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2040 Responses to "The Bore Hole"
Doug Proctorsays
Based on 0.17C/decade, 2100 becomes 1.4C warmer than today. Significant, but not part of the more extreme projections/scenarios.
If the more extreme scenario were to happen, then soon the rate will have to go up beyond 0.17C/decade. Right now we look to be in the up-down neither cooling nor warming place for a while, maybe minimum to 2015. And still CO2 is going up, and if the Chinese have success with their economy, it will be going up faster.
All this means that within a couple of years we will have to see stronger temperature movements to conclude that “reasonable” CO2 management will do something worthwhile. Turning off fossil fuel without going nuclear ain’t gonna do it.
The alternative view is to see 1975 to about 2010 as a curvi-linear change on the “up” side of a cycle. Which means that the pause right now is not really a pause in an upward trend as postulated, but the mathematically correct “flat” you get by clipping off the top of a curve that is about to go down.
Within three years we will be in a clear position to be worried about CAGW or worried that the CO2-forcing models are seriously flawed.
The last three years went quickly. Let’s see what the next three do. I can’t be the only one to note the time-frame; I’m sure the politicians are waiting things out also.
Dan H.says
Craig,
I f you do not want to have an honest discussion, then that is fine by me. On the other hand, if you do, then you need to acknowledge what has occurred and not make up your own facts. I have watched the MItrovica tape, and discussed parts of it already. I agreed with Mitrovica (and you in your last post) than measured sea level rise accelerated after the launch of the Topex satellite. This is past tense. Since the launch of the Jason satellites, SLR has slowed – which you deny, but has been acknowledged by several other posters here. Perhaps you believe that NASA cherry-picked the date for the Jason launch, just so you could ignore the data. You choose one straight line analysis for your arguement, and then ignore anyone else who tries to show something different. Just who is ignoring reality here?
Then you come out with the blatant lie that I want to avoid acknowleding that ocean phenomena affect SLR. Are you with the Romney camp? Look how many times I have stated this, and said that the recent La Nina is a plausible explanation for the recent slowing – which you deny anyway.
I like your “hogwash” that sea levels did not rise 16m over the past 8000 years. I presume that you think this data is in error.
Of course, 8000 years, was just where the line on this graph intersects the rapid rise since the last icea age terminated. The actual rise in the order of 125m. Or perhaps you deny that also.
Walter,
Why was August, 1975 selected? Recent temperature values fall above and below the long term trend starting in 1880. Therefore, should we conclude that temperatures will continue rising at 0.6C/century? On the other hand, if 15 years is not long enough to conclude that a slowdown has occurred, how long would temperatures need to show no increase, before you are willing to acknowledge a slowdown? This question was asked in a slightly different way on the short term trend thread. Instead of a specified time frame, how about if the observed temperatures fall below the CMIP3 modelled trends as depicted in the same thread?
The scientific method is to test the predictions that follows logically from theories. If the predictions are wrong then the theory is wrong. It is not scientific to add “reasonable limits” that do not follow logically from the premise and that prevents testing against observable facts. But nor is it scientific to lump one theory with a theory that has a different premise just because they are somewhat similar and assume that they make the same predictions either. Willingness to guess wildly and subsequently admit error is thus crucial for science. Ergo, any pressure to save face is antiscientific and antiintellectual. So is the “scientific community” really scientific at all, with all of its academic hierarchy, credit and discredit? Obviously the “scientific community” is full of antiscientific pressure. There are some cases where official “scientific” papers have published new theories and observations that do not fit into existing theories, of course. But then, most if not all organizations contain people who leak secret information too. And with all that antiscientific pressure around in the “scientific community”, there is no reason to think that something must be bullshit just because (most of) the “scientific community” boycots it. Read the theory instead. If it is bullshit, it either makes false predictions or is too vague to make any predictions at all. So just test the theories! To do real science, start sharing theories and observational/experimental results outside the Machiavellian academia, informally (such as on Pure Science Wiki). Also share advice on how to make scientific equipment as cheaply as possible. Why do some brain damaged patients recover while others with the same brain damage do not? Metastudies by Kurt Fischer, Christina Hinton et al. shows that the key is tolerant environments. This agrees with Francisco Lacerda’s theory that the reason why children learn language easily is because they do not fear being wrong, just like non-prejudiced scientists. The fact that the tolerant environment factor works even way past the end of all supposed “learning windows” also shows that there is no such thing as an immutable “shame instinct” either. Research about ancient climates prove that abrupt climate change have been common, so fixedness is and have always been incompatible with survival. There is evidence, especially from domestication research, showing that evolution can very rapidly select on individual variation and turn it into group differences. Thus there is a contradiction between nature explanations of individual psychiatry and nurture explanations of ethnic differences. There must be some missing methodological factor. Since racist discrimination is a form of intolerance often associated with other forms of intolerance, studies of ethnic differences effectively takes the tolerant environment factor into account, explaining why nurture explanations prevailed in studies of ethnic differences. But studies of individual psychiatry have, at least before Kurt Fischer’s and Christina Hinton’s metastudy, not taken the tolerant environment factor into account, explaining why nature explanations prevailed there. It is well-established that there was/is anomalies from the nature model of individual psychiatry, but people ignorant of the metastudy lumps everything into one statistic and dismiss the minority of cases as “anecdotical”. Real science is about finding the pattern behind the anomalies to de-anecdotize them, just like Kurt Fischer and Christina Hinton did. And considering how stupid behavior is destroying the world (just look at pollution and deforestation!), this research about possibilities to change behavior to a rational form is invaluable. The fact that the plasticity only applies if the environment is tolerant means that there is no reason to fear that dictators will abuse the plasticity whatsoever.
Isotopioussays
Gavin, I have cherry picked a suitable chunk of data for you to rerun your impressive analysis.
The data from 1327 to 1463 (136years) shows a nice cooling trend, however, there is no annual variability.
To add suitable noise, simply use the monthly gistemp data (say from 1950 onwards), remove the trend in gistemp by taking monthly differences, and add the base yearly value obtained from the data above to each monthly value corresponding to that particular year.
Then you will be able to construct the skeptical science -like escalator, or just objectivly add 10 year linear trends one after the other (as I did).
Cheers.
Dan H.says
It seems that scientists are adverse to alligning with either political party.
1)In principle variability expressed in gistemp today may not be all that different from variability that existed in the past (Occum’s razor).
2)The cooling trend in the data may or may not have existed
.
3)Although adding 1 + 2 together is purely a speculative exercise, contrary to comments made in the recent PBS documentary, speculation is science, and denial of science is purely subjective.
Jefesays
“Trend is the ordinary least squares fit to the data – not just the anomaly this month minus the anomaly in 1997. And the trend from august 1997 is 0.033ºC/dec, which is the lowest you can get from any point prior to 2000. From Feb 1998, it is 0.042ºC/dec (95% conf is about +/-0.04ºC/dec). There is no doubt that he picked that start date for that reason.”
– But Rose is claiming the “slight warming trend” has now been erased, so it would appear he is subtracting the anomaly (the graphic used in the article shows a “0.5” start and a “0.5” endpoint) and not calculating trends in the statistical sense. Regardless, this is complete immaterial as we are talking about hundredths of a degree over a short time frame with error bars that make the difference absolutely meaningless. You and I have no disagreement here.
“This is the fallacy of the single determinant of climate. CO2 is not the only thing that matters! There are however statistical reasons why 1975 is a break point – breaking the trend there provides a substantially better fit over the whole record (not true for Aug 1997), and if you look at when anthropogenic effects came out of the ‘noise’ of global temperatures, it is about the same time (fig 9.5 WG1 AR4). But if you want to look at longer datasets, go ahead.”
– I’m not suggesting CO2 is all that matters. Perhaps I should have worded it GHG instead of simply CO2, but I believe my question to be a valid concern. Comment #32 rather childishly attempts to criticize my general curiosity (and cites a “law” with which I was previously unfamiliar, but thanks for that nicety), but the statement that aerosols ceased to “mask” GHG forcing circa 1975 because of US-specific acts is baseless as forcing from anthropogenic sulfate in models I’ve come across show no distinguishable sign of change in rate from the years preceding 1975 to the years following. Additionally, determining a detailed number for overall aerosol forcing appears quite difficult (with substantial error bars and vast uncertainty), thus making that one BOLD statement. Are you (Gavin, not the author of comment #32) suggesting other GHG are the primary difference maker, then? Like ozone and methane? I’m confused.
“Not sure how any of that follows. GHG forcing has been important since about 1800, but only substantially larger than everything else since the mid-1970s. If you put in a break point in the whole series (from 1850) in Aug 1975, you get a trend of 0.03ºC/dec before, and 0.16ºC/dec after.”
– But only provided you have the underlying variability accurately modeled based on the physics. Hence why I see it as fairly arbitrary, considering the underlying trends are very poorly mapped and cannot predict past climate events accurately (paleo data seems a nightmare). If you agree that underlying “natural” variability was synced with observed temperatures until roughly 1975, this would suggest that you believe negative anthropogenic forcing equaled out positive forcing from human GHG emissions from the start of the industrial revolution until 35 years ago. I find that difficult to swallow. Why shouldn’t the modeled underlying variability and the observed temperature have gradually drifted away from one another since we began engaging in heavy industry, rather than suddenly taking off from a seeming standstill?
“Then why are you objecting to a explicit removal of ENSO effects in the time series?”
– Because you can’t accurately measure ENSO effects, so how can you accurately remove them?
Again, thanks for taking the time to educate on this subject, as I (and I’m sure many other novices as well) greatly appreciate your efforts. If I seem ignorant on many points, I assure you it is genuine and not feigned just for the sake of argument.
Dan H.says
Ray,
You may to tone down your responses a little. While the track record is relatively short and debatable, using a science fiction writer to bolster your claim does not enhance your credibility.
Bill Huntersays
“We saw above that the ENSO-corrected underlying trends are very consistent with the models’ underlying trends and we can also see that the actual temperatures are still within the model envelope (2012 data included to date). This is not a very strong statement though
I have to agree its not a very strong statement.
The lower ocean is 10 to 15C colder than the surface, makes up 90% of the heat capacity of the ocean, and it hasn’t apparently significantly warmed for at least 15,000 years despite being sandwiched between a hot core of the earth and a far warmer surface area.
Conduction should have been warming the ocean for 15K years but it remains within the range of surface temperatures of the last glacial period.
It seems reasonable to believe the thermohaline system replenishes colder water to the deep when cold waters upwell. It also follows that the increased density of that cold water could be one of the drivers of upwelling (besides winds). Thus it may only be partly true that ENSO is unforced. The oscillation nature of ENSO is probably unforced, but the multi-decadal dominance of cold and warm regimes may be forced.
In fact one study between the 1980s and early 2000’s postulated a reduction in the AMO led to deep ocean warming. Johnson GC (2008) “Reduced Antarctic meridional overturning circulation reaches the North Atlantic Ocean”. Its reasonable to assume an increased overturning leads to deep ocean cooling.
Obviously somebody can argue that there are two possibilities in the thermohaline system, one chemical and the other thermodynamic. That poses uncertainty for this mechanism. But the cold bias of the deep ocean suggests that colder water replacing cold water is the dominant process and as such it should be manifested by some visible process such as the thermohaline circulation and ENSO-like upwellings.
So what happens to the warm water? Well it gets pushed west, north, and south. It gets on the accelerated train to the area of the ocean where heat loss is dominant over heat gain to replace the downwelling colder water and cool itself. Thus you could have ocean cooling and not atmosphere cooling. Atmosphere cooling could be delayed for years.
So periods of dominant upwelling probably is an indicator of ocean cooling and possibly eventually atmosphere cooling as we saw during the dominant upwelling years of the 50’s and 60’s.
Therefore removing ENSO to bring observations into line to make models look better could be a huge mistake as all you are doing is forcing the observations to fit the model. One should accompany such an adjustment with a solid and certain demonstration of warm water downwelling into the ocean to replace the upwelling cold water. Seems physically unlikely to me.
When you remove the cold upwelling you are left with the offsetting poleward advance of warm surface waters outside of the ENSO region. So naturally it would artificially result in an artificial warming trend.
And of course as this cold water upwells, there is less warming of the atmosphere in the tropical regions by the ocean, and obviously more warming of the atmosphere in the polar regions as a result of the accelerated overturning. This is what is fundamentally wrong with Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). The paper should not have been about the result it should have been about why ENSO should be removed.
Doug Proctorsays
If you are philosophically committed to linear relationships (an unfortunate result if you follow CO2-dominant, strong-forcing characterized IPCC theory), then what you say here is correct. Mathematically you are correct. But if you view the temperature record in some polynomial relationships with time, or quasi-sinusoidal, curvi-linear relationships, then the period from 1975 to now is a curve that rolled over in 2010. It is about to get colder, but the amount is still undetermined and may be not very much.
The problem with the CO2 narrative, however, is that if the “up” portion is not linear but part of a curve, the math of the final result is not sufficient to justify the IPCC catastrophist portion of the “scenarios”. And without the extreme portions of the scenario as determined by the CO2 math, then either we have little to worry about, as the CO2 rise is <1.4/C per doubling CO2, or CO2 is not what is going to warm the planet badly and we have no control over the issue.
Forcing linear relationships in a clearly cycle charaterized temperature profile is the first fundamentally strange of the warmist narrative. It is as if talk of cycles of warming and cooling ruin the "evidence" advanced for the CAGW story. Which it does.
Without a linear growth, some strong "ups" are not CO2. That is the problem.
pikklessays
tokodave,
you wrote “we don’t live in the LGM, Miocene, the Pliocene, the PETM, or whenever else. We live here and now and this is the only climate we’ve got.”
i think that is undoubtedly true, but you may be looking at the situation through an overly black and white lens.
we are clearly in something of a bind at the moment, and we need to start thinking about the real possibility of a much warmer world.
i don’t mean to sound cynical, but unless a radical new method of sequestration or source of clean, abundant energy is invented or discovered soon, we will not be able to reduce CO2 for a long time, and we will continue to burn the abundant, fossil fuels that we have. as oil gets scarce, we will likely start burning more coal.
while it is laudably idealistic to retain hope that a breakthrough will happen in the form of cold fusion or some sort of not-yet-conceived sequestration method, we should also prepare for the very real possibility that our world will change to a warmer state.
in order to prepare for that, it is a good idea to look at past states of earth’s climate to see what we might expect for the future.
i have crudely argued here that, despite obvious misfortune due to sea level rise, and possible intensification of storms, there would likely be benefits mainly in the form of decreased global aridity.
furthermore, in terms of ecological destruction, i think we have less to fear than we might think and than many people claim.
Better science on the severity of Quaternary climate change in the past two decades has shown unequivocally that extremely rapid global climate change has occurred frequently over the Quaternary Period. The plants and animals that are alive today have survived changes that were much greater and ecologically destructive than today’s rates of change very recently in terms of evolutionary history.
furthermore, i’ll point out once again, warmer, wetter areas on earth also happen to be the most biologically diverse. a warmer, wetter world is potentially devastating for the comparatively few, specialized polar species such as polar bears, penguins, harp seals etc. (although even the potential analog Pliocene climate still had ice caps). it is also potentially devastating to traditional inuit ways of life (keeping in mind that their cultures have become heavily westernized over the course of the past century)
on the other hand, though i know it seems immoral to be optimistic, the most biologically rich climate types on earth will probably proliferate and expand in a warmer, world, as they did in warmer worlds of the past.
pikklessays
Jim
you asked what i am talking about.
this is what i’m talking about:
we don’t know when the next glacial period will begin.
Some think it would ahve already begun without anthropogenic influence. some think it will begin within the next two to three millenia. some think it won’t begin for 30,000 years.
When we talk about geoengineering, we are playing with something we don’t have firm enough knowledge of.
For all we know thre is a chance we could easily trigger a radid descent into glacial conditions on the scale of decades such as occurred during the Younger Dryas.
There are too many unknowns that we are pretending we know.
And in the other direction, it is too simplistic to say that everything about a warming climate is bad.
pikklessays
Ladbury
“past climate change epochs did not see anything like the rapid change we are seeing now on a GLOBAL scale.”
i think you are mistaken.
The global mean temperature was 8 C colder than today at the last glacial maximum.
At the peak of change during the termination as the massive ice sheets melted, sea levels rose at a rate of 16 meters per century.
I have cited this above.
here it is again: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/geodyn/tutorials/Physik_der_ErdeII/pdf/Hanebuth-etal2000_science.pdf
I don’t have, and and I’m not sure anyone has, an accurate understanding of the global rate of change in mean temperature that accompanied that rise in ocean level, but it was very likely much higher than that of the past 100 years.
to put that change in perspective, at present we are looking at ~.3 meters in the past century and one degree C warming in the past century.
pikklessays
jim
i think you know as well as i that predictions of global warming inspire absolute dread of apocalypse in millions of people across this country and the world.
i am certainly not the only person even on this thread who is conscious of the apocalyptic nature of the rhetoric and politics of global warming. Think, for example, of publications with titles such as “Storms of my Grandchildren” and “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming – The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC” (do i need to define the word “dire” for you?), by Hansen and Mann respectively, possibly the top two most respected climatologists in the world.
but i will move on.
it’s been a pleasure.
pikklessays
MArodger
That is indeed a desirable view of the immediate glacial future of the planet, but not one we can say with certainty will definitely happen. It is true the re-glaciations have been generally more gradual in the past than glacial terminations.
however,
according to two studies cited here that last interglacial, the “Eemian”, seems to have ended with a rapid plunge into cold conditions: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
Furthermore there have been significant episodes of rapid cooling throughout the Quaternary, the most recent being the Younger Dryas, which saw global cooling of many degrees C over the course of a few decades. That was most likely a glacial termination meltwater-pulse-related episode, although we still don’t know for sure.
We can speculate that things will go well, but we don’t know for sure by any means that the next global descent to glacial conditions won’t be similar to that at the end of the Eemian or even worse.
To say we know would be great hubris in my opinion. People more educated than myself, please set me straight if i am wrong to be cautiously skeptical about MArodger’s assertion.
pikklessays
Korda
you wrote “Given the scale and complexity of modern systems even relatively minor disruptions can have hideous impacts, as Sandy demonstrated recently.”
if every minor hurricane or tropical storm that happens by chance to hit a major metropolitan area in future becomes a “hideous impact” deriving directly from anthropogenic global warming, we will be unable to have rational conversations about climate at all.
for the sake of reason, please do a small amount of research and you will find that far, far larger hurricanes have hit the northeast in the historical and prehistorical record, before our burning of fossil fuels.
Sandy had a few record characteristics, but on the whole it was a minor hurricane with a relatively small storm surge relative to historical northeastern hurricanes, and barely hurricane force winds.
it happened to hit new york through a chance arrangement of the jet stream that likely had nothing to do with global warming.
that is probably the only reason we are still talking about it.
i am not denying the possibility that global warming will cause extereme storms and more of them in the future, but please, save it for the real ones with 30 foot surges, like those that hit new york and new england in the 1800’s
there will be more than just ~100 people dead when the next real northeastern hurricane happens, i assure you, and it still won’t be crystal clear that it wasn’t part of natural variations. because it has happened many times before in the late Holocene, before new york city even existed.
pikklessays
“argument from consequences is a logical fallacy”??
i am talking about getting real and facing up to the very real possibility that, no matter how hard we try, we will not be able to mitigate our CO2 and warming.
I’m talking about preparing for the future, psychologically and practically.
If we don’t have everything to lose, then we are not serving ourselves or others by engaging in despair-oriented rhetoric, implying that the world will be irretrievably degraded if we don’t somehow manage to lower CO2 to 1850 levels.
You may not value peace of mind and planning for the future, but you aren’t everyone.
recapcha
Tsukemonosays
hold onto my email though
when your ideal “climate warrior” regime sweeps to power you can look me up and send me to the Gulag for my climate thoughtcrimes…
“This emphasizes the question of whether the Holocene will remain stable in spite of the growing atmospheric pollution.”
blinders on, friends…
Tom Scharfsays
I see things have now moved to “selective” praise of Nate Silver. Fair enough. The perceived weaknesses of climate science have always come down to statistics and projections. Those who appeal to authority on climate science and also reject appeals to authority on statistics and projections may find themselves in a mental tug of war. Some people accept that honest people can look at these areas and disagree, others don’t.
Somehow the elephant in the room that politicians routinely dismiss polls they aren’t favored in is commonplace hasn’t managed to merit serious discussion.
Tom Scharfsays
#83. Susan…you say you read Mann’s response 3 times, but just wondering if you actually ever read Silver’s chapter the first time? And if you haven’t, what does that say?
vukcevicsays
201JCH says:
12 Nov 2012 at 1:13 PM
NASA Study Goes to Earth’s Core for Climate Insights
…..
As it happens I am step ahead http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
If in unlikely case any of the listed contributors are interested I would be happy to forward details.
Hank_says
FYI,
The list of the “BBC 28” has now been outed, despite the courts ruling. See any of the contrarian blogs for details.
H
vukcevicsays
Comment by Hank
1081.FYI,
The list of the “BBC 28″ has now been outed, despite the courts ruling. See any of the contrarian blogs for details.
Welcome to the Bore Hole Hank
Tegiri Nenashisays
What vote counting has to do with climate? The problem of extrapolating small polling sample onto entire US population looks like trivial exercise compared to intricacies of atmospheric physics.
Harold Pierce Jrsays
At No. 3, Jim says, “…because of the enormous and rapid increase in GHGs,…”
This is incorrect. In 1900, one cubic meter of pure dry air (PDA) at STP contained 0.00055 kg of CO2. Currently (Oct 2012), one cubic meter of PDA at STP contains 0.00077 kg of CO2. After 112 years the amount of CO2 in PDA has increased by only a small amount.
In 1900, world fuel consumption (WFC) was about 1,000 million tons per year. By 2000, WFC was about 12,000 million tons per year. Where did all the CO2 from combustion of fuels go? Most of it went into the oceans and was converted to calcium carbonate by shell-forming organisms.
BTW, There is much less CO2 in real air than is determined by analysis of a local sample of PDA as is done at MLO. In real air, which is the technical term for local air at the intake ports of air separation plants, there is always water vapor and lots of it. Also real air is never at STP.
For example, in tropical air at 32 deg C and at one atm pressure, the maximum concentration of water vapor (i.e., when it is raining) is 50,800 ppmv (0.0408 kg per cubic meter). The amount of CO2 in this air is 0.00041 kg per cubic meter.
If you make the assumption that there is a uniform distribution of GHGs in the atmosphere, then climate model calculations are flawed.
PAbersays
To all they state that peer-review is good enough to ensure the necessary openness of views in science and also to all that think the open debate is wrong. Please bear with my rather longish coment.
First, peer review is not perfect. The growing number of retractions of papers that went through the process (see http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/ and Fang, F.; Steen, R. & Casadevall, A. Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012, 109, 17028-17033) shows that the growing number of papers and journals and the pressures of publish or perish take their toll. Recent withdrawal of Gergis et al (to stick with the climate studies) shows that the role of actors outside the process may be beneficial.
But the errors in the process (sloppy review, buddy networks, or even threats to replace the editors if certain papers get published) are not the whole problem with peer review. Much worse is the effect of promoting mediocrity (Thurner, S. & Hanel, R. Peer-review in a world with rational scientists: Toward selection of the average European Physical Journal B-Condensed Matter, 2011, 84, 707). Controversial publications have much less chances to get through. Especially in politically active fields.
Still, peer-review is only a small part of the problem. Much worse are the (unintended, I’m sure) effects of the modern grant based funding of research.
First, the grant review boards tend to focus on their own views and judge proposals by the degree of fit (called research quality). The focus on results gets even worse effects. [As a side remark: imagine what theme of a grant application would a young scientist have to write that would cover the topics solved by Einstein during the annus mirabilis – 1905 – photoelectric effect, brownian motion, special relativity and the equivalence of mass/energy. Can we imagine a funding body supporting such mal-defined proposal today?] So proposals that are outside the mainstream have less chances of getting approved. Especially in polarized fields, where there is majority/minority split.
Second, the focus on results. The grant scheme forces publications. This distorts science seriously, as it increases the drawer effect. Research that has not led to significant results gets unpublished (the drawer effect, Scargle, J. Publication Bias (The “File-Drawer Problem”) in Scientific Inference Arxiv preprint physics/9909033, 1999; Rosenthal, R. The `file drawer problem’ and tolerance for null results Psychological bulletin, 1979, 86, 638-641). And we have to remember that null results and repetition of other people’s results is a core part of science.
This is even worse for highly emotional / politicized fields. Here, the scientist whose research leads to a null result (e.g. no expected rise in XXX) is faced with a double problem. Not only the lack of effect is less “interesting” that its presence but also such paper might serve as ammunition for the despised denier movement (and this would be contrary to the scientists own views or harm his/her career prospects within the majority).
So, the question is: how much of the apparent consensus in climate science is due to pressures of peer review, grant schemes favoring certain research directions and the drawer effects?
COMING BACK TO THE OPEN DISCUSSION FORUM.
My approach would be to go MUCH FURTHER than the Dutch. I would advise to invite th sceptics (deniers, if you prefer) INTO YOUR RESEARCH teams. Write to Antony Watts, to Steve McIntyre, to Judith Curry, to the Heartland Institute – or any hated denier think-tank, and ask them to participate or to indicate someone who could participate in your project. Give such members ALL the privileges of the team members, especially access to all raw data and processes, if necessary pay them as you pay the current ones. Involve them, listen to them. Allow the voice of dissent within your groups. Perhaps even, if there is no way of reaching consensus, allow separate publications or conclusions. And do all of this openly.
What would happen?
First, this would disarm the main argument that the current climate science is a closed, self-serving community with specific political goals. Second, the quality of the research would go up: it is better to correct the mistakes before publication than be corrected and humiliated as Gergis et al were after it.
You can be sure that the ones that would agree to the rigours of research would not be trolling. And if the denier community refuses such open invitations … well this would be a true PR coup.
Do not fear that they would steal the data or abuse the process. The strength of moral obligations resulting from being within a team is a good prognostic. The worst that you would be faced with would be if their views turn out to be right. But that would not be truly a bad thing for a scientist – to be corrected and to see views in a new way? On the other hand, by involving the sceptics there is a chance of convincing them – much stronger that via blog discussions or court cases.
Dan H.says
Pete,
While some may have been shocked and oblivious, those in the know, knew it was an uphill battle. The positive results after the first debate, and the gains made in the polls, indicated that Romney might overcome Obama’s lead com election day. It was the trend in the polls, not the polls themselves, that gave them hope. Even headed into November, the President still had a slight lead. All the momentum stopped when Sandy hit. Make no mistake, this was quite beneficial to the Obama campaign. All media attention was directed to the Storm, and the President’s response was at the center. Romney was helpless, as he could do nothing to stem the positive coverage given to Obama. This effectively stemmed Romeny’s gains, and led to a slight reversal towards Obama. This was picked up in the polls, and borne out on election day. There is always optimism towards ones own candidate, but even those on the inside knew it was going to be a dogfight. The closeness of the final vote showed that.
PAbersays
To Susan Anderson, #105
“PAber, your recommendation of Anthony Watts does your scientific credentials no good. Once again, may I suggest you identify your field within physics as you claim authority? As I said before, real top line physicists with healthy egos prefer not to claim expertise outside their own knowledge, so there is no shame in saying what you don’t know. There is, however, shame in claiming to know what you don’t. ”
Susan,
You touch two topics, let me deal with the personal first. I am not one of the topmost scientists, but I may claim 20+ years of doing solid state theory, Hirsch index 12, 40+ publications. So I know how science works reasonably well. Grant politics, drawer effects, buddy-based peer-review etc. – topics which are harsh reality, yet which you conveniently omit from your reply. The expertise I claim in these posts is related to practice of science, not to climate research as such.
As for the allergic reaction to Anthony Watts and WUWT (see also the reply by dhogaza #91). I find this rather curious. Is it because he is quite effective in his actions? First: was Watts original idea of checking the quality of the US surface weather stations and documenting their poor siting and maintenance unscientific and decrimental to science – or just the opposite? Second, was the discovery of errors in Gergis et al, which appeared on his web page (which eventually led to retraction of the paper) unscientific? (Mind you – the paper DID pass the peer-review, so the “normal” process of science failed. Still, the authors managed to get public attention and a few press releases in June, which did show the intentions. On the occassion of the retraction they did not call the press…).
Moreover: I suggested writing to known sceptics to ask them if they know someone who would have the capabilities and willingness to participate in research projects. If you personally disagree with Watts so much, maybe there would be some other sceptics. What is there to lose – except, possibly, that some possible bias could be checked for within the research process?
The record of accredited scientists is so abyssmal in spite of their consensus there is little reason to limit the discussion to the annointed. Shouldn’t a criterion be who is actually correct, rather than who abides by scripture.
Gordon Lehmansays
As a counterpoint to the theme here that skeptics do a disservice to humanity I argue that it is actually carbon theology that does disservice by stiffling progress on discovering the real causes of rapid climate change with endless filibuster about carbon dioxide. Climate science per se is only a small part of the understanding necessary to see that we face enormous climatic and environmental risks but that CO2 is almost certainly not a major factor.
Coldishsays
98 Bart Strengers says:
16 Nov 2012 at 11:01 Am
“- Since it is indeed difficult to find qualified ‘skeptic’ scientists (or scientists that are among the most critical ones) I would like to know who you think we should invite to take part in the discussions on our site. The next topic will be on Sea Level Rise: who would you suggest?”
I wish you well with your project. Getting opposing factions to talk to each other can only be a good thing. If you want to invite a non-consensus voice on sea level change, I think Nils-Axel Mörner would contribute to a lively debate.
Spotgoldsays
How to restore trust in scientists… What will you do if you don’t like the answer? An answer that takes the shape of, abandoning the public space altogether, both as scientific activists and as recipients of funding? Scientists would become independent again, and should the fruits of their limited resources have utility to the public, perhaps they might (re)gain their trust.
Perhaps you’ll find that trust is not so important to gain after all.
Ken Burns seemed anxious to use the dust bowl history as forewarning of the problems of global warming. That is a little curious, since the main problem was lack of rain for 6 years, at a time when global warming had not been launched. But that is not my main point.
That point is the way Burns featured a preachy commenter who told us the folly of introducing new uses of soil in areas hitherto stable, however minimally productive that historic usage had been.
Apparently, neither Ken Burns nor his commenter watched the documentary by Burns himself very carefully. Solutions to the dust bowl problem involved contour farming and practices that retained stubble as much as possible and government purchased land that was put to permanent grassland of historic types. But the main reliable solution was widespread irrigation in the area. They got the idea from the previous solution which was abundant rainfall for a few years. After that the farmers returned to crops that would make farms profitable for relatively many people. This type of agriculture provides more people with jobs than cattle grazing operations. And it also feeds large numbers of people.
Yes, the Ogallala (spelling?)aquifer is being heavily used to do this. The projected depletion is a big concern, but the implied solution by Burns is to stop using irrigation and revert to historic land usage. I would suggest that the world can not handle this kind of Luddite mentality, and that a far better solution would be to charge the aquifer. Yes, we could even think on a larger scale about universal irrigation which could mitigate whatever climate events that are on the way, global warming or not.
I am not sure he had any concern for the Ogallala aquifer but it is fortunate that Bill McKibben used this as leverage to kill the Keystone pipeline, uh, for a while. I am less excited about the McKibben campaign to kill coal since that seems likely to make the great depression and dust bowl casualties look like fun and games.
We know how to charge aquifers, at least on small scales, from experience in Silicon Valley, where the local aquifer has been threatened with depletion for many years along with a consequence of salt water from San Francisco Bay then entering the aquifer. A water control system was put in place about 50 years ago, and expanded various times since as population burgeoned. This has been quite adequate as evidenced by the fact that we still use fresh water from wells that tap into the aquifer only a few miles from that Bay.
Wisdom in the use of land is certainly called for, but there is a higher need to feed the people of the world.
Hopefully we can reverse the foolishness of using feed grains to make motor fuel. A place to get a grip is in the way we build automobiles; we can even still move about fast and safely and independently as most of us want to do.
However, we still have the shock that there was 4 million acres of land bought by the government and put to grassland service only. With modest supply of water, this could be made highly productive with sensible agriculture, or even used to establish standing forests as a CO2 capture and storage system.
For land that would be transformed into productive farms, much would be cultivated using large farm machines as they now do in the dust bowl areas. For land used for crops that require hand labor, the Miastrada Dragon tractor is intended to make the labor must more productive and much less injurious to the people involved. Guess what! You can see this in early testing on youtube by clicking the website link shown.
Re Susan Anderson: I fault McKibben for being foolishly misguided as to what we realistically might do, not that he is not well intended. Such men are dangerous.
Ken Burns seemed anxious to use the dust bowl history as forewarning of the problems of global warming. That is a little curious, since the main problem was lack of rain for 6 years, at a time when global warming had not been launched. But that is not my main point.
That point is the way Burns featured a preachy commenter who told us the folly of introducing new uses of soil in areas hitherto stable, however minimally productive that historic usage had been.
Apparently, neither Ken Burns nor his commenter watched the documentary by Burns himself very carefully. Solutions to the dust bowl problem involved contour farming and practices that retained stubble as much as possible and government purchased land that was put to permanent grassland of historic types. But the main reliable solution was widespread irrigation in the area. They got the idea from the previous solution which was abundant rainfall for a few years. After that the farmers returned to crops that would make farms profitable for relatively many people. This type of agriculture provides more people with jobs than cattle grazing operations. And it also feeds large numbers of people.
Yes, the Ogallala (spelling?)aquifer is being heavily used to do this. The projected depletion is a big concern, but the implied solution by Burns is to stop using irrigation and revert to historic land usage. I would suggest that the world can not handle this kind of Luddite mentality, and that a far better solution would be to charge the aquifer. Yes, we could even think on a larger scale about universal irrigation which could mitigate whatever climate events that are on the way, global warming or not.
I am not sure he had any concern for the Ogallala aquifer but it is fortunate that Bill McKibben used this as leverage to kill the Keystone pipeline, uh, for a while. I am less excited about the McKibben campaign to kill coal since that seems likely to make the great depression and dust bowl casualties look like fun and games.
We know how to charge aquifers, at least on small scales, from experience in Silicon Valley, where the local aquifer has been threatened with depletion for many years along with a consequence of salt water from San Francisco Bay then entering the aquifer. A water control system was put in place about 50 years ago, and expanded various times since as population burgeoned. This has been quite adequate as evidenced by the fact that we still use fresh water from wells that tap into the aquifer only a few miles from that Bay.
Wisdom in the use of land is certainly called for, but there is a higher need to feed the people of the world.
Hopefully we can reverse the foolishness of using feed grains to make motor fuel. A place to get a grip is in the way we build automobiles; we can even still move about fast and safely and independently as most of us want to do.
However, we still have the shock that there was 4 million acres of land bought by the government and put to grassland service only. With modest supply of water, this could be made highly productive with sensible agriculture, or even used to establish standing forests as a CO2 capture and storage system.
For land that would be transformed into productive farms, much would be cultivated using large farm machines as they now do in the dust bowl areas. For land used for crops that require hand labor, the Miastrada Dragon tractor is intended to make the labor must more productive and much less injurious to the people involved. Guess what! You can see this in early testing on youtube by clicking the website link shown.
Re Susan Anderson: I fault McKibben for being foolishly misguided as to what we realistically might do, not that he is not well intended. Such men are dangerous.
Jim Bullis, Miastrada Companysays
201 203 McKinney, McDonnald
Before we get on a war footing, maybe we should think carefully about what we are fighting for.
Belief in the results of physics is one issue, but there are also issues regarding the wisdom of various actions. There seems to be much adherence to solutions that require austerity in human behaviour where something like religious fervor is taking over.
This is part of what clouds the credibility of the global warming science, for no real scientist would engage in dogma of science.
Robertsays
The fact Nate Silver’s name is even on this thread proves how political AGW has become.
GSWsays
The other clear conclusion that can be drawn from the paper with regards to regional fluctuations is that, all other things being equal, internal and natural variability on climatic timescales(30yrs Avg weather) can be responsible for temp, degree scale, anomalies, and also variations in other metrics, such as precipitation.
It’s fairly obvious that there are inherent difficulties in using these regional variations as indicators of CO2 driven Climate Change per se.
Regional changes in seasonal precipitation patterns for example have been/are used routinely to do this, but the models suggest these changes can be accounted for within the bounds of internal variability with some ease.
So quite an important paper I would have thought.
Alastair McDonaldsays
Ray Ladbury #326,
“The problem with Anderson is that he makes the solution sound easy”
Anderson makes the solution sound simple. That is not the same as easy. In fact the answer is impossible, especially if the scientists continue to bury their heads in the sand, and refuse to warn of the very real dangers we all face.
Anderson accuses the scientists of being colluding the politicians, but that is unfair. The scientist are fooling themselves, and not telling the politicians the truth. They just aren’t willing to face up to the facts: that we are heading for disaster; that there is no way to stop it; and it is going to happen in OUR lifetime. The only glimmer of hope is if the scientists wake from their stupor, admit that the global outbreak of wild fires from Canada to Australia, the heat waves in Europe, Russia and the US, the droughts in Australia, Russia and Texas, the floods in Queensland, the US and now in the UK are all the result of climate change. Not only that, but they are bound to get worse over the next decade.
But if you cannot see how critical the situation is then I suppose it is no surprise that other scientist feel the same. They have got where they are by being optimistic, and since hope springs eternal there is little chance of them seeing the light.
Isotopioussays
Given the knowledge we have today regarding past climate change, I’m not sure describing Arrhenius’ climate model as a “paradigm” is justified. Arrhenius’ was worried about the ice ages, and wanted to predict them. Today there are well over thirty different climate models which attempt to predict the next ice age. Sadly, this question is unsolved. If the past is anything to go by, a drop in sea level of around 0.6 meters per century over the next 10000 years would be catastrophic for the northern hemisphere, since the water from the ocean would end up as ice on the land. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
So it’s not really about whether Arrhenius is right or wrong, since his model of climate change does not hindcast past changes credibility enough. Quite a red herring that one, arguing that without positive feedback we cannot explain the ice age cycles, even though we cannot explain them anyway. Over thirty different climate models attempting to predict an ice ages does not constitute a paradigm!
Craig Nazorsays
Dave – comment #30, which you mentioned in your post, was posted by “Dan H,” so I assumed you had read some of the thread, and were aware of the discussion here.
My problem with your link is that 1) the graph does not seem to match the BE graph and 2) while the BE web site lists their data and how they got it, there is no way to check the GE data. So why would the GE data be different, and why would it not be explained on their web site? I did not accuse anyone of committing fraud. Since I do not pay taxes in Alaska, that would be your worry, not mine. We have enough trouble keeping official reports honest in Texas, my home state:
Surely, you must realize that this is a politically charged issue? I do not apologize for the observation. There is simply too much at stake not to have an honest debate.
So tell me – you are a scientist, and you seem to have picked a side here. Why are the two charts so different? Specifically:
Since you appear to support the findings of the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, do you also support the summary found at the end of this PDF, which is coauthored by some of the same scientists?
flixible – what Dave Person is trying to say is still not clear to me. Maybe it is clear to you. It is not clear to me. It appeared to me that his first link was defending the statement in #30 for reasons I have mentioned in #34 – primarily, the difference between the two charts. This appears to be a question of science. I agree, his second link in general seems to strongly confirm the initial post. I got that, so I was confused as to Dave’s point. If I got it wrong, I am perfectly willing to admit that. In none of my statements am I accusing anyone of fraud.
Tom Scharfsays
#31 – Well I guess I’m confused. You adjusted the observational data by subtracting out an estimate of natural variability and then declared success? The difference between this and what I stated is semantics. Clearly unwinding natural variability vs. AGW is a problem not yet resolved, and unlikely to be so over the next few decades. There are secondary effects and feedbacks and unknown unknowns, etc. So its unclear how this is anything but a hand wave.
Arguing that there is not a plateau makes no sense, there is. Anybody who can read a graph can see this. Arguing that natural variability may be suppressing the expected continued rise/acceleration of temperatures is a valid * theory *. The models have been consistently over estimating temperature rise, this is plainly evident. The question is why. Short term fluctuations? Another valid * theory * is that the effective climate sensitivity to CO2 in the models is too high.
It is noted that natural variability works in both directions, if it suppressing temperatures now, it could have just as easily been equally enhancing them during the last quarter century. Once again this points to a lower CS.
What I find disappointing is that while there seems to be a great deal of effort to explain away poor performance in the models such as the stated theory (which may be correct), there appears to be little effort in general to ask the question of whether the carbon driver is over-amped. When the trends don’t match and the models are unproven, I’ll put my money on the models are broken.
T Marvellsays
post 31 – Scharf is substantially correct. The paper changed the “actual” temperature increases, not the projections. That is, the change was made to the relationship between the projections and the future trends, which is the topic of the paper. If projections don’t work, one can usually find some reasonable reason why they do not, but that does not make the projections any better or prove why the projections were off. I am not sure that the correction for ENSO is justified, given the simultaneous relationship between ENSO and ocean temperature.
DERRUFOsays
i do hope the gents and Ladies of Climatology have not forgotten the sun– it appears to be increasing in its activity for the last 30 to 50 yrs which i might suggest increases volcanic activity on earth thus adding more particles to the atmosphere and thus…well, its all so foggy isnt it?
Thankfully we have these climate scientists to explain everything…but my own view is– if massive ice sheets are melting faster, while also growing at other places in the world, its a change in part from movement of prevailing wind patterns, which in turn brings melt to some others and more snow and thus ice to others…and the sun, again dont forget, its more active Lately. It is warming Earth. That will make it much easier for all you climatologists to take a year or 2 off from work…and no need for more govt grants while on vacation … Lets play fair now shall we ?
Dan H.says
Toby,
Snide comments aside, you have it backwards. The null hypothesis is that Arctic sea ice is reversible, ascertations otherwise need to be backed up with scientific research. The Greenland ice sheet is entirely applicable, as many assert that the Arctic will not be completely ice free, but maintain a minimal area attached to Greenland.
simon abingdonsays
It is said that there has been no significant global warming for the last 16 years, during which time CO2 emissions worldwide have significantly and relentlessly increased. Since CO2 causes warming there must be an equal and opposite compensating cooling influence marching in lockstep. This cannot be a coincidence; it must be driven by CO2 itself. What can it be?
Dan H.says
Steve,
Adding to the misinformation is the statement, “2012 warmest year on record so far.” According to GISS, 2012 is the 7th warmest year (based on the first 10 months of data).
So it continues to go.
Ken Lambertsays
Useful comment MA Roger at 44.
Last time I looked at Jason 2 SLR was running at about 2mm/year.
Church & White keep running a graph showing 3.2mm/year 1993-2012.
Your analysis shows 1930-2007 running flat at about 2mm/year and by moving the end point to 2009 (1930-2009) you get to 3mm/year. Such is the power of selection of time periods. Only 2 year extension in 80 years has made so much difference?
For sure the rate is not 3.2mm/year but something between 2 and 3mm/year for those 80 year periods.
Estimates of land ice melt run as high as 2mm/year which leaves no steric rise at all with a 2mm/year SLR and not much at 2-3mm/year.
Not near enough to support a warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m
Based on 0.17C/decade, 2100 becomes 1.4C warmer than today. Significant, but not part of the more extreme projections/scenarios.
If the more extreme scenario were to happen, then soon the rate will have to go up beyond 0.17C/decade. Right now we look to be in the up-down neither cooling nor warming place for a while, maybe minimum to 2015. And still CO2 is going up, and if the Chinese have success with their economy, it will be going up faster.
All this means that within a couple of years we will have to see stronger temperature movements to conclude that “reasonable” CO2 management will do something worthwhile. Turning off fossil fuel without going nuclear ain’t gonna do it.
The alternative view is to see 1975 to about 2010 as a curvi-linear change on the “up” side of a cycle. Which means that the pause right now is not really a pause in an upward trend as postulated, but the mathematically correct “flat” you get by clipping off the top of a curve that is about to go down.
Within three years we will be in a clear position to be worried about CAGW or worried that the CO2-forcing models are seriously flawed.
The last three years went quickly. Let’s see what the next three do. I can’t be the only one to note the time-frame; I’m sure the politicians are waiting things out also.
Craig,
I f you do not want to have an honest discussion, then that is fine by me. On the other hand, if you do, then you need to acknowledge what has occurred and not make up your own facts. I have watched the MItrovica tape, and discussed parts of it already. I agreed with Mitrovica (and you in your last post) than measured sea level rise accelerated after the launch of the Topex satellite. This is past tense. Since the launch of the Jason satellites, SLR has slowed – which you deny, but has been acknowledged by several other posters here. Perhaps you believe that NASA cherry-picked the date for the Jason launch, just so you could ignore the data. You choose one straight line analysis for your arguement, and then ignore anyone else who tries to show something different. Just who is ignoring reality here?
Then you come out with the blatant lie that I want to avoid acknowleding that ocean phenomena affect SLR. Are you with the Romney camp? Look how many times I have stated this, and said that the recent La Nina is a plausible explanation for the recent slowing – which you deny anyway.
I like your “hogwash” that sea levels did not rise 16m over the past 8000 years. I presume that you think this data is in error.
http://ourchangingclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/holocene_sea_level-incl-trend.png
Of course, 8000 years, was just where the line on this graph intersects the rapid rise since the last icea age terminated. The actual rise in the order of 125m. Or perhaps you deny that also.
http://ourchangingclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/post-glacial_sea_level-incl-3-mm-yr-1-trend.png
Walter,
Why was August, 1975 selected? Recent temperature values fall above and below the long term trend starting in 1880. Therefore, should we conclude that temperatures will continue rising at 0.6C/century? On the other hand, if 15 years is not long enough to conclude that a slowdown has occurred, how long would temperatures need to show no increase, before you are willing to acknowledge a slowdown? This question was asked in a slightly different way on the short term trend thread. Instead of a specified time frame, how about if the observed temperatures fall below the CMIP3 modelled trends as depicted in the same thread?
The scientific method is to test the predictions that follows logically from theories. If the predictions are wrong then the theory is wrong. It is not scientific to add “reasonable limits” that do not follow logically from the premise and that prevents testing against observable facts. But nor is it scientific to lump one theory with a theory that has a different premise just because they are somewhat similar and assume that they make the same predictions either. Willingness to guess wildly and subsequently admit error is thus crucial for science. Ergo, any pressure to save face is antiscientific and antiintellectual. So is the “scientific community” really scientific at all, with all of its academic hierarchy, credit and discredit? Obviously the “scientific community” is full of antiscientific pressure. There are some cases where official “scientific” papers have published new theories and observations that do not fit into existing theories, of course. But then, most if not all organizations contain people who leak secret information too. And with all that antiscientific pressure around in the “scientific community”, there is no reason to think that something must be bullshit just because (most of) the “scientific community” boycots it. Read the theory instead. If it is bullshit, it either makes false predictions or is too vague to make any predictions at all. So just test the theories! To do real science, start sharing theories and observational/experimental results outside the Machiavellian academia, informally (such as on Pure Science Wiki). Also share advice on how to make scientific equipment as cheaply as possible. Why do some brain damaged patients recover while others with the same brain damage do not? Metastudies by Kurt Fischer, Christina Hinton et al. shows that the key is tolerant environments. This agrees with Francisco Lacerda’s theory that the reason why children learn language easily is because they do not fear being wrong, just like non-prejudiced scientists. The fact that the tolerant environment factor works even way past the end of all supposed “learning windows” also shows that there is no such thing as an immutable “shame instinct” either. Research about ancient climates prove that abrupt climate change have been common, so fixedness is and have always been incompatible with survival. There is evidence, especially from domestication research, showing that evolution can very rapidly select on individual variation and turn it into group differences. Thus there is a contradiction between nature explanations of individual psychiatry and nurture explanations of ethnic differences. There must be some missing methodological factor. Since racist discrimination is a form of intolerance often associated with other forms of intolerance, studies of ethnic differences effectively takes the tolerant environment factor into account, explaining why nurture explanations prevailed in studies of ethnic differences. But studies of individual psychiatry have, at least before Kurt Fischer’s and Christina Hinton’s metastudy, not taken the tolerant environment factor into account, explaining why nature explanations prevailed there. It is well-established that there was/is anomalies from the nature model of individual psychiatry, but people ignorant of the metastudy lumps everything into one statistic and dismiss the minority of cases as “anecdotical”. Real science is about finding the pattern behind the anomalies to de-anecdotize them, just like Kurt Fischer and Christina Hinton did. And considering how stupid behavior is destroying the world (just look at pollution and deforestation!), this research about possibilities to change behavior to a rational form is invaluable. The fact that the plasticity only applies if the environment is tolerant means that there is no reason to fear that dictators will abuse the plasticity whatsoever.
Gavin, I have cherry picked a suitable chunk of data for you to rerun your impressive analysis.
The un-screened data is here:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/mann2009b/sstall.txt
The data from 1327 to 1463 (136years) shows a nice cooling trend, however, there is no annual variability.
To add suitable noise, simply use the monthly gistemp data (say from 1950 onwards), remove the trend in gistemp by taking monthly differences, and add the base yearly value obtained from the data above to each monthly value corresponding to that particular year.
Then you will be able to construct the skeptical science -like escalator, or just objectivly add 10 year linear trends one after the other (as I did).
Cheers.
It seems that scientists are adverse to alligning with either political party.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/27/whos-more-anti-science-republicans-or-de
Just to add to my bored comment,
1)In principle variability expressed in gistemp today may not be all that different from variability that existed in the past (Occum’s razor).
2)The cooling trend in the data may or may not have existed
.
3)Although adding 1 + 2 together is purely a speculative exercise, contrary to comments made in the recent PBS documentary, speculation is science, and denial of science is purely subjective.
“Trend is the ordinary least squares fit to the data – not just the anomaly this month minus the anomaly in 1997. And the trend from august 1997 is 0.033ºC/dec, which is the lowest you can get from any point prior to 2000. From Feb 1998, it is 0.042ºC/dec (95% conf is about +/-0.04ºC/dec). There is no doubt that he picked that start date for that reason.”
– But Rose is claiming the “slight warming trend” has now been erased, so it would appear he is subtracting the anomaly (the graphic used in the article shows a “0.5” start and a “0.5” endpoint) and not calculating trends in the statistical sense. Regardless, this is complete immaterial as we are talking about hundredths of a degree over a short time frame with error bars that make the difference absolutely meaningless. You and I have no disagreement here.
“This is the fallacy of the single determinant of climate. CO2 is not the only thing that matters! There are however statistical reasons why 1975 is a break point – breaking the trend there provides a substantially better fit over the whole record (not true for Aug 1997), and if you look at when anthropogenic effects came out of the ‘noise’ of global temperatures, it is about the same time (fig 9.5 WG1 AR4). But if you want to look at longer datasets, go ahead.”
– I’m not suggesting CO2 is all that matters. Perhaps I should have worded it GHG instead of simply CO2, but I believe my question to be a valid concern. Comment #32 rather childishly attempts to criticize my general curiosity (and cites a “law” with which I was previously unfamiliar, but thanks for that nicety), but the statement that aerosols ceased to “mask” GHG forcing circa 1975 because of US-specific acts is baseless as forcing from anthropogenic sulfate in models I’ve come across show no distinguishable sign of change in rate from the years preceding 1975 to the years following. Additionally, determining a detailed number for overall aerosol forcing appears quite difficult (with substantial error bars and vast uncertainty), thus making that one BOLD statement. Are you (Gavin, not the author of comment #32) suggesting other GHG are the primary difference maker, then? Like ozone and methane? I’m confused.
“Not sure how any of that follows. GHG forcing has been important since about 1800, but only substantially larger than everything else since the mid-1970s. If you put in a break point in the whole series (from 1850) in Aug 1975, you get a trend of 0.03ºC/dec before, and 0.16ºC/dec after.”
– But only provided you have the underlying variability accurately modeled based on the physics. Hence why I see it as fairly arbitrary, considering the underlying trends are very poorly mapped and cannot predict past climate events accurately (paleo data seems a nightmare). If you agree that underlying “natural” variability was synced with observed temperatures until roughly 1975, this would suggest that you believe negative anthropogenic forcing equaled out positive forcing from human GHG emissions from the start of the industrial revolution until 35 years ago. I find that difficult to swallow. Why shouldn’t the modeled underlying variability and the observed temperature have gradually drifted away from one another since we began engaging in heavy industry, rather than suddenly taking off from a seeming standstill?
“Then why are you objecting to a explicit removal of ENSO effects in the time series?”
– Because you can’t accurately measure ENSO effects, so how can you accurately remove them?
Again, thanks for taking the time to educate on this subject, as I (and I’m sure many other novices as well) greatly appreciate your efforts. If I seem ignorant on many points, I assure you it is genuine and not feigned just for the sake of argument.
Ray,
You may to tone down your responses a little. While the track record is relatively short and debatable, using a science fiction writer to bolster your claim does not enhance your credibility.
“We saw above that the ENSO-corrected underlying trends are very consistent with the models’ underlying trends and we can also see that the actual temperatures are still within the model envelope (2012 data included to date). This is not a very strong statement though
I have to agree its not a very strong statement.
The lower ocean is 10 to 15C colder than the surface, makes up 90% of the heat capacity of the ocean, and it hasn’t apparently significantly warmed for at least 15,000 years despite being sandwiched between a hot core of the earth and a far warmer surface area.
Conduction should have been warming the ocean for 15K years but it remains within the range of surface temperatures of the last glacial period.
It seems reasonable to believe the thermohaline system replenishes colder water to the deep when cold waters upwell. It also follows that the increased density of that cold water could be one of the drivers of upwelling (besides winds). Thus it may only be partly true that ENSO is unforced. The oscillation nature of ENSO is probably unforced, but the multi-decadal dominance of cold and warm regimes may be forced.
In fact one study between the 1980s and early 2000’s postulated a reduction in the AMO led to deep ocean warming. Johnson GC (2008) “Reduced Antarctic meridional overturning circulation reaches the North Atlantic Ocean”. Its reasonable to assume an increased overturning leads to deep ocean cooling.
Obviously somebody can argue that there are two possibilities in the thermohaline system, one chemical and the other thermodynamic. That poses uncertainty for this mechanism. But the cold bias of the deep ocean suggests that colder water replacing cold water is the dominant process and as such it should be manifested by some visible process such as the thermohaline circulation and ENSO-like upwellings.
So what happens to the warm water? Well it gets pushed west, north, and south. It gets on the accelerated train to the area of the ocean where heat loss is dominant over heat gain to replace the downwelling colder water and cool itself. Thus you could have ocean cooling and not atmosphere cooling. Atmosphere cooling could be delayed for years.
So periods of dominant upwelling probably is an indicator of ocean cooling and possibly eventually atmosphere cooling as we saw during the dominant upwelling years of the 50’s and 60’s.
Therefore removing ENSO to bring observations into line to make models look better could be a huge mistake as all you are doing is forcing the observations to fit the model. One should accompany such an adjustment with a solid and certain demonstration of warm water downwelling into the ocean to replace the upwelling cold water. Seems physically unlikely to me.
When you remove the cold upwelling you are left with the offsetting poleward advance of warm surface waters outside of the ENSO region. So naturally it would artificially result in an artificial warming trend.
And of course as this cold water upwells, there is less warming of the atmosphere in the tropical regions by the ocean, and obviously more warming of the atmosphere in the polar regions as a result of the accelerated overturning. This is what is fundamentally wrong with Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). The paper should not have been about the result it should have been about why ENSO should be removed.
If you are philosophically committed to linear relationships (an unfortunate result if you follow CO2-dominant, strong-forcing characterized IPCC theory), then what you say here is correct. Mathematically you are correct. But if you view the temperature record in some polynomial relationships with time, or quasi-sinusoidal, curvi-linear relationships, then the period from 1975 to now is a curve that rolled over in 2010. It is about to get colder, but the amount is still undetermined and may be not very much.
The problem with the CO2 narrative, however, is that if the “up” portion is not linear but part of a curve, the math of the final result is not sufficient to justify the IPCC catastrophist portion of the “scenarios”. And without the extreme portions of the scenario as determined by the CO2 math, then either we have little to worry about, as the CO2 rise is <1.4/C per doubling CO2, or CO2 is not what is going to warm the planet badly and we have no control over the issue.
Forcing linear relationships in a clearly cycle charaterized temperature profile is the first fundamentally strange of the warmist narrative. It is as if talk of cycles of warming and cooling ruin the "evidence" advanced for the CAGW story. Which it does.
Without a linear growth, some strong "ups" are not CO2. That is the problem.
tokodave,
you wrote “we don’t live in the LGM, Miocene, the Pliocene, the PETM, or whenever else. We live here and now and this is the only climate we’ve got.”
i think that is undoubtedly true, but you may be looking at the situation through an overly black and white lens.
we are clearly in something of a bind at the moment, and we need to start thinking about the real possibility of a much warmer world.
i don’t mean to sound cynical, but unless a radical new method of sequestration or source of clean, abundant energy is invented or discovered soon, we will not be able to reduce CO2 for a long time, and we will continue to burn the abundant, fossil fuels that we have. as oil gets scarce, we will likely start burning more coal.
while it is laudably idealistic to retain hope that a breakthrough will happen in the form of cold fusion or some sort of not-yet-conceived sequestration method, we should also prepare for the very real possibility that our world will change to a warmer state.
in order to prepare for that, it is a good idea to look at past states of earth’s climate to see what we might expect for the future.
i have crudely argued here that, despite obvious misfortune due to sea level rise, and possible intensification of storms, there would likely be benefits mainly in the form of decreased global aridity.
furthermore, in terms of ecological destruction, i think we have less to fear than we might think and than many people claim.
Better science on the severity of Quaternary climate change in the past two decades has shown unequivocally that extremely rapid global climate change has occurred frequently over the Quaternary Period. The plants and animals that are alive today have survived changes that were much greater and ecologically destructive than today’s rates of change very recently in terms of evolutionary history.
furthermore, i’ll point out once again, warmer, wetter areas on earth also happen to be the most biologically diverse. a warmer, wetter world is potentially devastating for the comparatively few, specialized polar species such as polar bears, penguins, harp seals etc. (although even the potential analog Pliocene climate still had ice caps). it is also potentially devastating to traditional inuit ways of life (keeping in mind that their cultures have become heavily westernized over the course of the past century)
on the other hand, though i know it seems immoral to be optimistic, the most biologically rich climate types on earth will probably proliferate and expand in a warmer, world, as they did in warmer worlds of the past.
Jim
you asked what i am talking about.
this is what i’m talking about:
we don’t know when the next glacial period will begin.
Some think it would ahve already begun without anthropogenic influence. some think it will begin within the next two to three millenia. some think it won’t begin for 30,000 years.
When we talk about geoengineering, we are playing with something we don’t have firm enough knowledge of.
For all we know thre is a chance we could easily trigger a radid descent into glacial conditions on the scale of decades such as occurred during the Younger Dryas.
There are too many unknowns that we are pretending we know.
And in the other direction, it is too simplistic to say that everything about a warming climate is bad.
Ladbury
“past climate change epochs did not see anything like the rapid change we are seeing now on a GLOBAL scale.”
i think you are mistaken.
The global mean temperature was 8 C colder than today at the last glacial maximum.
At the peak of change during the termination as the massive ice sheets melted, sea levels rose at a rate of 16 meters per century.
I have cited this above.
here it is again:
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/geodyn/tutorials/Physik_der_ErdeII/pdf/Hanebuth-etal2000_science.pdf
I don’t have, and and I’m not sure anyone has, an accurate understanding of the global rate of change in mean temperature that accompanied that rise in ocean level, but it was very likely much higher than that of the past 100 years.
to put that change in perspective, at present we are looking at ~.3 meters in the past century and one degree C warming in the past century.
jim
i think you know as well as i that predictions of global warming inspire absolute dread of apocalypse in millions of people across this country and the world.
i am certainly not the only person even on this thread who is conscious of the apocalyptic nature of the rhetoric and politics of global warming. Think, for example, of publications with titles such as “Storms of my Grandchildren” and “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming – The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC” (do i need to define the word “dire” for you?), by Hansen and Mann respectively, possibly the top two most respected climatologists in the world.
but i will move on.
it’s been a pleasure.
MArodger
That is indeed a desirable view of the immediate glacial future of the planet, but not one we can say with certainty will definitely happen. It is true the re-glaciations have been generally more gradual in the past than glacial terminations.
however,
according to two studies cited here that last interglacial, the “Eemian”, seems to have ended with a rapid plunge into cold conditions: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
Furthermore there have been significant episodes of rapid cooling throughout the Quaternary, the most recent being the Younger Dryas, which saw global cooling of many degrees C over the course of a few decades. That was most likely a glacial termination meltwater-pulse-related episode, although we still don’t know for sure.
We can speculate that things will go well, but we don’t know for sure by any means that the next global descent to glacial conditions won’t be similar to that at the end of the Eemian or even worse.
To say we know would be great hubris in my opinion. People more educated than myself, please set me straight if i am wrong to be cautiously skeptical about MArodger’s assertion.
Korda
you wrote “Given the scale and complexity of modern systems even relatively minor disruptions can have hideous impacts, as Sandy demonstrated recently.”
if every minor hurricane or tropical storm that happens by chance to hit a major metropolitan area in future becomes a “hideous impact” deriving directly from anthropogenic global warming, we will be unable to have rational conversations about climate at all.
for the sake of reason, please do a small amount of research and you will find that far, far larger hurricanes have hit the northeast in the historical and prehistorical record, before our burning of fossil fuels.
Sandy had a few record characteristics, but on the whole it was a minor hurricane with a relatively small storm surge relative to historical northeastern hurricanes, and barely hurricane force winds.
it happened to hit new york through a chance arrangement of the jet stream that likely had nothing to do with global warming.
that is probably the only reason we are still talking about it.
i am not denying the possibility that global warming will cause extereme storms and more of them in the future, but please, save it for the real ones with 30 foot surges, like those that hit new york and new england in the 1800’s
there will be more than just ~100 people dead when the next real northeastern hurricane happens, i assure you, and it still won’t be crystal clear that it wasn’t part of natural variations. because it has happened many times before in the late Holocene, before new york city even existed.
“argument from consequences is a logical fallacy”??
i am talking about getting real and facing up to the very real possibility that, no matter how hard we try, we will not be able to mitigate our CO2 and warming.
I’m talking about preparing for the future, psychologically and practically.
If we don’t have everything to lose, then we are not serving ourselves or others by engaging in despair-oriented rhetoric, implying that the world will be irretrievably degraded if we don’t somehow manage to lower CO2 to 1850 levels.
You may not value peace of mind and planning for the future, but you aren’t everyone.
recapcha
hold onto my email though
when your ideal “climate warrior” regime sweeps to power you can look me up and send me to the Gulag for my climate thoughtcrimes…
https://notendur.hi.is/~oi/AG-326%202006%20readings/Ice%20sheets%20and%20glacial%20cycles/Dansgaard_NATURE93.pdf
“This emphasizes the question of whether the Holocene will remain stable in spite of the growing atmospheric pollution.”
blinders on, friends…
I see things have now moved to “selective” praise of Nate Silver. Fair enough. The perceived weaknesses of climate science have always come down to statistics and projections. Those who appeal to authority on climate science and also reject appeals to authority on statistics and projections may find themselves in a mental tug of war. Some people accept that honest people can look at these areas and disagree, others don’t.
Somehow the elephant in the room that politicians routinely dismiss polls they aren’t favored in is commonplace hasn’t managed to merit serious discussion.
#83. Susan…you say you read Mann’s response 3 times, but just wondering if you actually ever read Silver’s chapter the first time? And if you haven’t, what does that say?
201JCH says:
12 Nov 2012 at 1:13 PM
NASA Study Goes to Earth’s Core for Climate Insights
…..
As it happens I am step ahead
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
If in unlikely case any of the listed contributors are interested I would be happy to forward details.
FYI,
The list of the “BBC 28” has now been outed, despite the courts ruling. See any of the contrarian blogs for details.
H
Comment by Hank
1081.FYI,
The list of the “BBC 28″ has now been outed, despite the courts ruling. See any of the contrarian blogs for details.
Welcome to the Bore Hole Hank
What vote counting has to do with climate? The problem of extrapolating small polling sample onto entire US population looks like trivial exercise compared to intricacies of atmospheric physics.
At No. 3, Jim says, “…because of the enormous and rapid increase in GHGs,…”
This is incorrect. In 1900, one cubic meter of pure dry air (PDA) at STP contained 0.00055 kg of CO2. Currently (Oct 2012), one cubic meter of PDA at STP contains 0.00077 kg of CO2. After 112 years the amount of CO2 in PDA has increased by only a small amount.
In 1900, world fuel consumption (WFC) was about 1,000 million tons per year. By 2000, WFC was about 12,000 million tons per year. Where did all the CO2 from combustion of fuels go? Most of it went into the oceans and was converted to calcium carbonate by shell-forming organisms.
BTW, There is much less CO2 in real air than is determined by analysis of a local sample of PDA as is done at MLO. In real air, which is the technical term for local air at the intake ports of air separation plants, there is always water vapor and lots of it. Also real air is never at STP.
For example, in tropical air at 32 deg C and at one atm pressure, the maximum concentration of water vapor (i.e., when it is raining) is 50,800 ppmv (0.0408 kg per cubic meter). The amount of CO2 in this air is 0.00041 kg per cubic meter.
If you make the assumption that there is a uniform distribution of GHGs in the atmosphere, then climate model calculations are flawed.
To all they state that peer-review is good enough to ensure the necessary openness of views in science and also to all that think the open debate is wrong. Please bear with my rather longish coment.
First, peer review is not perfect. The growing number of retractions of papers that went through the process (see http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/ and Fang, F.; Steen, R. & Casadevall, A. Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012, 109, 17028-17033) shows that the growing number of papers and journals and the pressures of publish or perish take their toll. Recent withdrawal of Gergis et al (to stick with the climate studies) shows that the role of actors outside the process may be beneficial.
But the errors in the process (sloppy review, buddy networks, or even threats to replace the editors if certain papers get published) are not the whole problem with peer review. Much worse is the effect of promoting mediocrity (Thurner, S. & Hanel, R. Peer-review in a world with rational scientists: Toward selection of the average European Physical Journal B-Condensed Matter, 2011, 84, 707). Controversial publications have much less chances to get through. Especially in politically active fields.
Still, peer-review is only a small part of the problem. Much worse are the (unintended, I’m sure) effects of the modern grant based funding of research.
First, the grant review boards tend to focus on their own views and judge proposals by the degree of fit (called research quality). The focus on results gets even worse effects. [As a side remark: imagine what theme of a grant application would a young scientist have to write that would cover the topics solved by Einstein during the annus mirabilis – 1905 – photoelectric effect, brownian motion, special relativity and the equivalence of mass/energy. Can we imagine a funding body supporting such mal-defined proposal today?] So proposals that are outside the mainstream have less chances of getting approved. Especially in polarized fields, where there is majority/minority split.
Second, the focus on results. The grant scheme forces publications. This distorts science seriously, as it increases the drawer effect. Research that has not led to significant results gets unpublished (the drawer effect, Scargle, J. Publication Bias (The “File-Drawer Problem”) in Scientific Inference Arxiv preprint physics/9909033, 1999; Rosenthal, R. The `file drawer problem’ and tolerance for null results Psychological bulletin, 1979, 86, 638-641). And we have to remember that null results and repetition of other people’s results is a core part of science.
This is even worse for highly emotional / politicized fields. Here, the scientist whose research leads to a null result (e.g. no expected rise in XXX) is faced with a double problem. Not only the lack of effect is less “interesting” that its presence but also such paper might serve as ammunition for the despised denier movement (and this would be contrary to the scientists own views or harm his/her career prospects within the majority).
So, the question is: how much of the apparent consensus in climate science is due to pressures of peer review, grant schemes favoring certain research directions and the drawer effects?
COMING BACK TO THE OPEN DISCUSSION FORUM.
My approach would be to go MUCH FURTHER than the Dutch. I would advise to invite th sceptics (deniers, if you prefer) INTO YOUR RESEARCH teams. Write to Antony Watts, to Steve McIntyre, to Judith Curry, to the Heartland Institute – or any hated denier think-tank, and ask them to participate or to indicate someone who could participate in your project. Give such members ALL the privileges of the team members, especially access to all raw data and processes, if necessary pay them as you pay the current ones. Involve them, listen to them. Allow the voice of dissent within your groups. Perhaps even, if there is no way of reaching consensus, allow separate publications or conclusions. And do all of this openly.
What would happen?
First, this would disarm the main argument that the current climate science is a closed, self-serving community with specific political goals. Second, the quality of the research would go up: it is better to correct the mistakes before publication than be corrected and humiliated as Gergis et al were after it.
You can be sure that the ones that would agree to the rigours of research would not be trolling. And if the denier community refuses such open invitations … well this would be a true PR coup.
Do not fear that they would steal the data or abuse the process. The strength of moral obligations resulting from being within a team is a good prognostic. The worst that you would be faced with would be if their views turn out to be right. But that would not be truly a bad thing for a scientist – to be corrected and to see views in a new way? On the other hand, by involving the sceptics there is a chance of convincing them – much stronger that via blog discussions or court cases.
Pete,
While some may have been shocked and oblivious, those in the know, knew it was an uphill battle. The positive results after the first debate, and the gains made in the polls, indicated that Romney might overcome Obama’s lead com election day. It was the trend in the polls, not the polls themselves, that gave them hope. Even headed into November, the President still had a slight lead. All the momentum stopped when Sandy hit. Make no mistake, this was quite beneficial to the Obama campaign. All media attention was directed to the Storm, and the President’s response was at the center. Romney was helpless, as he could do nothing to stem the positive coverage given to Obama. This effectively stemmed Romeny’s gains, and led to a slight reversal towards Obama. This was picked up in the polls, and borne out on election day. There is always optimism towards ones own candidate, but even those on the inside knew it was going to be a dogfight. The closeness of the final vote showed that.
To Susan Anderson, #105
“PAber, your recommendation of Anthony Watts does your scientific credentials no good. Once again, may I suggest you identify your field within physics as you claim authority? As I said before, real top line physicists with healthy egos prefer not to claim expertise outside their own knowledge, so there is no shame in saying what you don’t know. There is, however, shame in claiming to know what you don’t. ”
Susan,
You touch two topics, let me deal with the personal first. I am not one of the topmost scientists, but I may claim 20+ years of doing solid state theory, Hirsch index 12, 40+ publications. So I know how science works reasonably well. Grant politics, drawer effects, buddy-based peer-review etc. – topics which are harsh reality, yet which you conveniently omit from your reply. The expertise I claim in these posts is related to practice of science, not to climate research as such.
As for the allergic reaction to Anthony Watts and WUWT (see also the reply by dhogaza #91). I find this rather curious. Is it because he is quite effective in his actions? First: was Watts original idea of checking the quality of the US surface weather stations and documenting their poor siting and maintenance unscientific and decrimental to science – or just the opposite? Second, was the discovery of errors in Gergis et al, which appeared on his web page (which eventually led to retraction of the paper) unscientific? (Mind you – the paper DID pass the peer-review, so the “normal” process of science failed. Still, the authors managed to get public attention and a few press releases in June, which did show the intentions. On the occassion of the retraction they did not call the press…).
Moreover: I suggested writing to known sceptics to ask them if they know someone who would have the capabilities and willingness to participate in research projects. If you personally disagree with Watts so much, maybe there would be some other sceptics. What is there to lose – except, possibly, that some possible bias could be checked for within the research process?
The record of accredited scientists is so abyssmal in spite of their consensus there is little reason to limit the discussion to the annointed. Shouldn’t a criterion be who is actually correct, rather than who abides by scripture.
As a counterpoint to the theme here that skeptics do a disservice to humanity I argue that it is actually carbon theology that does disservice by stiffling progress on discovering the real causes of rapid climate change with endless filibuster about carbon dioxide. Climate science per se is only a small part of the understanding necessary to see that we face enormous climatic and environmental risks but that CO2 is almost certainly not a major factor.
98 Bart Strengers says:
16 Nov 2012 at 11:01 Am
“- Since it is indeed difficult to find qualified ‘skeptic’ scientists (or scientists that are among the most critical ones) I would like to know who you think we should invite to take part in the discussions on our site. The next topic will be on Sea Level Rise: who would you suggest?”
I wish you well with your project. Getting opposing factions to talk to each other can only be a good thing. If you want to invite a non-consensus voice on sea level change, I think Nils-Axel Mörner would contribute to a lively debate.
How to restore trust in scientists… What will you do if you don’t like the answer? An answer that takes the shape of, abandoning the public space altogether, both as scientific activists and as recipients of funding? Scientists would become independent again, and should the fruits of their limited resources have utility to the public, perhaps they might (re)gain their trust.
Perhaps you’ll find that trust is not so important to gain after all.
259 Jim Larsen 269 Hank Roberts and others,
Ken Burns seemed anxious to use the dust bowl history as forewarning of the problems of global warming. That is a little curious, since the main problem was lack of rain for 6 years, at a time when global warming had not been launched. But that is not my main point.
That point is the way Burns featured a preachy commenter who told us the folly of introducing new uses of soil in areas hitherto stable, however minimally productive that historic usage had been.
Apparently, neither Ken Burns nor his commenter watched the documentary by Burns himself very carefully. Solutions to the dust bowl problem involved contour farming and practices that retained stubble as much as possible and government purchased land that was put to permanent grassland of historic types. But the main reliable solution was widespread irrigation in the area. They got the idea from the previous solution which was abundant rainfall for a few years. After that the farmers returned to crops that would make farms profitable for relatively many people. This type of agriculture provides more people with jobs than cattle grazing operations. And it also feeds large numbers of people.
Yes, the Ogallala (spelling?)aquifer is being heavily used to do this. The projected depletion is a big concern, but the implied solution by Burns is to stop using irrigation and revert to historic land usage. I would suggest that the world can not handle this kind of Luddite mentality, and that a far better solution would be to charge the aquifer. Yes, we could even think on a larger scale about universal irrigation which could mitigate whatever climate events that are on the way, global warming or not.
I am not sure he had any concern for the Ogallala aquifer but it is fortunate that Bill McKibben used this as leverage to kill the Keystone pipeline, uh, for a while. I am less excited about the McKibben campaign to kill coal since that seems likely to make the great depression and dust bowl casualties look like fun and games.
We know how to charge aquifers, at least on small scales, from experience in Silicon Valley, where the local aquifer has been threatened with depletion for many years along with a consequence of salt water from San Francisco Bay then entering the aquifer. A water control system was put in place about 50 years ago, and expanded various times since as population burgeoned. This has been quite adequate as evidenced by the fact that we still use fresh water from wells that tap into the aquifer only a few miles from that Bay.
Wisdom in the use of land is certainly called for, but there is a higher need to feed the people of the world.
Hopefully we can reverse the foolishness of using feed grains to make motor fuel. A place to get a grip is in the way we build automobiles; we can even still move about fast and safely and independently as most of us want to do.
However, we still have the shock that there was 4 million acres of land bought by the government and put to grassland service only. With modest supply of water, this could be made highly productive with sensible agriculture, or even used to establish standing forests as a CO2 capture and storage system.
For land that would be transformed into productive farms, much would be cultivated using large farm machines as they now do in the dust bowl areas. For land used for crops that require hand labor, the Miastrada Dragon tractor is intended to make the labor must more productive and much less injurious to the people involved. Guess what! You can see this in early testing on youtube by clicking the website link shown.
Re Susan Anderson: I fault McKibben for being foolishly misguided as to what we realistically might do, not that he is not well intended. Such men are dangerous.
Jim Bullis, Miastrada Company says:
20 Nov 2012 at 8:02 PM
259 Jim Larsen 269 Hank Roberts and others,
Ken Burns seemed anxious to use the dust bowl history as forewarning of the problems of global warming. That is a little curious, since the main problem was lack of rain for 6 years, at a time when global warming had not been launched. But that is not my main point.
That point is the way Burns featured a preachy commenter who told us the folly of introducing new uses of soil in areas hitherto stable, however minimally productive that historic usage had been.
Apparently, neither Ken Burns nor his commenter watched the documentary by Burns himself very carefully. Solutions to the dust bowl problem involved contour farming and practices that retained stubble as much as possible and government purchased land that was put to permanent grassland of historic types. But the main reliable solution was widespread irrigation in the area. They got the idea from the previous solution which was abundant rainfall for a few years. After that the farmers returned to crops that would make farms profitable for relatively many people. This type of agriculture provides more people with jobs than cattle grazing operations. And it also feeds large numbers of people.
Yes, the Ogallala (spelling?)aquifer is being heavily used to do this. The projected depletion is a big concern, but the implied solution by Burns is to stop using irrigation and revert to historic land usage. I would suggest that the world can not handle this kind of Luddite mentality, and that a far better solution would be to charge the aquifer. Yes, we could even think on a larger scale about universal irrigation which could mitigate whatever climate events that are on the way, global warming or not.
I am not sure he had any concern for the Ogallala aquifer but it is fortunate that Bill McKibben used this as leverage to kill the Keystone pipeline, uh, for a while. I am less excited about the McKibben campaign to kill coal since that seems likely to make the great depression and dust bowl casualties look like fun and games.
We know how to charge aquifers, at least on small scales, from experience in Silicon Valley, where the local aquifer has been threatened with depletion for many years along with a consequence of salt water from San Francisco Bay then entering the aquifer. A water control system was put in place about 50 years ago, and expanded various times since as population burgeoned. This has been quite adequate as evidenced by the fact that we still use fresh water from wells that tap into the aquifer only a few miles from that Bay.
Wisdom in the use of land is certainly called for, but there is a higher need to feed the people of the world.
Hopefully we can reverse the foolishness of using feed grains to make motor fuel. A place to get a grip is in the way we build automobiles; we can even still move about fast and safely and independently as most of us want to do.
However, we still have the shock that there was 4 million acres of land bought by the government and put to grassland service only. With modest supply of water, this could be made highly productive with sensible agriculture, or even used to establish standing forests as a CO2 capture and storage system.
For land that would be transformed into productive farms, much would be cultivated using large farm machines as they now do in the dust bowl areas. For land used for crops that require hand labor, the Miastrada Dragon tractor is intended to make the labor must more productive and much less injurious to the people involved. Guess what! You can see this in early testing on youtube by clicking the website link shown.
Re Susan Anderson: I fault McKibben for being foolishly misguided as to what we realistically might do, not that he is not well intended. Such men are dangerous.
201 203 McKinney, McDonnald
Before we get on a war footing, maybe we should think carefully about what we are fighting for.
Belief in the results of physics is one issue, but there are also issues regarding the wisdom of various actions. There seems to be much adherence to solutions that require austerity in human behaviour where something like religious fervor is taking over.
This is part of what clouds the credibility of the global warming science, for no real scientist would engage in dogma of science.
The fact Nate Silver’s name is even on this thread proves how political AGW has become.
The other clear conclusion that can be drawn from the paper with regards to regional fluctuations is that, all other things being equal, internal and natural variability on climatic timescales(30yrs Avg weather) can be responsible for temp, degree scale, anomalies, and also variations in other metrics, such as precipitation.
It’s fairly obvious that there are inherent difficulties in using these regional variations as indicators of CO2 driven Climate Change per se.
Regional changes in seasonal precipitation patterns for example have been/are used routinely to do this, but the models suggest these changes can be accounted for within the bounds of internal variability with some ease.
So quite an important paper I would have thought.
Ray Ladbury #326,
“The problem with Anderson is that he makes the solution sound easy”
Anderson makes the solution sound simple. That is not the same as easy. In fact the answer is impossible, especially if the scientists continue to bury their heads in the sand, and refuse to warn of the very real dangers we all face.
Anderson accuses the scientists of being colluding the politicians, but that is unfair. The scientist are fooling themselves, and not telling the politicians the truth. They just aren’t willing to face up to the facts: that we are heading for disaster; that there is no way to stop it; and it is going to happen in OUR lifetime. The only glimmer of hope is if the scientists wake from their stupor, admit that the global outbreak of wild fires from Canada to Australia, the heat waves in Europe, Russia and the US, the droughts in Australia, Russia and Texas, the floods in Queensland, the US and now in the UK are all the result of climate change. Not only that, but they are bound to get worse over the next decade.
But if you cannot see how critical the situation is then I suppose it is no surprise that other scientist feel the same. They have got where they are by being optimistic, and since hope springs eternal there is little chance of them seeing the light.
Given the knowledge we have today regarding past climate change, I’m not sure describing Arrhenius’ climate model as a “paradigm” is justified. Arrhenius’ was worried about the ice ages, and wanted to predict them. Today there are well over thirty different climate models which attempt to predict the next ice age. Sadly, this question is unsolved. If the past is anything to go by, a drop in sea level of around 0.6 meters per century over the next 10000 years would be catastrophic for the northern hemisphere, since the water from the ocean would end up as ice on the land.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
So it’s not really about whether Arrhenius is right or wrong, since his model of climate change does not hindcast past changes credibility enough. Quite a red herring that one, arguing that without positive feedback we cannot explain the ice age cycles, even though we cannot explain them anyway. Over thirty different climate models attempting to predict an ice ages does not constitute a paradigm!
Dave – comment #30, which you mentioned in your post, was posted by “Dan H,” so I assumed you had read some of the thread, and were aware of the discussion here.
My problem with your link is that 1) the graph does not seem to match the BE graph and 2) while the BE web site lists their data and how they got it, there is no way to check the GE data. So why would the GE data be different, and why would it not be explained on their web site? I did not accuse anyone of committing fraud. Since I do not pay taxes in Alaska, that would be your worry, not mine. We have enough trouble keeping official reports honest in Texas, my home state:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/10/12/342210/flood-gate-perry-sea-level-rise-censorship/
Surely, you must realize that this is a politically charged issue? I do not apologize for the observation. There is simply too much at stake not to have an honest debate.
So tell me – you are a scientist, and you seem to have picked a side here. Why are the two charts so different? Specifically:
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/alaska
the first chart, compared with:
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html
the second chart.
Since you appear to support the findings of the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, do you also support the summary found at the end of this PDF, which is coauthored by some of the same scientists?
http://www.housemajority.org/coms/cli/uaf_gerhard_kramm.pdf
flixible – what Dave Person is trying to say is still not clear to me. Maybe it is clear to you. It is not clear to me. It appeared to me that his first link was defending the statement in #30 for reasons I have mentioned in #34 – primarily, the difference between the two charts. This appears to be a question of science. I agree, his second link in general seems to strongly confirm the initial post. I got that, so I was confused as to Dave’s point. If I got it wrong, I am perfectly willing to admit that. In none of my statements am I accusing anyone of fraud.
#31 – Well I guess I’m confused. You adjusted the observational data by subtracting out an estimate of natural variability and then declared success? The difference between this and what I stated is semantics. Clearly unwinding natural variability vs. AGW is a problem not yet resolved, and unlikely to be so over the next few decades. There are secondary effects and feedbacks and unknown unknowns, etc. So its unclear how this is anything but a hand wave.
Arguing that there is not a plateau makes no sense, there is. Anybody who can read a graph can see this. Arguing that natural variability may be suppressing the expected continued rise/acceleration of temperatures is a valid * theory *. The models have been consistently over estimating temperature rise, this is plainly evident. The question is why. Short term fluctuations? Another valid * theory * is that the effective climate sensitivity to CO2 in the models is too high.
It is noted that natural variability works in both directions, if it suppressing temperatures now, it could have just as easily been equally enhancing them during the last quarter century. Once again this points to a lower CS.
What I find disappointing is that while there seems to be a great deal of effort to explain away poor performance in the models such as the stated theory (which may be correct), there appears to be little effort in general to ask the question of whether the carbon driver is over-amped. When the trends don’t match and the models are unproven, I’ll put my money on the models are broken.
post 31 – Scharf is substantially correct. The paper changed the “actual” temperature increases, not the projections. That is, the change was made to the relationship between the projections and the future trends, which is the topic of the paper. If projections don’t work, one can usually find some reasonable reason why they do not, but that does not make the projections any better or prove why the projections were off. I am not sure that the correction for ENSO is justified, given the simultaneous relationship between ENSO and ocean temperature.
i do hope the gents and Ladies of Climatology have not forgotten the sun– it appears to be increasing in its activity for the last 30 to 50 yrs which i might suggest increases volcanic activity on earth thus adding more particles to the atmosphere and thus…well, its all so foggy isnt it?
Thankfully we have these climate scientists to explain everything…but my own view is– if massive ice sheets are melting faster, while also growing at other places in the world, its a change in part from movement of prevailing wind patterns, which in turn brings melt to some others and more snow and thus ice to others…and the sun, again dont forget, its more active Lately. It is warming Earth. That will make it much easier for all you climatologists to take a year or 2 off from work…and no need for more govt grants while on vacation … Lets play fair now shall we ?
Toby,
Snide comments aside, you have it backwards. The null hypothesis is that Arctic sea ice is reversible, ascertations otherwise need to be backed up with scientific research. The Greenland ice sheet is entirely applicable, as many assert that the Arctic will not be completely ice free, but maintain a minimal area attached to Greenland.
It is said that there has been no significant global warming for the last 16 years, during which time CO2 emissions worldwide have significantly and relentlessly increased. Since CO2 causes warming there must be an equal and opposite compensating cooling influence marching in lockstep. This cannot be a coincidence; it must be driven by CO2 itself. What can it be?
Steve,
Adding to the misinformation is the statement, “2012 warmest year on record so far.” According to GISS, 2012 is the 7th warmest year (based on the first 10 months of data).
So it continues to go.
Useful comment MA Roger at 44.
Last time I looked at Jason 2 SLR was running at about 2mm/year.
Church & White keep running a graph showing 3.2mm/year 1993-2012.
Your analysis shows 1930-2007 running flat at about 2mm/year and by moving the end point to 2009 (1930-2009) you get to 3mm/year. Such is the power of selection of time periods. Only 2 year extension in 80 years has made so much difference?
For sure the rate is not 3.2mm/year but something between 2 and 3mm/year for those 80 year periods.
Estimates of land ice melt run as high as 2mm/year which leaves no steric rise at all with a 2mm/year SLR and not much at 2-3mm/year.
Not near enough to support a warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m