what caused the changes may have happened decades or hundreds of years earlier”.
Ocean circulation is linked to all (or 1,2,4 at least) my other points. You simply can’t quantify the relative contribution of the various factors, i.e. solar, oceans, aerosols, ghgs with anythig like a reasonable level of confidence.
[Response: Your ability to rationalize really is almost beyond belief. You don't want to accept greenhouse-gas forcing even though it's basic physics that's proven in the laboratory, but you do argue for "a third order cycle" that has a delayed-action "what caused the changes may have happened decades or hundreds of years earlier" impact. Face the truth: you've taken every buzzword about ocean "oscillations" that you can find and strung them together to create a fantasy forcing, just so you don't have to face the truth about greenhouse gases.
This much is clear: you aren't a skeptic. If you were you wouldn't be so gullible when it comes to crackpot "ocean oscillation theories."]
You are so confused, I’m dazed; your ability to rationalize is almost beyond belief. I might just have to do a whole post about it.]
Do – and while your at it include reference and comments about the ocean “skin” theory. That’s the one which explains how increased GHGs cause the oceans to warm.
In fact cover the lot – let’s lay the mid 20th century aerosol theory to rest while were at it.
[Response: I'll probably post on some of the misinformation you've talked yourself into. But not for you. You aren't a skeptic, you're a hopeless flat-earther, who won't listen, so you'll never learn.]
Gavin's Pussycat // November 30, 2008 at 10:22 am |
michel,
the example given by P. Lewis isn’t the best possible, as the CO2-caused temperature variation is overlaid by a much larger albedo forcing. But then, does it really matter? The Earth doesn’t care what forcing is causing the temperature change. Your claim, or suggestion, or suspicion, or not-ruling-out, that the climate system reponds differently to a negative than to a positive forcing should apply irrespective of the nature of the forcing.
Actually we know quite a lot about how these things work. Here’s a differential equation:
C dT/dt = k(T – T0) + F.
No, don’t try to solve it (though it’s not hard). Just note that it’s linear, and that replacing the forcing F by -F will get you the same solution T(t), but with opposite sign.
The climate system can be described by systems of equations like this. Much more complex, but just as linear wrt forcings. If this were wrong, we would be in deep trouble. For starters, any such asymmetry would mean that if CO2 went up, then down, we wouldn’t return to the same level… not what we see the real paleo record do. Ever.
You know, if I had a spare Earth to experiment with, I would show you. But the only examples we have are from the messy real Earth. The three, four historical Snowball Earth episodes are good examples though, even if happening very long ago, on a planet in many ways different from today. Study it ( htpp://www.snowballearth.org ). Here we have volcanic CO2 slowly building up to huge levels to pull the Earth out of the snowball against the albedo cooling; then, in the global hothouse that follows, CO2 is rapidly washed down to deposit Cap Carbonates, bringing temperatures down to pre-snowball levels. A temperature cycling of 60 degrees plus, with CO2 in a starring role equally in both directions. It works.
You seem to want us to insult you, and I’ll think of some suitable expressions, but for now, “silly” will have to do.
michel // November 30, 2008 at 10:45 am |
Michel, that right there shows you don’t have even the foggiest notion of how the science works. You don’t even understand how absurd you suggestion is. If it were possible to construct such a model it would have been done. Whoever did so would be famous.
Here’s a hint: there aren’t any loopholes in the laws of physics.
Tell me then, what law of physics would we have to abandon, and why, were we to conclude that the average temperature showed signs of rising by only 0.5C per century in the fact of CO2 rising on IPCC forecasts?
I’m prepared to be argued out of my view, but not prepared to be shouted out of it.
michel // November 30, 2008 at 11:19 am |
“the only basic physics in the models are the pressure gradient force, advection and the acceleration due to gravity. These are the only physics in which there are no tunable coefficients. Climate models are engineering codes and not fundamental physics”
Roger Pielke, post of Nov 28 on his climate science blog.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 30, 2008 at 11:45 am |
Water is a liquid. It flows. It mixes.
Sleep on that, and don’t come back to embarrass yourself any further before you figure it out. Sheesh.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 30, 2008 at 12:12 pm |
Dave A writes:
Hmmm, why would politicians ignore a serious long-term problem in favor of doing popular stuff now? Gosh, that’s a stumper. I’ll have to think really hard about that.
Barton Paul Levenson // November 30, 2008 at 12:21 pm |
John Finn writes:
No. That’s a non sequitur. You have “high” confused with “rising.”
The fact that industrial production, as recorded by the Bureau of Economic Statistics, was orders of magnitude higher in 1942 than in 1932?
There’s a process called “conduction” by which heat can be transferred among objects in physical contact. The ocean absorbs about 95% of 324 watts per square meter of atmospheric back-radiation and 168 watts per square meter of sunlight. That’s a lot of heat. If it’s not going into the ocean, where is it going?
The longer the series runs, the more any effect on the trend disappears. This is statistics 101. Note, also, that the proper period for climate data is 30 years or more, not 12. Oscillations don’t affect the trend; that’s why they’re called oscillations.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 30, 2008 at 1:46 pm |
David, who’s “toady”? — no, don’t tell :-)
[Response: As if we didn't know.
But David's comment makes an important point. It's time we spent less effort letting the creationist/denialist/flat-earthers set the agenda. Real science is far more interesting.]
Gavin's Pussycat // November 30, 2008 at 2:16 pm |
> Climate models
> Roger Pielke
It makes a more lasting impression if you quote folks that take their foot out of their mouth before talking, michel.
Gavin's Pussycat // November 30, 2008 at 2:30 pm |
Oh, I completely agree Tamino. But denialism isn’t going away. I am always writing not to the denialist I am “debating” with, but to the quiet readers that might be taken in by their nonsense. It’s always a teaching opportunity. Sometimes temper takes over. But that just anger at those trying to soil this beautiful thing. At least it shows that we have something we honestly believe in (and no, that’s not AGW :-) .
Ray Ladbury // November 30, 2008 at 3:25 pm |
TCO says, “It’s still kinda interesting.”
So is a train wreck, but it is not particularly edifying.
Ray Ladbury // November 30, 2008 at 3:41 pm |
Michel asks: “Tell me then, what law of physics would we have to abandon, and why, were we to conclude that the average temperature showed signs of rising by only 0.5C per century in the fact of CO2 rising on IPCC forecasts?”
Well, for starters, there’s conservation of energy. I’m kinda partial to that one as it saved my tuckus in Mechanics, Stat Mech and Quantum Mechanics many a time. The direct forcing by CO2 is very tightly determined. The feedbacks are determined by a broad range of evidence. They don’t depend on what the original source of the energy is. If you assume either of these are wrong, you have to explain why Earth isn’t a giant snowball. I’m not willing to accept divine intervention as a cause just yet.
You’d also have to explain how all those photons run the gauntled of 40 miles of CO2 molecules and still manage to escape the atmosphere. Neat trick that.
Neither Pielke knows much about climate modeling. I find myself just shaking my head when I read some of their tripe–and I’m a rank amateur when it comes to climate science.
There is as much evidence supporting the thesis that we are changing climate as there is supporting evolution. As we only have eye witness accounts, and eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable, I’d say there is considerably more evidence for anthropogenic causation than there is for our history of Nelson’s role in the battle of Trafalgar. The Holocaust has an astounding amount of forensic evidence. It is about on a par.
P. Lewis // November 30, 2008 at 5:23 pm |
Was someone discussing sea-level rise (or not) hereabouts recently? (Could have been elsewhere I s’pose.) No matter, Cazenave et al.’s findings in Sea level budget over 2003–2008: A reevaluation from GRACE space gravimetry, satellite altimetry and Argo (in Global and Planetary Change) might be of interest anyway (abstract only).
[Response: The link didn't make it on your comment; the abstract is here.]
luminous beauty // November 30, 2008 at 7:34 pm |
UPDATES!! Free pre-pub!!
Dave A // November 30, 2008 at 11:12 pm |
BPL,
Pachauri isn’t a politician, he is the head of the IPCC, the supposed keeper of the ’scientific consensus’ about climate change. Is the science true or can it be dispensed of in favour of political/economic arguments according to the situation?
Your response seems to suggest the answer is ‘yes’
Dave A // November 30, 2008 at 11:29 pm |
GP,
Of course I know the arguments put forward by China and India etc and I agree that their prioritites are necessarily different.
But the point remains that if the ’science’ is as conclusive as you say it is, and as Hansen obviously believes it is, then unfortunately there can be no opt outs, we are all in the same boat and one man’s CO2 is as dangerous as another’s. In this respect there can be no different approach – the problem is either real or it is not.
BTW, I don’t accept that Western development has nothing but downsides – it has brought immense prosperity to many billions of people on a worldwide basis.
[Response: That's nothing but a "straw man" argument. Few if any advocates of action to mitigate global warming claim that "Western development has nothing but downsides."]
Ray Ladbury // December 1, 2008 at 12:30 am |
Dave A., You seem to be unable to distinguish between the science and our response to the science. It is the fact that you don’t like the potential response that makes you reject good science you don’t even understand. Climate science and our response to climate change are two different things. Pachauri, as a scientist, recognizes this. He also undoubtedly recognizes that if we quench growth in developing countries, they will burn whatever they can get their hands on to simply survive. Climate change is a threat, but it is far from the only threat we face. Overpopulation, underdevelopment, peak oil, environmental degradation, climate change, etc. are all part of the same ultimate problem–the need to develop a sustainable economy. Addressing these threats is not optional. We can’t address 9 out of 10, because the one we don’t address will be the one that brings down human civilization. This is humanity’s midterm and we haven’t been doing that well going into it.
John Finn // December 1, 2008 at 1:32 am |
GP
On your water absorption and mixing point
That is not what the AGW theory says. Read it and then you sleep on it. The article in RC is quite clear i.e that the ocean skin (which is the thickness of a human hair) creates a layer which slows the rate of cooling from below. Read the frigging article please.
In actual fact I partly agree with you – some (a tiny minuscule amount) will get mixed but most will either be re-radiated or else contribute to a negligible increase in the rate of evaporation. (this also answers BPL’s question re: where does the heat go)
BPL
No. That’s a non sequitur. You have “high” confused with “rising.”
No I’m not. Activity was higher. I think you’re tryng to say there wasn’t a rising trend but this makes no sense. Why do you imagine that when the sun’s activity reaches a certain level then warming would stop. Is that what happens to a pot of water on a gas stove? Are you saying that if we leave the flame at a fixed level then the water will remain at the same temperature. According to the AGW case, CO2 apparently has a delayed effect despite the fact IR cannot penetrate more than a few micron into the ocean. The sun’s energy , on the other hand, cannot be stored even though visible light penetrates to ocean depths of tens of metres.
In an earlier post, I misquoted Carl Wunsch. He actually said that changes at the surface might not be detected in the deeper ocean for hundreds or even thousands of years.
The fact that industrial production, as recorded by the Bureau of Economic Statistics, was orders of magnitude higher in 1942 than in 1932?
1. Are these world stats or US only.
2. A good proxy for world-wide industrial activity would seem to me to be CO2 emissions. The 1930s and 1940s were much the same. There wasn’t a significant rise until the 1950s.
3. You still haven’t answered the question as to why the Arctic cooled more (much more) than the industrialised mid-latitude regions.
There’s a process called “conduction” by which heat can be transferred among objects in physical contact. The ocean absorbs about 95% of 324 watts per square meter of atmospheric back-radiation and 168 watts per square meter of sunlight. That’s a lot of heat. If it’s not going into the ocean, where is it going?
I’ve partly answered this above. As well as “conduction” there are also processes called “evaporation”, “re-radiation” and “convection” all of which act to remove heat from the earth’s surface (both land and ocean). These processes are particularly efficient over oceans as can noticed in high summer where coastal areas are far more pleasant than inland areas. I provided a link to a RC article which relates to this topic. Read it and we can pursue this further. My problem, at the moment, is that I’m having to present the AGW case and argue against it at the same time.
The longer the series runs, the more any effect on the trend disappears. This is statistics 101.
Yes I know. But we don’t have a long period we only have about ~100 years in which 2 oscillations (4 changes of phase) are evident.
Note, also, that the proper period for climate data is 30 years or more, not 12. Oscillations don’t affect the trend; that’s why they’re called oscillations.
Uh! Look, BPL, my “data” wasn’t intended to represent anything it was just intended to show that you will get a trend if your data begins in the negative phase and ends in the positive phase of a cycle. In 2008, your 30 year period means we start at the end of a negative phase. Ideally, therefore, we should be looking at data over a ~60 year period.
Tamino – You are wrong about the timescales of changes in the oceans. Read the Wunsch comment above. Note that I’m not saying there are 3rd order oscillations just that the possibility exists. If someone like Lazar or GP can work out the relative heat capacity of the oceans compared to the atmosphere then we might make some progress. If I do it – it will just be ignored.
TCOisbanned? // December 1, 2008 at 2:39 am |
Ray:
1. I don’t get you. How does conservation of energy require that the earth either be warming at the rate in IPCC or be a snowball. Why no intermediate choice?
2. The Earth is a very complex system. Surely it’s possible that if the numbers are different from GCM modeling, that perhaps some apsect of the complexity in the system was not properly modeled, rather than declaring conservation of energy dead? Let’s say for thought experiment it plays out like this, do you seriously think a paper saying conservation of energy was violated will be submitted or get through PRL? Don’t you think the more natual thing would be to look for flaws in the simulation of the system?
Hank Roberts // December 1, 2008 at 5:57 am |
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/wais?mm=OS41F
Wunsch, recent paper.
The quote attributed to Wunsch above isn’t found. Citation please?
Your search – +wunsch “because you see changes happening in the oceans now it doesn’t mean what caused it happened now” – did not match any documents.
If you’re quoting this from some secondary source –where did you find it and why do you consider it reliable? Where’s it supposed to be from?
michel // December 1, 2008 at 7:24 am |
It is simply not plausible that were we to discover over the next 50 years that the planet in fact is warming at the rate of 0.5C per century, rather than 2C, we would abandon the principle of the conservation of energy. It would be a totally irrational way of proceeding, and not the way science has worked, historically. We would change our view of how the climate works. TCO’s point #2 is obviously right. If this is the best argument that can be made, IPCC is in deep doody.
It is not of course. There are serious arguments for the AGW hypothesis, and in particular even for 2C/century. This is just not one of them.
I note that yet again people, this time in the case of Pielke Sr, seem not to realize that abuse directed at an individual is not argument directed at his position, and so cannot refute it.
dhogaza // December 1, 2008 at 7:33 am |
I know intelligent people who still smoke.
Lazar // December 1, 2008 at 9:15 am |
John Finn,
Why ‘cannot be stored’?
John Finn // December 1, 2008 at 9:27 am |
GP, BPL
I have “slept on it” as GP suggested and I think both of you (and me) could be wrong about downward mixing (conduction) of IR energy in the oceans. Apart from the fact that conduction is less efficient than radiation – aren’t IR lasers used in skin treatment processes? Despite these lasers having thousands of times more intensity than atmospheric back radiation, no underlying tissue is damaged during treatment.
It could be that there is good reason why the AGW case relies on the ’skin layer’ theory to explain ocean warming.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 1, 2008 at 1:02 pm |
John Finn writes:
Right, and the input and output balance or the temperature of the ocean would be continuously changing. But global warming increases the back-radiation from the atmosphere and does not increase the rest enough to compensate. The oceans must heat up. When they reradiate enough for input and output to match again, the system will again be in equilibrium.
The question is why you think this process doesn’t affect the ocean’s temperature. The more thermal energy in the system, the hotter the system is going to be. That’s kind of what thermal energy means.
And my response was intended to show that that effect lessens the more you have of the time series, which you still don’t appear to get. Look, I’ll do the math for you.
12 years: 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1
signal = 0.091 + 0.062 year, coefficient t 1.53 (i.e., insignificant).
30 years: 00011 10001 11000 11100 01110 00111
signal = 0.345 + 0.010 year, coefficient t 0.93 (i.e., even less significant).
luminous beauty // December 1, 2008 at 3:05 pm |
TCO,
If climate sensitivity of CO2 was less than ≈1.5C/2x CO2 then snowball earth would still be with us. If greater than ≈6.0C, then it would never have formed. 3.0C is an intermediate value.
The Earth’s climate is complex. The TOA radiation budget, not so much. Additional energy in the system has to go somewhere. If less goes into heating the surface, then more goes into driving the General Circulation System (subjectively experienced mostly as the weather. It’s what GCMs model).
So it’s really a matter of surface temperatures rising vs. increasingly disruptive weather patterns.
So why is it you are rooting for a lower temperature sensitivity?
Ray Ladbury // December 1, 2008 at 5:34 pm |
John Finn says: “Apart from the fact that conduction is less efficient than radiation – aren’t IR lasers used in skin treatment processes? ”
Bzzzzzt! But thank you for playing. Sorry, John, but of the methods of heat transfer, the most efficient is convection, followed by conduction, with radiation coming in a distant last. So, now a question for you: Why not learn some of the basic physics first before trying to disprove stuff people have spent decades researching?
Ray Ladbury // December 1, 2008 at 5:54 pm |
TCO,
For AGW to be wrong, one of 3 things must be true.
1)CO2 does not provide nearly as much direct forcing as was thought. This is problematic, since this is something one can calculate from laboratory measurements and first principles.
2)Feedback is much less than thought. This is quite problematic, since it affects not just CO2 forcing, but ALL forcings. Very hard not to wind up with a snowball Earth under this scenario.
3) Some negative feedback kicks in right around 300 ppmv or at the current temperature that dissipates the extra heat absorbed by CO2 without heating the planet. There is zero evidence for this, and what is more it is contra-indicated by the paleoclimate.
AGW is an inescapable consequence of our climate models. If we are somehow not warming the planet, then pretty much everything we know about climate must be wrong. That would seem not to be the case given the successes climate models have had.
Dave A // December 1, 2008 at 9:50 pm |
Ray,
Quite agree we face a number of serious problems which we need to address. Don’t agree with the priority you put on climate change or the pessimistic outlook that you seem to inhabit.
dhogaza // December 1, 2008 at 10:30 pm |
Dave A skips on down the denialist path …
“AGW isn’t real …”
Faced with an ongoing onslaught of scientific evidence, which he still doesn’t believe, but can’t refute …
“Don’t agree with the … pessimistic outlook”, i.e., “well, even if it is happening, it won’t be as bad as you think!”.
Dave A – there’s one more step down the path towards true
enlightenmentdenialism.“It won’t be bad for us, it will be good for us! Even though it’s not really happening.”
JCH // December 1, 2008 at 10:45 pm |
We face serious problems…let’s dance the Lomborg two step.
John Finn // December 1, 2008 at 11:54 pm |
Lazar // December 1, 2008 at 9:15 am
John Finn,
The sun’s energy , on the other hand, cannot be stored even though visible light penetrates to ocean depths of tens of metres
Why ‘cannot be stored’?
Lazar – it can.
It’s BPL who thinks that because solar activity peaked in ~1960 then no warming (solar) can occur after that. Everyone seems to accept that there is a lag with CO2 warming (i.e. there is still heating in the pipeline) – but reject the idea that solar heating will also have a time lag. I think they’re wrong particularly when you consider that any lag can only be due to thermal inertia in the oceans (SW radiation penetrates deep into the oceans; LW radiation does not )
Ray
Bzzzzzt! But thank you for playing. Sorry, John, but of the methods of heat transfer, the most efficient is convection, followed by conduction, with radiation coming in a distant last
We are talking about 2 different media, i.e water (downwards) and air (upwards).
I would be interested in your view on the point about dermatological laser treatment and why an intense IR laser beam can be directed at the skin surface but not penetrate and damage deeper tissue. Does this not suggest that very little downward conduction will take place. The RC scientists seem to agree with me on this as their theory on how IR warms the oceans does not appear to involve downward mixing.
I have asked readers to look up the RC post on this, but no-one seems keen to do this.
BPL
Please forget my data. I understand your point. My point is that even if you have perfectly oscillating data (e.g. sine wave) you won’t necessarily get a zero trend. It will depend on the start and end points used in the analysis.
TCOisbanned? // December 2, 2008 at 12:05 am |
1. Ray your recent posts show a more nuanced approach to the supports for AGW. Realio trulio, if we find that the rate is less than expected, I bet that we look into complex aspects of the system…not into repealing consevation of energy. But in making your new remarks, you make some nice supports for AGW. I just don’t think AGW is yet at the stage of the 3 laws of Thermodymanics. This is because I can see nuances. I would actually “Bayesian bet” on AGW occuring. I just don’t put it with Boltzman and Gibbs and Einstein.
Segue (funny story). There is a famous chemical called Ferrocene whichf has a ring of carbon around an Iron atom (or some such). It is an iconic compound in inorganic chemistry. A famous Harvard researcher and synthesist asked his theorist colleague if that molecule could be made. The theorist went and did some calculations and came back and said, no…it could not exist. The famous synthesist was reading a journal one day and saw the announcement of that compound being made. The famous synthesist called the man who found ferrocene and asked how he came to make it when all the theory said it was impossible. That fellow said “I didn’t have the luxury of a collaboration with a theorist, so I just tried making it.” He asked the theorist about it….and that guy went back and looked at the paper and his calcs and came back and said…”Oh…I guess it can be made”. If you’re ever at Harvard in the Chem Department, you can ask to see the journal article on ferrocene: there is the imprint of a shoe on that article from the famous synthesist.
2. Totally different topic: I have been abusing McI a bit (commenting on his posts, if you are PC) over on this site: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=182216
John Finn // December 2, 2008 at 12:06 am |
1)CO2 does not provide nearly as much direct forcing as was thought. This is problematic, since this is something one can calculate from laboratory measurements and first principles.
Have you a reference for this. The only clear exposition I’ve seen was a paper by Jack Barrett who showed that doubling atmospheric CO2 in the lower 100m of the atmosphere would increase the amount of IR absorption from the current 72.9% to 73.4%.
2)Feedback is much less than thought. This is quite problematic, since it affects not just CO2 forcing, but ALL forcings. Very hard not to wind up with a snowball Earth under this scenario.
Can you explain this?
David B. Benson // December 2, 2008 at 12:24 am |
michel // November 30, 2008 at 11:19 am — Pielke (whether Sr or Jr) is simply wrong (if you quoted him correctly). Gavin Schmidt has at least two recent papers (one co-authored) on what is in the GISS ModelE GCM. In addition, there is a start of a FAQ:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/langswitch_lang/fr
There is a bood with a title something akin to “The Development of General Circulation Models”, or maybe the history thereof. Some of this can also be found in “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
Review of above:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E7DF153DF936A35753C1A9659C8B63
So the potential for removing ignorance exists, at least for you.
HankRoberts // December 2, 2008 at 12:49 am |
Look, class assignments!
http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/kuipers/stat2labs/Handouts/GW%20PaperMay2.pdf
P. Lewis // December 2, 2008 at 1:16 am |
Oh boy! It suggests nothing of the sort.
They control the depth of treatment by scanning and pulsing/modulating the energy output, so that heat can dissipate from the tissue rather than build up to dangerous levels when used in skin/hair treatments.
Might I suggest you stand in front of 50-100 W CO2 laser scalpel to see how deep it penetrates? Or if that output is considered too piffling, how about standing in front of a 1.5 kW (peak) CO2 laser used for cutting metals?
HankRoberts // December 2, 2008 at 2:35 am |
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy05/phy05130.htm
David B. Benson // December 2, 2008 at 2:59 am |
Good lord!
http://www.desmogblog.com/dscovr-killed-dick-cheney-nasa-insider-climate-change-satellite
Hank Roberts // December 2, 2008 at 4:41 am |
> DeSmog … Cheney
Yeah. Knowns, unknowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, and ostrich-ass-in-the-air-unacceptable opportunities to learn that must be stopped. Sigh.
That makes clearer than anything I ‘d seen earlier what I thought obvious long ago — that Triana/DSCOVR would have answered the one big question nobody’s been able to answer clearly and simply — because we’ve had to keep trying by patching together multiple records from many satellites in low Earth orbit over many years, a statistical dog’s breakfast.
That’s what the Administration wanted — to avoid the tool that would answer the question.
Amazing. We need to do what we can do for other planets, just by sitting far enough away to image the whole planet, consistently.
Like we can image the other planets — in one frame, the whole thing.
It would sure make this easier to update next time:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008BAMS2634.1
Not to mention of course the power of the sunlit Earth image live and continuously available.
Maybe Disney will put it up. There must be some way they can take it out of the public domain, sell the rights, copyright it forever, and make it pay-per-view.
——–
In other news:
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts search page:
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm08/waisfm08.html
Hank Roberts // December 2, 2008 at 5:42 am |
A huge amount of material here:
http://ams.confex.com/ams/87ANNUAL/techprogram/
For example:
The Tenth Annual Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI) Conference
Session 5 Electronic Access to Atmospheric Science Information
Chair: Gene Major, Global Change Master Directory, SSAI, Lanham, MD
5.1 The New Model for Library Services at the Environmental Protection Agency
Evelyn Poole-Kober, ASMD Library, USEPA, Research Triangle Park, NC
5.2 From the Warehouse to the Information Super Highway: Digitizing NOAA Documents wrf recording
Kari Kozak, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
5.3 Update on Digitization of Air Force Documents: A New Portal
Susan Tarbell, Librarian, Air Force Weather Technical Library, Asheville, NC
Phil. // December 2, 2008 at 6:25 am |
John Finn // December 2, 2008 at 12:06 am
1)CO2 does not provide nearly as much direct forcing as was thought. This is problematic, since this is something one can calculate from laboratory measurements and first principles.
“Have you a reference for this. The only clear exposition I’ve seen was a paper by Jack Barrett who showed that doubling atmospheric CO2 in the lower 100m of the atmosphere would increase the amount of IR absorption from the current 72.9% to 73.4%.”
Perhaps you should have read the rebuttals of Barrett’s paper on the subject in Spectrochimica Acta:
1) Keith Shine, “Barrett [l] acknowledges my “constructive criticism” of his paper. My comments were made in a review of an earlier version of his paper which was submitted to another journal. I firmly recommended rejection of that paper and continue to profoundly disagree with the conclusions he reaches.”
and by 2) John Houghton , “A further point which Barrett makes is to suggest that because most of the absorption by carbon dioxide of radiation from the surface occurs within 30 m of the surface, the enhanced greenhouse warming due to increase of carbon dioxide in the lower atmosphere is negligible. In fact, most of the enhanced greenhouse effect occurs not because of changed absorption of radiation from the surface (although some change does occur in
the wings of the carbon dioxide band where absorption is weaker) but because as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the average height
(around 6 km) from which carbon dioxide emits radiation to space also increases…….”
3) Braterman, “I now wish to point out, from first principles of physical chemistry, that Barrett’s central thesis is wrong, leads to predictions for model systems in conflict with the second law of thermodynamics, and is not a valid contribution to this most complex and important of current scientific debates…..”
John Finn // December 2, 2008 at 8:59 am |
Oh boy! It suggests nothing of the sort.
P. Lewis
At last -a response . Excellent.
now explain how IR radiation warms the bulk of the oceans with reference to the RC post I linked to.
Lazar // December 2, 2008 at 9:52 am |
From Hank’s link above…
Is that true?
Scattering strength depends on the ratio of the particle circumference to the wavelength of light. Since infrared wavelengths vary from 2-40,000 times the wavelength of visible light, particles which are good at scattering visible light ought to be less so in the IR region.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 2, 2008 at 1:03 pm |
John Finn writes:
It will depend a hell of a lot more on the sample size, which was my point.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 2, 2008 at 1:06 pm |
John Finn writes:
This is the old “saturation” argument originally made by Knut Angstrom and J. Koch in 1900. Here’s why it’s irrelevant (remove the hyphen before cutting and pasting):
http://www.geoci-ties.com/bpl1960/Saturation.html
Ray Ladbury // December 2, 2008 at 1:47 pm |
John Finn, On the question of heating of the oceans, of course there is mixing, especially in the upper portion. It is a question of time scale, etc. The important thing though is that the oceans are in thermal contact with the rest of the world. If the world warms, the oceans have to as well. If you’ve ever swam in the oceans, you will have noted the difference between June and August.
John and TCO,
Of course they won’t abandon conservation of energy. My point is that it is not a simple matter of twiddling a couple of parameters to come up with a climate model with a lower CO2 sensitivity. Feedbacks do not discriminate as to forcing–they’re the same for insolation as for CO2. And feedbacks are a necessary piece of understanding the climate puzzle and explaining why we’re not a snowball Earth. The direct forcing of CO2 is basically a matter of putting the laboratory measured properties of the gas into a climate model. Even most “skeptics” accept this value. Anthropogenic causation is a direct consequence of our understanding of climate. If we are not warming the planet, then the correct climate must be drastically different than our understanding. Moreover, it is not just a matter of putting in a new forcer. CO2 has some pretty unique properties that make it rather difficult to replace. Remember, any new model has to explain the data as well or better than the current one. The fact that there really isn’t an alternative explanation ought to speak volumes.
Ray Ladbury // December 2, 2008 at 2:09 pm |
Hank, FWIW, I don’t think the post in Desmogblog really tells us that much we don’t already know. For one thing, most of the information is hearsay. I have no doubt that it’s true. However, folks like Dick Cheney are pretty careful not to leave finger prints. To Cheney, the facts are irrelevant. He has a conception of the way the world needs to be, and if there are consequences down the world, we’ll deal with them then. It’s exactly the sort of thinking that leads to debacles like Iraq. However, rather than learn from his mistake, Cheney’s approach is to profit from them (via Haliburton et al.). I’m sure he thinks he’ll be able to turn a buck or two off of climate-related disasters–maybe selling lifeboats in New Orleans. He is a man of no scruples, little imagination and no concept of a reality that cannot be bent to his will. He’s like W without the privileged upbringing.
John Finn // December 2, 2008 at 4:42 pm |
John Finn, On the question of heating of the oceans, of course there is mixing, especially in the upper portion. It is a question of time scale, etc.
Yes of course there is but it’s not mixing which causes the IR warming. Have you been paying attention, Ray.
I asked this question:
How has the increase in GHGs warmed the world’s oceans.
The important thing though is that the oceans are in thermal contact with the rest of the world. If the world warms, the oceans have to as well. If you’ve ever swam in the oceans, you will have noted the difference between June and August.
I have swam in the ocean, Ray and the reason it’s warmer in August is the sun. The sun’s energy does penetrate deep into te top layer of the ocean. LW (from GHGs) radiation does not.
Lazar // December 2, 2008 at 5:23 pm |
I think the saturation argument fails also in the lowest layers of the atmosphere. Supposing that for a hypothetical atmosphere one chose to integrate from the ground up to the first km, and found that the layer is ’saturated’ with a transmission close to zero. That does not imply that the first 500 metres are saturated. Or if the first 500 m are saturated, what about the first 200? 100? 50? Certainly one can find layers which are not saturated, given the choice of the ‘layer’ / optical depth is arbitrary.
Hank Roberts // December 2, 2008 at 6:34 pm |
Lazar, the “white paint” described was on the jar of water that warmed the least, so the explanation given was based on the observation.
Most paint contains a wide range of particle sizes and we don’t know what paint the kid used, we just know the result observed.
Of course any absorbed photons of any energy would be converted to heat. But given it was an incandescent bulb, most of the output was in the infrared range.
I recall mention there will soon be good heat-reflecting paints for automobiles, selectively reflecting infrared while allowing the variety of colors the customers like. That must be a nice trick to accomplish.
Gavin's Pussycat // December 2, 2008 at 6:49 pm |
John Finn:
I did, and told you so already. Interesting but not making the point you think it makes. You see, a “boundary layer” is not a physical object. It’s not like a skin. It’s like the turbulent boundary layer around an aircraft wing: any single parcel of air spends only a fraction of a second in it, hopping in, flowing through and hopping out.
In the water surface layer motions are a little slower but still a parcel of water will not stay more than a fraction of a second in the few-micron boundary. After a second, we’re already talking about different water — same boundary layer, different matter.
If you have ever been on a ship on the high seas, you know what it looks like. There is no “film” of surface water that stays intact for more than a fleeting moment. water is a liquid. And on the high seas, a pretty wild liquid.
There’s a number of mixing processes working to get the heat from higher to lower layers. Convection in the traditional sense does not happen much, as typically the warm layers overlay the cold ones. Processes involved are turbulent mixing due to storms, Ekman pumping, and very localized but surprisingly important mixing processes due to tidal motion interacting with rough bathimetry. These processes exchange heat throughout the top 200 m or so of ocean depth, on a timescale of a few years to a decade or so.
Mixing with the deep ocean again takes much longer and is mediated mainly by the general ocean circulation. There exists literature on this John, it’s a real science. Even quantitatively, in spite of the obvious challenges of measurement.
John Finn // December 2, 2008 at 7:08 pm |
Perhaps you should have read the rebuttals of Barrett’s paper on the subject in Spectrochimica Acta:
Phil
I did read them some time ago but from what I remember there was nothing which invalidated Barrett’s paper. Just as though quotes you provide say precisely nothing.
But as it happens it was not the actual paper I was referring to but an essay which discusses ghgs, their spectra and role.
I’ve never seen a clear explanation from the IPCC nor any other similar body.
Hank Roberts // December 2, 2008 at 7:18 pm |
John Finn, are you getting your idea that infrared can’t warm the ocean from some source? Or is it your own conclusion? What’s your basis?
Have you read for example
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/309/5732/254
John Finn // December 2, 2008 at 7:44 pm |
GP
Re: your last post
I agree (I think) with what you’ve written. But I don’t think the RC post is saying this.
From the article:
Reducing the size of the temperature gradient through the skin layer reduces the flux. Thus, if the absorption of the infrared emission from atmospheric greenhouse gases reduces the gradient through the skin layer, the flow of heat from the ocean beneath will be reduced, leaving more of the heat introduced into the bulk of the upper oceanic layer by the absorption of sunlight to remain there to increase water temperature
I accept, as you say, that RC are not talking about a “permanent skin”, but they are implying that it is the increased skin temperature which reduces the temp garadient through the skin layer and, hence, reduces the flux.
It is this, they argue, which keeps more of the absorbed solar heat in the ocean. They even provide the following linear relationship (though I doubt the trend is significant),
The slope of the relationship is 0.002ºK (W/m2)-1.
but do concede that
Of course the range of net infrared forcing caused by changing cloud conditions (~100W/m2) is much greater than that caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases (e.g. doubling pre-industrial CO2 levels will increase the net forcing by ~4W/m2)
Or around ~1.6 W/m2 to date, which using their trend implies that the 15 micron thick “skin” is about 3 thousandths of a degree warmer than it was in 1850 .
There exists literature on this John, it’s a real science. Even quantitatively, in spite of the obvious challenges of measurement.
Absolutely. But I can’t see any justification for the claim that a tiny increase in ghg forcing is responsible for bulk heating of the oceans over the past 50 years.
If you have a better (or another) interpretation of the RC post I’ll be happy to read it.
P. Lewis // December 2, 2008 at 7:57 pm |
Re Hnk Roberts’s question of John Finn.
It has seemed to me from the outset that JF, in a roundabout way, is saying he thinks Stephen Wilde’s ramblings have all the answers.
P. Lewis // December 2, 2008 at 7:58 pm |
Sorry Hank!
Ray Ladbury // December 2, 2008 at 10:32 pm |
John Finn, you are focusing on one warming mechanism when there are many. Also, the warmer water in August has as much to do with warmer air temperatures as it does with increased insolation. You have to consider ALL the physics, not just a tiny piece of it.
JCH // December 2, 2008 at 11:10 pm |
N0t to change the subject, but does anybody know if Ceylon was in a severe drought in 1963 and 1964 – when DDT had reduced malaria to 17 cases and no deaths just before environmentalists started killing millions of people by banning DDT?
Hank Roberts // December 2, 2008 at 11:11 pm |
N prblm!
Hank Roberts // December 2, 2008 at 11:14 pm |
> implies that the 15 micron thick “skin” is
> about 3 thousandths of a degree warmer
> than it was in 1850 .
So how does the clear jar of water get warm?
TCOisbanned? // December 3, 2008 at 12:10 am |
“However, folks like Dick Cheney are pretty careful not to leave finger prints….Cheney’s approach is to profit from them (via Haliburton et al.). I’m sure he thinks he’ll be able to turn a buck or two off of climate-related disasters–maybe selling lifeboats in New Orleans. ”
Ray, I worry when I see stuff like this about your political opinions that you may not be scrupulous about examining science results without bias. Feel same way about hoi polloi on CA. Watching RC initially say that they were apolitical and would not have any political slant and then pull that caveat down and do a Kos interview distressing as well.
I like it when I see people like me (gung ho baby killer conservative) checking on colder claims…and liberals like Atmoz checking warmer claims.
It just gives me that warm fuzzy.
Ray Ladbury // December 3, 2008 at 12:42 am |
TCO, since when is a scientist not allowed to have an opinion on politics? What is more, I have followed Cheney’s career since he was merely a right-wing nutjob from Wyoming who actually thought we could shoot down missiles with lasers–in 1988!
His record as VP speaks for itself, and I think he has been one of the most damaging political figures of the current administration–damaging both the country and the Republican party. Dubya is just a spoiled, little rich kid who finally found a mess his daddy couldn’t bail him out of, but Cheney is a man who never should have been allowed a place in “public service”.
TCOisbanned? // December 3, 2008 at 2:08 am |
Ray, I know how you “feel”. I just worry about “feelings” trumping thinking. Then again, who said Colorado physicists were anything special?
Bob North // December 3, 2008 at 3:41 am |
TCO_i_b – While I agree that feelings shouldn’t trump thinking and I am also a “skeptic” (I guess), I feel that Ray is right on Cheney. I have long believed that the Bush presidency would have been much different if it weren’t for Cheney and was arguing with friends in 2003 that Bush should drop Cheney as VP for the second term. Cheney is just not right.
Gavin's Pussycat // December 3, 2008 at 6:00 am |
John Finn:
OK, now we’re talking.
Read the RC article again. The K in the above coefficient refers to the temperature difference across your wafer thin boundary layer, not the bulk ocean temperature. (Actually they did their measurements at the surface and 5 cm deep.)
So it is very well possible that since 1850, mean ocean temperatures have increased by 0.7K, while the difference in temperature between at the surface and immediately under the surface has only increased by, as you correctly state, 3 mK.
This difference would be a useful diagnostic for the energy stream going into / coming out of the ocean — if it wasn’t so damn small :-) . In fact in order to measure it, the folks in the RC article use the much larger variable forcing by cloud cover. Doing the math, 100 W/m2 gives 0.2K, which is readily measurable.
dhogaza // December 3, 2008 at 6:23 am |
I worry when I see you discount Ray’s factual post as being merely “opinion”.
Cheney’s record’s long and well-documented.
michel // December 3, 2008 at 8:23 am |
And feedbacks are a necessary piece of understanding the climate puzzle and explaining why we’re not a snowball Earth.
Ray, are you saying that if feedbacks were at a level which will not amplify a forcing of 1C (in response to a doubling of CO2 or anything else) to 2-3C, then we would be living on snowball earth?
I admit to not quite understanding why this is so. But keeping firmly to the track of the original argument, I understand even less why, if one does not agree with this, it is proof of stupidity, ignorance or wilful denial, and on a level with denying the historical reality of the Battle of Waterloo.
On the difference between Pielke and Schmidt on models, yes, of course they differ. Pielke says as much. However, abuse of Pielke is not an argument against his view, which is explained in some detail in his course materials also linked to from the posting. My point again is not that Pielke is necessarily right, but that thinking there is an issue here is not the same as being sceptical about Waterloo.
TCOisbanned? // December 3, 2008 at 9:21 am |
I wanted to send McCain out for a duck hunt with Cheney, to help my goddess-lady Sarah.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 3, 2008 at 1:01 pm |
JCH writes:
JCH, DDT was never banned in the third world. This is a propaganda line made up by right-wingers and has zero evidence behind it.
DDT isn’t even banned in the United States as long as you use it for malaria control.
DDT did indeed bring down malaria in Sri Lanka — following which malaria went right the hell back up again because they overused it and the malaria in the area developed immunity through natural selection. How about that. Modern advances against malaria have been mostly through (careful) use of malathion.
dhogaza // December 3, 2008 at 1:35 pm |
Um, I think you meant to say that the mosquitos in Sri Lanka developed immunity to DDT … :)
dhogaza // December 3, 2008 at 1:40 pm |
The point has to do with our understanding of paleoclimatology, in particular “what caused snowball earth to warm?”.
Nothing at all to do with AGW per se. Just basic climate science, which I suspect that you, like many skeptics/denialists, don’t realize has a much wider application than simply trying to understand what will happen to climate as we continue to pour ever-increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
If everything we know about climate science is wrong, then it’s not just our understanding of the situation today that’s wrong. It’s our understanding of a lot of past (pre-)history, too.
The edifice that you folks must overturn is much larger than you imagine, in other words.
Ray Ladbury // December 3, 2008 at 1:46 pm |
TCO, Feelings trumping thinking is not something those who know me well worry about. Indeed, it is often those who suppress their feelings who are in danger of losing objectivity. I would think that as a conservative, you, too would be upset at the effect Cheney has had on the Republican party if not the country. I have no problem with conservatives. Hell, I’m a fiscal conservative, myself. What I do have a problem with is public officials who don’t think they are accountable to the public. Don’t know about you, but I take my oath to preserve and defend the Constitution seriously.
TCOisbanned? // December 3, 2008 at 1:55 pm |
“I worry when I see you discount Ray’s factual post as being merely “opinion”.
Cheney’s record’s long and well-documented.”
Ray is light. If I want to read something on the liberal side, will go to Dershowitz or Krugman or the like. But Ray’s light…and you’re…kinda short and snippety. No offense, though. God still loves you.
P. Lewis // December 3, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
More on the ocean skin layer can be found in the UKMO’s Forecasting Research Technical Report No. 383 Parameterisations of the ocean skin effect and implications for satellite-based measurement of sea-surface temperature and much more in Chapter 7, Infrared (IR) measurement of sea surface tempterature (SST), of I.S. Robinson’s Measuring the Oceans from Space: The Principles and Methods of Satellite Oceanography, and particularly Section 7.3.4 The thermal skin layer of the ocean surface.
Reading the comments in the original RC piece is also instructive, I think.
It seems to me that people should pay more attention to the people that really count, rather than to Web essayists with aspirations to fully utilise their only brain cell.
If only all blogs could utilise killfiles, which sadly it seems they can’t.
Gavin's Pussycat // December 3, 2008 at 2:28 pm |
It’s not a view, dammit. It’s a fact, more precisely an untrue fact. Not the first and hardly the last.
Who actually works with global circulation models at the leading edge of the science, Pielke or Schmidt? Who would actually know this from first-hand experience?
Hank Roberts // December 3, 2008 at 3:36 pm |
The nonsense about environmentalists as mass murderers wossname above is peddling is hardly being heard even on the most right wing foaming-mouth talk radio any more. If there were no outlet for such nonsense people who can’t stop producing it would just ’splode.
JCH // December 3, 2008 at 4:16 pm |
I’m not peddling anything.
The simplistic attacks I’ve read on environmentalists make no mention of the role precipitation plays in the incidence of malaria in Ceylon.
I’m simply trying to find out if weather may have aided in the reduction of malaria in Ceylon leading up to the cessation of DDT spraying in 1964, and the resurgence of malaria in subsequent years. For instance, was some of the resurgence going to happen regardless because of severe drought, or heavy rainfall?
george // December 3, 2008 at 6:20 pm |
TCO says
followed directly by
topped off with this
That’s a funny train of thought, TCO, and more than a little ironic.
I suggest you read Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” some time.
Having political (and other) opinions is hardly inconsistent with being a good scientist.
In fact, many historians believe that Einstein’s political opinions — particularly his distaste for authoritarianism of all types — had a major impact on his approach to science. It led him to question the leading authorities in science as well as politics.
As the author of a recent biography of Einstein, Walter Isaacson, wrote:
“Einstein knew the source of his great creativity was his defiance of authority, but as an older man he was the authority. His thinking became more conventional.”
The idea that “good scientists are totally objective” with regard to every aspect of their lives is pure, unadulterated myth.
John Finn // December 3, 2008 at 7:23 pm |
Read the RC article again. The K in the above coefficient refers to the temperature difference across your wafer thin boundary layer, not the bulk ocean temperature. (Actually they did their measurements at the surface and 5 cm deep.)
GP -yes I know. It’s this ‘layer’ which presumably slows the rate of cooling from the ocean below. I think I’ve understood what the RC post is saying. But as you said earlier the sea is pretty wild and I find the theory totally implausible. Particularly as the change in forcing up to 1958 (from pre-industrial times) was only ~0. 6 w/m2.
That’s my take on it, anyway.
John Finn // December 3, 2008 at 7:56 pm |
It seems to me that people should pay more attention to the people that really count, rather than to Web essayists with aspirations to fully utilise their only brain cell.
P. Lewis
Let me guess I am one of those to which you refer.
I’ve looked at the links you provided and although I’ve not read them in depth I can’t see anything which contradicts what I’ve written. In any case the RC post is presumably an authoratitive piece and it seems reasonably straightforward. But if there’s something I’ve missed or misunderstood – let me know.
By the way, and this is to all who post on this blog (including the host) . Despite what you may think I don’t just argue against the AGW side. Whenever any of the so-called sceptics come up with anything I consider nonsense – I argue the case with them as well. If you look on the Warwick Hughes site you’ll find a number of posts from me slating David Archibald’s ‘papers’. I also agree with you lot that there is no evidence of cooling and have said so on WUWT. Where we might differ is that I do think there is a ‘plateau’ and it may be more significant than you are prepared to accept.
But for someone with only one brain cell, I think I’m pretty open-mind.
Sekerob // December 3, 2008 at 8:18 pm |
Volunteer your computer’s spare CPU cycles @ http://www.malariacontrol.net/ and ask the question to the scientists who are researching the mosquito behavior which requires supercomputer gridded power to model.
http://africa-at-home.web.cern.ch/africa-at-home/malariacontrol.html
Hank Roberts // December 3, 2008 at 9:07 pm |
And you are asking that question here why? Even the Open Thread here is hardly the place to get reliable epidemiological advice about Ceylon and malaria.
Try looking it up; try asking a reference librarian for help with locating the information.
Online, you can use Scholar (that at least will reassure a reference librarian that you’re in the right ballpark in phrasing your questions, without mentioning the mass-murderer notion for example).
What follows is not an answer, I can’t give you a knowledgeable one. It’s an example of what you can get by starting with a relevant question.
This query:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=malaria+resurgence+Ceylon&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&scoring=r&as_ylo=2003
found this article:
http://malariajournal.com/content/7/1/140
Epochal changes in the association between malaria epidemics and El Niño in Sri Lanka
Lareef Zubair et al.
Malaria Journal 2008, 7:140doi:10.1186/1475-2875-7-140
from which I offer the following small excerpt, again, as an example of what you can find looking this up:
————–excerpt follows————
Results
The relationship between El Niño and epidemics from 1870 to 1927 was confirmed. The anomalies in monthly average rainfall during El Niño events resembled the anomalies in monthly average rainfall during epidemics during this period. However, the relationship between El Niño and epidemics broke down from 1928 to 1980. Of the three epidemics in these six decades, only one coincided with an El Niño. Not only did this relationship breakdown but epidemics were more likely to occur in periods with a La Niña tendency. After 1980, three of four epidemics coincided with El Niño.
Conclusion
The breakdown of the association between El Niño and epidemics after 1928 is likely due to an epochal change in the El Niño-rainfall relationship in Sri Lanka around the 1930’s. It is unlikely that this breakdown is due to the insecticide spraying programme that began in 1945 since the breakdown started in 1928. Nor does it explain the occurrence of epidemics during La Niña phase from 1928 to 1980. Although there has been renewed coincidence with El Niño after 1980, this record is too short for establishing a reliable relationship.
——–end excerpt————–
Now, if you want to learn how long a record is needed to establish a reliable relationship in this particular question, Tamino may have help for you here.
dhogaza // December 3, 2008 at 9:54 pm |
You know, Cheney’s sins aren’t liberal vs. conservative, they’re just sins.
I voted Republican for more years than I suspect you’ve been alive, to be honest. Not uniformly, but often based on the person, not the party.
Cheney’s an asshole who would’ve been entirely comfortable living in a Godwin’s law world.
His very notion of the power of the Vice Presidency is the very antithesis of the TRADITIONAL conservative view.
The fact that you buy into his bullshit pretty much tags you as being not a conservative in any sense that I grew up with, or that is still current in Europe.
David B. Benson // December 3, 2008 at 11:25 pm |
Hank Roberts // December 2, 2008 at 4:41 am — I’ve heard of salty dogs but statistical dogs?
:-)
Phil Scadden // December 4, 2008 at 12:21 am |
John Finn, given your ” earlier 5 points”, I thought you were a hopeless denier, unwilling to even learn. My apologies.
Michel, if you want to scale back feedbacks in current models, then by what mechanism do you suddenly ramp them up to explain the pleistocene record? Maybe a “unknown unknown” but betting on that is too big a risk for our future. Your posts seems to indicate that you think effects might be limited to a bit of coastal inundation. Migration, loss of water (already in trouble) and food production disruption are major issues with a high risk of creating conflict. People dont just die quietly out of your sight when other options are available. When there isnt much to live for, then the call of some loony offering a better life becomes rather attractive.
P. Lewis // December 4, 2008 at 1:23 am |
John Finn, you obviously can’t parse a sentence.
TCOisbanned? // December 4, 2008 at 1:34 am |
Goerge, I’m about a lap and a hlaf ahead of you. i suggest looking at those who place most value in their Ph.d.s versus those who are most marginal. Let me kno0w hoiw Colorado tranks versus Chicago and Cal Tech while at it…STUD!
JCH // December 4, 2008 at 2:32 am |
I live about 6 blocks from Rice University, which, listening to your advice, I’ve visited many many times to learn about things discussed on RC and Open Mind. Scholar is useful, but the library has it all for free.
I’m on vacation in a place that is about 400 miles from a reference library.
I’ll just let my relative continue believing environmentalists have killed more people than Hitler.
Hank Roberts // December 4, 2008 at 4:30 am |
John Finn, you’re aware the plateau is among the climate model predictions?
Global warming: Met Office predicts plateau …simulations used to create the world’s first global warming forecast suggests temperature rises will stall in the next two years …The forecast from researchers at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre in Exeter reveals that natural shifts in climate will cancel out warming produced by greenhouse gas emissions and other human activity until 2009 …. The high-resolution forecast also reveals how global warming will happen in fits and starts, and that for the next year or two, temperatures are likely to remain stable before rising.
“A number of the sceptics are saying there’s no warming because they look at the temperature record and see a peak in 1998 and cooler years after that. But we know the peak was because of an El Niño event and that comes out in this forecast,” said Prof Jones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/10/weather.uknews
Barton Paul Levenson // December 4, 2008 at 10:50 am |
dhogaza writes:
Oops. Yep.
michel // December 4, 2008 at 11:22 am |
Who actually works with global circulation models at the leading edge of the science, Pielke or Schmidt? Who would actually know this from first-hand experience?
Well, if its going to be argued a priori on the basis of the personalities, I am not sure there is much in it. Schmidt we all know about, he’s associated with a prestigious institute, has peer reviewed papers to his credit. He is also closely associated with the RC, advocacy site. Pielke holds office and teaches at a well known university, has peer reviewed papers to his credit, has published books and testified before Congressional Committees. His site has a point of view which is different from that of RC, and assigns far more weight to other factors than CO2. But this does not show he is wrong about models. Schmidt has certainly worked more closely with models, but Pielke is teaching a course on them, and is presumably regarded by his peers as being competent to do so.
A reasonable visitor from Mars would simply say, they differ, they have different backgrounds and records, only one can be correct, and we probably have to examine the facts and their assertions to find out which it is. A priori, there is no particular reason to accept the account of one in preference to the other.
As usual, the argument from authority is invoked, and as usual, it gets no place. The next move might be to plead that there are so many nutty things asserted by so many nuts that one cannot endlessly refute all of them… Which will not convince any more than the argument from authority, its just a variant of it, assuming that Pielke is one of these nuts, which is what was to be proved.
The issue we are debating is, what is in the models, and this can only be settled by reference to the facts of what is in them, not by reference to the personalities of those asserting the different propositions.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 4, 2008 at 11:25 am |
JCH writes:
Sure. People have all kinds of counterfactual beliefs, many of them just as stupid as that one.
TCOisbanned? // December 4, 2008 at 12:30 pm |
Hank, I would not put any stake in that modelling result. Would be a lot more impressed if they predicted it ahead of time.
Ray Ladbury // December 4, 2008 at 12:44 pm |
TCO, might I suggest that science is not “fair and balanced”. You look at how the vast majority of the evidence stacks up and go with that. Fortunately, once you gather enough evidence, the conclusion is rarely ambiguous.
Also, as to my alma mater, ever heard of Carl Wieman? Probably not. You don’t seem to have much interest in science.
Ray Ladbury // December 4, 2008 at 2:02 pm |
TCO, Uh, did you look at the date on Hank’s link: Aug. 10, 2007. That was a prediction ahead of time.
dhogaza // December 4, 2008 at 2:08 pm |
Well, no, not true.
…arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have detailed knowledge of a great many topics, we must often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true…
When it comes to deciding whether or not to have open heart surgery, one’s far more likely to listen to an argument from an authority such as a heart surgeon rather than Pielke [S/J]R.
And when it comes to climate modeling, I at least will give much more weight to climate modelers, not people like Pielke [S/J]R whose ranting make it clear that they have not mastered the subject.
george // December 4, 2008 at 3:22 pm |
It’s only an “argument from authority” if that is all (or at least the primary thing) the argument is based on.
Pielke(s), Schmidt et al have produced lots of stuff (in scientific papers, on blogs, etc) by which their knowledge and understanding of climate models (and math and science in general) can be judged.
For example, a demonstrated failure to understand that a slowly increasing exponential looks very much like a straight line for a small change in the abscissa would be more than sufficient to throw into question an individual’s understanding of climate models (eg, James Hansen, ‘88) — or their understanding of basic high school math, for that matter.
TCOisbanned? // December 4, 2008 at 4:08 pm |
Ray, I mean one predicting the 1998 event and then the tailoff. Something in 1995 or the like.
Hank Roberts // December 4, 2008 at 4:09 pm |
Tamino? ‘george’ making sense here?
Or is this another name for the same old stuff?
[Response: I'm really not sure what he's referring to; perhaps he can be more specific.]
Lazar // December 4, 2008 at 4:10 pm |
Michel,
Tunable coefficients… any constant coefficient not obtained from a purely mathematical relationship is, from a technical viewpoint, tunable, including all the physical constants apart from the vacuum speed of light. E.g. Boltzmann’s constant, used a lot in radiative transfer, is a ‘tunable coefficient’ within an uncertainty range. ‘Tunable’ may mean ‘technically tunable’, ’sensibly tunable’, ‘tuning this coefficient has important impacts’, ‘this coefficient is often tuned’… for each person it will have a different meaning. The more tightly defined and interesting question, discussed in the RealClimate article, is what coefficients are actually tuned in climate modelling, and at what stages.
A coefficient can be purely tuned, in which case it’s an arbitrary parameter used to fit model output to data. A coefficient which has a direct physical interpretation and is solely obtained as the most likely value given a set of empirical measurements, is tunable but not tuned. A partly tuned coefficient is both measured and tuned within plausible physical values.
Tuning occurs at the component level, where the component output is evaluated against the subset of the climate system it models, and at the model level, after the components have been put together the emergent model output is tuned with a subset of coefficients.
RealClimate claimed that the number of coefficients used to tune model output is less than ten.
RP Sr. claimed that the above…
RP Sr. can’t distinguish between ‘tunable’ and ‘tuned’, or between tuning at the component-construction and model-evaluation stages (his students were evaluating coefficients tuned in the former stage, e.g. here).
Michel,
Pointing out that a fool is a fool is effective. There are actually fools, and they are intent on spreading confusion, doubt, disinformation, and slowing everything down by manufacturing an approachingly infinite number of foolish claims, and demanding that each claim be seriously evaluated. Pointing out their methods and their foolish aims is a public service.
TCOisbanned? // December 4, 2008 at 4:12 pm |
but I actually don’t think that models can predict like that…nor should we take too much stake in the 2010 plateau prediction. For instance, if 2010 comes in very warm, will we then say that this means less support for AGW, since model efficacy was shown poor? ;-)
I know it is dissatisfying to both warmers and colders and to human nature, but we need to take a much more “stand back” attitude about individual warm or cold spells, years or even decades. Looking at the record of the last hundred years is more relevant. Also physical theory (to include models).
t_p_hamilton // December 4, 2008 at 4:13 pm |
Ray said:”Also, as to my alma mater, ever heard of Carl Wieman? Probably not. You don’t seem to have much interest in science.”
That was the first thing that popped into my mind (also Cech in Chemistry) when TCO asked what is so great about U Colorado physicists?
george // December 4, 2008 at 4:18 pm |
A note of clarification: my citation above of Hansen ‘88 was notintended to indicate that Hansen himself does not understand the difference between a slowly increasing exponential and a straight line.
It was meant to indicate that there are some others who do not understand as much, as demonstrated by their “analysis” of Hansen ‘88.
TCOisbanned? // December 4, 2008 at 4:21 pm |
Ray,
My comment about your uni was catty. I apologize. I swore to myself that I would not do stupid stunts like that, but fell from grace. Your response very mild.
Weiman is a good guy. Haven’t done anything with him.
Have done a little discussion with Carl Patton on a complicated microwave problem. What’s your take on him?
t_p_hamilton // December 4, 2008 at 4:22 pm |
“Argument from authority”: when ALL the authorities in a field agree (climate modellers), then the possiblity that they are ALL wrong and a non-expert is right becomes nil.
Gavin's Pussycat // December 4, 2008 at 4:52 pm |
Who actually… Who would actually… ?
So the answer is…?
Teaching a course on something is one thing, being in the frontline of research is quite another. I teach lots of courses outside my core competency, getting my material from the real authorities.
About authority, allow me to indulge again:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/SelfApptdExp.htm
TCOisbanned? // December 4, 2008 at 4:59 pm |
george: I think that if you have a discriminating faculty, you can judge people’s knowledge/intelligence on the observations and then this becomes a useful frame for…not exactly evaluating their work, since you need to do that on the merits…but for your first guess on how good their next peice of science/analysis will be and how much time/attention to give.
For instance, it’s clear that McI is brighter than Watts. Not to say that every trial balloon from McI will be right or from Watts wrong. But useful.
I don’t think we should be “gotcha” about individual errors. For instance, have heard a lot of cackling from “your side” on the cosin error (which was one of coding, of unit analysis…not of a failure to understand what a radian is. Does anyone seriously think that full professors in economics, not know basic trigonometry. There are many examples of over-cackling and generalization from my side versus yours as well. I think more relevant is a pattern of behavior/comprehension versus a single error, even a single error in logic.
Gavin's Pussycat // December 4, 2008 at 5:01 pm |
John, what you believe is between you and your conscience, but what you know would benefit from pencil and paper. You did these sums in high school / grammar school. You can calculate what 0.6 W/m2 does to a layer of water 200 m thick over a century or so…
Lazar // December 4, 2008 at 6:50 pm |
should have written tunable
David B. Benson // December 4, 2008 at 7:41 pm |
michel // December 4, 2008 at 11:22 am — ModelE is open source from GISS. You could read the code yourself.
OIr yu could do as I previously suggested: go to Gavin Schmidt’s web site; there he has two papers, one co-authored, which explain what is actually in ModelE (and other climate models). (I also suggested other places to reae about climate models.)
It completely clear that (assuming the quotation is correct) Piekle (S|J)r has not done any of the above.
Ray Ladbury // December 4, 2008 at 7:51 pm |
TCO, no offense taken. While CU doesn’t need my aid, it’s not a bad school, and the physics department is pretty good and relatively (note, I say relatively) humane. EE department, not so much. Most women I know who went there wound up leaving.
The experience of getting my PhD there served it’s purpose–it taught me I can learn pretty much anything I have to on my own if necessary.
TCOisbanned? // December 4, 2008 at 9:56 pm |
I already knew that ahead of my union card (which I got late in life) thus I found the whole process pretty easy and pretty…slack, really. But I can see for kids that are 22 and have never really been out on their own, that the union card gives some of the growing up experience that a first job does.
Give me your take on Patton, please.
Dave A // December 4, 2008 at 10:27 pm |
BPL,
How “counterfactual” is beliving in anon existent deity?
Lazar // December 4, 2008 at 11:11 pm |
TCO,
Ratio of parameters to degrees of freedom?
Physical processes interacting. Emergent behaviour. Innumerable degrees of freedom. It took ~ two decades work to obtain reasonable simulations. I feel the physics has to be mostly right.
Ray Ladbury // December 5, 2008 at 12:14 am |
TCO, I presume you mean George Patton. He was probably the best general for armored cavalry the allies had in WW II. Not a great psychologist. I think he got a bad rap in the incident with that shell-shocked soldier. He probably also suffered from PTSD. A hard man in a hard situation, just where he had to be. I rather think of him as being a bit like Sherman, though Sherman was, on balance, I think a better strategist.
Ray Ladbury // December 5, 2008 at 12:18 am |
Dave A. asks “How “counterfactual” is beliving in anon existent deity?”
No more counterfactual than disbelieving in said deity. Belief in things that transcend the physical world is a choice. I would not say that it was the wrong choice for people like Gandhi or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Eric Rudolf or James Dobson, maybe so.
Lazar // December 5, 2008 at 12:37 am |
… that they work at all is amazing.
TCOisbanned? // December 5, 2008 at 2:20 am |
Ray, are you reading my posts? Sheesh. No the other Patton.
That it took them so long to get them to run, does not give me a warm fuzzy, Laz. Nor no real reason to think that stability alone is a good test of model effectivness. Also check out Blind Lake by Charles Wilson.
TCOisbanned? // December 5, 2008 at 2:23 am |
Ray, sometimes you say some weird stuff, btw. Like how is the non-toughness or the kindness to womennes an answer as to the prestige of a physics department. also, wtf on Patton slapping that soldier? Who cares in the scheme of his career?! When you mix issues like this it worries me about your ability to do issue analysis. to do curly d calculaus on multi-variable problems…
[Response: I think he was just reminiscing a bit ... don't read so much into it.]
TCOisbanned? // December 5, 2008 at 4:26 am |
I thought so too, but then he mixed up George and Carl.
Tom Dayton // December 5, 2008 at 5:25 am |
chriscolose asked (November 24, 2008), “Tamino, could you comment on Willis Eschenbach’s analysis over at CA where he uses what he calls a ‘Correlation Distribution Analysis’ to test the robustness of Mann et al 2008 conclusions without tree rings? The Mann paper specifically notes that their conclusion is robust with or without tree rings.”
I’ll take an amateurish first shot to prompt more learned commentary:
1) His novel statistical analysis is irrelevant, because there already were plenty of ways to see which proxy data contribute the most to the hockey stick shape. It’s easy enough to see even in the Mann, et al. (2008) PNAS article that not all the proxies even cover the most recent decades, so obviously they are incapable of showing the hockey stick blade or not. Even more detailed analyses are in the SuppInfo.pdf file that the PNAS article’s authors have had publicly posted along with the raw data and so on, from the start.
2) For the same reason of the already public availability of the data, Eschenbach’s revelation that only some of the proxy data have a hockey stick shape is no revelation at all.
3) Eschenbach is incorrect in thinking that a proxy can support the conclusion of a hockey stick shape only if that proxy has the hockey stick blade portion (the recent upswing). Proxies that don’t cover recent decades are useful nonetheless for establishing temperatures for the dates that those proxies do cover, and therefore for calibrating the proxies that do extend into recent decades.
Experts, please tell me if I’m off base here.
Gavin's Pussycat // December 5, 2008 at 6:33 am |
TCO:
I wouldn’t call 2. “intuitive”… for a 1-D model atmosphere with a negative temp gradient it is provably true. The intuition comes then in assuming that this describes (well enough) the real atmosphere.
As for 1., without 2. I suspect we wouldn’t think much of it. It takes actually some nontrivial analysis to extract 1. against the background of everything else going on (but after 1975 or so you’re mostly right). For me, Figure 9.5 of the IPCC WG1 contains 1. and 2. but is stronger than both together.
I would add 3. sea level rise.
dhogaza // December 5, 2008 at 8:21 am |
It cost him his job for a year or so, and a star … it led to him not being part of D-Day, and only commanding the 3rd Army, rather than all US ground forces in Europe, which was given to his subordinate Bradley instead.
Indeed, Eisenhower wasn’t entirely sold on giving him command of even an Army in Europe. Patton had to work hard in the mea culpa department to overcome the bad press and embarrassment to the Army caused by such incidents (there was more than one).
Ray Ladbury // December 5, 2008 at 12:46 pm |
TCO, Isn’t it fortunate for me that I don’t require validation from you as to my degree of success or failure–in anything. I’ll let my publications speak as to my status as a happy oompa-loompa of science. I was reading quickly and didn’t even see the “carl” in your first post, so I am sorry for the confusion. Carl didn’t really overlap with me at CSU. My general impression is that he was well thought of. I know the CSU faculty were quite happy to get him.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 5, 2008 at 1:07 pm |
Dave A writes:
Oh, he’s not anonymous.
Tom Dayton // December 5, 2008 at 2:35 pm |
Further regarding Eschenbach:
We don’t need proxies to tell us the temperatures for the past 150 years, because we’ve got instruments for that. Proxies are needed to tell us the temperatures from earlier times. A proxy is useful even if it covers only a pre-blade time range, as long as that proxy can be calibrated using either other proxies or instruments.
Ray Ladbury // December 5, 2008 at 3:13 pm |
GP: For me, one of the most cogent signatures of a ghg mechanism is simultaneous tropospheric warming coupled with stratospheric cooling. That’s a tough one to fake.
luminous beauty // December 5, 2008 at 4:18 pm |
She does assume a lot of aliases, though.
Hank Roberts // December 5, 2008 at 10:30 pm |
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081203/full/456558b.html
Published online 3 December 2008 | Nature 456, 558-559 (2008) | doi:10.1038/456558b
Greenhouse gases hit modern-day highs
Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases reached new highs in 2007, according to the most recent analysis by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — which together contribute 88% of the anthropogenic global-warming effect — were last year 37%, 156% and 19% above pre-industrial levels, respectively.
Since 1990, total radiative forcing … has increased by 24%, the WMO reports.
Dave A // December 5, 2008 at 10:53 pm |
BPL,
Oh, he’s not anonymous.
Yeah, number of typos in my post but you get the gist
Hank Roberts // December 5, 2008 at 11:32 pm |
http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/conference_reports/poznan_climatechange_conference/
Hank Roberts // December 6, 2008 at 6:13 am |
Looks like Lomborg lost his credibility last August. Did anyone notice?
http://www.postnormaltimes.net/blog/archives/2008/08/more_economists.html
Barton Paul Levenson // December 6, 2008 at 12:46 pm |
Yes, Dave, I got your tired old militant-atheist gist. Did you really expect me to answer it for the 987th time? I get enough practice with that on the AOL message boards. Go spam another board. Nobody here cares about your religious prejudices.
JCH // December 6, 2008 at 2:22 pm |
“Looks like Lomborg lost his credibility last August. Did anyone notice? …”
First, to lose it last August he had to get it back from the times he lost it before that.
How many times can he lose his credibility?
Dave A // December 6, 2008 at 8:27 pm |
BPL,
I respect your right to your religious views and don’t normallyhave a ‘go’ at people for such(although I have often been accused of being a creationist by inference because I am a climate change sceptic, despite having no religion)
Sometimes I, too, have off days
David B. Benson // December 6, 2008 at 9:10 pm |
JCH has the right of it.
Ray Ladbury // December 6, 2008 at 9:28 pm |
Dave A., Wow, was that an apology?
TCOisbanned? // December 6, 2008 at 10:32 pm |
Oh, chill out, you’re not even part of that kerfuffle.
JM // December 7, 2008 at 1:27 am |
Tamino
Can I ask a question here?
A few months ago I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out why Lucia’s chosen method of OC seemed to consistently show a negative trend in temperature.
Not being a statistician I didn’t make any progress, but today I came across a description of Simpson’s Paradox (where regression lines can be reversed if two series are blindly combined even though both series are positive).
I recalled that Lucia simply combines all anomalies from all series and fits them all in one shot.
Can I ask you for your opinion on whether her results could be an example of Simpson’s Paradox?
[Response: I'd have to look at it in detail to know, but I'd guess that it's possible. It's also possible that the different data sets have different trends (in fact they should!), and of course different analyses may give different results, but if they're valid they should be within each others' error limits.
By "OC" do you mean "CO" (i.e., Cochran-Orcutt)? If so, that assumes an AR(1) model for the random part, which is not a valid approximation.]
JM // December 7, 2008 at 9:15 am |
Thanks Tamino, yes I did mean Cochran-Orcutt, slippery fingers.
“if they’re valid they should be within each others’ error limits.”
Isn’t that the basis of her entire argument? That because CO is outside the limits of other fits that the others are “falsified”?
[Response: But as I said, C-O assumes that the random part follows an AR(1) model, which is demonstrably false. I don't know if that's the basis of her entire argument. I'd have to study her stuff in detail, which frankly, I'm not motivated to do.]
TCOisbanned? // December 7, 2008 at 1:55 pm |
Maybe she could be more motivating by actually synthesizing her thoughts into papers.
Also, she would need to ditch the penny ante semantic crap games and actually have a point about falsification.
TCOisbanned? // December 7, 2008 at 8:48 pm |
There’s actually some interesting stuff going on in CA in terms of cavesicle discussions (several recent threads). McI mostly tries to do a “gotcha” regarding an inconsistency of Loehle and Mann (where he basically assumes any good skeptic like himself is aligned with Loehle, and that anything Gavin says must match papers of Mann). He selectively quotes Gavin, but there’s a link to Gavin’s longer remarks on proper calibration of cavesicles to temp.
Hu (a skeptic, but at least an academic, writes econ papers) picks up on Steve’s passive aggressive omission and says Gavin is right to hold Loehle to account for a calibration on almost no data (something which Steve would criticize if Mann did it, but remember Steve is all about sides).
Speleo specialists (Paul Deniss and Jud Partin) jump in with some nice posts and share some info on the state of the art in cavesicles, confounding factors, etc. that is helpful from a tutorial standpoint on mechanisms as well as sort of a “review” standpoint.
Steve mischaracterizes Jud and mislabels some graphs and then is passive aggressive (not correcting them…begrudgingly correcting some things but not others). He’s such a weasely sea lawyer.
Partin went to the Citadel. Wish he had Steve there as his rat. Some sessions of extend arms with the M-1 would be good for Steve. Obvious that he never had it.
JM // December 7, 2008 at 9:30 pm |
I realize I might be a bit late to this, but earlier in this thread I notice there was a bit of a debate about comparing climate denialists to holocaust denialists during which Gavins Pussycat said
(Sorry GP, this is not a dig, just a clarification)
“How can they be so certain it was six million? There was a war going on, for crying out loud. And who is doing the counting?”
The Nazi’s were. There is an astonishing amount of documentary evidence from the bureaucracy. Hitler might have kept his mittens off any paper that could be traced to him but everyone else meticulously recorded what they were up to.
The second way of counting is more general but still pretty accurate, population data (including census’s) before and after the war. The Jews of Europe are no longer with us.
“And how would you count a Jewish gay communist victim”
Again, the Nazi’s identified, classified and tabulated their victims.
TCOisbanned? // December 7, 2008 at 9:43 pm |
Three for one! *ducks*
TCOisbanned? // December 7, 2008 at 9:48 pm |
New topic:
I wonder how much non-science things drive the appeal of researchers to the AGW sciences. Please note, this is not a dig, per se. Dano, a warmer, made the point to Steve, that these people love their field trips and that some aspects of the stats and math are drudgery. That Steve should consider the different nature and different psyches of his opponents.
I can see how the being outdoors thing would be cool. Also the “helping the earth” thing. I mean…well not to be sexist…but look at all the hot chicks who do marine biology so they can pet dolphins.
http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/~kcobb/othertalks/uga08.pdf
TCOisbanned? // December 7, 2008 at 9:50 pm |
I have always had this romantic image of oil geology. Listen to me for a sec libs and try to think in my mocasins.
I mean you get to do science and all…so it’s good for us math geeks. But you also get to wear blue jeans. Hang out in sunny deserts and such. Chew a little soil and then make a bet on where to spud in. Add in the drama of big financial bets requiring large stones. Plus some random wars with Bedouin bandits. I mean…it sounds pretty frigging macho.
Dave A // December 7, 2008 at 10:02 pm |
Ray,
Yes. It was a mean shot that I shouldn’t have taken.
Phil Scadden // December 7, 2008 at 11:58 pm |
“I mean you get to do science and all…so it’s good for us math geeks. But you also get to wear blue jeans. Hang out in sunny deserts and such. Chew a little soil and then make a bet on where to spud in. Add in the drama of big financial bets requiring large stones. Plus some random wars with Bedouin bandits. I mean…it sounds pretty frigging macho.”
Hmm. Wrong era. I do a lot a different stuff where math/physics/geology combine, but my actual position is in petroleum/coal part of institute and a lot of time spent in thermal modelling of basins. Oil exploration is dominated by geophysics, heavily offshore unless in north africa/middle east, and its practise is largely done at a computer. Yes, the sedimentary guys get to study onshore outcrop if they are lucky but seismic interpretation and well log geophysics are the big players. That and lots of computer horsepower.
TCOisbanned? // December 8, 2008 at 12:50 am |
Damnit…I want to drive a jeep and look like the Marlboro man.
JCH // December 8, 2008 at 1:27 am |
“Damnit…I want to drive a jeep and look like the Marlboro man. …’ TCOwhoisbannedwhere?
Become a macho Canadian rat killer. You’re smarter than Ray. You can do it.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0331_030331_rats_2.html
Ray Ladbury // December 8, 2008 at 1:43 am |
OK, I’m playing TCO’s game (see Central England Temps thread)–I like the fact that Dave A. has the integrity to admit when he was out of line.
Philippe Chantreau // December 8, 2008 at 7:23 am |
TCO, just make sure your lungs don’t turn out like those of the Marlboro man…
Additionally, I do get your point on the marine geology chick. One of them made for me the kind of memories we all wish to recall upon leaving this world…
Besides, I know guys who have traded the Italian convertible against a prius, for a chick magnet. They are pragmatists; according to them, it just works better for that purpose. Could our better halves enjoy once again some wisdom hidden from us cartesian types?
In any case, nice to see that people here seem to spontaneously bring the snark down and keep a baseline courtesy higher than other blogs. Another point Tamino should get credit for.
michel // December 8, 2008 at 8:25 am |
Lazar,
Thank you for an informative post on parameters, tunable and otherwise, and for giving a reasoned and factual account of what you find wrong with Pielke’s assertions. You’re right to conclude that exposing foolishness is useful. The only point I was making on this is that one does not generally achieve this by just calling people fools, one achieves it by exposing why their positions are foolish.
curious // December 8, 2008 at 9:20 am |
Re: TCOisbanned; Dec 7, 8:48 pm:
Hey TCOIB. Love your work. I can’t help but wonder though, what a good thing it would be if you were to apply all of that brainpower, time, and typing ability to actually pulling together a coherent, and scientific, account of what is really going on. Watching your work for the past few years now, you seem to come up with a litany of destructive criticism of McI and CA, but do precious little that is constructive.
Also, more generally to the Tamino team, there seem to me to be downsides in letting CA and the other sites continue to tug at the AGW hypothesis without challenge. And to be direct, the welcome participation of Paul Dennis and Jud Partin at CA, if anything, seems to be confirming the sceptical view that all is not right with the Team position on AGW. Why do you let the CA challenges go unanswered? It sure makes it look like the Team position on AGW is a house of cards.
PS, I speak as a Rudd/Obama supporter, and one who is genuinely concerned about man’s impact on local, regional and global climate.
dhogaza // December 8, 2008 at 9:39 am |
Once while in Amsterdam I stumbled upon an exhibit of Nazi paperwork somewhere around Nieuw Markt. Meticulous hand-typed (complete with x’d out corrections, white-out wasn’t invented until after the war) lists of Jews who were deported, compiled by the logistics type.
There’s something chilling at times about teutonic efficiency (perhaps being 100% ethnic German has something to do with my reaction).
Amazingly, a few thousand Jews survived the war living in Berlin. I only know this because the grandfather of an acquaintance was one of them, and not surprisingly while alive he was interviewed for a few documentaries. Survived with the help of friends, false papers, his non-stereotypical looks, etc. Quite an amazing story. The fact that he managed to remain sane despite the experience amazes me nearly as much as the fact that he survived physically. Surely he lived in a constant state of fear of betrayal.
Of course, 5,000 may sound like a lot, but given that there were around a couple hundred thousand Jews living in Berlin when Hitler came to power …
Well, this is one reason why this very male compiler writer has done years of field work with raptors during the fall migration season…
Not to pet the raptors, TCO, don’t be obtuse! :)
dhogaza // December 8, 2008 at 2:05 pm |
What makes you think they’re unanswered? Because working scientists don’t wish to subject themselves to the misery which is named CA? That doesn’t mean the claims go unanswered…
dhogaza // December 8, 2008 at 2:12 pm |
So, for the hell of it, “curious”, I took a quick peek at Climate Audit.
The top post at the moment? Yet another barely-veiled accusation of scientific fraud and dishonesty on the part of “The Team”.
And you wonder why genuine climate scientists don’t participate there? McIntyre’s been claiming scientific fraud, dishonesty, illegal behavior, and the like on the part of climate scientists for on the order of a decade.
If he had something, surely some of these charges would’ve been investigated in court, or reviewed by granting agencies, and if true heads would’ve rolled by now.
But … there’s nothing. Just empty claims of dishonesty and scientific fraud on the part of hard-working professionals.
If you don’t understand whose house is made of cards, here, well, don’t assume that the rest of the world shares this lack.
Hank Roberts // December 8, 2008 at 3:30 pm |
Not even the raptor chicks?
No, don’t go there ….
TCOisbanned? // December 8, 2008 at 3:39 pm |
I bet Kim Cobb has to beat them off with a stick. (Not the raptors, either. ;))
Ray Ladbury // December 8, 2008 at 3:52 pm |
Lazar and Michel, It appears to me that RP Sr. is confusing the concepts of tuned parameters with adjustable parameters–very different beasts. If he doesn’t know the difference, he really shouldn’t be teaching a course on modeling of any kind.
Deepclimate // December 8, 2008 at 6:05 pm |
dhogaza,
The current action at CA, referred to by curious, is a little further down.
Try : http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4508
“And to be direct, the welcome participation of Paul Dennis and Jud Partin at CA, if anything, seems to be confirming the sceptical view that all is not right with the Team position on AGW.”
curious, I’m not sure what you mean by this. Jud Partin in particular has pointed out a number of errors in Steve M’s ramblings on spleothems.
I’ve got to hand it to Jud for sticking with it, but why should “Team” members, whose views have been grossly misrepresented and who have been the subject of barely veiled accusations of fraud, even bother? It would be a full time job to correct all the misinformation.
There are a lot of followers of RC and this blog who have tried their hand at bringing some balance to CA. You need a really thick skin and it’s a thankless task. Most of us just give up after a while.
Now, to be clear, I believe that there are some reasonable crticisms to be made of the work of Mann et al. Von Storch’s contention that the original MBH work underestimated climate variability has been borne out by subsequent work, for instance. But the CA signal-to-noise ratio is very weak indeed, to say the least.
Unfortunately CA is very popular, and draws more readers than RealClimate (and WattsUp is even more popular). What to do about this unfortunate state of affairs is a real conundrum.
Ray Ladbury // December 8, 2008 at 7:01 pm |
curious,
You know, I stumbled through the CA looking glass precisely once. I learned a lot, but it was about human psychology, not climate. CA has become an echo chamber. All it does is reinforce the paranoid delusions of the participants. I don’t know of anyone but the most ardent of climate skeptics who can stomach it, so I think it’s influence is likely to remain limited to those who are already convinced that the evil scientists are trying to rule the world. Personally, I think it’s nice that the tinfoil hat types have a place they can congregate.
TCOisbanned? // December 8, 2008 at 7:24 pm |
Curious:
The world might be a better place if I spent more time working and less time on the internet, since it creates little. No doubt.
FWIW: (in addition to my class clowning, my narcisism, etc.) there is a benefit in my provacative remarks in pushing people to think.
Ray Ladbury // December 8, 2008 at 8:05 pm |
TCO, one of the funniest bumper stickers I ever saw said:
“Ask me about my narcissism.”
Gavin's Pussycat // December 8, 2008 at 8:43 pm |
> (Sorry GP, this is not a dig, just a clarification)
JM, no offence taken… I was playing devil’s advocate. Arguments don’t have to be valid or even cogent to be effective with some.
You’re very right of course, and you just summed up two of the three most convincing, independently confirmatory items of evidence. The third would be interviews with survivors, which sets a lower bound on the victim count.
What surprises me a bit is how long it took for somebody to make your point.
Hank Roberts // December 8, 2008 at 9:33 pm |
Worth a look in y’all’s copious spare time, for a truly eclectic collection of pointers:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/environmental_law/
Deep Climate // December 8, 2008 at 10:29 pm |
A while back, JM mentioned Simpson’s Paradox in connection with Lucia’s “cooling” trend analysis.
I remember wondering when I saw Lucia’s stuff where the intercept is for the start of that cooling trend might be.
Well here’s something to try. I used NCDC surface data, but I imagine it would probably work with any of the common monthly data sets.
I plotted 1979-2000 and got a strong positive trend (close to .15 deg/decade). Then I tried 2001-2008 and got a very slight negative trend.
Then I combined the data (1979-2008) and got a trend of .17 deg/decade (i.e. .02 deg more than the 1979-2000 period). Whaddya know!
Oh, and that intercept? Well of course it was a good .15 degree higher than the endpoint of the 1979-2000 trend.
Now I’m off to Google” Lucia Simpson’s Paradox” …
Deep Climate // December 8, 2008 at 10:38 pm |
Another way to look at it: Forcing the intercept of the 2001-2008 period to the endpoint of the 1979-2000 period gives a trend of well above .2 deg/decade in 2001-2008.
Anyway you slice it, there’s an*increasing* trend in this decade relative to past decades.
Steve Bloom // December 9, 2008 at 12:30 am |
curious, an interesting mental exercise is to consider what would happen if the fondest dreams of the CA crowd were realized and it turned out that climate variability over the last 2,000 years was a little greater than presently thought. It turns out that this has very minor implications. Being of a cynical bent, I would suggest that McI selected the HS as a focus precisely because the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation. Quoting from the linked article:
‘Discussion about the temperature evolution of the past millennium will no doubt continue in the coming years. The most fundamental problem – the sparseness of data – will not be fixed quickly, but eventually better reconstructions with smaller uncertainties will become available. However, this discussion needs to be conducted in a sober and unexcited manner; it does not help to overburden the “hockey stick” with symbolic meaning. In some media reports, the “hockey stick” has even been hyped as “a pillar of the Kyoto protocol” (which was agreed in 1997 and thus predates it) or as “proof that humans are warming the Earth”. This is a serious misunderstanding of the scientific meaning of these data.’
Steve Bloom // December 9, 2008 at 12:37 am |
DC, the “unfortunate state of affairs” you mention could be largely remedied by a more regular (meaning more like daily) posting schedule. That’s a different blog concept, however.
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 2:45 am |
Doesn’t Watts owe us an update on the paint project and on his solar theory? Has he given up on those? Will he take back his original claims?
Hank Roberts // December 9, 2008 at 5:15 am |
In other news, a couple of climate quotes/links:
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/blogimages/lutz.jpg
——————-
Among the most galling visions, as U.S. carmakers stand cap-in-hand before the American people, is the site of a preening GM Vice President Bob Lutz pretending to be green.
Lutz is firmly on the record …. He has dismissed global warming as “a total crock of shit,” saying that he puts his faith in the signatories of the laughable Oregon petition.
Lutz has tried to reassure us in the past by saying, “My thoughts on what has or hasn’t been the cause of climate change have nothing to do with the decisions I make to advance the cause of General Motors.” Which raises an interesting question: why would Congress bet billions on a policy maker who would dismiss out of hand the biggest environmental crisis in human history, and then go on making self-destructive decisions that drive his company to the brink of bankruptcy?
—————–
http://www.desmogblog.com/gm-vp-bob-lutz-green-pose-total-crock-shit-global-warming
and
“To blame the American automobile executives for this frankly is ridiculous,” Mr. Lutz said, suggesting an unforseen downturn in the economy and housing market are the culprits. “How were we supposed to forecast this when the government doesn’t forecast it and the financial institutions couldn’t?”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122875608562688401.html
Philippe Chantreau // December 9, 2008 at 7:51 am |
TCO, I doubt that Watts’ “experimental” work was ever truly formalized or yielded any usable results. There was a lot of fanfare at some point on his site about the all thing, then it all fell into oblivion. Leads me to believe that, if there was anything at all there, none of it could possibly support his views, even with the loosest standards.
michel // December 9, 2008 at 7:55 am |
JM writes:
It is a common theme in AGW discussions. Advocates take the view that the AGW hypothesis is so well evidenced and proven that scepticism or agnosticism about it is simply not possible on the merits of the case. It is then compared to other cases of this kind, particularly to the smoking/cancer link, and to the Holocaust. In both of these cases we have seen advocacy of an essentially dishonest kind by interest groups. Evidence and statistics have been denied or misrepresented. In both cases the motives were the justification of institutions – the Nazi regime or the industry. Both are highly emotive cases, on the one hand because of the vileness of the regime, on the other because of the horrible nature of the disease.
The question is whether AGW is like this. The problem is, the chain of reasoning behind AGW is quite complex, its dependent on models, the evidence is often obscure to lay people and is highly interpreted. The same is true of much of science – going as far back as the Greek calculations of the size of the earth. But it is not true of the particular cases to which its being compared. The statistical basis of the smoking/lung cancer connexion is very accessible. The proofs of the existence of the Holocaust are readily available in the form of journals, sites, films, exhibits. Its like WWI – there’s evidence all over Europe. You will not however come on an enormous cemetary someplace that shows you clearly that the average global temperatures of the last 20 years are both unprecedented and due to rising CO2.
In the effort to show the similarity, advocates therefore engage in some illegitimate forms of argument themselves. They seek to show that scepticism is funded by fossil fuel interests. Some undoubtedly is, but not enough to show the parallel. A typical form of this occurs when McIntyre is denigrated because he worked in the mining industry: there never has been any evidence that he or CA is funded in any way by fossil fuel interests, but this is thought to be a slur which is close enough. They seek to denigrate the individuals on personal grounds. Spencer for instance is ridiculed because of his religious beliefs. McIntyre on this thread is inferred to have “selected the HS as a focus precisely because the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation”. They defend to the bitter end the most dubious and peripheral elements of the hypothesis, of which the most egregious are the assertion of the perfection of the surface station network despite its obvious and documented flaws, and the Hockey Stick. Though, in the comment quoted, we seem to be moving to a more balanced position on that! They appear to exaggerate, in Oreskes’ work, the extent to which there is universal consensus. They also have sought to make a connection between scepticism and political views which they think less than respectable: conservatism, Republicanism, a devotion to minimal regulation.
An odd consequence of the strategy has appeared in the UK recently. The argument has been gaining ground that the case is so well proven, but also so corruptly denied, that illegal sabotage of CO2 generating activities is legitimate as being the only solution. And so we have efforts to stop airports functioning or generating plants be constructed. Its also begun to be argued, in the US and UK, that perhaps those in charge of companies generating CO2 should be prosecuted. This is rather disturbing to those of us who think we are living in a democracy and that the law should either be complied with, or changed in the usual way, and that people should only be prosecuted for breaking well defined laws, statutorily established. But it is a natural conclusion of the strategy of argument.
The result is rather paradoxical. For much of the lay public, the issue becomes political rather than scientific. It comes increasingly to seem as if AGW is a Democratic Party hypothesis. This then makes opposition seem more legitimate to a large section of the population, but less to another. But you can see the motivation: were it true that the science was settled, consensus universal, all opposition funded by the fossil fuel lobby, the consequences of inaction proven to be catastrophic, all sceptics either corrupt or in the grip of creationism, then it really would be true that scepticism would be on a level with scepticism about the tobacco/cancer connexion.
The central problem with the strategy however is that it is not possible to convince the lay public of this simply by the power of frequent strident assertion. It simply provokes more strident counter assertion. This site becomes the mirror of CA. Watts’ site appears and gains huge readership. Every error in the GISS surface station record attracts furious sceptical coverage, out of all proportion to its real significance. It is totally counter productive. And to make the case in a rational properly argued way takes one back to the science. This then has not been made any easier to explain by the previous politicization.
It is frankly a mess whichever side of the debate is correct scientifically. It does not seem as if the strategy is working. Which was predictable. In an open society, it never was going to work. And I am an example of its not working. It seems to me that the correct parallel is not smoking/lung cancer, but may be the saturated fat/cholesterol/heart disease connexion. This was universally accepted until very recently. Arguments to the contrary were ridiculed. The evidence appeared overwhelming. And yet, if you read the recent Business Week article on statins, and you were in the corn or soybean lobbies, a small shiver would have gone down your spine. Could it be that things were not quite as well understood as we had thought?
sdw // December 9, 2008 at 8:27 am |
Steve Bloom said: “…I would suggest that McI selected the HS as a focus precisely because the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation.”
I believe it is about credibility and a difference of opinion. I have sound mathematical credentials and I dismiss the statistical basis of the Hockey Stick. The fact that many (if not the majority) of climate scientists can not see the problems with the underlying data sets and methodology is, in my humble opinion, a detriment to their intellectual credibility.
How can we ‘move on’ from this? It is difficult to give merit to scientific endeavours undertaken by those who can not see, what is to me (again in my opinion), blatant and obvious scientific baloney.
That is why the Hockey Stick is a sticking point and not for the reason you asserted.
regards, sdw.
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 12:43 pm |
JohnA still needs to take his thermo whipping from Deltoid as well.
dhogaza // December 9, 2008 at 2:42 pm |
Well, “SDW” sure has convinced me! Hand-waving trumps any amount of science, every time. Forevermore I’ll depend on anonymous people posting to blog sites and ignore those uncredible cretins who work in science and publish peer-reviewed work.
dhogaza // December 9, 2008 at 2:43 pm |
Oh, and for those who misuse the “argument from authority” gambit, SDW’s post is the perfect example of an argument from personal authority.
I have credentials! Therefore, believe me, because I’m right!
Hank Roberts // December 9, 2008 at 3:47 pm |
Yep; quotes Wegman, can’t accept Wegman’s advice to move on. Waves hands, can’t get off the ground.
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 3:56 pm |
Michel:
I basically agree with you.
I’m glad to see you call out the “hoi polloi” of skeptic-land who fasten onto the minutest things and blow them out of proportion…or who basically just talk to each other like a reinforcing echo chamber. A real skeptic questions even skepticism. This is not meant as some sort of philosophical endless recursion…but of a general attitude of open mindedness and of inquisitiveness for “killer analyses” that “cut the Gordian knot” and give insight. I see this as something very different from running with things that look bad, but have little impact. The one is PR and game-playing…and the other is the analytical, curious faculty which should be applied to all science problems…heck to all business problems, too.
It particularly distresses me to see skeptics (Steve is often guilty of this, Watts is even worse) fasten on minutia without interest (or even an opposition to discussion of) in the relative impact of different things. In this sense, Steve and Ross’s work and blogging where they conflate different issues, where they resist clarification of PC1 versus “hockey stick” stands as a poor comparison to the more inquisitive full factorial within Burger05. BTW, Burger and Zorita are in some ways sympathetic to the spirit and even the movement of Steve’s probing, and the desire to push sounder exploration by climatologists like the RC “gang”, but also critical of Steve’s skewed and amateur reporting.
On the warmer side, I think it’s pretty clear that climate systems are complex and not completely understood, but this is not adequately acknowledged. And note, if a system is complex and you don’t completely understand it, then this does not mean something as simple as “it will get warm, but we’re not sure where more”. It could also mean that “we’re not sure how much it will really warm”. For instance although Milankovitch theory is probably mostly right, there are still a number of unexplained things and contrary results. In this sense, both the skeptics who say “we’ve had ice ages and dinosaurs) as well as their responders who say “you idiots, Milankovitch” are short of real description of the state of knowledge.
I also think the association of AGW with political liberalism and policy promotion is non-ideal. There is a danger of conflict of interest and bias and just not looking at things carefully enough to make an independant decision, because the “consensus science” drives in a direction (statism, environmentalism) that political leftists already espouse. Similarly the joy from conservative bloggers and WSJ and Rush and the like in seeing results from Steve or Watts, when those conservatives don’t even understand things at a “hoi polloi level” is troubling.
It should technically be possible to be a conservative and think that the bulk of evidence supports AGW or a liberal and think the jury is still out. Or even just be a scientist who thinks, “this is a neat problem, I’m going to figure out how it works and report it” and not give a damn what happens to the planet.
Former Skeptic // December 9, 2008 at 3:56 pm |
sdw:
Name calling aside, what evidence do you have that the Hockey Stick is in error?
Ray Ladbury // December 9, 2008 at 4:26 pm |
Ah, a little revisionist history and science from Michel. Actually, Michel, the case behind anthropogenic causation is pretty simple, and unless you can get a greenhouse gas to stop acting like a greenhouse gas at 280 ppmv or at a global temperature of ~285 degrees K, it’s pretty hard to argue against it.
Scientific consensus occurs on an aspect of the theory when it becomes indispensable for understanding the world around us. CO2 as a greenhouse gas is just such a concept. It also has the unfortunate and unavoidable consequence that when you increase its concentration in the atmosphere, then you raise the planet’s temperature.
Personally, I consider thermodynamics and radiative physics of planetary atmospheres to be as well established as any physical evidence–but then, that is because I understand them.
luminous beauty // December 9, 2008 at 5:16 pm |
The fact that all scientists (climate or otherwise) are continuously working to better understand the genuine and not contrived problems and uncertainties of data and methods, as it is the underlying process defining their day to day professional work, and the fact that sdw doesn’t understand this, is, IMHO, evidence of a complete lack of sdw’s intellectual credibility.
michel // December 9, 2008 at 5:51 pm |
Well, Steve Bloom has convinced me. I am finally seeing a committed AGW advocate admit that “the nature of the data allows for essentially endless argumentation”. Just what I suspected, thanks for the confirmation. We are making progress. It was not long ago that it was said to be irrefutable scientific proof that the present was catastrophically different from any time in the historical past. We are getting to the bottom of this thing. Painfully, slowly, but we are getting there.
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 6:13 pm |
Phil:
Both aspects in your comment are troubling. First, the big fanfare without the willingness to do the work to complete an analysis. Second, the possiblity that contrary data is not being shown (or shown more slowly).
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 6:16 pm |
Phil (additional thoughts from Watts failure to complete analyses whose opening stages had a big to do):
I think this has to do with what is often wrong about “blog science”. There is a lot of gratification from the social aspect of the enterprise and the quick feedback. In one sense, this might be good in mpotivating some work. But in another it is bad, because bloggers throw the first analysis up and often don’t finish their work. The bad result of this form of “publishing” is that the casual readers emerge with views like “wow! there’s all these posts and stuff, there must really be something here.”
There is this fascination with starting projects (a human nature, a human failing), but often lack of will to finish them. What we get is this dynamic call of “let’s put on a show” (cf. White Christmas). But I have seen that many of these things never finish up. For instance look at open source game projects like those on Apolyton–they spring up anew like weeds, but none have gotten anywhere.
In a sense, it is one of the disadvantages of Web 2.0 versus the normal model of scholarship, analysis, writing, editing, reviewing and publishing. (There are also some benefits in terms of interaction and the like…I just think we should not fail to recognize the disadvantages.) Wegman was right on target when he said science should not be done on blogs, that people should write normal science papers.
I think there is a role for blogs and forums and the like…but that when they eclipse papers, it’s bad. Ideally, they should be “additional.” In this sense, RC is GOOD…because the authors still write papers. (I know I find a lot of fault with that blog and its moderators, so I am happy to be able to find a positive point.)
Segue: I took a class on history of American foreign policy once. It was the only TRUE seminar course I ever took. Where we had a limit of 12 people, led by a famous book-writing historian, where we sat around a round table and actually debated each day’s topic (which would be some event in history, but with write-ups from historians of different political slants). On the Tuesday sessions, we had to turn in a 2-page paper (no longer than, typed, comparing/contrasting). On the Thursday classes, we just read and discussed. Someone noted, how much BETTER the discussions were on Tuesday because of the benefit of the work that had gone into the papers. In this sense, I am happy that RC is and ADJUNCT to real science papers, not a substitute.
The issue is that on the internet a lot of the activity is social and can become overwhelmingly social (chat and chat games) and a sort of almost video game like feedback. Look at Wikipedia and the people drawn to being administrators and the like.
Heck, I think it is generally acknowledged on that site (and studies also show) that most great articles are the work of a single person who buckles down on a topic and produces real scholarship…and that the best articles are made so, by bringing in non-internet sources rather than reliance on Google alone. The conundrum is if you are really going to go to all that effort (and it is a solitary task to do so) why not get a byline, have it archived, edited, published, etc.? Instead much of the active stuff on Wikipedia is related to gnome activities and to talk pages, the growing phenena of userspace aping blogspace, etc. Add in the fascination of heirarchies and merit structures and edit counts and the whole thing starts to seem more like a discusison forum with trolls, postcount fixation, people wanting to be moderators and the like.
Hank Roberts // December 9, 2008 at 6:26 pm |
“michel” — you’re making this up.
Your search – “irrefutable scientific proof” present “catastrophically different” – did not match any documents.
Find proof of what you believe, eh?
Let’s try what you think you remember even unquoted and see what ballpark it came from:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=irrefutable+scientific+proof
Well, that’s strong evidence of … something.
Where are you coming from, michel?
luminous beauty // December 9, 2008 at 6:40 pm |
By Whom? Men made from straw?
The contention is that average global temperatures are higher than any time in the last millenium plus.
~0.7C warmer. The significant subjectively observable effect in the temperate NH is slightly warmer nights, slightly milder winters, slightly earlier springs and longer lasting autumns, and, perhaps a slight increase in the intensity of already intense storms.
However, we are beginning to see catastrophic effects in the Polar regions as increases in the collapse of coastal ice shelves and the possible catastrophic loss of the summer Arctic icecap.
That is from an objective scientific understanding what catastrophy means.
As for the normative subjective meaning of catastrophe, melting of the permafrost is proving catastrophic many for many Inuit as well as causing major problems on the North Slope oil fields.
For those of us who live in the temperate zones, perturbations in the climate aren’t expected to produce widespread catastrophic effects until warming exceeds ~2.0C.
luminous beauty // December 9, 2008 at 6:50 pm |
Oops! I sent that post inadvertently. It requires some editing.
Sorry.
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 6:53 pm |
And another thing I don’t like about Climate Audit or Watts Up…is not describing experiments before they are run. Not setting up true tests to run, running them…and then just timely reporting of the data for whatever it’s worth:
For instance, Steve McI for a long time made a big to-do about how easy it is to get dendro samples, for a while (the “Starbucks” hypothesis, that you can drink coffee in civilization on the same day, you gather samples). Eventually, he actually put together an expedition and gathered some samples, to test the “Starbucks concept”. He reported on that, here (and in other posts, he weaves a tangled meandering web):
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2189
While the Stevolloi congratulated Steve on having described the expedition before the results were in, I actually had the OPPOSITE impression. I notice that the purpose was to “test the Starbucks hypothesis”, but that the experiment was only described AFTER the test was run. If the test had failed, would we have seen a publication on his blog? But over in the echo chamber, no one brought that up. They were too busy acting like good monkies of the same tribe peacefully grooming each other.
(segue1) That whole expedition also suffers in that Steve does not really acknowledge some of the results that go against his hypothesis…for instance they damaged their vehicle, because the area was more remote than they supposed. The issue arose because Steve is essentially looking for “gotchas to tout” rather than hypotheses to test (and then report how they came out either way). Note, it’s not necessary to have a lack of opinion on how the test will come out. It’s just necessary to have an attitude of “I’m going to check whether I’m right and report the result either way, because even if I find my initial opinoin wrong, I’ve learned something.”
Segue 2: The results of that dendro survey have still not been completed in terms of compiling and publishing (let alone analyzing) all the ring width data. The expedition had some issues with the samples they took…but instead of noting the interesting result that one of Dano’s point was validated (”you always end up wanting to resample and need to do a go-back expedition”), they just sort of slunk away.
Ray Ladbury // December 9, 2008 at 7:25 pm |
Michel, to take what Steve said out of context is dishonest. To do so on the same page where the context is present is just flat stupid! No one is saying that climate is not complicated. Aspects of paleoclimate–the subject Steve was addressing–are among them. However, there are some aspects of it that we understand unequivocally. The physics of greenhouse gasses is unequivocal. The paleoclimate of greenhouse gasses is also pretty unequivocal (albeit less so than the physics). The temperature record is also pretty unequivocal–when viewed in context as a signal in a noisy system. And finally, the publication record is absolutely unequivocal–those few papers that reject the consensus never go anywhere because they do nothing to advance understanding. Even more than the volume of publication, the subsequent citations of the papers are even more impressive. The few skeptical scientists who do publish don’t have much to offer. That’s why they tend to be ignored.
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 7:53 pm |
I had to hassle the heck out of Watts to get some reports on his paint experiment. He was reticent to share contrary data and/or problems in the field. In addition, he ran a long (many month) experiment in the field, but did not bother notifying people what he was going to do before hand.
In addition to the benefit of pre-test prediction, doing this would have actually allowed him to devise a better experiment. As you can see, here…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/12/27/weathering-and-thermometer-shelters/#comments
Note the photo: Watts is testing different paints for inter-instrument differences, but only does so with one instrument per sample! Thus if there are enclosure to enclosure or thermometer to thermometer differences, that will be confounded with paint variable!
This is a pretty common sense point, which he should have thought of. But even failing that, he should have had his design reviewed by a real experimentalist before just hacking away and spending months of data gathering.
Perhaps the point is pedantic and I have no way of knowing that intrinsic differences swamp, but it blows my mind that someone would not think about this, before months of secret data gathering. What a waste! This is a bit scary, too, when you consider the guy runs a (small) weather station company.
FYI: here is a better study done by real scientists. Note the photo and see how multiple instruments were included (so real scientists get this kind of issue). Perhaps if Watts had looked at this ahead of time, he would have run a better experiment. A day in the library can save a month in the lab…
*aaargh! I can’t find the reference and the photo. It was a really sweet one, though. I think it was in Europe somewhere and they were testing various instruments side by side, with 3 of each…anyone find it?*
dhogaza // December 9, 2008 at 7:57 pm |
So, when climate scientists give a range for expected warming of, oh, 2.5C to 4C for each doubling of CO2 they’re not acknowledging that “we’re not sure how much it will really warm”, and aren’t properly acknowledging the fact that this complex system of climate isn’t fully understood?
Huh. We must be using different dictionaries.
Sure, both are possible. What’s not possible is to be *honest* and believe that the jury is still out on AGW. How much warming? Piffling over uncertainties? Sure. But that’s not what you’re saying …
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 8:04 pm |
dhog:
My Bayesian bet is that AGW is happening. I just don’t have a level of certitude on it. This is because the system is complex and it is difficult for a layman to review the rationale without huge time investment. My basic assumption is that I see higher credibility *in general* with the professionals and less with the amateurs. But I note elements of “wishcasting” with each. And neither completely blow me away in terms of brainpower or logic. The Heartland types vary from old retired wazrhorses to nutters. The professionals seem like guys who couldn’t cut it in mathematical physics (Mann).
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 8:11 pm |
dhog: No contest that the uncertainty of 3-6 (or whatever) temp is indicated. I’m not debating that. My point of view is more subtle. That given the system is so darn complex. That the main tool (GCMs) rely on deterministic forecasts (but are not validated over the period of interest), that it is hard to know if they even know how uncertain they are (particularly systemic uncertainty as opposed to run to run uncertainty. I am MUCH more a fan of EBMs, basic physics intuitions, the record of temp rise, sealevel rise, etc…than of the ginormous Richard Wilson Blind Lake like GCMs.
Remember the guys at LTCM thought they knew what they were doing too. Are we existing in the one of 10,000 universes where a perfect storm occurred? Or are there more basic things (like co-correlation of risks) that they failed to bake into their models? Hint: basic things is the right answer.
Dave A // December 9, 2008 at 9:03 pm |
Ray,
Even more than the volume of publication, the subsequent citations of the papers are even more impressive
Are those citations made because the authors endorse what is therein or because they feel they must include them, or because they feel it gives some gravitas to their papers to use them ?
To use an analogy, it is well known that journalists will write anything if it has been used in at least two other media areas.
Hank Roberts // December 9, 2008 at 9:13 pm |
Co-correlation of risks is exactly the ecological concern and well described. That’s why the biologists have such a problem with the rate of change.
Hank Roberts // December 9, 2008 at 11:06 pm |
> Are those citations made because
Look at the footnote markers in the text. That’s what they’re there to explain.
One way people lose reputations is by mis-stating what a source says. That’s the whole point of reading the footnotes and the cited articles.
Try it. It could help.
TCOisbanned? // December 9, 2008 at 11:12 pm |
Dude…I’m drinking. Don’t slow me down. I’m feeling smarter and tougher than anything. Like a knife cutting things.
David B. Benson // December 9, 2008 at 11:16 pm |
Dave A // December 9, 2008 at 9:03 pm — Every assertion in a scientific paper is to be backed by evidence or prior work.
sdw // December 9, 2008 at 11:21 pm |
dhogaza said: “Oh, and for those who misuse the “argument from authority” gambit, SDW’s post is the perfect example of an argument from personal authority. I have credentials! Therefore, believe me, because I’m right!”
Yes, it is unfortunate that a scientist must present their opinion anonymously, however, this is a obvious result of ‘denier’ name-calling over the years. An environment has been established where honest opinion can not be presented, without harming an academic career. Dhogoza, you have contributed to this environment. I do not apologise for my anonymity.
I do apologise for my reference to ‘their intellectual credibility’, this was uncalled for. In my defense, those on this side of the argument are the subject of similar abusive terms and this can result in an inappropriate discourse.
Finally, I did not say that one should “believe me”. I repeatedly said that I was expressing an opinion with respect to the HS. Many posts in this forum are subjective opinion – is that reserved for you Dhogoza?
Have you ever been involved in a critical examination of a journal article with the conclusion that the results are incorrect? Does this mean that you are required to publish a rebuttal? Must you refrain from discussing the results because you disagree with the science?
I see the HS as an oddity derived from an inappropriate use of mathematical tools. Whether with respect to assumptions of stationary processes, the use of ‘uncentered’ PCA, incorrect use of the underlying proxies, inappropriate calibrations and weighting of series which ‘mines’ for upturns, and a resu