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2040 Responses to "The Bore Hole"
paulsays
Funny how you all are equating tree leaves in a particular year with ‘climate’. I thought you all knew the difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’. One could just as easily cite the November weather in Fairbanks, Ak. as evidence of an impending ice age………”A frigid Arctic air mass, unusual even by Alaska standards, is dropping the mercury in the state’s interior to unheard of levels in mid-November. Stunningly low temperatures in the -35 to -50 range have gripped the region since Tuesday. These temperatures are some 25 to 40 degrees colder than average.”
On another note, Durban is collapsing because of the hubris of the ‘team’. The ’cause’ has been exposed once and for all as driven by politics and not science. ClimateGate 2.0 proves that point even more clearly. Steve McIntyre has destroyed the credibility of the ‘Team’ and the once the court orders UVA has to release Mike Mann’s emails, tthe final nail will be driven into the AGW movement.
CM says:
3 Dec 2011 at 4:25 PM Vukcevic #68, if you’ve got answers that science is desperate not to know, write them up, I’m sure the Fortean Times will be interested.
Thank you for the comment, no idea who or what Forteen Times but I shall eventually look it up.
Since with your name there is no website associated, I do not know if you are a researcher, scientist or casual passer by, which would be helpful in framing an answer to your question: “why don’t you? “
But in any case, I assume you have looked at the link I provided, if your have looked at it and did not observe anything worth attention, then your post is appropriate, but the answer composition / interpretation would be waist of your and my time.
On the other hand if you did study the detail and you are versed in temperature variations and the subject of solar activity, my post was addressed to solar and the climate experts, and you count yourself in either or both categories, then your post needs no further action in view of providing an answer. http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-T.htm
RichardC says:
3 Dec 2011 at 10:25 PM
…..
Obviously you have looked at the link, http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-T.htm
your comments are far too exhaustive to answer them all, some are already in the original post, so a repeat would be redundant, and regretfully some I shall ignore.
The temperature data is one of the longest and most reliable instrumental records, very relevant to insolation, the anomaly is in degrees C, with no reduction or amplification or de-trending.
Your comments about it being ‘bogus’ reveals either you didn’t consider fully what is already there or climate science is your hobby rather than vocation, and knowledge of climate data records superficial.
Since your post is anonymous (no full name or website link) I shall leave it there, but if one of the moderators would like to know more, I am happy to forward all the details (data already scrutinised by solar scientist Dr. Svalgaard of Stanford University), alternatively my second article on the North Atlantic Oscillations will be available on line in next few weeks (link to the first: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/theAMO.htm )
Dan H.says
Craig,
Your personal experience living in NY (or Austin for that matter) is no substitute for sound scientific evidence. Your first post seems to misunderstand the issue at hand. I post the following as requested: http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/How_natural.pdf
DO not pay too much attention to Hank, he prefers to ridicule those which whom he disagrees rather than debate openly.
Paulsays
Your graph only goes back to 1950. I thought that ‘history’ went back a little further than that. Funny the hot 30’s are not represented, nor the MWP, etc. Surely you jest?
Septic Matthewsays
645, Ray Ladbury: Again, the problem is that people don’t understand how science works.
Maybe. They certainly do understand how lobbying for policy based on misrepresentation of science works. What’s in the CRU emails is documentation that prominent science lobbyists misrepresented the science in their public semitechnical writings and comments. That isn’t a negligible detail.
They inserted themselves into the class containing used car salesmen exaggerating the reliability of a used car. “Of course” the used car salesmen know how the used car really works. It’s the miscommunication of that knowledge that is the problem.
Isotopioussays
Wow, ENSO actually makes it cooler, rather than warmer. McLean et al 2009 must be disappointed.
Anyway, at the current rate, determined by Tamino, the eastern tropical pacific will be 8.2 deg C cooler 20000 odd years from now.
Methane is ”the most misrepresented molecule” in the whole conspiracy! Burning methane is bad, because turns methane + oxygen into water = depleting oxygen into the atmosphere. IS THE BIGGEST CRIME COMMITTED BY THE MISLEADING PROPAGANDA. Creating methane on the other hand, is reversing the damages. Mitich formula: cow + grass = CO2 + 2H2O = CH4 +O4 / fire = CH4 + O4 = 2H2O + CO2. The truth is COMPLETELY opposite than the contemporary lies!!
Permafrost might release some methane; if is sufficient moisture, to create snow in the permafrost. We might get another Tanguska explosion; but methane doesn’t produce any phony GLOBAL warming. Methane burning (natural gas is 96% methane) depletes the oxygen in the atmosphere. Natural gas was in the ground for million years, oxygen was in the atmosphere; burning it > turns oxygen into water… we are burning already lots of natural gas – is promoted by the propaganda as better fuel… less oxygen in the atmosphere… oxygen is the insulator, between the unlimited coldness in the stratosphere and the ground = more extreme between day and night.
IT IS MORE ESSENTIAL THAN EVER, TO PRODUCE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE NEW METHANE! http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com You will find page on methane, please help me to present the truth, it’s of utmost importance and urgency!
David Wrightsays
“This is what horticulturists and ecologists call microclimates, and they play a very important role in species distribution in some very surprising ways.”
Microclimates take a lot of the worry out of Climate Change. Species do tend to find a niche upon which to take root.
Dramatic changes in the climate system are responsible for increasing the global temperature. Weather conditions are getting extreme specially in plain areas. Winter period is shrinking in plains and summer period is increasing with violent reactions. In the last decade the most worst affected countries of the world from global warming are Pakistan, China, Japan, Turkey and America. For further information please visit the link.
Craig,
You need to read you sources more closely. The IPCC clearly states 0.006 C / decade for land, which they claim is from the TAR report, without updating. That is a factor of 5 different from this study, and contains data that is over a decade old.
You may want to brush up on the recent scientific papers. Even the BEST data says 0.02 C / decade.
Attacking a person rather than data which appears in a peer-reviewed paper does you no merits. Sometimes data collection does take months of work. I would worry if someone was able to collect all that data and perform the analysis in a matter of days. Science takes time.
Bob Bsays
So you are all celebrating at 0.16C per decade? So that means in 100yrs we will have an increase of 1.6C? Way below the 3C speculated?
Also it seems 0.16C has been a very long term trend regardless of CO2.
Note the answer to question A: A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade) Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes
So the question is: Since 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940 had nothing to do with CO2, why should the years past 1975 have anything to do with CO2?
timg56says
@147 Hank Roberts
Hank,
I’m not the guy with the “doomsday” scenarios. As for where some of the information I get comes from – check out what’s coming out of Durban. 50% reduction of 1990 levels of emissions is now the lower limit. Exactly how do you expect such a level to impact the US? You really think it possible to achieve such a reduction – in the next 8 years – without shutting down much of the coal fired electrical generation and/or removing a significant portion of fossil fueled auto and truck transport from the road?
It isn’t about “denying” climate change. It is about not taking counsel of one’s fears about what might happen due to a warmer environment in order to accept policies and actions that are guarenteed to have a negative impact to our lives. When talk turns to International Climate Courts and hundreds of billions in reparations to nations supposedly harmed by climate change, it requires scare stories to justify such action. I was chided by Dr. Schmidt for creating the “strawman” argument of 30 – 40 ft rise in sea level. Yet David Archer, who is a contributor here, says we can expect at least a 10 meter rise and tens of meters is not out of the question. And I believe James Hansen recently used similar numbers. I am not pulling this stuff out of thin air. I wasn’t the one who claimed polar bears were facing extinction. I’m not the one making up the number 50 million when talking about refugees from climate change. These are just a few of the arguments being used to justify political action.
It is not enough to prove we are getting warmer. You have to also prove getting warmer is bad for us. And that is not something that is even close to being proven. Instead, we get stuff like a recent study of birds in Chile, where the scientists found that several species of birds had not migrated to as high of an elevation as expected and concluded they were possibly threatened by a warming climate because they were not adapting fast enough. That is one possible conclusion. Another is that the modelling that predicted expected migration could have included false assumptions or failed to include important data. Which conclusion do you look at first? The way I was taught, I go back to the drawing board when predicted results don’t match observed behavior. I don’t assume it is the birds fault and therefor they are doomed.
Dan H.says
JCH,
Amazing how flat that trend is when you show in such a manner. Four years are higher, and seven are lower. However, I still think you should view the graph in light of the long term. Recent temperatures fall right in line with the long-term trend.
Maybe Hank should view the graph. Then he might understand the situation a little better, and why people like Hansen and Trenberth are postulating as to the cause of the recent ‘pause,’ instead of ignoring it.
Dan H.says
Well Secular,
I am sorry you feel that way. Maybe you should tell Hansen, Trenberth, Solomon, and a host of others that all their work is nonsense, and they should stop trying to ascertain why the warming has not proceeded as expected in the last decade. Apparently, you have some keen insight that you would be willing to share with them and the rest of us.
The only satisfaction I would get would be to finally nail down the variables which have contributed significantly to the observed warming. Ignorign data and possible causes does not lead to enhanced learning.
Tom Scharfsays
Do I detect fear that they may actually be correct?
Given the performance of the IPCC models and their inability to predict the recent 15 year leveling off, I would say the more models out with varying methods the better off we are. The only real test of a models performance is future comparison, unless you buy into hind casting.
Dismissing this out of hand is irresponsible.
Nobody is king of the hill in climate modeling, and this is throwing stones in a glass house.
Dan H.says
MA,
The warming is not a fictiously-proposed trend, but a statistically-measured value. This may change in the future. The higher short-term trend of the 1990s and lower short-term trend of the 2000s only change the long-term trend (1880-present) from 0.5 to 0.6C / century.
Craig,
I will ask you a similar question: So how can atmospheric CO2 concentrations be contributing to most of the warming if the planet has not warmed? Once you answer this question, then you shuold be able to answer yours (since you did not seem to accept any of my previous answers).
Dan H.says
MA,
The warming is not a fictiously-proposed trend, but a statistically-measured value. This may change in the future. The higher short-term trend of the 1990s and lower short-term trend of the 2000s only change the long-term trend (1880-present) from 0.5 to 0.6C / century.
Craig,
I will ask you a similar question: So how can atmospheric CO2 concentrations be contributing to most of the warming if the planet has not warmed? Once you answer this question, then you shuold be able to answer yours (since you did not seem to accept any of my previous answers).
Tunderbarsays
You guys just don’t get it. You’re not arguing the science. You’re attacking the sceptics. You claim to have the science, but you never discuss it, you just complain that the sceptics don’t have the science on their side, but you never actually address the science that you supposedly have. If you had the “settled” science, you’d simply have to argue the science, but since you don’t have the science, you attack the sceptics. But that is the nature of “the cause, isn’t it. It never really was about the science, it was always about the politics. But it isn’t important anymore, the politics is settled. The IPCC/WWF/Greenpeace is done. It’s over. The gig is up.
Anterossays
I think it is unfortunate that Realclimate decided to carry such a post as this. To describe a whole group of scientists as ‘science cynics’ is far beyond being just tribal and partisan.
Particularly, Dr Curry is misrepresented as describing herself as ‘50% a denier’. Anybody who watched the whole of her presentation will know that this is basically false as well as snide. She clearly, to make a point, suggested that Kevin Trenberth’s schedule of labelling denialists was so extreme that it would make Dr Curry herself seem 50% a denier. As well as, presumably, many other people.
The comment was in the context of ‘demonising the dissenters’ which, given the tone of this post, was quite apt.
KeithWoollardsays
Alastair @ #7,
OK I will follow the same precautionary principal as you.
The vast majority of qualified experts in the field of religion beleive in God, in fact the vast majority of people do. The downside of not believing, if it is true, is catastrophic, therefore I will take the insurance option and spend my life under that premise.
And what’s more, I will believe the religion with the strongest hell option (hell, why not!) because that is the safest if I am right.
So there it is, beyond all logic, Keith Woollard now believes in God.
Now I know the two aren’t the same, but without positive feedbacks, AGW is a non-event, and positive feedbacks are largely a faith
Dan H.says
MA,
The warming is not a fictitiously-proposed trend, but a statistically-measured value. This may change in the future. The higher short-term trend of the 1990s and lower short-term trend of the 2000s only change the long-term trend (1880-present) from 0.5 to 0.6C / century.
Craig,
I will ask you a similar question: So how can atmospheric CO2 concentrations be contributing to most of the warming if the planet has not warmed? Once you answer this question, then you should be able to answer yours (since you did not seem to accept any of my previous answers).
Dan H.says
Susan,
I have found many posters here that fit that description also. Scientists, by definition, are skeptical. Unfortunately, there are those who try to force their position upon others without the usual evidence that should support any scientific position. There is nothing dangerous about a skeptical scientist.
Dan H.says
Matthew,
Thank for the graphs. Interesting that the AMO was high during the previous period of high temperature also. Nice comparison, especially the repetition of high AMO and high temperatures.
Seems to me that this article should help Mark B with his “Climate Cynicism” concerns about contrarians not presenting at mainstream conferences, where they’ll likely be compared to proponents of a flat earth or a biblical 6k year old earth or a nazi as a holocaust denier. There remains a well informed (though small) group of responsible scientists
who reject AGW based on their interpretation of the facts. They are not industry shills, fools, or senile. The comparison with the many people who *deny facts* is simply preposterous given the impossibility of controlled experiments and direct observation of AGW. You could make a case that “denying” the fact that there is global warming would be irrational, but the case for AGW, though strong, is hardly factual. Or are you asserting it is in fact an idea with such overwhelming support that no rational person could possibly entertain any alternative hypotheses to explain the observed warming of the post industrial period?
I guess deniers like myself are still waiting for the birth of modern climate science, analogised:
“…After Galileo’s telescopic observations of the crescent, gibbous and full phases of Venus, therefore, this Ptolemaic model became untenable…”
Until then, I will be sticking with the ‘Ptolemaic model’, that modern climate change is natural.
klemsays
“I guess deniers like myself are still waiting for the birth of modern climate science”
You’re not alone there pal. There are alot of us who wait.
markussays
Slow acceptance of ACC, geeze I’ve only just come to grips with AGW, and I don’t think acceptance of ACC has been slow, the concept of CCW has only been in the public domain for about exactly 1 day. Today.
Are we now going to change the name of the theory to fit the changes to climate because it now isolates between warm & cool and not just warm.? If the theory stood still for long enough the wider public just might get it.
vukcevicsays
It is often stated that temperature rise since 1930s is due to the CO2. It is duty of any responsible scientists to test, question, review and consider all uncertainties.
Here I highlight an ‘apparent link’ between the CET and the well known geomagnetic indices: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-GMF.htm
Since the Northern hemisphere’s and even the global temperature are highly correlated to the CET, my findings can not be dismissed as localised events.
Some may consider it coincidence, but that is highly unlikely considering number of the daily values averaged in the data sets used.
On-line article with more details will be on my website.
The reactions to this post are interesting, specifically the differences between the RC groupies and climate scientists who actually attended the conference (thanks, Chick and Manvendra). I would also note that Curry’s views on the conference (based on her post) seemed to be reasonably in line with those of Chick and Manvendra. Sounds like it was a good conference.
Dan H.says
Peter,
The MCO was not localaized to NW Europe, as evidence has mounted in North America and China. There is no confirmation that it extended to the Southern Hemisphere, but that has more to do with the lack of evidence either way. Whether temperatures were above or below present day is largely unsettled.
To follow up on Ray’s comment; there are those who will deny its occurrance without concern for reality.
Dan H.says
John,
You make a good point about cycles. On the flip side, just because we cannot physically show how they may be related, does not mean that they are not. Were all the physical mechanisms if plate tectonics known, when the theory was first postulated? However, a high correlation between the two would merit further investigation into their connection. This, in no way, means that other serious problems should be ignored.
Russellsays
I think that “Climategate” was a (mild and ineffective) conspiracy and that the IPCC is rigged (No organisation is ever completely impartial, especially one that now is faced with political pressure)
However I can follow the science enough to know beyond reasonable doubt that the effect of the extra CO2 is much greater than changes in solar intensity and more than enough to affect the climate. I guess it would be harder for people without scientific knowledge to know what to make of things however.
RWsays
If something is repeated often enough, that validates it in the minds of true believers. Strange behavior from a field that claims to be based on science and not dogma.
On example where an attitude of “I know how to calculate that” is using variations in solar output to try to explain global temperature changes with period 11 or 22 years. If you (very likely) do not consider the possibility that solar variations affect cosmic rays which affect cloud production, then you will “prove” that the cause is far too small. What I am getting at here is that the new idea that cosmic rays affect cloud production was not at all obvious. The Universe is more complicated that your philosophy.
MARoger @118: you ask to be pointed in the direction of info on cyclical forces in the Universe. For the third time I mention http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-general/case_for_cycles.pdf by Edward Dewey. This is a summary of well established cycles knowledge as at the 1960s. About 80-90 years ago it was discovered that many things that seemed not to be related varied on cycles of the same period and phase. See “Matamek Conference on Biological Cycles”. This lead to the “Foundation for the Study of Cycles” about 1941, with many eminent scientists and business/govt people involved. Please take the Dewey paper very seriously. I independently discovered its key findings in the 1970s without being aware of the prior discoveries.
Flxible @119 and others: “Suppose that there are cyclical fluxes of energy throughout the Universe which affect both the activity and temperature of the Sun and Earth…” – OK, I need to add that there is a lot of evidence for such things. This forum is probably not the appropriate place for all of that. I invite you to discuss it further in CRI forum at http://cyclesresearchinstitute.org/forum/index.php and I only mention several things here:
1. Dewey arrived at conclusion that there are “cyclical forces”. See paper referred above.
2. Chizhevsky arrived at similar conclusion, and made the poetic and scientifically accurate statement: “Life is a phenomenon. Its production is due to the influence of the dynamics of the cosmos on a passive subject. It lives due to dynamics, each oscillation of organic pulsation is coordinated with the cosmic heart in a grandiose whole of nebulas, stars, the sun and the planet.”
3. I have proposed the Harmonics Theory which from a simple principle (non-linearity of physics laws) successfully explains the many harmonically related cycles periods found in diverse disciplines and other previously inexplicable observations and makes many verified predictions. See http://ray.tomes.biz/maths.html
Number9says
Wasn’t Copernicus fighting ‘settled science’, the consensus of his time
A consensus blessed with tremendous institutional support, governmental and private?
First of all thanks Gavin. I described myself as a contrarian as the word ‘sceptic’ has become synonymous with ‘climate change denier’, which I am not. When I said I did not have a ‘sceptic’ agenda I was using the word to state that I had not set out to challenge climate change orthodoxy.
I have replied in detail to comments #67 and #68 on my web site at: http://www.climatedata.info/Discussions/Discussions/opinions.php . Suffice it to say that my site has enough material, with slight change of wording to make two good sites – one for each side of the debate.
To return to the theme of this thread, it is an interesting anomaly that whereas Copernicus was trying to show people that they were less important than they thought the main theme of climate change is to show people that they are more important than they thought.
Francis Fukayama is best known for “The End of History” but he also wrote a book called ‘Trust’. In it he postulates that successful societies are those in which Trust extends beyond families to institutions. Academia, which once was a ‘trusted’ institution, is now suspect. I would argue that the only way to regain the trust of the public in relation to climate change is to be more open about the remaining doubts (such as the ones that seem to trouble some people here) and argue that these doubts do not negate the need for action.
Gavin replies to @123 and Ray Ladbury @124: Please explain to me how Kepler’s laws were not curve fitting. Then please explain why Newton’s gravity is not curve fitting. Same for GR. There is no mechanism for gravity. In all cases, “mechanism” is just a name given to something once it is obvious that it keeps happening.
The null hypothesis used in cycles is that there is not a real cycle. The test is the Bartell’s test. It consists of examining the phase of a cycle over each individual single cycle period and putting these in a scatter diagram (by x=sine and y=cosine correlation). If you have 400 years data and an 11 year cycle, then there will be 36 points in the scatter diagram. If the scatter is consistent with them being centred on the 0,0 point then the null hypothesis (no significant cycle) is accepted. If not, then the cycle is indicated as real at that significance. It is a very good and widely accepted test.
It seems pretty clear to me that no-one who has replied repetitively to me has actually read Dewey’s “The Case for Cycles” paper. If you look at it and check out the facts presented with an open mind, I guarantee that the way that you view the world will be considerably expanded. Otherwise I am wasting my time.
donsays
Interesting irony, Copernicus theorized that the planet of the apes was not the center of the solar system and a lot of theological hysteria was created when Galileo confirmed the theory while AGW has returned to the apes being the temperature center of the planet using a lot of hysterical temperature projections that have yet to be demonstrated. Unfortunately the modern version of Galileo is missing in action, apparently lost in the jungle.
NickCsays
I agree with those who think the comparison is unhelpful, barring the odd supernova burning out and a red shift imperceptible to that time, the movement of the solar system and visible universe is perhaps the most predictable phenomena you could imagine. It took many efforts from the greeks (who were close early on) to Kepler to get a decent handle on it, with religion etc getting in the way of the science. Kepler’s insights (when he recognised patterns in his and Tycho’s vast data) were actually an unbelievably laborious process of elimination.
My simple point is that the acceptance or rejection of AGW as a phenomena capable of catastrophic consequences rests on a vast number of variables, a number of which are much more unpredictable than planetary movement. Look how long it took for the “science to be settled” on the most predictable system known at that time.
Septic Matthewsays
134, Hank Roberts: Which ones, by whom, for whom?
128, SepticMatthew: (witness the Queensland Australia mistaken decision not to enlarge their dam and reservoir system, for one example.)
You could argue that the climate scientists who predicted that heavy rainfalls would never occur again in Queensland had a mistaken understanding of what climate science actually predicted, same as with the climate scientists who predicted several more years of intense hurricane activity after Katrina, or the climate scientists who predicted that the decade 2000 – 2010 would see a 2K rise in temperature, or the climate scientists who predicted that heavy snowfall would never again occur in London or D.C. Nevertheless, mistaken policy decisions were influenced by inaccurate predictions of widely quoted climate scientists.
Septic Matthewsays
170, Anna Haynes: We need a climate hearing; some Qs need to be asked where they can be answered under oath.
And where climate scientists can be cross-examined by well-informed scientists who disagree with them, and where at least 2 teams (like defendant and prosecution [in the case of an accused criminal], or Advocate and Devil’s Advocate [in the case of a candidate for canonization]) can subpoena witnesses. Not just once, but on a regular schedule, such as every 5 years.
I think that your proposal would be a positive step.
George Msays
“Misrepresentations of Sargasso Sea Temperatures by Global Warming Doubters,” was rejected. This abstract was essentially the same material we presented at last year’s GSA meeting in Denver”
Most serious scientific conferences do not solicit rehashes of previously presented papers. It was published once, there is no need to repeat it.
Regards the IPCC, it was founded under the auspices of the UNFCCC specifically(paraphrase) “to collect and summarize the scientific dats showing the effects of human-caused global warming”. It was never intended to scientifically address changes in the climate, but provide scientific backing for proposals to effect changes in fossil fuel ussge, farming practices, and promote transfer of wealth from the developed countries to the less developed ones.
Dan H.says
Brian, Secular, and Hank,
It is not my phrase, but an answer to that of David above (#176). I believe the phrase originated with Mojib Latif, not with Brian’s Bozo.
Real scientists like Hansen, Solomon, Trenberth, et. al. are looking into explanations for these recent measurements, as opposed to obstinately denying the facts. Also, there appear to be those who prefer to attack the poster, rather than present alternate evidence. This is similar to the lawyer who knows his case is lost, unless he can somehow convince the jury that the witness is not credible. This tactic may be effective on the naive, but I do not see how this can be effective against a reasonable commenter.
How long does this recent “lack of warming” have to last, before the remainder accept what the rest of us can already see? Twelve years and counting.
Natural variability ?
There is no mystery about ‘natural variability’ usually associated with the AMO, the PDO and the ENSO. They are all caused by the changes in the heat transport by the major currents, or more precisely change in the balance between cold and warm currents; for the AMO it is the circulation within subpolar gyre, the Labrador vs. the N. Atlantic drift current, while for the PDO it is Kuroshio vs Oyashio (Kamchatka) current. http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/A&P.htm
It is just a matter of the available energy distribution, either it is reradiated back into the space in the sub equatorial region (global cooling), or transported by the ocean currents further towards the poles (global warming).
The ENSO case is somewhat different, where the balance between the South Equatorial and the Counter Equatorial currents determines the oscillation: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSO.htm
The AGW science is preoccupied with the CO2, and the sceptic camp is determined to squeeze the extra energy out of the TSI (in either case there is very little that matters), but when the both sides of the argument hit the buffers, it will be possible to present a more coherent case for the causes of the natural variability.
R Jamessays
“Warmest on record” where record, based on the supplied graph, is 60 years. Tell me how it compares over 2,000 years and I’ll take notice. I consider one of the biggest influences on temperature to be variations in cloud density. Was this taken into account in the study?
All this fiddling with temperature corrections, based on various assumptions, that might or might not be valid, isn’t very convincing science.
I’m of the opinion that we might have experienced as much as 0.7 degC increase over the past 160 years, at the most. There is nothing surprising about this, as we come out of the little ice age.
Dan H.says
Hank,
You really should heed your own advice.
Your quote was for a small segment of the experiment, which focused on those trees which suffered from a N deficiency. If you read further, you will find, “An unanswered question has been why the negative feedback through the N cycle developed in ORNL-FACE and not in other forested FACE experiments.” Just who are you trying to mislead here?
If you had read further, you would have found othe increases mentioned previously. Reading only the abstract reveals the following: “Free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments have provided novel insights into the ecological mechanisms controlling the cycling and storage of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems and contribute to our ability to project how ecosystems respond to increasing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Important lessons emerge by evaluating a set of hypotheses that initially guided the design and longevity of forested FACE experiments. Net primary productivity is increased by elevated CO2, but the response can diminish over time. Carbon accumulation is driven by the distribution of carbon among plant and soil components with differing turnover rates and by interactions between the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Plant community structure may change, but elevated CO2 has only minor effects on microbial community structure. FACE results provide a strong foundation for next-generation experiments in unexplored ecosystems and inform coupled climate-biogeochemical models of the ecological mechanisms controlling ecosystem response to the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration.”
This entire study was performed without using a single one of your cherry trees.
Dan H.says
601.Hank,
You really should heed your own advice.
Your quote was for a small segment of the experiment, which focused on those trees which suffered from a N deficiency. If you read further, you will find, “An unanswered question has been why the negative feedback through the N cycle developed in ORNL-FACE and not in other forested FACE experiments.” Just who are you trying to mislead here?
If you had read further, you would have found othe increases mentioned previously. Reading only the abstract reveals the following: “Free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments have provided novel insights into the ecological mechanisms controlling the cycling and storage of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems and contribute to our ability to project how ecosystems respond to increasing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Important lessons emerge by evaluating a set of hypotheses that initially guided the design and longevity of forested FACE experiments. Net primary productivity is increased by elevated CO2, but the response can diminish over time. Carbon accumulation is driven by the distribution of carbon among plant and soil components with differing turnover rates and by interactions between the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Plant community structure may change, but elevated CO2 has only minor effects on microbial community structure. FACE results provide a strong foundation for next-generation experiments in unexplored ecosystems and inform coupled climate-biogeochemical models of the ecological mechanisms controlling ecosystem response to the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration.”
This entire study was performed without using a single one of your cherry trees.
Funny how you all are equating tree leaves in a particular year with ‘climate’. I thought you all knew the difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’. One could just as easily cite the November weather in Fairbanks, Ak. as evidence of an impending ice age………”A frigid Arctic air mass, unusual even by Alaska standards, is dropping the mercury in the state’s interior to unheard of levels in mid-November. Stunningly low temperatures in the -35 to -50 range have gripped the region since Tuesday. These temperatures are some 25 to 40 degrees colder than average.”
On another note, Durban is collapsing because of the hubris of the ‘team’. The ’cause’ has been exposed once and for all as driven by politics and not science. ClimateGate 2.0 proves that point even more clearly. Steve McIntyre has destroyed the credibility of the ‘Team’ and the once the court orders UVA has to release Mike Mann’s emails, tthe final nail will be driven into the AGW movement.
CM says:
3 Dec 2011 at 4:25 PM
Vukcevic #68, if you’ve got answers that science is desperate not to know, write them up, I’m sure the Fortean Times will be interested.
Thank you for the comment, no idea who or what Forteen Times but I shall eventually look it up.
Since with your name there is no website associated, I do not know if you are a researcher, scientist or casual passer by, which would be helpful in framing an answer to your question: “why don’t you? “
But in any case, I assume you have looked at the link I provided, if your have looked at it and did not observe anything worth attention, then your post is appropriate, but the answer composition / interpretation would be waist of your and my time.
On the other hand if you did study the detail and you are versed in temperature variations and the subject of solar activity, my post was addressed to solar and the climate experts, and you count yourself in either or both categories, then your post needs no further action in view of providing an answer.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-T.htm
RichardC says:
3 Dec 2011 at 10:25 PM
…..
Obviously you have looked at the link,
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-T.htm
your comments are far too exhaustive to answer them all, some are already in the original post, so a repeat would be redundant, and regretfully some I shall ignore.
The temperature data is one of the longest and most reliable instrumental records, very relevant to insolation, the anomaly is in degrees C, with no reduction or amplification or de-trending.
Your comments about it being ‘bogus’ reveals either you didn’t consider fully what is already there or climate science is your hobby rather than vocation, and knowledge of climate data records superficial.
Since your post is anonymous (no full name or website link) I shall leave it there, but if one of the moderators would like to know more, I am happy to forward all the details (data already scrutinised by solar scientist Dr. Svalgaard of Stanford University), alternatively my second article on the North Atlantic Oscillations will be available on line in next few weeks (link to the first: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/theAMO.htm )
Craig,
Your personal experience living in NY (or Austin for that matter) is no substitute for sound scientific evidence. Your first post seems to misunderstand the issue at hand. I post the following as requested:
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/How_natural.pdf
DO not pay too much attention to Hank, he prefers to ridicule those which whom he disagrees rather than debate openly.
Your graph only goes back to 1950. I thought that ‘history’ went back a little further than that. Funny the hot 30’s are not represented, nor the MWP, etc. Surely you jest?
645, Ray Ladbury: Again, the problem is that people don’t understand how science works.
Maybe. They certainly do understand how lobbying for policy based on misrepresentation of science works. What’s in the CRU emails is documentation that prominent science lobbyists misrepresented the science in their public semitechnical writings and comments. That isn’t a negligible detail.
They inserted themselves into the class containing used car salesmen exaggerating the reliability of a used car. “Of course” the used car salesmen know how the used car really works. It’s the miscommunication of that knowledge that is the problem.
Wow, ENSO actually makes it cooler, rather than warmer. McLean et al 2009 must be disappointed.
Anyway, at the current rate, determined by Tamino, the eastern tropical pacific will be 8.2 deg C cooler 20000 odd years from now.
Methane is ”the most misrepresented molecule” in the whole conspiracy! Burning methane is bad, because turns methane + oxygen into water = depleting oxygen into the atmosphere. IS THE BIGGEST CRIME COMMITTED BY THE MISLEADING PROPAGANDA. Creating methane on the other hand, is reversing the damages. Mitich formula: cow + grass = CO2 + 2H2O = CH4 +O4 / fire = CH4 + O4 = 2H2O + CO2. The truth is COMPLETELY opposite than the contemporary lies!!
Permafrost might release some methane; if is sufficient moisture, to create snow in the permafrost. We might get another Tanguska explosion; but methane doesn’t produce any phony GLOBAL warming. Methane burning (natural gas is 96% methane) depletes the oxygen in the atmosphere. Natural gas was in the ground for million years, oxygen was in the atmosphere; burning it > turns oxygen into water… we are burning already lots of natural gas – is promoted by the propaganda as better fuel… less oxygen in the atmosphere… oxygen is the insulator, between the unlimited coldness in the stratosphere and the ground = more extreme between day and night.
IT IS MORE ESSENTIAL THAN EVER, TO PRODUCE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE NEW METHANE! http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com You will find page on methane, please help me to present the truth, it’s of utmost importance and urgency!
“This is what horticulturists and ecologists call microclimates, and they play a very important role in species distribution in some very surprising ways.”
Microclimates take a lot of the worry out of Climate Change. Species do tend to find a niche upon which to take root.
Dramatic changes in the climate system are responsible for increasing the global temperature. Weather conditions are getting extreme specially in plain areas. Winter period is shrinking in plains and summer period is increasing with violent reactions. In the last decade the most worst affected countries of the world from global warming are Pakistan, China, Japan, Turkey and America. For further information please visit the link.
http://mirza-fraz-b.blogspot.com/
Craig,
You need to read you sources more closely. The IPCC clearly states 0.006 C / decade for land, which they claim is from the TAR report, without updating. That is a factor of 5 different from this study, and contains data that is over a decade old.
You may want to brush up on the recent scientific papers. Even the BEST data says 0.02 C / decade.
Attacking a person rather than data which appears in a peer-reviewed paper does you no merits. Sometimes data collection does take months of work. I would worry if someone was able to collect all that data and perform the analysis in a matter of days. Science takes time.
So you are all celebrating at 0.16C per decade? So that means in 100yrs we will have an increase of 1.6C? Way below the 3C speculated?
Also it seems 0.16C has been a very long term trend regardless of CO2.
See: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
Also see Phil Jones interview at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Note the answer to question A: A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade) Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes
So the question is: Since 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940 had nothing to do with CO2, why should the years past 1975 have anything to do with CO2?
@147 Hank Roberts
Hank,
I’m not the guy with the “doomsday” scenarios. As for where some of the information I get comes from – check out what’s coming out of Durban. 50% reduction of 1990 levels of emissions is now the lower limit. Exactly how do you expect such a level to impact the US? You really think it possible to achieve such a reduction – in the next 8 years – without shutting down much of the coal fired electrical generation and/or removing a significant portion of fossil fueled auto and truck transport from the road?
It isn’t about “denying” climate change. It is about not taking counsel of one’s fears about what might happen due to a warmer environment in order to accept policies and actions that are guarenteed to have a negative impact to our lives. When talk turns to International Climate Courts and hundreds of billions in reparations to nations supposedly harmed by climate change, it requires scare stories to justify such action. I was chided by Dr. Schmidt for creating the “strawman” argument of 30 – 40 ft rise in sea level. Yet David Archer, who is a contributor here, says we can expect at least a 10 meter rise and tens of meters is not out of the question. And I believe James Hansen recently used similar numbers. I am not pulling this stuff out of thin air. I wasn’t the one who claimed polar bears were facing extinction. I’m not the one making up the number 50 million when talking about refugees from climate change. These are just a few of the arguments being used to justify political action.
It is not enough to prove we are getting warmer. You have to also prove getting warmer is bad for us. And that is not something that is even close to being proven. Instead, we get stuff like a recent study of birds in Chile, where the scientists found that several species of birds had not migrated to as high of an elevation as expected and concluded they were possibly threatened by a warming climate because they were not adapting fast enough. That is one possible conclusion. Another is that the modelling that predicted expected migration could have included false assumptions or failed to include important data. Which conclusion do you look at first? The way I was taught, I go back to the drawing board when predicted results don’t match observed behavior. I don’t assume it is the birds fault and therefor they are doomed.
JCH,
Amazing how flat that trend is when you show in such a manner. Four years are higher, and seven are lower. However, I still think you should view the graph in light of the long term. Recent temperatures fall right in line with the long-term trend.
Maybe Hank should view the graph. Then he might understand the situation a little better, and why people like Hansen and Trenberth are postulating as to the cause of the recent ‘pause,’ instead of ignoring it.
Well Secular,
I am sorry you feel that way. Maybe you should tell Hansen, Trenberth, Solomon, and a host of others that all their work is nonsense, and they should stop trying to ascertain why the warming has not proceeded as expected in the last decade. Apparently, you have some keen insight that you would be willing to share with them and the rest of us.
The only satisfaction I would get would be to finally nail down the variables which have contributed significantly to the observed warming. Ignorign data and possible causes does not lead to enhanced learning.
Do I detect fear that they may actually be correct?
Given the performance of the IPCC models and their inability to predict the recent 15 year leveling off, I would say the more models out with varying methods the better off we are. The only real test of a models performance is future comparison, unless you buy into hind casting.
Dismissing this out of hand is irresponsible.
Nobody is king of the hill in climate modeling, and this is throwing stones in a glass house.
MA,
The warming is not a fictiously-proposed trend, but a statistically-measured value. This may change in the future. The higher short-term trend of the 1990s and lower short-term trend of the 2000s only change the long-term trend (1880-present) from 0.5 to 0.6C / century.
Craig,
I will ask you a similar question: So how can atmospheric CO2 concentrations be contributing to most of the warming if the planet has not warmed? Once you answer this question, then you shuold be able to answer yours (since you did not seem to accept any of my previous answers).
MA,
The warming is not a fictiously-proposed trend, but a statistically-measured value. This may change in the future. The higher short-term trend of the 1990s and lower short-term trend of the 2000s only change the long-term trend (1880-present) from 0.5 to 0.6C / century.
Craig,
I will ask you a similar question: So how can atmospheric CO2 concentrations be contributing to most of the warming if the planet has not warmed? Once you answer this question, then you shuold be able to answer yours (since you did not seem to accept any of my previous answers).
You guys just don’t get it. You’re not arguing the science. You’re attacking the sceptics. You claim to have the science, but you never discuss it, you just complain that the sceptics don’t have the science on their side, but you never actually address the science that you supposedly have. If you had the “settled” science, you’d simply have to argue the science, but since you don’t have the science, you attack the sceptics. But that is the nature of “the cause, isn’t it. It never really was about the science, it was always about the politics. But it isn’t important anymore, the politics is settled. The IPCC/WWF/Greenpeace is done. It’s over. The gig is up.
I think it is unfortunate that Realclimate decided to carry such a post as this. To describe a whole group of scientists as ‘science cynics’ is far beyond being just tribal and partisan.
Particularly, Dr Curry is misrepresented as describing herself as ‘50% a denier’. Anybody who watched the whole of her presentation will know that this is basically false as well as snide. She clearly, to make a point, suggested that Kevin Trenberth’s schedule of labelling denialists was so extreme that it would make Dr Curry herself seem 50% a denier. As well as, presumably, many other people.
The comment was in the context of ‘demonising the dissenters’ which, given the tone of this post, was quite apt.
Alastair @ #7,
OK I will follow the same precautionary principal as you.
The vast majority of qualified experts in the field of religion beleive in God, in fact the vast majority of people do. The downside of not believing, if it is true, is catastrophic, therefore I will take the insurance option and spend my life under that premise.
And what’s more, I will believe the religion with the strongest hell option (hell, why not!) because that is the safest if I am right.
So there it is, beyond all logic, Keith Woollard now believes in God.
Now I know the two aren’t the same, but without positive feedbacks, AGW is a non-event, and positive feedbacks are largely a faith
MA,
The warming is not a fictitiously-proposed trend, but a statistically-measured value. This may change in the future. The higher short-term trend of the 1990s and lower short-term trend of the 2000s only change the long-term trend (1880-present) from 0.5 to 0.6C / century.
Craig,
I will ask you a similar question: So how can atmospheric CO2 concentrations be contributing to most of the warming if the planet has not warmed? Once you answer this question, then you should be able to answer yours (since you did not seem to accept any of my previous answers).
Susan,
I have found many posters here that fit that description also. Scientists, by definition, are skeptical. Unfortunately, there are those who try to force their position upon others without the usual evidence that should support any scientific position. There is nothing dangerous about a skeptical scientist.
Matthew,
Thank for the graphs. Interesting that the AMO was high during the previous period of high temperature also. Nice comparison, especially the repetition of high AMO and high temperatures.
Seems to me that this article should help Mark B with his “Climate Cynicism” concerns about contrarians not presenting at mainstream conferences, where they’ll likely be compared to proponents of a flat earth or a biblical 6k year old earth or a nazi as a holocaust denier. There remains a well informed (though small) group of responsible scientists
who reject AGW based on their interpretation of the facts. They are not industry shills, fools, or senile. The comparison with the many people who *deny facts* is simply preposterous given the impossibility of controlled experiments and direct observation of AGW. You could make a case that “denying” the fact that there is global warming would be irrational, but the case for AGW, though strong, is hardly factual. Or are you asserting it is in fact an idea with such overwhelming support that no rational person could possibly entertain any alternative hypotheses to explain the observed warming of the post industrial period?
I guess deniers like myself are still waiting for the birth of modern climate science, analogised:
“…After Galileo’s telescopic observations of the crescent, gibbous and full phases of Venus, therefore, this Ptolemaic model became untenable…”
Until then, I will be sticking with the ‘Ptolemaic model’, that modern climate change is natural.
“I guess deniers like myself are still waiting for the birth of modern climate science”
You’re not alone there pal. There are alot of us who wait.
Slow acceptance of ACC, geeze I’ve only just come to grips with AGW, and I don’t think acceptance of ACC has been slow, the concept of CCW has only been in the public domain for about exactly 1 day. Today.
Are we now going to change the name of the theory to fit the changes to climate because it now isolates between warm & cool and not just warm.? If the theory stood still for long enough the wider public just might get it.
It is often stated that temperature rise since 1930s is due to the CO2. It is duty of any responsible scientists to test, question, review and consider all uncertainties.
Here I highlight an ‘apparent link’ between the CET and the well known geomagnetic indices:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-GMF.htm
Since the Northern hemisphere’s and even the global temperature are highly correlated to the CET, my findings can not be dismissed as localised events.
Some may consider it coincidence, but that is highly unlikely considering number of the daily values averaged in the data sets used.
On-line article with more details will be on my website.
Here I highlight an apparent link between the CET and the well known geomagnetic indices:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-GMF.htm
The reactions to this post are interesting, specifically the differences between the RC groupies and climate scientists who actually attended the conference (thanks, Chick and Manvendra). I would also note that Curry’s views on the conference (based on her post) seemed to be reasonably in line with those of Chick and Manvendra. Sounds like it was a good conference.
Peter,
The MCO was not localaized to NW Europe, as evidence has mounted in North America and China. There is no confirmation that it extended to the Southern Hemisphere, but that has more to do with the lack of evidence either way. Whether temperatures were above or below present day is largely unsettled.
To follow up on Ray’s comment; there are those who will deny its occurrance without concern for reality.
John,
You make a good point about cycles. On the flip side, just because we cannot physically show how they may be related, does not mean that they are not. Were all the physical mechanisms if plate tectonics known, when the theory was first postulated? However, a high correlation between the two would merit further investigation into their connection. This, in no way, means that other serious problems should be ignored.
I think that “Climategate” was a (mild and ineffective) conspiracy and that the IPCC is rigged (No organisation is ever completely impartial, especially one that now is faced with political pressure)
However I can follow the science enough to know beyond reasonable doubt that the effect of the extra CO2 is much greater than changes in solar intensity and more than enough to affect the climate. I guess it would be harder for people without scientific knowledge to know what to make of things however.
If something is repeated often enough, that validates it in the minds of true believers. Strange behavior from a field that claims to be based on science and not dogma.
On example where an attitude of “I know how to calculate that” is using variations in solar output to try to explain global temperature changes with period 11 or 22 years. If you (very likely) do not consider the possibility that solar variations affect cosmic rays which affect cloud production, then you will “prove” that the cause is far too small. What I am getting at here is that the new idea that cosmic rays affect cloud production was not at all obvious. The Universe is more complicated that your philosophy.
MARoger @118: you ask to be pointed in the direction of info on cyclical forces in the Universe. For the third time I mention http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-general/case_for_cycles.pdf by Edward Dewey. This is a summary of well established cycles knowledge as at the 1960s. About 80-90 years ago it was discovered that many things that seemed not to be related varied on cycles of the same period and phase. See “Matamek Conference on Biological Cycles”. This lead to the “Foundation for the Study of Cycles” about 1941, with many eminent scientists and business/govt people involved. Please take the Dewey paper very seriously. I independently discovered its key findings in the 1970s without being aware of the prior discoveries.
Flxible @119 and others: “Suppose that there are cyclical fluxes of energy throughout the Universe which affect both the activity and temperature of the Sun and Earth…” – OK, I need to add that there is a lot of evidence for such things. This forum is probably not the appropriate place for all of that. I invite you to discuss it further in CRI forum at http://cyclesresearchinstitute.org/forum/index.php and I only mention several things here:
1. Dewey arrived at conclusion that there are “cyclical forces”. See paper referred above.
2. Chizhevsky arrived at similar conclusion, and made the poetic and scientifically accurate statement: “Life is a phenomenon. Its production is due to the influence of the dynamics of the cosmos on a passive subject. It lives due to dynamics, each oscillation of organic pulsation is coordinated with the cosmic heart in a grandiose whole of nebulas, stars, the sun and the planet.”
3. I have proposed the Harmonics Theory which from a simple principle (non-linearity of physics laws) successfully explains the many harmonically related cycles periods found in diverse disciplines and other previously inexplicable observations and makes many verified predictions. See http://ray.tomes.biz/maths.html
Wasn’t Copernicus fighting ‘settled science’, the consensus of his time
A consensus blessed with tremendous institutional support, governmental and private?
First of all thanks Gavin. I described myself as a contrarian as the word ‘sceptic’ has become synonymous with ‘climate change denier’, which I am not. When I said I did not have a ‘sceptic’ agenda I was using the word to state that I had not set out to challenge climate change orthodoxy.
I have replied in detail to comments #67 and #68 on my web site at: http://www.climatedata.info/Discussions/Discussions/opinions.php . Suffice it to say that my site has enough material, with slight change of wording to make two good sites – one for each side of the debate.
To return to the theme of this thread, it is an interesting anomaly that whereas Copernicus was trying to show people that they were less important than they thought the main theme of climate change is to show people that they are more important than they thought.
Francis Fukayama is best known for “The End of History” but he also wrote a book called ‘Trust’. In it he postulates that successful societies are those in which Trust extends beyond families to institutions. Academia, which once was a ‘trusted’ institution, is now suspect. I would argue that the only way to regain the trust of the public in relation to climate change is to be more open about the remaining doubts (such as the ones that seem to trouble some people here) and argue that these doubts do not negate the need for action.
Gavin replies to @123 and Ray Ladbury @124: Please explain to me how Kepler’s laws were not curve fitting. Then please explain why Newton’s gravity is not curve fitting. Same for GR. There is no mechanism for gravity. In all cases, “mechanism” is just a name given to something once it is obvious that it keeps happening.
The null hypothesis used in cycles is that there is not a real cycle. The test is the Bartell’s test. It consists of examining the phase of a cycle over each individual single cycle period and putting these in a scatter diagram (by x=sine and y=cosine correlation). If you have 400 years data and an 11 year cycle, then there will be 36 points in the scatter diagram. If the scatter is consistent with them being centred on the 0,0 point then the null hypothesis (no significant cycle) is accepted. If not, then the cycle is indicated as real at that significance. It is a very good and widely accepted test.
It seems pretty clear to me that no-one who has replied repetitively to me has actually read Dewey’s “The Case for Cycles” paper. If you look at it and check out the facts presented with an open mind, I guarantee that the way that you view the world will be considerably expanded. Otherwise I am wasting my time.
Interesting irony, Copernicus theorized that the planet of the apes was not the center of the solar system and a lot of theological hysteria was created when Galileo confirmed the theory while AGW has returned to the apes being the temperature center of the planet using a lot of hysterical temperature projections that have yet to be demonstrated. Unfortunately the modern version of Galileo is missing in action, apparently lost in the jungle.
I agree with those who think the comparison is unhelpful, barring the odd supernova burning out and a red shift imperceptible to that time, the movement of the solar system and visible universe is perhaps the most predictable phenomena you could imagine. It took many efforts from the greeks (who were close early on) to Kepler to get a decent handle on it, with religion etc getting in the way of the science. Kepler’s insights (when he recognised patterns in his and Tycho’s vast data) were actually an unbelievably laborious process of elimination.
My simple point is that the acceptance or rejection of AGW as a phenomena capable of catastrophic consequences rests on a vast number of variables, a number of which are much more unpredictable than planetary movement. Look how long it took for the “science to be settled” on the most predictable system known at that time.
134, Hank Roberts: Which ones, by whom, for whom?
128, SepticMatthew: (witness the Queensland Australia mistaken decision not to enlarge their dam and reservoir system, for one example.)
You could argue that the climate scientists who predicted that heavy rainfalls would never occur again in Queensland had a mistaken understanding of what climate science actually predicted, same as with the climate scientists who predicted several more years of intense hurricane activity after Katrina, or the climate scientists who predicted that the decade 2000 – 2010 would see a 2K rise in temperature, or the climate scientists who predicted that heavy snowfall would never again occur in London or D.C. Nevertheless, mistaken policy decisions were influenced by inaccurate predictions of widely quoted climate scientists.
170, Anna Haynes: We need a climate hearing; some Qs need to be asked where they can be answered under oath.
And where climate scientists can be cross-examined by well-informed scientists who disagree with them, and where at least 2 teams (like defendant and prosecution [in the case of an accused criminal], or Advocate and Devil’s Advocate [in the case of a candidate for canonization]) can subpoena witnesses. Not just once, but on a regular schedule, such as every 5 years.
I think that your proposal would be a positive step.
“Misrepresentations of Sargasso Sea Temperatures by Global Warming Doubters,” was rejected. This abstract was essentially the same material we presented at last year’s GSA meeting in Denver”
Most serious scientific conferences do not solicit rehashes of previously presented papers. It was published once, there is no need to repeat it.
Regards the IPCC, it was founded under the auspices of the UNFCCC specifically(paraphrase) “to collect and summarize the scientific dats showing the effects of human-caused global warming”. It was never intended to scientifically address changes in the climate, but provide scientific backing for proposals to effect changes in fossil fuel ussge, farming practices, and promote transfer of wealth from the developed countries to the less developed ones.
Brian, Secular, and Hank,
It is not my phrase, but an answer to that of David above (#176). I believe the phrase originated with Mojib Latif, not with Brian’s Bozo.
Real scientists like Hansen, Solomon, Trenberth, et. al. are looking into explanations for these recent measurements, as opposed to obstinately denying the facts. Also, there appear to be those who prefer to attack the poster, rather than present alternate evidence. This is similar to the lawyer who knows his case is lost, unless he can somehow convince the jury that the witness is not credible. This tactic may be effective on the naive, but I do not see how this can be effective against a reasonable commenter.
How long does this recent “lack of warming” have to last, before the remainder accept what the rest of us can already see? Twelve years and counting.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1950/to:1976/plot/gistemp/from:1976/to:2001/plot/gistemp/from:2001/to:2012
Natural variability ?
There is no mystery about ‘natural variability’ usually associated with the AMO, the PDO and the ENSO. They are all caused by the changes in the heat transport by the major currents, or more precisely change in the balance between cold and warm currents; for the AMO it is the circulation within subpolar gyre, the Labrador vs. the N. Atlantic drift current, while for the PDO it is Kuroshio vs Oyashio (Kamchatka) current.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/A&P.htm
It is just a matter of the available energy distribution, either it is reradiated back into the space in the sub equatorial region (global cooling), or transported by the ocean currents further towards the poles (global warming).
The ENSO case is somewhat different, where the balance between the South Equatorial and the Counter Equatorial currents determines the oscillation:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSO.htm
The AGW science is preoccupied with the CO2, and the sceptic camp is determined to squeeze the extra energy out of the TSI (in either case there is very little that matters), but when the both sides of the argument hit the buffers, it will be possible to present a more coherent case for the causes of the natural variability.
“Warmest on record” where record, based on the supplied graph, is 60 years. Tell me how it compares over 2,000 years and I’ll take notice. I consider one of the biggest influences on temperature to be variations in cloud density. Was this taken into account in the study?
All this fiddling with temperature corrections, based on various assumptions, that might or might not be valid, isn’t very convincing science.
I’m of the opinion that we might have experienced as much as 0.7 degC increase over the past 160 years, at the most. There is nothing surprising about this, as we come out of the little ice age.
Hank,
You really should heed your own advice.
Your quote was for a small segment of the experiment, which focused on those trees which suffered from a N deficiency. If you read further, you will find, “An unanswered question has been why the negative feedback through the N cycle developed in ORNL-FACE and not in other forested FACE experiments.” Just who are you trying to mislead here?
If you had read further, you would have found othe increases mentioned previously. Reading only the abstract reveals the following: “Free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments have provided novel insights into the ecological mechanisms controlling the cycling and storage of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems and contribute to our ability to project how ecosystems respond to increasing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Important lessons emerge by evaluating a set of hypotheses that initially guided the design and longevity of forested FACE experiments. Net primary productivity is increased by elevated CO2, but the response can diminish over time. Carbon accumulation is driven by the distribution of carbon among plant and soil components with differing turnover rates and by interactions between the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Plant community structure may change, but elevated CO2 has only minor effects on microbial community structure. FACE results provide a strong foundation for next-generation experiments in unexplored ecosystems and inform coupled climate-biogeochemical models of the ecological mechanisms controlling ecosystem response to the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration.”
This entire study was performed without using a single one of your cherry trees.
601.Hank,
You really should heed your own advice.
Your quote was for a small segment of the experiment, which focused on those trees which suffered from a N deficiency. If you read further, you will find, “An unanswered question has been why the negative feedback through the N cycle developed in ORNL-FACE and not in other forested FACE experiments.” Just who are you trying to mislead here?
If you had read further, you would have found othe increases mentioned previously. Reading only the abstract reveals the following: “Free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments have provided novel insights into the ecological mechanisms controlling the cycling and storage of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems and contribute to our ability to project how ecosystems respond to increasing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Important lessons emerge by evaluating a set of hypotheses that initially guided the design and longevity of forested FACE experiments. Net primary productivity is increased by elevated CO2, but the response can diminish over time. Carbon accumulation is driven by the distribution of carbon among plant and soil components with differing turnover rates and by interactions between the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Plant community structure may change, but elevated CO2 has only minor effects on microbial community structure. FACE results provide a strong foundation for next-generation experiments in unexplored ecosystems and inform coupled climate-biogeochemical models of the ecological mechanisms controlling ecosystem response to the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration.”
This entire study was performed without using a single one of your cherry trees.