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2040 Responses to "The Bore Hole"
absays
Igor Yashayaev @79,
You’re right that considering the totality of the AMOC process, the stronger deep conviction in the subpolar gyre (SPG) indicates that the AMOC is not slowing down and even, I would add, is going stronger and stronger. Why ? Because AMOC is being fed by water fluxes: cold water fluxes in the North and warm water fluxes in the tropics. Ice melting in the North causes stronger convection and inflation of the SPG, while global deforestation on lands, particularly tropical deforestation, causes increases in warm water fluxes as well, feeding the AMOC.
Stefan @79,
Weak AMOC -> SPNA cools -> stronger convection -> with some delay the AMOC recovers. That can explain the decadal oscillations we see.
1) North:
Ice Melting -> SPNAL cools -> stronger convection and SPNAL horizontal inflation (cold blob) -> AMOC not significantly impacted in the North (Pickart and al)
2) Tropics:
Global deforestation (particularly tropical) -> more warm water fluxes -> stronger AMOC
Decadal oscillations may be related to the cycle of life of vegetation.
in the 80’s Hanson was not confusing the PHONY global warming with ”climate”
YOU SHOULD BRUSH UP ON WHAT CLIMATE IS: -”there is no such a thing as ‘’earth’s global climate’’ same as there is no GLOBAL music– there are many INDEPENDENT different MICRO CLIMATES 1] Alpine climate 2] Mediterranean climate, 3] sea- level climate 4] high altitude climate 5] temperate climates 6] subtropical climate, 7] tropical climate 8] desert climate 9] rainforest climates 10] wet climate 11] dry climate, as in desert AND THEY KEEP CHANGING; wet climate gets dry occasionally b] even rains in the desert sometimes and improves. In the tropics is wet and dry -/- in subtropics and temperate climates changes four time a year, WITH EVERY season= migratory birds can tell you that; because they know much more about climate than all the Warmist foot-solders and all climate skeptics combined – on the polar caps climates change twice a year. Leading Warmist know that is no ”global warming” so they encompassed ”climatic changes” to confuse and con the ignorant – so that when is some extreme weather for few days on some corner of the planet, to use it as proof of their phony global warming and ignore that the weather is good simultaneously on the other 97% of the planet, even though is same amount of co2. In other words, they used the trick as: -”if you want to sell that the sun is orbiting around the earth -> you encompass the moon – present proofs that the moon is orbiting around the earth and occasionally insert that: the sun and moon rise from same place and set to the west, proof that the ”sun is orbiting around the earth” AND the trick works, because the Flat-Earthers called ”climate skeptics” are fanatically supporting 90% of the Warmist lies. Bottom line: if somebody doesn’t believe that on the earth climate exist and constantly changes, but is no global warming -> ”climate skeptic” shouldn’t be allowed on the street, unless accompanied by an adult. b] many micro-climates and they keep changing, but no such a thing as ”global climate”
Victorsays
218 nigelj: (quoting V) “One can’t, for example, claim a “long-term” warming trend over 120 years due to CO2 emissions”
nj: Nobody has claimed the warming trend since 1900 is ‘entirely’ CO2 emissions. Just that it mostly is.
V: No, it mostly isn’t. This is in fact the key piece of evidence, making all other claims irrelevant. During the first 40 years of the 20th century, CO2 emissions rose too slowly to have a significant influence on either global temperature or sea level rise. During the following 40 years, THERE WAS NO SIGNIFICANT TEMPERATURE RISE AT ALL. How can you possibly attribute a temperature rise to CO2 emissions when there was no such rise to begin with? Am I arguing with children?
The null hypothesis is natural climate variation. In order to overcome the null hypothesis it’s necessary to provide meaningful evidence that current temperatures are due largely to CO2 emissions rather than natural variation. When there is clearly NO correlation between CO2 emissions and temperatures for 80 years out of the last 120, that tells us the evidence is lacking and we have no reason to reject the null hypothesis. And sorry, but as I’ve stressed many times, excuses for a lack of evidence do NOT constitute actual evidence. Science is based on evidence, not explanations for lack of same.
Victorsays
As a little experiment I’ve decided to think a bit about the possibility that I and all the other skeptics were wrong and Hansen and Co. were right. Putting myself into the shoes of a true believer, totally convinced by Hansen’s prediction that the continued burning of fossil fuels will lead the world to disaster “unless something drastic is done,” what would I be feeling at this moment and what steps would I want to recommend to our world leaders in order to best head off, or at least mitigate this coming catastrophe?
Well, the first thing that comes to mind, as the threat most likely to appear on the horizon, would be the intensification of deadly heat waves. We’ve already seen two examples that many climate scientists have attributed to AGW: the devastating 2003 heat wave that struck Europe and the 2010 heat wave that proved so disastrous in Russia. Other outcomes, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, while certainly of concern, seem relatively remote, with consequences we can probably adapt to over time. And it looks as though things like more intense hurricanes, floods and droughts are going to be beyond our capacity to change, at least over the next 50 to 100 years, so we may just need to live with them.
However, there IS something we can do to mitigate heat waves, so for me the most urgent thing we could do right away would be for all governments to provide air conditioning units to as many people on the planet as possible. I myself would want to run out and buy another air conditioner as a backup to the one I already have, just in case it were to fail while temperatures are soaring to 100 degrees and above — as they certainly will just about everywhere if Hansen is right. For the world’s many homeless people, or those living in remote areas with no access to electricity, we would need to build air conditioned heat-wave shelters to preserve life when temperatures begin to soar above the limit of human endurance.
All this air conditioning would, of course, require a tremendous increase in power generation, which would almost inevitably lead to a surge in fossil fuel emissions, but as I see it, that can’t be helped.
As far as sea level rise is concerned, I think we would need to begin, as soon as possible, to erect massive sea walls around all the world’s major cities — a task that would require massive amounts of concrete — another source of CO2 emissions I’m afraid, but what other recourse would we have?
It seems to me, therefore, that our only option under such circumstances would be to make every attempt to forestall disaster in the near term — but at the expense of the long term, which, if Hansen and his colleagues are correct, would eventually lead to the effective extinction of the human race over the next 100 years or so. If I actually believed that (I do NOT), then I would have no recourse but to hope against hope that the doomsayers are wrong after all, because, if they are right, there would truly be no hope.
Victorsays
66 MartinJB says:
MJB: On drought, as pointed out already, Heller shows a graph of precipitation (problem 1 – not a direct measure of drought) for only a limited part of the Northwest (problem 2 – possible cherry-picking alert). The third problem is that the data starts at 1988, taking away the context from the previous decades.
V: Excuse me? Precipitation is not a direct measure of drought? You mean you can have both significant precipitation in a given area AND drought in that same area? Please explain. I’m all ears. As for the data starting at 1988, that’s when Hansen presented his forecast. FOREcast. Get it?
MJB: Victor then links to EPA data on an actual drought metric and states that he doesn’t see an increasing trend. Not trusting Victor’s eyes (or my own), I actually did a regression of the last 4 decades (basically of the most dramatic warming period, and most likely to be relevant to Hansen’s study). Guess what? I got a trend showing drought.
V: In other words you fiddled with the data and the method until you got a result that satisfied you. A glance at that graph tells us that any trend you might have found means little to nothing.
MJB: I got an increasing trend over the last two decades as well. Now, neither trend was significant, but then Hansen did state that it was only a “tendency”, so I think significance is not necessarily a deal-breaker.
V: Interesting. Neither trend was significant. So what did you prove? And the “tendency” was a prediction by Hansen that did not pan out, as Heller demonstrated. Hansen was wrong. Live with it.
MJB:So, on drought, I’d say Hansen did OK.
V: I’d say he flunked.
MJB: On the “huge increase” in hot days in two regions, Heller doesn’t state which scenario this based on.
V: No need to say. It was yet another failed prediction. ’nuff said.
MJB: If it was for scenario A, I am not remotely surprised if we vastly undershot as total forcings didn’t remotely resemble scenario A. But this is Heller, a serial liar, reporting this. He gets NO benefit of the doubt. I would also add that region forecasts are still the least robust, so I can’t imagine they had much skill back in 1988. To ding Hansen on this, even if it’s an honest ding (doubtful), is just silly.
V: C’mon MJB, fess up. Hansen got it wrong. You are the one who is being silly.
MJB: I just don’t believe Hansen made the prediction that was reported about no summer sea ice in the Arctic.
V: Well that’s one thing I really like about Heller. He documents everything. The report is there in black and white. If you can track down evidence that Hansen ever retracted it, I’ll retract my claim that he got it wrong.
MJB: But what’s interesting here is just how incredibly dishonest Heller was in his video. He showed a graph of annual volume figures that shows volumes staying pretty steady. WOW! I thought for sure they had been falling pretty steadily (note the graph to which Kevin linked). Ahh… Heller showed the data for ONE DAY from each year. Who does he think he’s fooling? (Oh wait, we KNOW who he fooled!)
V: Yes indeed he did, and thanks for pointing that out. I must apologize because I missed that. And yes, the ice volume graph he presented IS misleading, which, I admit, alters my opinion of Heller’s honesty. But it does not alter the facts. Hansen predicted no summer sea ice 5 to 10 years after 2008. Yet we still find a significant amount arctic of sea ice in the summer of 2018, 10 years later. He was, once again, wrong.
MJB: The lower Manhattan thing is well known and wildly misinterpreted.
V: I keep hearing that. But in precisely what sense has it been misinterpreted? A reporter interviewed him and reported it, and I’ve never seen any evidence that he retracted it, only that he claimed he really meant 40 years, not 20 — which I duly noted. What do you know about this incident that I don’t?
MJB: Finally, when people talk about the skill demonstrated by Hansen’s model from the seminal 1988 paper, they are talking about one thing: the skill in predicting global warming based on total forcings.
V: What skill? He provided an alarming forecast and then fudged by proposing a much less alarming (and far more likely) scenario B. It’s called hedging your bets. I’ve seen several graphs comparing scenario A, scenario B and scenario C with the actual data and every one is different. Looks to me like the data is closest to scenario C, but hey — you pays your money and you takes your choice. Isn’t that what “the science” is all about?
MJB: Oh, one more thing. THIS is why Victor and his ilk are deniers. They accept uncritically almost any tripe put out by fellow members of the denialati. But when Mann links to some graphs of stratospheric temperatures, he is dismissed as a mathematician and of no account relative the august geographer who wrote a report published by a think tank. Why a geographer’s comments about satellite-measured stratosphere temperatures would hold more weight is beyond me.
V: I never accept anything uncritically, as should be clear from every one of my posts. And it wasn’t Mann, but Gavin who offered a tweet in lieu of an actual analysis. The “geographer” in question actually studied the data before reporting his conclusions, and wrote it up in detail for anyone to review and critique. The “geographer’s” comments hold more weight than the mathematician’s tweet because 1. they are based on the scrupulous analysis of actual data and 2. a monograph beats a tweet, sorry, but it actually does.
The bottom line, MJB, is that every prediction called out by Heller was WRONG. And what is more, there is nothing straightforward about his scenarios A, B and C, which have been interpreted in many different ways.
Moreover, even if all of Hansen’s predictions were correct, there is nothing in any of them that supports his principal argument: that CO2 emissions were responsible. Natural variation is the null hypothesis on all these fronts. To claim otherwise requires proof, not dire predictions.
debunkersays
Well, the idea of greenhouse gases as a cause of global warming, and particularly CO2, is not what one can call “strong” and “science -based”, only pseudo-scientific political organizations like the IPCC support it thanks to more than one billion of dollars invested each day into the theory at Earth’s scale. Angstrom and Woods independently and experimentally debunked the idea more than one century ago. Bio and geo-physical effects of global deforestation are way more potent than any greenhouse gases. The Earth is not a black body and there is no radiative balance. Radiative imbalance is needed for life to sustain itself on Earth thanks to photosynthesis. What the IPCC does not say is that replacing dioxygen with carbon dioxyde through a combustion process increases the heat capacity of air, and thus decreases its temperature for the same amount of energy entering into it.
Victorsays
Well, well. The almighty Tamino has chosen to lower himself by responding to some of my humble comments. I’m honored. Coincidentally I debunked the same argument he now rehashes (from a blog post of 2014) in my book “The Unsettled Science of Climate Change.” Here’s the gist:
“It’s clever, I’ll give him that. But, yes, it’s a just a trick, one of many examples of how easy it is to deceive oneself (and others) with statistics. The basis for the trick is that old standby of magicians for centuries: misdirection. Tamino’s red line tells us that, indeed, as no one would dispute, the years between 1998 and 2013 were especially warm compared to the period between 1979 and 1997, and that is why most of the data points lie above the red line, because the red line predicts absolute temperature, telling us nothing at all about the rate at which temperature changes. As he himself states, “All sixteen years were hotter than expected even according to the still-warming prediction [red line], so of course they also were above the no-warming [blue line] prediction.” Yes. Precisely. Because they were hotter. Not because there was no leveling after 1998. The leveling of the warming trend remains clearly visible on the Hadcrut graph, regardless of where those dots appear in relation to any red or blue line. That red line serves a function analogous to the matador’s red cape, directing our attention away from the actual hiatus toward the very different issue of absolute heat. Literally misdirection.”
May I add that references to the hiatus can be found scattered very widely in the peer reviewed climate science literature, often described as a perplexing puzzle that needs to be addressed. And indeed, Tamino’s effort is only one among a great many other efforts to explain this inconvenient development away.
Victorsays
109 CCHolley says:
Steven Emmerson @101
“Look up Occam’s razor for why this is a non-scientific argument.”
CC: LOL. Victor believes that these unknown natural drivers ARE the simpler explanation. To him it doesn’t matter that they are unknown or that there is no known possible physical explanation of how such a driver could work creating heat within the boundaries of the well understood physical laws of thermodynamics and heat transfer theory. The possibility of such is the simpler explanation just because Victor says so. Natural variation! Simpler! Damned the physics or the evidence. Doesn’t matter. Simpler! Why? Because Victor with no formal training in the hard sciences says so.
V: Sheesh. This is getting tiresome. Occam’s Razor applies when it’s necessary to decide between two or more conflicting theories. Natural variation is NOT a theory. It’s the null hypothesis. There is no need to provide evidence for its existence, especially since its been the driver of global temperature since the origin of the Earth. Unless you prefer to believe that aliens from outer space are controlling it.
AGW is based on the notion that, since the industrial revolution, man made greenhouse gases (especially CO2) have taken over from natural variation as the principal “control knob” of global temperature. This is a radically new idea and as such requires proof. Need I add: extraordinary theories require extraordinary proof.
Victorsays
104
nigelj says:
nj: Hansen has also long predicted that the antarctic ice sheets could become unstable due to the ice shelf issue, and evidence for this along with a significant acceleration in the melting of antarctic ice has been detected this year and reported in the media. So Hansen has been right about most things.
“The new finding that the eventual loss of a major section of West Antarctica’s ice sheet “appears unstoppable” was not completely unexpected by scientists who study this area. The study, led by glaciologist Eric Rignot at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine, follows decades of research and theory suggesting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is inherently vulnerable to change.
Antarctica is so harsh and remote that scientists only began true investigation of its ice sheet in the 1950s. It didn’t take long for the verdict on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to come in. “Unstable,” wrote Ohio State University glaciologist John Mercer in 1968. It was identified then and remains today the single largest threat of rapid sea level rise. . .
In his 1968 paper, Mercer called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet a “uniquely vulnerable and unstable body of ice.” Mercer based his statement on geologic evidence that West Antarctica’s ice had changed considerably many, many millennia ago at times when the ice sheets of East Antarctica and Greenland had not”
Thus what Hansen “predicted” is a condition that evidently began “many millennia ago,” long before the beginnings of the industrial revolution.
Moreover,
“Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it’s being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” (https://phys.org/news/2014-06-major-west-antarctic-glacier-geothermal.html)
AND
“Scientists have uncovered the largest volcanic region on Earth – two kilometres below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica.
Given the presence of so much geothermal heat from below, plus the likelihood that the process by which West Antarctica is being eroded began thousands of years ago, the notion that we can somehow stop or even slow this process by cutting back on CO2 emissions strikes me as the sheerest of sheer folly.
Victorsays
127 nigelj says:
“Heres the “pause”. Victor likes “eyeballing” graphs:
Actually, if you eliminate the unusually strong El Nino years of 1998, 2010 and 2016-17, you can easily spot the pause, even on the graph you’ve chosen to display (one of many, each one different).
And here’s the analysis of Weart’s graph I provided in my book:
“Let’s do the math. The numbers in the leftmost column represent degrees Celsius. Each one of the little ticks represents .05 degrees. Following the graph from the late 70s to the late 90s we see a rise from approximately minus .2 to plus .6, a temperature increase of .8 degrees. From 1998 to 2014, however, the rise is from .6 to .7 – an increase of only .1 degree. The “record breaking” year 2014 was only one tick warmer than the preceding record breaker: a mere .05 degrees. And every single one of those record breaking 21st century years were within only two ticks of one another . . .
The late 20th century rise that initially concerned so many was thus 8 times greater than the rise over the last 16 years, any “record-breaking” years notwithstanding. This is the hiatus. Any claim pointing to broken temperature records in recent years that does not also remind us how narrow the differences are is, very simply: dishonest. While the hiatus is clearly visible on literally all the various readings as displayed on an array of graphs, the story is most meaningfully conveyed by the numbers: a rise of .8 degrees over 20 years of the 20th century vs. only .1 degree over the last 16 years.”
Reiss: While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.” . . .
When did he say this will happen?
Within 20 or 30 years. And remember we had this conversation in 1988 or 1989.
Does he still believe these things?
Yes, he still believes everything. I talked to him a few months ago and he said he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.
V: Seems to me that Hansen had his chance to clarify the terms of his prediction, with respect to the 20 or 30 year timing AND the CO2 doubling. Yet, according to Reiss what he said was that “he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.” No mention of CO2 doubling.
So I’m sorry, but I remain skeptical of the latest version of this story, which sounds contrived to get Hansen off the hook.
118 CCHolley: Currently CO2 levels are up about 130 ppm with another 150 ppm needed for the doubling. We are not even 50% there.
Thanks for the reminder, CC. Now if Reiss had asked Hansen about the possibility of what might happen in 20 or 30 or 40 years given a doubling of CO2 levels, I’d think that Hansen, as someone certainly knowledgeable about CO2 levels, would have responded that such a question makes no sense, as we we won’t be anywhere near that point in 20, 30 or 40 years. So I’m sorry, I realize that any attempt to question the integrity of one of the high priests of the climate change cult is bound to scandalize just about everyone posting here, but I, as an agnostic, have no such compunctions.
Marco says:
Victor, explain me how this timeline works in your little theory that Hansen bullied Reiss into changing his story:
a) the Salon article that mentions 20 years (no further caveats) is from 2001
b) the Salon article was an interview about Reiss’ book “The Coming Storm”
c) the book, which was written before the interview, mentions 40 years AND the caveat of doubling of CO2
V: The book wasn’t published until 2004.
Victorsays
From my book: “There has been no lack of . . . efforts to account for the hiatus by considering, or reconsidering, certain factors (and conveniently ignoring others), or adjusting the data in such a way as to produce the desired result. Each new publication offers a different explanation. Few attempt to replicate any of the earlier ones. As time goes by, and carefully contrived models fail to mesh with the most recent data, new factors and adjustments are retroactively stirred into the mix, so the most up-to-date findings can be represented to the world as definitive.”
“Various studies have debunked the idea of a pause, or hiatus, in global warming—the contention that global surface temperatures stopped rising during the first decade of this century. The arguments for and against “the pause” were somewhat muted until June 2015, when scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a paper in Science saying that it had slightly revised the sea surface temperatures it had been citing for the 1900s. The measurement methods, based on sensors in the engine intake ports of ships, had been flawed, NOAA said. The revised methodology also meant that sea surface temperatures during the 2000s had been slightly higher than reported. NOAA adjusted both records, which led to a conclusion that global surface temperatures during the 2000s were indeed higher than they had been in previous decades. No hiatus.”
V: For me this new study, published after I wrote my book, is simply one more in the long long list of attempts to nullify the hiatus. For one thing, it neglects either to replicate or in any way support any of the earlier studies, thus not only invalidating them but exposing the bias on which they were based, as their reliance on supposedly faulty data nevertheless produced (surprise surprise) the same desired result.
More fundamentally, it is of the utmost importance that any attempt to retrospectively adjust long-accepted data in any field be conducted under the strictest controls. Adjusting data is not simply one type of project among others since flawed or biased results can have a significant effect on all future research. There is a very good reason why double-blind experiments are regarded as so important in the medical field, since, as is well known, there is always the danger that any result could be unconsciously influenced by the experimenter’s bias. And as is well known, Dr. Karl, who directed this study, has an agenda which would make him especially vulnerable to producing a biased result. I’ve looked over the paper in question and, though I lack the expertise to properly evaluate it, I couldn’t help but notice how complex it is and how many different factors had to be evaluated before the adjustments were finalized.
I’m not accusing Karl of intentionally “cooking the books” or anything like that, but the possibility of unconscious bias in his evaluation of evidence with this degree of complexity cannot be ignored. Studies of this kind, especially when they involve revisions of very basic and important data, should never be entrusted to anyone known to have an agenda, but carried out by independent researchers with no skin in the game, whose results are least likely to be influenced by bias.
If I may be allowed a short comment about some of the discussion above, I just think that “Victor” should do some scientific research to test his hypoteses (if there are any?) and then let the baffled world know about his mind-blowing results which would overwhelm all communities of climate scientists everywhere with their originality and theoretical revolutionizing, are we to believe his foregone conclusions. But the proof is in the pudding. No exercise in rethorics whatsoever will change neither nature nor the science about it. And that’s all I think anyone should say on that subject here until “Victor” publishes his baffling results.
V: Responding to boneheaded posts such as this gets increasingly tiresome, but when someone so brazenly sets himself up for defeat, I can’t resist.
So first of all, I’m not a specialist in climate science or any related field, thus not qualified to publish on this topic. But I don’t have to, as there are a great many highly qualified scientists who HAVE published papers challenging the “consensus” view, and yes, their work has appeared in peer reviewed journals. I’m often attacked on this blog as though the reservations I’ve presented originate with me alone. I’d love to take credit for originality in this respect, but in fact I serve here merely as the representative of a long list of very highly qualified scientists who share my skepticism. For some examples, see:
Only a small sampling, but the point should be clear. There is no need for “Victor” to publish his analyses in peer reviewed journals, as the work has already been done by those far more qualified than I — or for that matter any of the self-appointed “experts” commenting here.
Alastair B. McDonaldsays
Nigel @183,
The temperature trends are given in Gavin’s post above:
The modelled changes were as follows:
Scenario A: 0.33±0.03ºC/decade (95% CI)
Scenario B: 0.28±0.03ºC/decade (95% CI)
Scenario C: 0.16±0.03ºC/decade (95% CI)
The observed changes 1984-2017 are 0.19±0.03ºC/decade (GISTEMP), or 0.21±0.03ºC/decade (Cowtan and Way), lying between Scenario B and C, and notably smaller than Scenario A.
The GISTEMP trend of 0.19ºC/decade is (0.28-0.19)/0.28 = 32% lower than scenario B and the Cowtan and Way trend is (0.28-0.21)/0.28 = 25% lower, both significantly less, even if not the 40% claimed by Dan H.
Moreover, inspection of the scenarios linked by Gavin at https://www.realclimate.org/data/H88_scenarios.dat reveals that the actual rise in CO2 lay between those for projected for Scenarios A and B rather than B and C.
This all shows that, although Jim Hansen was correct that increases in CO2 cause global warming, the models he was using overestimated the warming caused.
Funny, but I counted 43 extreme weather incidents prior to 1980. (You actually decided to count countries? Why?) And literally all those incidents took place when temperatures were far cooler worldwide than they are today.
As for record high temperatures, no one disputes that 21st century temperatures are unusually high. The question is: why?
#66 Thank you, Sheldon.
60 & 61 What’s with the Eurocentrism, guys? Looks like cherry picking to me.
As for the others: yes, we are seeing temperature records being broken almost on a yearly basis, but if you examine the evidence critically, you’ll see that this does not mean very much as far as AGW is concerned. Temperatures did rise dramatically during the last 20 years of the previous century — the ONLY period in the last 120 years or so when there was a clear correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature. After that they rapidly leveled off, for a period of roughly 15 to 17 years. When temperatures plateau like that, then ANY slight increase from one year to the next will, technically, set a record. So what? The fact that all those years of RECORD BREAKING TEMPERATURES has become such a huge AGW meme makes one wonder at the honesty of those trying so hard to induce hysteria, regardless of what real science is telling us.
And incidentally, the most sustained period of extreme drought and sustained heat waves was during the 1930’s. If anything like that was happening now, you can bet that all you warm mongers would be ecstatic.
Victorsays
Hey, look what I dug up. A monologue from a play I wrote several years ago — before climate change was a thing. I too had a theory, way back then, about fossil fuels, not too different from the sort of gospel being preached nowadays. So you might wonder how I morphed into a “denier.” Long story.
The Professor:
Years. Millions of years. All that residue of the most ancient forms of life. The most ancient residue of living matter. Where is it now? Where? Where is it? Slumbering deep deep down in the dirt, the earth, earth, hidden away very deep in the bowels of the earth undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years in the dirt. [pause] And then. One day. One cold day. Some human digs. And digs. And finds something. Something to burn. Burn. Some sort of handy substance you can burn. Limitless supplies, huge, huge, huge amounts of organic material buried deep, deep in the earth and under the sea, dead matter, residue, remnants. In fact, the remnants of our oldest ancestors, from the earliest beginnings of life on Earth, remnants we’re now dredging up from their ancient burial places – in the form of coal, oil, natural gas, what we call “fossil fuels.” You think you can treat it with indifference, as though it were just nothing at all but something sitting there for you to use, for you to burn, burn, to burn. It keeps you warm. It powers your cars. It drives your turbines, produces your electric power, fuels your factories, your armies, makes everything possible — for those who can control it. But reflect – REFLECT! Every living thing on Earth is descended from these “fossil fuels.” They are a part of you – and you of them. Their primordial desires, desires desires, pri-mordial, are buried deep within you still, embedded in your very DNA. And now. They are burning. Your ancestors are burning. Burning. You have violated the earth and the sea to dig dig dig them from their ancient resting place. And you are burning them. Burning. Burning them up. This burning of the ancestors, it is what has made our modern world possible. And what is now choking it to death. [with great emotion:] Oh forgive them, for they know not what they do!
Victorsays
In response to #101 et al.: The 80 year period I had in mind was the first 80 years of the 20th century. I assumed everyone reading here would get it, since I’ve referred to this particular 80 year period several times already. Here’s the relevant graph:
As should be clear to any objective observer (i.e., anyone without an agenda), there is NO correlation from 1900 until roughly 1980. Nor is there a correlation after 2000,when temperature increases leveled off for 15 years while CO2 levels soared — though this particular graph lacks sufficient detail to adequately cover this period. And yes, someone here has been able to come up with a “correlation coefficient” for those first 80 years that supposedly proves otherwise. Sorry, but I’m not impressed. “These examples [Anscombe’s quartet] indicate that the correlation coefficient, as a summary statistic, cannot replace visual examination of the data.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence
My 2005 climate model has been the only model to project dropping temperatures. I saw some comments about my hypothesis that planets tidally perturbate the solar surface. They state that this would be a centimeter only change in solar surface. But this is not correct because solar surface is not any liquid but a very low density gas and any perturbation can lead to thousands of degrees change.
I give some history of the ideas:
already as of 2006 I shared my findings with the community via Climate Audit blog but the blog people refused to reproduce these fine findings.
This is my original 2005 thesis at the ITIA-NTUA library (National Technical University of Athens) in Greek https://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/680/
and this is a more recent paper of 2014 in the same ITIA-NTUA library in English explaining the sun-climate connection phenomena. https://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/1486/
In my blog I provide links to my more recent papers. http://dimispoulos.wixsite.com/dimis
climate modeling can’t be accurate if not attributing to the correct phenomena.
if you don’t spread the truth and scientifically documented discoveries, you can’t solve anything but preserve a vicious state.
Solar irradiance has been decreasing since 1950 yet the planet warmed considerably since. My model accounts for it and only projects a cooling in the coming decades. Why? Because I have accounted for the solar wind effect on climate too. Solar wind is becoming stronger and stronger since 1930 and is the reason for nowadays high temperatures. Though temperatures shall fall down again.
There is a very strong mathematical documentation of the described phenomena. Within this frame I have even explained the complete solar wind mechanisms and theoretically calculated all it’s properties (temperature, velocity etc).
This is the correct approach to climate variability for I have attributed for the correct phenomena.
regards
Dimitris
Victorsays
110 nigelj says:
“Victor says “V: No. But when pondering the future of sea level rise I learn that past sea level rise has been estimated at anywhere from 1.5 to 3mm per year, I wonder how the “experts” are predicting rises of several feet over the next 50 years, as opposed to, say, 50 x 3mm = 150mm = 0.492126ft.”
Things accelerate. Sea level rise has already shown an acceleration over the last couple of decades which would lead to more than two feet of sea level rise by 2100 according to this study (it quotes 2100, not 2050).
V: Buried within the above article is a revealing statement: “Nerem and his team used climate models to account for the volcanic effects and other datasets to determine the El Niño/La Niña effects, ultimately uncovering the underlying rate and acceleration of sea level rise over the last quarter century.”
In other words, the finding that sea level rise was accelerating was based not on the raw data, which revealed NO such rise (see below), but on specially constructed “climate models” that allegedly revealed an “underlying” rate. This theme of an “underlying” influence hidden within data that on the surface appears to contradict the approved theory, pervades much of the modeling that forms the basis for the AGW argument. The problem: it’s all too easy for confirmation bias to creep into the construction of such models. Note, for example, that the inclusion of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption became part of the mix ONLY after researchers became alarmed by hard evidence indicating that sea levels were actually decreasing.
In a slightly earlier paper, also co-authored by Nerem, the embarrassing problem is laid out in no uncertain terms:
“Global mean sea level rise estimated from satellite altimetry provides a strong constraint on climate variability and change and is expected to accelerate as the rates of both ocean warming and cryospheric mass loss increase over time. In stark contrast to this expectation however, current altimeter products show the rate of sea level rise to have decreased from the first to second decades of the altimeter era.” https://www.nature.com/articles/srep31245
The unexpected revelation is then immediately explained away by invoking the effects of the Pinatubo eruption:
“Here, a combined analysis of altimeter data and specially designed climate model simulations shows the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinatubo to likely have masked the acceleration that would have otherwise occurred.”
To the skeptic it looks as though the “specially designed climate model simulations” were “specially designed” to misdirect our attention away from a finding that would not sit well with climate change alarmists, pushing the dangers of “extreme sea level rise” for some time.
The true believer, however, has no problem accepting even the most contrived explanation so long as it accords with his pre-determined convictions.
Victorsays
148 Ray Ladbury: Finally, you really don’t understand where the idea of global warming came from. It was a prediction, based on a theory of Earth’s climate, made long before we saw that warming. And NOW, we do have measurements of the energy flows into and out of the climate. We know what the Sun is doing. We know what the oceans are doing. We know what clouds are doing. And guess what, Victor, nothing explains the warming seen except anthropogenic greenhouse gasses.
V: But that doesn’t explain the warming either, as I’ve tirelessly demonstrated over and over. Sure, if you’re content with a “correlation coefficient” drawn out of a computational black box, then I suppose you could make such a claim. Global temperatures were thus and so at the outset of the 20th century and they are now much higher than that (if by “much higher” you mean less than 1 degree higher) after years of ever increasing CO2 levels. Punch in the data for 1900, punch in the data for 2018, press Enter on your computer, and out pops the answer you expect, straight from the mouth of the Oracle. How reassuring.
But if you actually examine the data on a year by year basis, the lack of any REAL correlation becomes all too evident. Temperatures shoot up while CO2 levels remain low (early 20th century); temperatures fall and then level off while CO2 levels begin to increase dramatically (1940-1979); both temperatures and CO2 levels rise in tandem (1979-1998, the ONLY period when correlation is evident); temperatures level off or rise only slightly while CO2 levels continue to soar (1998-2015). It’s called ANALYSIS of the data, Ray, as opposed to consultation of the Oracle.
Victorsays
169 nigelj says:
Victor is incapable of registering even obvious visual correlations, like CO2 and warming since the 1920’s, and he rejects standard, established statistical tests that also show a reasonably good correlation between CO2 and warming. He manufactures doubt for the sake of getting attention. He is not advancing discussion of anything useful.
V: Doubt? Did you say “doubt”? Concerns over doubt are usually expressed in a religious context. Among scientists, doubt is (or should be) part and parcel of the process.
Now to the point: If you can see “obvious visual correlations” in those graphs, you are wallowing in confirmation bias is all I can say. Remove the last 20 years of the previous century and nothing remotely like a correlation is to be seen anywhere. Those graphs have been around for ages. How long does it take to catch on? Even the “experts” themselves have acknowledged the problem — and gone to great lengths to explain it away. See for example this, from the abstract of a (peer reviewed) 2016 paper by Fyfe et al.:
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.”
Or this, also from a peer reviewed source:
“Global mean surface temperature over the past 20 years (1993–2012)
rose at a rate of 0.14 ± 0.06 °C per decade (95% confidence interval)1
.
This rate of warming is significantly slower than that simulated by the climate
models participating in Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). . . .
The inconsistency between observed and simulated global warming is even more
striking for temperature trends computed over the past fifteen years (1998–2012).
For this period, the observed trend of 0.05 ± 0.08 °C per decade is more than four
times smaller than the average simulated trend of 0.21 ± 0.03 °C per decade (Fig. 1b). It is worth noting that the observed trend
over this period — not significantly different from zero — suggests a temporary
‘hiatus’ in global warming.” http://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/182h/climate/overestimated%20warming.pdf
Now as far as the relation between “standard, established statistical tests” and “eyeballing” is concerned:
“It is important to note that there may be a non-linear association between two continuous variables, but computation of a correlation coefficient does not detect this. Therefore, it is always important to evaluate the data carefully before computing a correlation coefficient. Graphical displays are particularly useful to explore associations between variables.” http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/bs/bs704_multivariable/bs704_multivariable5.html
“Finally, the fourth example (bottom right) shows another example when one outlier is enough to produce a high correlation coefficient, even though the relationship between the two variables is not linear.
“The purpose of statistical analysis of time series is to make up for the inability of our eyes to determine trends.”
Spoken like a true true believer. A meaningful trend should reveal itself very clearly to the eye. On the other hand, it is often possible to produce a misleading “trend” by careful selection of endpoints, or trying this method or that until the desired “correlation coefficient” is achieved. While I am not a statistician myself, I’ve worked closely with professionals in the field over many years, who have made me aware of the many pitfalls involved.
Victorsays
48 Fred Magyar says:
FM: When one wishes to enjoy a nice cup of tea, one generally places a kettel of water on the stove and allows it come to a slow boil, which happens at exactly 100 °C at a pressure of 1 atm. As we know from high school physics, as long as there is liquid water in the kettle the temperature will not rise above 100 °C. However if the temperature should reach 101 °C, that means all the water has evaporated and has now turned to steam! Should you attempt to lift the lid off the kettle at this point, in an attempt to look inside it, you will be hit in the face by a blast of scalding steam. Perhaps it would not be fatal and might just leave one with a rather ruddy complexion… ;-)
V: Very amusing. When CO2 emissions drive Earth’s temperature to something close to 100 °C, I’ll start to worry. Thanks for the tip. :-)
49 nigelj says:
nj: Regarding your original question of how to explain in plain english how only 1 degree can cause significant sea level rise and more extreme weather etc.
1 degree represents a lot of heat energy even if spread out, and if applied over a century it causes significant sea level rise and more extreme weather to become the established pattern. Time and heat energy are the factors here. A 1 degree change during the diurnal cycle wont melt much ice and seems small, this fools us into thinking 1 degree is insignificant.
V: But there has NOT been a significant sea level rise, not yet at least. And it’s not clear as yet that more extreme weather has become the established pattern, that remains to be seen. If a rise of 1 degree or more were that important, and contributed in any significant way to extreme weather, species extinction, flooding, drought, etc., then we’d have seen a long term migration by now from the Southern United States to Minnesota, New England and Canada, which would have become the ultimate refuge from warmer temperatures. No? What am I missing here?
Victorsays
57 Ray Ladbury says:
Weaktor’s disingenuous squealing aside, another way to look at the “But it’s only one degree” foolishness is to look at the latent heat contained in a mass of air. It’s proportional to the amount of water in the air, and it is a big factor in the energy of storms. Assuming constant relative humidity, water vapor content–and therefore latent heat increases by 7-9% for every degree. This will increase wind speeds roughly 2.6%, as well as increasing the frequency of impulsive rain events. And as has been repeated to Weaktor (though not understood) incessantly, a 1-degree global average can easily translate to 5 or 10 degrees temporarily and locally. Think about what happens to the destructiveness of hurricanes when the gulf is a couple of degrees warmer. Or think about the difference between doing hard physical work when it’s 24 degrees C and 30 degrees C.
V: C’mon Ray, you’ve explained nothing. We’re talking major disruptions all over the world, hurricanes destructive as never before, record-breaking droughts, floods, the collapse of the W. Antarctic ice sheet, precipitating disastrous sea-level rise, heat waves beyond anything experienced previously anywhere on Earth, record breaking cold, record breaking snowstorms, etc. And you’re worried about the difference between doing hard work at 24 degrees and 30 degrees? You never heard of a siesta?
Differences of 1 degree and much more than 1 degree exist all over the Earth, at different latitudes, different altitudes, different times of day, different seasons, etc., so how does a difference of 1 measly degree lead to such a long list of extreme events, supposedly happening NOW?
I’m not saying the scientists supporting such a view are necessarily wrong, but I do feel the need for some sort of explanation that takes normal variances in temperature into account and goes beyond vague generalizations regarding “latent heat”. If this is widely understood, as you’ve claimed then by all means point me to at least one peer-reviewed paper that explains how a gradual increase of only 1 degree can lead to so many disastrous events.
It is gravity which sets up the temperature gradient in every planetary troposphere, not back radiation. Loschmidt explained this in 1876 but climatologists choose to ignore this direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Prove me wrong in my 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.”
The fundamental assumption in all climate models and climatology energy diagrams is that one can add to solar radiation about twice as much radiation from the cold atmosphere and then use the total (less non-radiative cooling) in Stefan Boltzmann calculations to explain the global mean surface temperature.
Radiation cannot be added that way.
No empirical experiment has ever been published demonstrating that it can be. It would be contrary to Wien’s Displacement Law and their false assumption ignores the fact the Stefan-Boltzmann Law is based on the integral of a single Planck function.
Even if there were a mean of about 500W/m^2 of radiation from a much hotter or closer sun, that radiation would be variable all over the globe and thus produce a lower mean temperature than would the uniform flux needed for Stefan-Boltzmann calculations to be correct.
So it’s laughable that NASA energy diagrams show a net of 390W/m^2 and assume that will produce a mean of 288K. They make a double mistake – adding back radiation and then assuming variable flux will produce the same temperature as uniform flux. Prof Claes Johnson explained why the back radiation merely resonates and is not thermalized in the warmer surface.
Prove wrong my peer-reviewed 2012 paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Themodynamics.”
How does a location on the equator of Venus warm by about five degrees (from 732K to 737K) over the course of about four months on the sunlit side? Where does the new thermal energy come from? The direct solar radiation reaching the Venus surface is about one-eighth of that impinging on Earth’s surface. There cannot be any heat from the less hot atmosphere that could raise the temperature of the hotter Venus surface.
What does happen is that solar radiation can only raise the temperature of regions in the upper troposphere and above. But then gravity maintains a non-zero tropospheric temperature gradient which is the state of maximum entropy (thermodynamic equilibrium) and so the whole thermal profile in the troposphere rises by about five degrees at all altitudes.
The same kind of thing happens on Earth and in every planetary troposphere, and that is why it is hotter than Earth’s surface at the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus.
Prove wrong my 2016 paper “Comprehensive Refutation of the Radiative Forcing Greenhouse Hypothesis.”
Oh, sorry, Dr Pete Sudbury. I just learned that you’re a retired psychiatrist. Apparently, you’ve learned all about climate change by reading the fictitious, fiddled physics of climatology. Well, well, well! So sorry if I’ve confused you with correct physics that refutes the whole scam.
So let me keep it simple for you Dr Pete Sudbury, seeing that you probably don’t even know what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says or what entropy is.
It was warmer than the present back in Roman times, and there was certainly overall net (natural) global cooling between then and the Little Ice Age when they skated in the River Thames in London.
Temperatures have to do with gravity and the height of a planet’s troposphere. Luckily Earth’s troposphere is about the right height for comfort. If we had just as much greenhouse gas but a troposphere only half the height, then global mean temperatures would be less than zero C, just as we know the global mean is well below that for our Moon.
And so that is why it is hotter than Earth’s surface at the base of the tropospheres of Venus and Uranus, despite the latter having no solar radiation and no solid surface down there.
We now know that cosmic rays assist cloud formation and, guess what, cosmic ray intensity varies partly due to solar activity and also to magnetic fields from the planets. Those clouds do shade the Earth and keep us cooler, you know.
We also know that the greenhouse gas water vapor varies in concentration between about 1% and 4%, so that’s a 3% variation. With carbon dioxide taking up a whole 0.04% of our atmosphere (one molecule in 2,500) that extra 3% of greenhouse gas that we find above rain forests could be assumed to have roughly the effect we might get by increasing carbon dioxide to 76 times its concentration, that is, from 0.04% to 3.04%. The trouble is, it doesn’t happen. Rain forests are cooler than dry regions at similar latitude and altitude as I found when I studied 30 years of temperature data from locations on three continents.
Prove wrong the study in my 2014 book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All.”
I came to RealClimate, hoping to discuss global warming with intelligent people.
Instead, I was attacked repeatedly, and was told:
– that I had no science skills
– that I was a crank
– that I was unable to comprehend anything longer than a single sentence
and YOU called me a “fool” 6 times in your comment @ 101,
and YOU called me a “fool” 4 times in your comment @ 128.
You can call me over-sensitive, but I am beginning to think that somebody doesn’t like me.
==========
You asked, “Why do you pretenciously parade your school record before us?”
It is interesting that you call my academic record, a “school record”.
My academic record is from university. You know, the place where big boys go.
This is another stupid “put down”, by you. Are you jealous?
I am not ashamed of my excellent education. Are you ashamed of yours?
==========
You asked, “Why do you digress and so happily turn the discussion onto the subject of the eye of the octopus?”
My life consists of more than just global warming. I am very interested in the natural world. From the reaction that my octopus comment got, I would say that other people found it interesting too.
Since you are not interested in such trivia, I won’t tell you about my research, investigating why earthworms are a major cause of global warming.
I believe that knowledge is valuable. You do not always know which bits will be useful. I got most of my knowledge, by making stupid “mistakes”. I made not just 1, but 2 wrong decisions, when choosing a career.
The first mistake meant that I learned all about psychology. This included human perception, vision, hearing, and 5 years of learning about eyes.
I then swapped to computer programming, which didn’t require any knowledge about eyes.
Did I waste my time learning about psychology, etc. Some people would say that I did. But those times were some of the best fun that I have ever had. The knowledge that I got, has been a lifelong treasure.
Then, after programming for about 12 years, I decided that I hated programming. I went back to university, and did a Bachelor of Commerce degree. I had never done these subjects before, so it was a bit of a risk.
I loved it. I got top marks, and lots of scholarships and prizes. When I finished, I looked for a BCom related job. They wanted me to work 60 hours a week. I said that I wanted to work 30 hours a week. We both agreed that the job was not right for me.
I did some thinking. I decided that really, I loved computer programming. It was the people that I had been working for, that I hated. So I returned to programming, and have been doing it ever since.
Did I waste my time getting a BCom. I don’t think so. Because I can piss Alarmists off, by pretentiously parading it.
==========
Since YOU brought it up, let’s talk about Tamino.
Tamino set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner, and found me and my graph guilty, based on a computer program that Tamino wrote. He never tested MY program. He never let me see HIS program.
Tamino generated the temperature series that he input to HIS computer program. The temperature series was never input to MY program.
The temperature series was generated using “random” numbers. But Tamino “knew” that there was no slowdown in the temperature series. Apparently Tamino can accurately predict “random” numbers.
Tamino never showed me the temperature series. In democratic countries, a person has a right to defend themselves, AND see the evidence against them. I was denied both of those rights.
I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. Tamino just “knew” that there was no slowdown. He didn’t even look.
I politely asked to comment on Tamino’s website. Here is the conversation, cut and pasted off Tamino’s own website.
Sheldon Walker: I am happy to discuss all aspects of my global warming contour maps.
Tamino: No, you’re not. You will not discuss the effect of noise on those graphs. You really don’t get the difference between climate and weather, so you continue to take all the impact of noise and think of it as climate change. Until you recognize the error of your ways, you will be stuck in your fantasy world. We have tried to reason with you, but your mind is closed.
[edit]
Sheldon Walker: I will discuss other issues about global warming contour maps in other posts.
Tamino: Not here you won’t. As I’ve said before, this site is not for deniers.
==========
I asked nicely, but Tamino banned me, and insulted me, by calling me a Denier.
Anybody who knows me, knows that I believe that global warming is happening.
My graph shows that global warming is happening, VERY CLEARLY.
My graph also shows when global warming started, how fast global warming is happening, and which parts of the earth are warming faster, and which parts of the earth are warming slower.
Do I really sound like a Denier to you.
My CRIME, is that I believe that there was a recent slowdown. As I said before, I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. I can show you the evidence. I have been trying to show Alarmists the evidence for 2 years, but they refuse to look at it.
==========
Most people (including Alarmists), do not understand statistical significance. The easiest way for me to explain it to you, is with a funny story.
A Skeptic is walking through a paddock (on a farm), on a moonless night. He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He walks around where he thinks the cow is, and continues walking across the paddock.
Now, an Alarmist is walking through the same paddock (on a farm), on a moonless night.
He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He tries to see the cow, but can’t make it out, because it is too dark. He thinks, “there is no statistically significant cow here”, and tries to continue walking straight ahead.
He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He tries to see the cow, but can’t make it out, because it is too dark. He thinks, “there is no statistically significant cow here”, and tries to continue walking straight ahead.
He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He tries to see the cow, but can’t make it out, because it is too dark. He thinks, “there is no statistically significant cow here”, and tries to continue walking straight ahead.
This is exactly how Alarmists deal with the slowdown. They think that because it is not statistically significant, that it does not exist (just like the cow).
Have you ever thought about what “statistically significant”, really means?
It really means, “statistically significantly different from zero”.
Guess what? A pause has a slope (warming rate) of zero.
Zero is NOT “statistically significantly different from zero”.
So a pause can never be statistically significant, even if it lasts for 10,000 years.
Alarmist statistics are based on lies.
My global warming contour map is based on the truth.
Tamino set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner, and found me and my graph guilty, based on a computer program that Tamino wrote himself. He never tested MY program. He never let me see HIS program.
Tamino generated a temperature series, which he input into HIS computer program. The temperature series was never input into MY computer program.
Because Tamino’s computer program showed a slowdown, MY computer program was found guilty.
The temperature series was generated using “random” numbers. But Tamino “knew” that there was no slowdown in the temperature series. Apparently Tamino can accurately predict “random” numbers.
Tamino never showed me the temperature series. In democratic countries, a person has a right to defend themselves, AND to see the evidence against them. I was denied both of those rights.
I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. Tamino just “knew” that there was no slowdown. He didn’t even look.
I politely asked to comment on Tamino’s website. Here is the conversation, cut and pasted off Tamino’s own website.
Sheldon Walker: I am happy to discuss all aspects of my global warming contour maps.
Tamino: No, you’re not. You will not discuss the effect of noise on those graphs. You really don’t get the difference between climate and weather, so you continue to take all the impact of noise and think of it as climate change. Until you recognize the error of your ways, you will be stuck in your fantasy world. We have tried to reason with you, but your mind is closed.
[edit]
Sheldon Walker: I will discuss other issues about global warming contour maps in other posts.
Tamino: Not here you won’t. As I’ve said before, this site is not for deniers.
==========
I asked nicely, but Tamino banned me, and insulted me, by calling me a Denier.
Anybody who knows me, knows that I believe that global warming is happening.
My graph shows that global warming is happening, VERY CLEARLY.
My graph also shows when global warming started, how fast global warming is happening, and which parts of the earth are warming faster, and which parts of the earth are warming slower.
Do I really sound like a Denier to you.
My CRIME, is that I believe that there was a recent slowdown. I believe that it was caused by Ocean Cycles (like the PDO and AMO).There are a number of Climate Scientists who believe the same thing that I do.
As I said before, I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. I can show you the evidence. I have been trying to show Alarmists the evidence for 2 years, but they refuse to look at it.
one of the biggest difficulties with solving global warming, is the fact that most people are not interested in global warming.
The obvious solution is to make global warming more interesting. And I am not talking about standing in a circle, and singing Kumbaya.
I am suggesting effective measures, like easter egg hunts, and bar charts, that adults and children can colour in.
I have already developed a simple, and cost effective way of solving global warming. All that it needs, is the approval of more than 50% of the people who post comments on RealClimate.org, and then we can begin “rolling it out”.
Please read the proposed solution, and if you think that it should be implemented, leave the light that is outside your front door, on tonight. The satellite which measures night time “brightness”, which is used to correct urban temperatures for UHI, will register the fact that your outside light is on, and add your vote to the total.
If too many people are in favour of the proposed solution, The UHI correction may be wrong, because of the extra light. But it will only be wrong for 1 night. A small price to pay, for solving global warming.
global warming what? climate change what?
“even perfect models would give misleading results if there also are pronounced but unpredictable natural variations present” yes there are.
climate has stopped warming for 20 years. already as of 2005 I have predicted it in my original thesis on solar activity and climate. In fact I have developed the only climate model that projects dropping temperatures. A link to my papers https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dimitris_Poulos
Was the recent Slowdown caused by the super El Nino of 1998?
If you take the GISTEMP temperature series, and replace the 1998 temperature anomaly with a new value, that is spot on the trend line, does the Slowdown disappear.
Warning – the results of this article will be shocking, for some people.
According to Tony Heller, “Every ten years, climate scientists say we have ten years left to save the planet. Sometimes they want to save it from global warming, other times they say they want to save it from global cooling.”
Here’s his latest take on this issue, in response to the IPCC report cited above:
And yes, Heller bases his comments on Hansen’s prediction of a flooded West Side Highway on the same misleading “Salon” article I too fell for, until I took the trouble to double check the reporter’s book. If the video contains anything else that might be incorrect or misleading, this would be a good opportunity for anyone reading here to correct it.
Seems to me, the “experts” have been crying wolf for a LONG time, and this time isn’t likely to be any different.
Carriesays
RE: “First of all, climate model-based studies used to assess the degree to which current extreme weather events can be attributed to climate change are likely underestimating the climate change influence“.
So very very tired of hearing this again and again for more than 25 years!
While a few moments later then hearing this untruth again and again in the same article: “But in the scenario where we rapidly move away from fossil fuels and stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations below 450 parts per million, giving us a roughly 50% chance of averting 2C/3.6F planetary warming (the so-called “RCP 2.6” IPCC scenario)”
AND “we could likely prevent any further increase in persistent summer weather extremes. In other words, the future is still very much in our hands when it comes to dangerous and damaging summer weather extremes.”
—
As much a waste of time and energy as the IPCC SR 1.5 report – not worth reading.
To me this article as a whole and the specific quotes in particular have all the hallmarks of dishonest, disingenuous, illogical, unscientific hogwash!
@408 ppmv in 2018 by what major breach of the laws of Physics does increasing alone CO2 to 450 ppmv not lead to “any further increase in persistent summer weather extremes”?
In which alternative Universe does such a scenario take place – for surely it will not can occur on this planet.
Please stop with the BS and the prevaricating nonsense mike – and actually properly QUANTIFY the consequences of the Scientific knowledge and the Laws of Physics in real terms in a real world scenario that real people can comprehend the logical meanings therein.
Quantify it in how many Coal fired powers stations still exist in such a world . Quantify how many airlines and shipping companies are still using Oil based fuels. Quantify how many people are still driving Oil based fuels in their cars, SUVs and trucks. Quantify how many Gas Fired Power stations are still operating in a such a world.
In order to achieve this present Fantasy of NET-Zero Global GHG emissions before 2050 to meet this “scientific delusion” of a RCP 2.6 scenario.
Stop lying to the people mike and start telling the Whole Truth and QUANTIFY it clearly without the mumbo jumbo BS.
Or just shut up about it and get out the way of those people like James Hansen and many many others who are actually willing to tell it like it is in a REALLY HONEST published scientific Paper and in public talks and articles.
Carriesays
Maybe you’re confused?
This is how a Climate Scientist needs, no MUST QUANTIFY your rhetoric into meaningful understanding.
Climate goal demands huge boost in Chinese nuclear
31 October 2018 China’s nuclear generating capacity must increase to 554 GWe by 2050 if the country is to fulfill its part in meeting a proposed target of limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5°C, according to a study by the National Development and Reform Commission’s Energy Research Institute.
Researchers at China’s Energy Research Institute analysed the nuclear power capacity needed in the country by 2050 to realise the 1.5°C target, as well as the feasibility, necessary measures and difficulty. The results were published in Advances in Climate Change Research earlier this year.
China’s nuclear power capacity will need to increase from 26 GWe in 2015 to 554 GWe in 2050, the study concluded. The share of nuclear power in country’s energy mix would increase from 3% to 28% over this period.
An additional 290 reactors will need to be constructed in order to add a further 361.3 to 433.3 GWe of generating capacity, depending on the size of the reactors built. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Climate-goal-demands-huge-boost-in-Chinese-nuclear
You need to totally change your rhetoric and write as if you’re talkign to an 8 year old who can count. No one “gets” what RCP 2.6 means automatically.
But they can comprehend the difference in scale between 26 and 554 by 2050 and use their natural intelligence to understand what that means.
If the Chinese can do this then every Climate Scientist and the IPCC should be able to explain what they mean as simply as this too.
1.5C is meaningless unless it’s connected back to the real world with real numbers that mean something.
QUANTIFY the verbose rhetoric int meaningful terms anyone can understand.
The total Global nuclear output is currently 404 GWe. In 30 years China alone says they need to be producing 554 GWe to have ANY CHANCE of remaining under 1.5C Goal. The SCALE of this is quite easy for anyone to understand.
“Only if the additional nuclear reactors all feature large capacities similar to CAP1400 in the future, and the annual uptime of nuclear power plants reaches 7500 hours, can the demand of the 1.5°C target for nuclear power in China be met narrowly.”
So rather than talking across points and losing people in incomprehensible verbiage and data and graphs, how about just spelling it out what MUST change to stay below 1.5C and have a NET Zero GHG emissions by 2050?
As I asked before:
What is the MAX number and GWe Coal fired power stations there can be?
How many cars and trucks are there on the roads today?
How many MUST be electric or hydrogen powered by 2050 to hit the Goals?
How many Gas fired power stations can still be operating globally in 2050?
How many gas fired stations are there now?
How many GenIV Nuclear Reactors with x GWe output by 2050 is needed to meet the goals of Zero Net emissions?
and on and on, these are the answers that must be provided so people can understand what the “science” actually means.
iow please stop Prevaricating and speaking out of both sides of your mouths all the time.
Amazing how mistakes always tend to lean toward it being worse than we thought.
Another hockeystick, another bad paper.
How child-like errors got past the reviewers… actually I know.
Had this paper concluded there was no problem with ocean heat for the future, it would have been picked apart and gone through with a fine comb.
and worst of all, the media still have this story topping google search on ocean heat, uncorrected
Carriesays
44 Piotr, if “climate scientists incl. Michael Mann” say: “the future is still in our hands”.
You’re missing the point and the meaning here, not uncommon. What MM and many if not most others never say when they allude to motherhood statements and their almost pathological avoidance of speaking truth to power is that they never ever define what “our hands” are supposed to do or achieve.
They may couch in vague terms of following the very vague IPCC reports recommendations, or adopting the UNFCCC treaties but anyone with any knowledge about climate science and climate chnage knows for a fact that both those sources are totally full of shit and not fit for purpose.
Besides that, the governments of the world are not even capable of meeting those minuscule targets nor are they lifting a finger to get real about the massive global changes required to actually stop ongoing increases in GHGs and the like.
SO what’s the point? the meaning in what I say about what people like MM say when they use BS terms like “the future is still in our hands”?
It’s this – they are speaking utter garbage, that’s what. Why anyone would not reject such deceitful dishonest not fit for purpose commentaries beggars belief.
What global actions gets GHGs down to net zero by 2030, because that is what is required now, not next week or next decade or after that. No new science paper is required, not one! MM et al need to put some meat on those bones which clearly and uncompromisingly defines the WHAT into HOW and WHEN and by WHOM leaving the powerless (ie us, you and I et al) out of the loop.
Because OUR HANDS can do nothing while the MMs of this world (for there are tens of thousands of them speaking out of both sides of their mouths 24/7 now today) keep talking garbage vapid spin to salve their own consciences as they walk away from the manifold truths of what the science has been saying for 50 plus years already. Like doh! This is no time for cowards unable to tell the whole truth and stand up for it 24/7.
That I even need to explain this is what it meant by what I said is an indictment on supposedly educated humanity and climate scientists in particular. It should be absolutely obvious already to all. But it is not. Thus the BS motherhood statements that place the blame and responsibility onto people who have NO POWER and NO VOICE globally. Gutless excuse makers and SOPHISTS is what they are.
A sophism is a specious argument for displaying ingenuity in reasoning or for deceiving someone. A sophist is a person who reasons with clever but fallacious and deceptive arguments.
James Cohensays
Resplandy et al should not be the only people admitting their errors.
Science is now faced with another major dilemma.
We don’t know who reviewed the study or why they missed the errors.
We don’t know what their responses to the authors were prior to publication.
Their reviews of this study need to be made public in order to limit the damage to the authors of the study.
As it stands, a claim could feasibly be made that Gavin was one of the reviewers. We don’t know if this was the case because Gavin is not compelled to tell us, nor is Ralph.
The authors are unfairly carrying the full blame and responsibility for what has happened.
This story has gone global after all, with a lot of snide comments about what presumably are inadvertently made mistakes.
And we don’t know whether the actual reviewers are now posting online elsewhere defending the peer review proces or belittling Nic Lewis for making the discovery.
We need to know exactly what’s going on to protect science.
The reviewers also need to be identified in order to assess whether their past reviews (or published work) are of similar poor quality by making it known who they are, and what they have previously reviewed.
This episode unfortunately involves far more than the Resplandy et al team.
From “The Unsettled Science of Climate Change: A Primer for Critical Thinkers”:
If you consider all those living in every corner of the world now dependent on: heating generated by gas, oil, coal, charcoal; electricity generated by gas, oil and coal; gasoline produced from oil; affordable food prices made possible by the relatively low costs associated with farming and the transportation of agricultural commodities, thanks to the relatively low cost of petroleum products;
and you take into account the possibility of unintended consequences, such as the disastrous increase in food prices due to the government imposed turn to biofuels — which incentivized farmers to switch from food production to fuel production;
in addition to the fact that subsidies to low income people won’t be of much use if the resources they depend on are no longer available for them to purchase;
then you will realize what a complete calamity we’d have on our hands if any attempt were made to drastically cut back on the production of fossil fuels on a worldwide basis. Resistance to such proposals is not limited to the oligarchs controlling the fossil fuel industries, that’s pure rhetoric. Once ordinary people wake up to the sacrifices expected from them by these starry eyed idealists they will revolt. And we’ll have a calamity on our hands every bit as disastrous as anything that might be produced by global warming over the next hundred years. It would be nice if we could do without fossil fuels, but at this point in history, unfortunately we cannot. As I see it, any serious effort along such lines is likely to be the most self-destructive act in the history of humankind.
Mr. Know It Allsays
I found a 45 minute video that persuasively argues CO2 is not the major driver of global warming, and that CO2 is not a problem at all. Lots of good graphs/data – it moves quickly. Please comment ONLY on scientific errors in the presentation. Do not go into politics please; I do not want to be accused of hijacking the thread. Do not attack me or the man making the presentation; attack ONLY the science errors. Grab a pad of paper and pencil, and take notes. Pretend this is the final exam in a freshman course on Intro to Climate Change. Inform those of us less knowledgeable about CC why the science is wrong in this video:
Sad state of affairs, comrades. It’s sad to watch our climate hoaxes go up in proverbial flames. American, French, and now Canadian populists flipped our Mother Gaia tyranny on its head and reversed our scheme to ban carbon-based fuels by taxing them. I’m going to renounce my veganism and go eat a hamburger. Oh well, we tried. Maybe next we can try and tax porn.
Christmas is a time when Alarmists gather together, roast chestnuts, and share memories.
– They tell their children how there used to be a cold white substance, called snow.
– They reassure their children that Santa really does exist, and that he delivers presents to all of the good children (the ones who believe in global warming).
– And they give thanks for the 97% consensus (that global warming is real, that it is caused by humans, and that there was no recent slowdown).
In keeping with the true Christmas spirit, Alarmists have just published 2 new papers, which (they say) demonstrate convincingly that the recent slowdown wasn’t a real phenomenon.
It is a pity that they didn’t read my article first. They could have saved themselves a lot of time, and millions of dollars (of your money)!!!
The article is called “Alarmist thinking on the recent slowdown is one dimensional”
Just in time for the New Year, an article which will stop you feeling gloomy about the future.
How far would you need to move towards the nearest Pole, to reverse one degree Celsius of global warming?
You may have already been thinking about moving towards one of the Poles (the North Pole, or the South Pole), in order to avoid global warming. But how far should you go?
Don’t worry any longer, this article tells you exactly how far you should move, to get the perfect climate.
Not only that, this article also shows you how to find your pre-industrial paradise.
And there is more. Experience global warming, before it actually happens (that way, you can see whether you like it, or not).
At last a response reflecting some degree of intelligence:
Zebra #60: Ockham’s Razor does not tell us what a “correct” explanation is, it is a pragmatic rule to optimize the process of discovery. Certainly, it doesn’t mean “the simplest answer is always right”. Rather, it tells us to work with the explanation that has the fewest assumptions.
V: Not bad. Though I wouldn’t call it “a pragmatic rule to optimize the process of discovery.” It’s a heuristic principle intended to aid in the weeding out of unnecessary, ad hoc complications — complications introduced in an effort to save a failing hypothesis. And yes, I agree, it does NOT mean the simplest answer is always right. It’s the simplest answer necessary to account for all the known evidence that should be preferred. And it’s not a question of being “right,” because there is always the possibility that new evidence might be unearthed in future.
Z: “So in the case of a period of lower temperatures, we consider two alternative explanations.
1. Quantum physics is wrong about the absorption of radiation by CO2 molecules in the atmosphere.”
V: You’re kidding, right? “Quantum physics”? The sensitivity of the atmosphere to the emission of CO2 molecules involves a lot more than any formula derived from quantum physics per se. What we’re dealing with here is a hypothesis, based on an interpretation of certain physical principles, dependent on a complex and controversial process of positive feedbacks, since CO2 levels in themselves are not sufficient to make much of a difference. (Actually quantum physics has little if anything to do with it.) In your terms, an “assumption.”
Z: “2. Industrial aerosols are reducing insolation.
But, we have laboratory evidence that aerosols reflect energy, and that CO2 molecules absorb it. So, which explanation requires fewer assumptions?
That is, which one requires us to demonstrate yet another phenomenon which is not now part of established physics?
Number 2 is not at all a “speculation”. It is exactly how science is supposed to work; we explain things based on what we know, and we avoid introducing new concepts for which there is no evidence.”
V: The cooling effect of atmospheric aerosols has been well established. But the possibility that such aerosols could explain the post-1940 cooling is NOT evidence for the warming effect of CO2 emissions. The usual explanation goes something like this: if it weren’t for atmospheric cooling due to industrial aerosols, the rising rate of CO2 emissions would have caused the atmosphere to heat rather than cool. And yes, that might well be the case, IF CO2 emissions actually did have the properties you are assuming they have. To present the cooling effect of aerosols as evidence that this assumption is correct is therefore a circular argument, since it would be evidence only IF the assumption were already correct to begin with. And if you want to insist that such a POSSIBILITY nevertheless explains the 40 year period of cooling and leveling we see from ca. 1940-1979, then that is a perfect example of the sort of ad hoc saving hypothesis Occam’s Razor was designed to weed out.
Victorsays
62 nigelj says: “Victor @57, we know that when a volcano erupts, the climate cools quite sharply for about a year, due to sulphate aerosols reflecting the suns energy. So given there was a surge of sulphate aerosols from industry after the 1940’s why wouldn’t that also have a cooling effect? Obviously it would, and a great deal of in depth science and hard evidence backs this up.”
V: Well, first off, see my response to Zebra, which should appear above. Aside from the circular argument to which I alluded, this sort of ad hoc explanation is a perfect example of why Occam’s Razor is so important. If such aerosols had not been a factor at that time then some other “explanation” would no doubt have been found. This sort of recourse is a recurring theme in the AGW literature. Think of all the many explanations offered for the so-called “hiatus”: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/11/updated-list-of-64-excuses-for-18-26.html
nj: As explained at least a dozen times (literally) mid century cooling is easily explained by sulphate aerosols from coal fired power plants, and this effect dissipated by the 1970’s with a) the introduction of appropriate air flltering on the power plants and b) concentrations of accumulating CO2 became substantial enough to overwhelm much of the cooling aerosol effect.”
V: Perfect example of an ad hoc assumption. First of all, as I demonstrated sometime ago, aerosol emissions continued to rise in Asia at the same rate as before throughout the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries and yet Asian temperatures rose from 1979-1998 at roughly the same rate as in the Americas and Europe, where clean air legislation had been adopted. It was only after I pointed that out that your second ad hoc explanation emerged. Sorry, but if you want to argue THAT point you’ll need to provide evidence.
What’s particularly vexing is the likelihood that the sort of lame excuse provided here by nigel will be counted as yet another example of how the error of my ways has been pointed out to me, with no effect due to my stubborn refusal to listen to reason. Sorry, folks, but the endless repetition of dogmatic arguments based on dubious premises won’t cut it.
Mr. Know It Allsays
The climate change money trail article and comments. Covers some of the money trails on both sides.
What, you may be wondering, is the “Comb of Death”?
In simple terms, it is a graph that looks like a comb.
But, what has it got to do with Death?
Well, “The Comb of Life” didn’t sound very exciting. But “Death” is a certain winner.
And it is showing “global warming”. That causes a lot of deaths.
Or it will in the future, if the “Comb of Death” is correct.
The “Comb of Death” displays temperature ranges, for more than 24,000 locations on the Earth.
And I am talking about REAL, ACTUAL, ABSOLUTE temperatures. Not those weak, pale, temperature anomaly things. But real, actual, absolute temperatures. The sort that REAL men use (and REAL women too).
====================
The Oil companies offered me a lot of money to “forget” about the “Comb of Death” with +3.0 degrees Celsius of global warming. But I am an artist, and they didn’t offer me enough money.
Because people are not making enough effort to reduce their carbon footprints, the IPCC has asked me to show you a “Comb of Death” based on +3.0 degrees Celsius of global warming.
They expect that this “Comb of Death” will make Alarmists scream in fear, and will make Skeptics repent their evil ways. A word of warning, this last “Comb of Death” is not for the faint-hearted.
The recent Slowdown – on trial
=======================
Alarmists have started a legal battle, in an effort to convict the recent Slowdown of a serious crime. The crime in question is, “impersonating a real Slowdown”. This heinous crime carries a maximum sentence of 20 years of watching Al Gore “documentaries”.
The trial is about to begin. We have managed to get our “climate reporter”, Sheldon Walker, on to the jury hearing the case against the recent Slowdown. We asked Sheldon if he thought that it was “fair”, for him to be on the jury? Sheldon replied, “Is it “fair”, that Alarmists won’t admit that there was a small, temporary Slowdown, that doesn’t have any significant long-term implications for global warming”?
Sheldon is prepared to go to extreme lengths to help his friend. He has taught himself to text message with his toes, using a cellphone that is hidden in his shoe. Sheldon will be sending us text message “reports” from inside the room where the jury members are deliberating. These text message reports will be limited to 160 characters per text message (Sheldon refuses to use Twitter), so Sheldon will use abbreviations where necessary.
You’re right that considering the totality of the AMOC process, the stronger deep conviction in the subpolar gyre (SPG) indicates that the AMOC is not slowing down and even, I would add, is going stronger and stronger. Why ? Because AMOC is being fed by water fluxes: cold water fluxes in the North and warm water fluxes in the tropics. Ice melting in the North causes stronger convection and inflation of the SPG, while global deforestation on lands, particularly tropical deforestation, causes increases in warm water fluxes as well, feeding the AMOC.
1) North:
Ice Melting -> SPNAL cools -> stronger convection and SPNAL horizontal inflation (cold blob) -> AMOC not significantly impacted in the North (Pickart and al)
2) Tropics:
Global deforestation (particularly tropical) -> more warm water fluxes -> stronger AMOC
Decadal oscillations may be related to the cycle of life of vegetation.
More on Smirnov and the sensitivity issue:
https://co2coalition.org/2017/11/06/new-atmospheric-sciences-textbook-climate-sensitivity-just-0-4c-for-co2-doubling/
Also:
http://notrickszone.com/2017/10/16/recent-co2-climate-sensitivity-estimates-continue-trending-towards-zero/
The second item lists, and quotes from, several independent studies questioning the “official” interpretation of climate sensitivity.
in the 80’s Hanson was not confusing the PHONY global warming with ”climate”
YOU SHOULD BRUSH UP ON WHAT CLIMATE IS: -”there is no such a thing as ‘’earth’s global climate’’ same as there is no GLOBAL music– there are many INDEPENDENT different MICRO CLIMATES 1] Alpine climate 2] Mediterranean climate, 3] sea- level climate 4] high altitude climate 5] temperate climates 6] subtropical climate, 7] tropical climate 8] desert climate 9] rainforest climates 10] wet climate 11] dry climate, as in desert AND THEY KEEP CHANGING; wet climate gets dry occasionally b] even rains in the desert sometimes and improves. In the tropics is wet and dry -/- in subtropics and temperate climates changes four time a year, WITH EVERY season= migratory birds can tell you that; because they know much more about climate than all the Warmist foot-solders and all climate skeptics combined – on the polar caps climates change twice a year. Leading Warmist know that is no ”global warming” so they encompassed ”climatic changes” to confuse and con the ignorant – so that when is some extreme weather for few days on some corner of the planet, to use it as proof of their phony global warming and ignore that the weather is good simultaneously on the other 97% of the planet, even though is same amount of co2. In other words, they used the trick as: -”if you want to sell that the sun is orbiting around the earth -> you encompass the moon – present proofs that the moon is orbiting around the earth and occasionally insert that: the sun and moon rise from same place and set to the west, proof that the ”sun is orbiting around the earth” AND the trick works, because the Flat-Earthers called ”climate skeptics” are fanatically supporting 90% of the Warmist lies. Bottom line: if somebody doesn’t believe that on the earth climate exist and constantly changes, but is no global warming -> ”climate skeptic” shouldn’t be allowed on the street, unless accompanied by an adult. b] many micro-climates and they keep changing, but no such a thing as ”global climate”
218 nigelj: (quoting V) “One can’t, for example, claim a “long-term” warming trend over 120 years due to CO2 emissions”
nj: Nobody has claimed the warming trend since 1900 is ‘entirely’ CO2 emissions. Just that it mostly is.
V: No, it mostly isn’t. This is in fact the key piece of evidence, making all other claims irrelevant. During the first 40 years of the 20th century, CO2 emissions rose too slowly to have a significant influence on either global temperature or sea level rise. During the following 40 years, THERE WAS NO SIGNIFICANT TEMPERATURE RISE AT ALL. How can you possibly attribute a temperature rise to CO2 emissions when there was no such rise to begin with? Am I arguing with children?
The null hypothesis is natural climate variation. In order to overcome the null hypothesis it’s necessary to provide meaningful evidence that current temperatures are due largely to CO2 emissions rather than natural variation. When there is clearly NO correlation between CO2 emissions and temperatures for 80 years out of the last 120, that tells us the evidence is lacking and we have no reason to reject the null hypothesis. And sorry, but as I’ve stressed many times, excuses for a lack of evidence do NOT constitute actual evidence. Science is based on evidence, not explanations for lack of same.
As a little experiment I’ve decided to think a bit about the possibility that I and all the other skeptics were wrong and Hansen and Co. were right. Putting myself into the shoes of a true believer, totally convinced by Hansen’s prediction that the continued burning of fossil fuels will lead the world to disaster “unless something drastic is done,” what would I be feeling at this moment and what steps would I want to recommend to our world leaders in order to best head off, or at least mitigate this coming catastrophe?
Well, the first thing that comes to mind, as the threat most likely to appear on the horizon, would be the intensification of deadly heat waves. We’ve already seen two examples that many climate scientists have attributed to AGW: the devastating 2003 heat wave that struck Europe and the 2010 heat wave that proved so disastrous in Russia. Other outcomes, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, while certainly of concern, seem relatively remote, with consequences we can probably adapt to over time. And it looks as though things like more intense hurricanes, floods and droughts are going to be beyond our capacity to change, at least over the next 50 to 100 years, so we may just need to live with them.
However, there IS something we can do to mitigate heat waves, so for me the most urgent thing we could do right away would be for all governments to provide air conditioning units to as many people on the planet as possible. I myself would want to run out and buy another air conditioner as a backup to the one I already have, just in case it were to fail while temperatures are soaring to 100 degrees and above — as they certainly will just about everywhere if Hansen is right. For the world’s many homeless people, or those living in remote areas with no access to electricity, we would need to build air conditioned heat-wave shelters to preserve life when temperatures begin to soar above the limit of human endurance.
All this air conditioning would, of course, require a tremendous increase in power generation, which would almost inevitably lead to a surge in fossil fuel emissions, but as I see it, that can’t be helped.
As far as sea level rise is concerned, I think we would need to begin, as soon as possible, to erect massive sea walls around all the world’s major cities — a task that would require massive amounts of concrete — another source of CO2 emissions I’m afraid, but what other recourse would we have?
It seems to me, therefore, that our only option under such circumstances would be to make every attempt to forestall disaster in the near term — but at the expense of the long term, which, if Hansen and his colleagues are correct, would eventually lead to the effective extinction of the human race over the next 100 years or so. If I actually believed that (I do NOT), then I would have no recourse but to hope against hope that the doomsayers are wrong after all, because, if they are right, there would truly be no hope.
66 MartinJB says:
MJB: On drought, as pointed out already, Heller shows a graph of precipitation (problem 1 – not a direct measure of drought) for only a limited part of the Northwest (problem 2 – possible cherry-picking alert). The third problem is that the data starts at 1988, taking away the context from the previous decades.
V: Excuse me? Precipitation is not a direct measure of drought? You mean you can have both significant precipitation in a given area AND drought in that same area? Please explain. I’m all ears. As for the data starting at 1988, that’s when Hansen presented his forecast. FOREcast. Get it?
MJB: Victor then links to EPA data on an actual drought metric and states that he doesn’t see an increasing trend. Not trusting Victor’s eyes (or my own), I actually did a regression of the last 4 decades (basically of the most dramatic warming period, and most likely to be relevant to Hansen’s study). Guess what? I got a trend showing drought.
V: In other words you fiddled with the data and the method until you got a result that satisfied you. A glance at that graph tells us that any trend you might have found means little to nothing.
MJB: I got an increasing trend over the last two decades as well. Now, neither trend was significant, but then Hansen did state that it was only a “tendency”, so I think significance is not necessarily a deal-breaker.
V: Interesting. Neither trend was significant. So what did you prove? And the “tendency” was a prediction by Hansen that did not pan out, as Heller demonstrated. Hansen was wrong. Live with it.
MJB:So, on drought, I’d say Hansen did OK.
V: I’d say he flunked.
MJB: On the “huge increase” in hot days in two regions, Heller doesn’t state which scenario this based on.
V: No need to say. It was yet another failed prediction. ’nuff said.
MJB: If it was for scenario A, I am not remotely surprised if we vastly undershot as total forcings didn’t remotely resemble scenario A. But this is Heller, a serial liar, reporting this. He gets NO benefit of the doubt. I would also add that region forecasts are still the least robust, so I can’t imagine they had much skill back in 1988. To ding Hansen on this, even if it’s an honest ding (doubtful), is just silly.
V: C’mon MJB, fess up. Hansen got it wrong. You are the one who is being silly.
MJB: I just don’t believe Hansen made the prediction that was reported about no summer sea ice in the Arctic.
V: Well that’s one thing I really like about Heller. He documents everything. The report is there in black and white. If you can track down evidence that Hansen ever retracted it, I’ll retract my claim that he got it wrong.
MJB: But what’s interesting here is just how incredibly dishonest Heller was in his video. He showed a graph of annual volume figures that shows volumes staying pretty steady. WOW! I thought for sure they had been falling pretty steadily (note the graph to which Kevin linked). Ahh… Heller showed the data for ONE DAY from each year. Who does he think he’s fooling? (Oh wait, we KNOW who he fooled!)
V: Yes indeed he did, and thanks for pointing that out. I must apologize because I missed that. And yes, the ice volume graph he presented IS misleading, which, I admit, alters my opinion of Heller’s honesty. But it does not alter the facts. Hansen predicted no summer sea ice 5 to 10 years after 2008. Yet we still find a significant amount arctic of sea ice in the summer of 2018, 10 years later. He was, once again, wrong.
MJB: The lower Manhattan thing is well known and wildly misinterpreted.
V: I keep hearing that. But in precisely what sense has it been misinterpreted? A reporter interviewed him and reported it, and I’ve never seen any evidence that he retracted it, only that he claimed he really meant 40 years, not 20 — which I duly noted. What do you know about this incident that I don’t?
MJB: Finally, when people talk about the skill demonstrated by Hansen’s model from the seminal 1988 paper, they are talking about one thing: the skill in predicting global warming based on total forcings.
V: What skill? He provided an alarming forecast and then fudged by proposing a much less alarming (and far more likely) scenario B. It’s called hedging your bets. I’ve seen several graphs comparing scenario A, scenario B and scenario C with the actual data and every one is different. Looks to me like the data is closest to scenario C, but hey — you pays your money and you takes your choice. Isn’t that what “the science” is all about?
MJB: Oh, one more thing. THIS is why Victor and his ilk are deniers. They accept uncritically almost any tripe put out by fellow members of the denialati. But when Mann links to some graphs of stratospheric temperatures, he is dismissed as a mathematician and of no account relative the august geographer who wrote a report published by a think tank. Why a geographer’s comments about satellite-measured stratosphere temperatures would hold more weight is beyond me.
V: I never accept anything uncritically, as should be clear from every one of my posts. And it wasn’t Mann, but Gavin who offered a tweet in lieu of an actual analysis. The “geographer” in question actually studied the data before reporting his conclusions, and wrote it up in detail for anyone to review and critique. The “geographer’s” comments hold more weight than the mathematician’s tweet because 1. they are based on the scrupulous analysis of actual data and 2. a monograph beats a tweet, sorry, but it actually does.
The bottom line, MJB, is that every prediction called out by Heller was WRONG. And what is more, there is nothing straightforward about his scenarios A, B and C, which have been interpreted in many different ways.
Moreover, even if all of Hansen’s predictions were correct, there is nothing in any of them that supports his principal argument: that CO2 emissions were responsible. Natural variation is the null hypothesis on all these fronts. To claim otherwise requires proof, not dire predictions.
Well, the idea of greenhouse gases as a cause of global warming, and particularly CO2, is not what one can call “strong” and “science -based”, only pseudo-scientific political organizations like the IPCC support it thanks to more than one billion of dollars invested each day into the theory at Earth’s scale. Angstrom and Woods independently and experimentally debunked the idea more than one century ago. Bio and geo-physical effects of global deforestation are way more potent than any greenhouse gases. The Earth is not a black body and there is no radiative balance. Radiative imbalance is needed for life to sustain itself on Earth thanks to photosynthesis. What the IPCC does not say is that replacing dioxygen with carbon dioxyde through a combustion process increases the heat capacity of air, and thus decreases its temperature for the same amount of energy entering into it.
Well, well. The almighty Tamino has chosen to lower himself by responding to some of my humble comments. I’m honored. Coincidentally I debunked the same argument he now rehashes (from a blog post of 2014) in my book “The Unsettled Science of Climate Change.” Here’s the gist:
“It’s clever, I’ll give him that. But, yes, it’s a just a trick, one of many examples of how easy it is to deceive oneself (and others) with statistics. The basis for the trick is that old standby of magicians for centuries: misdirection. Tamino’s red line tells us that, indeed, as no one would dispute, the years between 1998 and 2013 were especially warm compared to the period between 1979 and 1997, and that is why most of the data points lie above the red line, because the red line predicts absolute temperature, telling us nothing at all about the rate at which temperature changes. As he himself states, “All sixteen years were hotter than expected even according to the still-warming prediction [red line], so of course they also were above the no-warming [blue line] prediction.” Yes. Precisely. Because they were hotter. Not because there was no leveling after 1998. The leveling of the warming trend remains clearly visible on the Hadcrut graph, regardless of where those dots appear in relation to any red or blue line. That red line serves a function analogous to the matador’s red cape, directing our attention away from the actual hiatus toward the very different issue of absolute heat. Literally misdirection.”
May I add that references to the hiatus can be found scattered very widely in the peer reviewed climate science literature, often described as a perplexing puzzle that needs to be addressed. And indeed, Tamino’s effort is only one among a great many other efforts to explain this inconvenient development away.
109 CCHolley says:
Steven Emmerson @101
“Look up Occam’s razor for why this is a non-scientific argument.”
CC: LOL. Victor believes that these unknown natural drivers ARE the simpler explanation. To him it doesn’t matter that they are unknown or that there is no known possible physical explanation of how such a driver could work creating heat within the boundaries of the well understood physical laws of thermodynamics and heat transfer theory. The possibility of such is the simpler explanation just because Victor says so. Natural variation! Simpler! Damned the physics or the evidence. Doesn’t matter. Simpler! Why? Because Victor with no formal training in the hard sciences says so.
V: Sheesh. This is getting tiresome. Occam’s Razor applies when it’s necessary to decide between two or more conflicting theories. Natural variation is NOT a theory. It’s the null hypothesis. There is no need to provide evidence for its existence, especially since its been the driver of global temperature since the origin of the Earth. Unless you prefer to believe that aliens from outer space are controlling it.
AGW is based on the notion that, since the industrial revolution, man made greenhouse gases (especially CO2) have taken over from natural variation as the principal “control knob” of global temperature. This is a radically new idea and as such requires proof. Need I add: extraordinary theories require extraordinary proof.
104
nigelj says:
nj: Hansen has also long predicted that the antarctic ice sheets could become unstable due to the ice shelf issue, and evidence for this along with a significant acceleration in the melting of antarctic ice has been detected this year and reported in the media. So Hansen has been right about most things.
V: No. He’s been wrong about that as well. From a 2014 NASA report (https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512/#.VU0IGY5Vikp):
“The new finding that the eventual loss of a major section of West Antarctica’s ice sheet “appears unstoppable” was not completely unexpected by scientists who study this area. The study, led by glaciologist Eric Rignot at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine, follows decades of research and theory suggesting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is inherently vulnerable to change.
Antarctica is so harsh and remote that scientists only began true investigation of its ice sheet in the 1950s. It didn’t take long for the verdict on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to come in. “Unstable,” wrote Ohio State University glaciologist John Mercer in 1968. It was identified then and remains today the single largest threat of rapid sea level rise. . .
In his 1968 paper, Mercer called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet a “uniquely vulnerable and unstable body of ice.” Mercer based his statement on geologic evidence that West Antarctica’s ice had changed considerably many, many millennia ago at times when the ice sheets of East Antarctica and Greenland had not”
Thus what Hansen “predicted” is a condition that evidently began “many millennia ago,” long before the beginnings of the industrial revolution.
Moreover,
“Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it’s being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” (https://phys.org/news/2014-06-major-west-antarctic-glacier-geothermal.html)
AND
“Scientists have uncovered the largest volcanic region on Earth – two kilometres below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica.
The project, by Edinburgh University researchers, has revealed almost 100 volcanoes – with the highest as tall as the Eiger, which stands at almost 4,000 metres in Switzerland.” (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/scientists-discover-91-volcanos-antarctica)
Given the presence of so much geothermal heat from below, plus the likelihood that the process by which West Antarctica is being eroded began thousands of years ago, the notion that we can somehow stop or even slow this process by cutting back on CO2 emissions strikes me as the sheerest of sheer folly.
127 nigelj says:
“Heres the “pause”. Victor likes “eyeballing” graphs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#/media/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg
A tiny flattening in the red trend line of about 6 years from about 2004 to 2010. Not significant, and clearly natural variation.”
V: You might want to print that up and send copies to the many climate scientists who busted their butts trying to explain away the “tiny flattening” you so easily dismiss. You can find a list of names here: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/11/updated-list-of-64-excuses-for-18-26.html
Actually, if you eliminate the unusually strong El Nino years of 1998, 2010 and 2016-17, you can easily spot the pause, even on the graph you’ve chosen to display (one of many, each one different).
Here’s another, courtesy of Spencer Weart: https://history.aip.org/climate/images/temps_2014.gif
And here’s the analysis of Weart’s graph I provided in my book:
“Let’s do the math. The numbers in the leftmost column represent degrees Celsius. Each one of the little ticks represents .05 degrees. Following the graph from the late 70s to the late 90s we see a rise from approximately minus .2 to plus .6, a temperature increase of .8 degrees. From 1998 to 2014, however, the rise is from .6 to .7 – an increase of only .1 degree. The “record breaking” year 2014 was only one tick warmer than the preceding record breaker: a mere .05 degrees. And every single one of those record breaking 21st century years were within only two ticks of one another . . .
The late 20th century rise that initially concerned so many was thus 8 times greater than the rise over the last 16 years, any “record-breaking” years notwithstanding. This is the hiatus. Any claim pointing to broken temperature records in recent years that does not also remind us how narrow the differences are is, very simply: dishonest. While the hiatus is clearly visible on literally all the various readings as displayed on an array of graphs, the story is most meaningfully conveyed by the numbers: a rise of .8 degrees over 20 years of the 20th century vs. only .1 degree over the last 16 years.”
Might be useful to quote directly from the original Salon article (https://www.salon.com/2001/10/23/weather/):
Reiss: While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.” . . .
When did he say this will happen?
Within 20 or 30 years. And remember we had this conversation in 1988 or 1989.
Does he still believe these things?
Yes, he still believes everything. I talked to him a few months ago and he said he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.
V: Seems to me that Hansen had his chance to clarify the terms of his prediction, with respect to the 20 or 30 year timing AND the CO2 doubling. Yet, according to Reiss what he said was that “he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.” No mention of CO2 doubling.
So I’m sorry, but I remain skeptical of the latest version of this story, which sounds contrived to get Hansen off the hook.
118 CCHolley: Currently CO2 levels are up about 130 ppm with another 150 ppm needed for the doubling. We are not even 50% there.
Thanks for the reminder, CC. Now if Reiss had asked Hansen about the possibility of what might happen in 20 or 30 or 40 years given a doubling of CO2 levels, I’d think that Hansen, as someone certainly knowledgeable about CO2 levels, would have responded that such a question makes no sense, as we we won’t be anywhere near that point in 20, 30 or 40 years. So I’m sorry, I realize that any attempt to question the integrity of one of the high priests of the climate change cult is bound to scandalize just about everyone posting here, but I, as an agnostic, have no such compunctions.
Marco says:
Victor, explain me how this timeline works in your little theory that Hansen bullied Reiss into changing his story:
a) the Salon article that mentions 20 years (no further caveats) is from 2001
b) the Salon article was an interview about Reiss’ book “The Coming Storm”
c) the book, which was written before the interview, mentions 40 years AND the caveat of doubling of CO2
V: The book wasn’t published until 2004.
From my book: “There has been no lack of . . . efforts to account for the hiatus by considering, or reconsidering, certain factors (and conveniently ignoring others), or adjusting the data in such a way as to produce the desired result. Each new publication offers a different explanation. Few attempt to replicate any of the earlier ones. As time goes by, and carefully contrived models fail to mesh with the most recent data, new factors and adjustments are retroactively stirred into the mix, so the most up-to-date findings can be represented to the world as definitive.”
147 Fred Magyar, quoting https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-pause-in-ocean-warming/:
“Various studies have debunked the idea of a pause, or hiatus, in global warming—the contention that global surface temperatures stopped rising during the first decade of this century. The arguments for and against “the pause” were somewhat muted until June 2015, when scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a paper in Science saying that it had slightly revised the sea surface temperatures it had been citing for the 1900s. The measurement methods, based on sensors in the engine intake ports of ships, had been flawed, NOAA said. The revised methodology also meant that sea surface temperatures during the 2000s had been slightly higher than reported. NOAA adjusted both records, which led to a conclusion that global surface temperatures during the 2000s were indeed higher than they had been in previous decades. No hiatus.”
V: For me this new study, published after I wrote my book, is simply one more in the long long list of attempts to nullify the hiatus. For one thing, it neglects either to replicate or in any way support any of the earlier studies, thus not only invalidating them but exposing the bias on which they were based, as their reliance on supposedly faulty data nevertheless produced (surprise surprise) the same desired result.
More fundamentally, it is of the utmost importance that any attempt to retrospectively adjust long-accepted data in any field be conducted under the strictest controls. Adjusting data is not simply one type of project among others since flawed or biased results can have a significant effect on all future research. There is a very good reason why double-blind experiments are regarded as so important in the medical field, since, as is well known, there is always the danger that any result could be unconsciously influenced by the experimenter’s bias. And as is well known, Dr. Karl, who directed this study, has an agenda which would make him especially vulnerable to producing a biased result. I’ve looked over the paper in question and, though I lack the expertise to properly evaluate it, I couldn’t help but notice how complex it is and how many different factors had to be evaluated before the adjustments were finalized.
I’m not accusing Karl of intentionally “cooking the books” or anything like that, but the possibility of unconscious bias in his evaluation of evidence with this degree of complexity cannot be ignored. Studies of this kind, especially when they involve revisions of very basic and important data, should never be entrusted to anyone known to have an agenda, but carried out by independent researchers with no skin in the game, whose results are least likely to be influenced by bias.
Another gem from Tony Heller:
https://youtu.be/NJtpdTbHY30
No comment.
131 Karsten V. Johansen says:
If I may be allowed a short comment about some of the discussion above, I just think that “Victor” should do some scientific research to test his hypoteses (if there are any?) and then let the baffled world know about his mind-blowing results which would overwhelm all communities of climate scientists everywhere with their originality and theoretical revolutionizing, are we to believe his foregone conclusions. But the proof is in the pudding. No exercise in rethorics whatsoever will change neither nature nor the science about it. And that’s all I think anyone should say on that subject here until “Victor” publishes his baffling results.
V: Responding to boneheaded posts such as this gets increasingly tiresome, but when someone so brazenly sets himself up for defeat, I can’t resist.
So first of all, I’m not a specialist in climate science or any related field, thus not qualified to publish on this topic. But I don’t have to, as there are a great many highly qualified scientists who HAVE published papers challenging the “consensus” view, and yes, their work has appeared in peer reviewed journals. I’m often attacked on this blog as though the reservations I’ve presented originate with me alone. I’d love to take credit for originality in this respect, but in fact I serve here merely as the representative of a long list of very highly qualified scientists who share my skepticism. For some examples, see:
http://notrickszone.com/2017/11/06/new-atmospheric-sciences-textbook-climate-sensitivity-just-0-4c-for-co2-doubling/
http://notrickszone.com/50-papers-low-sensitivity/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Bengtsson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Giaever
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke_Jr.
Only a small sampling, but the point should be clear. There is no need for “Victor” to publish his analyses in peer reviewed journals, as the work has already been done by those far more qualified than I — or for that matter any of the self-appointed “experts” commenting here.
Nigel @183,
The temperature trends are given in Gavin’s post above:
The GISTEMP trend of 0.19ºC/decade is (0.28-0.19)/0.28 = 32% lower than scenario B and the Cowtan and Way trend is (0.28-0.21)/0.28 = 25% lower, both significantly less, even if not the 40% claimed by Dan H.
Moreover, inspection of the scenarios linked by Gavin at https://www.realclimate.org/data/H88_scenarios.dat reveals that the actual rise in CO2 lay between those for projected for Scenarios A and B rather than B and C.
Year A,,, B,,,, C,,,, Actual
2014 400.6 396.7 367.8 397.1
2015 403.0 398.6 367.8 399.4
2016 405.4 400.5 367.8 402.8
2017 407.9 402.4 367.8 405.0
This all shows that, although Jim Hansen was correct that increases in CO2 cause global warming, the models he was using overestimated the warming caused.
However, the climate is a non-linear dynamic system and if it passes a tipping point it is quite possible that these trends will be grossly exceeded, e.g. Broecker, W. S. (1999) ‘What if the conveyor were to shut down? Reflections on a possible outcome of the great global experiment’, GSA Today, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1–7.
Ka-Kit Tung,
Ever heard of the deep state?
Rahmstorf is part of it in Germany.
53 Carrie:
“Victor’s link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Europe_%5Bnotes_6%5D shows that only 10 countries on that list are pre-1980 – most records are after that 27 records are post-2003.”
Funny, but I counted 43 extreme weather incidents prior to 1980. (You actually decided to count countries? Why?) And literally all those incidents took place when temperatures were far cooler worldwide than they are today.
As for record high temperatures, no one disputes that 21st century temperatures are unusually high. The question is: why?
#66 Thank you, Sheldon.
60 & 61 What’s with the Eurocentrism, guys? Looks like cherry picking to me.
As for the others: yes, we are seeing temperature records being broken almost on a yearly basis, but if you examine the evidence critically, you’ll see that this does not mean very much as far as AGW is concerned. Temperatures did rise dramatically during the last 20 years of the previous century — the ONLY period in the last 120 years or so when there was a clear correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature. After that they rapidly leveled off, for a period of roughly 15 to 17 years. When temperatures plateau like that, then ANY slight increase from one year to the next will, technically, set a record. So what? The fact that all those years of RECORD BREAKING TEMPERATURES has become such a huge AGW meme makes one wonder at the honesty of those trying so hard to induce hysteria, regardless of what real science is telling us.
And incidentally, the most sustained period of extreme drought and sustained heat waves was during the 1930’s. If anything like that was happening now, you can bet that all you warm mongers would be ecstatic.
Hey, look what I dug up. A monologue from a play I wrote several years ago — before climate change was a thing. I too had a theory, way back then, about fossil fuels, not too different from the sort of gospel being preached nowadays. So you might wonder how I morphed into a “denier.” Long story.
The Professor:
Years. Millions of years. All that residue of the most ancient forms of life. The most ancient residue of living matter. Where is it now? Where? Where is it? Slumbering deep deep down in the dirt, the earth, earth, hidden away very deep in the bowels of the earth undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years in the dirt. [pause] And then. One day. One cold day. Some human digs. And digs. And finds something. Something to burn. Burn. Some sort of handy substance you can burn. Limitless supplies, huge, huge, huge amounts of organic material buried deep, deep in the earth and under the sea, dead matter, residue, remnants. In fact, the remnants of our oldest ancestors, from the earliest beginnings of life on Earth, remnants we’re now dredging up from their ancient burial places – in the form of coal, oil, natural gas, what we call “fossil fuels.” You think you can treat it with indifference, as though it were just nothing at all but something sitting there for you to use, for you to burn, burn, to burn. It keeps you warm. It powers your cars. It drives your turbines, produces your electric power, fuels your factories, your armies, makes everything possible — for those who can control it. But reflect – REFLECT! Every living thing on Earth is descended from these “fossil fuels.” They are a part of you – and you of them. Their primordial desires, desires desires, pri-mordial, are buried deep within you still, embedded in your very DNA. And now. They are burning. Your ancestors are burning. Burning. You have violated the earth and the sea to dig dig dig them from their ancient resting place. And you are burning them. Burning. Burning them up. This burning of the ancestors, it is what has made our modern world possible. And what is now choking it to death. [with great emotion:] Oh forgive them, for they know not what they do!
In response to #101 et al.: The 80 year period I had in mind was the first 80 years of the 20th century. I assumed everyone reading here would get it, since I’ve referred to this particular 80 year period several times already. Here’s the relevant graph:
https://static.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_temp_broad.gif
As should be clear to any objective observer (i.e., anyone without an agenda), there is NO correlation from 1900 until roughly 1980. Nor is there a correlation after 2000,when temperature increases leveled off for 15 years while CO2 levels soared — though this particular graph lacks sufficient detail to adequately cover this period. And yes, someone here has been able to come up with a “correlation coefficient” for those first 80 years that supposedly proves otherwise. Sorry, but I’m not impressed. “These examples [Anscombe’s quartet] indicate that the correlation coefficient, as a summary statistic, cannot replace visual examination of the data.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence
My 2005 climate model has been the only model to project dropping temperatures. I saw some comments about my hypothesis that planets tidally perturbate the solar surface. They state that this would be a centimeter only change in solar surface. But this is not correct because solar surface is not any liquid but a very low density gas and any perturbation can lead to thousands of degrees change.
I give some history of the ideas:
already as of 2006 I shared my findings with the community via Climate Audit blog but the blog people refused to reproduce these fine findings.
This is my original 2005 thesis at the ITIA-NTUA library (National Technical University of Athens) in Greek
https://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/680/
and this is a more recent paper of 2014 in the same ITIA-NTUA library in English explaining the sun-climate connection phenomena.
https://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/1486/
In my blog I provide links to my more recent papers.
http://dimispoulos.wixsite.com/dimis
climate modeling can’t be accurate if not attributing to the correct phenomena.
if you don’t spread the truth and scientifically documented discoveries, you can’t solve anything but preserve a vicious state.
Solar irradiance has been decreasing since 1950 yet the planet warmed considerably since. My model accounts for it and only projects a cooling in the coming decades. Why? Because I have accounted for the solar wind effect on climate too. Solar wind is becoming stronger and stronger since 1930 and is the reason for nowadays high temperatures. Though temperatures shall fall down again.
There is a very strong mathematical documentation of the described phenomena. Within this frame I have even explained the complete solar wind mechanisms and theoretically calculated all it’s properties (temperature, velocity etc).
This is the correct approach to climate variability for I have attributed for the correct phenomena.
regards
Dimitris
110 nigelj says:
“Victor says “V: No. But when pondering the future of sea level rise I learn that past sea level rise has been estimated at anywhere from 1.5 to 3mm per year, I wonder how the “experts” are predicting rises of several feet over the next 50 years, as opposed to, say, 50 x 3mm = 150mm = 0.492126ft.”
Things accelerate. Sea level rise has already shown an acceleration over the last couple of decades which would lead to more than two feet of sea level rise by 2100 according to this study (it quotes 2100, not 2050).
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/new-study-finds-sea-level-rise-accelerating”
V: Buried within the above article is a revealing statement: “Nerem and his team used climate models to account for the volcanic effects and other datasets to determine the El Niño/La Niña effects, ultimately uncovering the underlying rate and acceleration of sea level rise over the last quarter century.”
In other words, the finding that sea level rise was accelerating was based not on the raw data, which revealed NO such rise (see below), but on specially constructed “climate models” that allegedly revealed an “underlying” rate. This theme of an “underlying” influence hidden within data that on the surface appears to contradict the approved theory, pervades much of the modeling that forms the basis for the AGW argument. The problem: it’s all too easy for confirmation bias to creep into the construction of such models. Note, for example, that the inclusion of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption became part of the mix ONLY after researchers became alarmed by hard evidence indicating that sea levels were actually decreasing.
In a slightly earlier paper, also co-authored by Nerem, the embarrassing problem is laid out in no uncertain terms:
“Global mean sea level rise estimated from satellite altimetry provides a strong constraint on climate variability and change and is expected to accelerate as the rates of both ocean warming and cryospheric mass loss increase over time. In stark contrast to this expectation however, current altimeter products show the rate of sea level rise to have decreased from the first to second decades of the altimeter era.” https://www.nature.com/articles/srep31245
The unexpected revelation is then immediately explained away by invoking the effects of the Pinatubo eruption:
“Here, a combined analysis of altimeter data and specially designed climate model simulations shows the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinatubo to likely have masked the acceleration that would have otherwise occurred.”
To the skeptic it looks as though the “specially designed climate model simulations” were “specially designed” to misdirect our attention away from a finding that would not sit well with climate change alarmists, pushing the dangers of “extreme sea level rise” for some time.
The true believer, however, has no problem accepting even the most contrived explanation so long as it accords with his pre-determined convictions.
148 Ray Ladbury: Finally, you really don’t understand where the idea of global warming came from. It was a prediction, based on a theory of Earth’s climate, made long before we saw that warming. And NOW, we do have measurements of the energy flows into and out of the climate. We know what the Sun is doing. We know what the oceans are doing. We know what clouds are doing. And guess what, Victor, nothing explains the warming seen except anthropogenic greenhouse gasses.
V: But that doesn’t explain the warming either, as I’ve tirelessly demonstrated over and over. Sure, if you’re content with a “correlation coefficient” drawn out of a computational black box, then I suppose you could make such a claim. Global temperatures were thus and so at the outset of the 20th century and they are now much higher than that (if by “much higher” you mean less than 1 degree higher) after years of ever increasing CO2 levels. Punch in the data for 1900, punch in the data for 2018, press Enter on your computer, and out pops the answer you expect, straight from the mouth of the Oracle. How reassuring.
But if you actually examine the data on a year by year basis, the lack of any REAL correlation becomes all too evident. Temperatures shoot up while CO2 levels remain low (early 20th century); temperatures fall and then level off while CO2 levels begin to increase dramatically (1940-1979); both temperatures and CO2 levels rise in tandem (1979-1998, the ONLY period when correlation is evident); temperatures level off or rise only slightly while CO2 levels continue to soar (1998-2015). It’s called ANALYSIS of the data, Ray, as opposed to consultation of the Oracle.
169 nigelj says:
Victor is incapable of registering even obvious visual correlations, like CO2 and warming since the 1920’s, and he rejects standard, established statistical tests that also show a reasonably good correlation between CO2 and warming. He manufactures doubt for the sake of getting attention. He is not advancing discussion of anything useful.
V: Doubt? Did you say “doubt”? Concerns over doubt are usually expressed in a religious context. Among scientists, doubt is (or should be) part and parcel of the process.
Now to the point: If you can see “obvious visual correlations” in those graphs, you are wallowing in confirmation bias is all I can say. Remove the last 20 years of the previous century and nothing remotely like a correlation is to be seen anywhere. Those graphs have been around for ages. How long does it take to catch on? Even the “experts” themselves have acknowledged the problem — and gone to great lengths to explain it away. See for example this, from the abstract of a (peer reviewed) 2016 paper by Fyfe et al.:
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.”
Or this, also from a peer reviewed source:
“Global mean surface temperature over the past 20 years (1993–2012)
rose at a rate of 0.14 ± 0.06 °C per decade (95% confidence interval)1
.
This rate of warming is significantly slower than that simulated by the climate
models participating in Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). . . .
The inconsistency between observed and simulated global warming is even more
striking for temperature trends computed over the past fifteen years (1998–2012).
For this period, the observed trend of 0.05 ± 0.08 °C per decade is more than four
times smaller than the average simulated trend of 0.21 ± 0.03 °C per decade (Fig. 1b). It is worth noting that the observed trend
over this period — not significantly different from zero — suggests a temporary
‘hiatus’ in global warming.” http://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/182h/climate/overestimated%20warming.pdf
Now as far as the relation between “standard, established statistical tests” and “eyeballing” is concerned:
“It is important to note that there may be a non-linear association between two continuous variables, but computation of a correlation coefficient does not detect this. Therefore, it is always important to evaluate the data carefully before computing a correlation coefficient. Graphical displays are particularly useful to explore associations between variables.” http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/bs/bs704_multivariable/bs704_multivariable5.html
“To test to see whether your two variables form a linear relationship you simply need to plot them on a graph (a scatterplot, for example) and visually inspect the graph’s shape.” https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/pearson-correlation-coefficient-statistical-guide.php
“Finally, the fourth example (bottom right) shows another example when one outlier is enough to produce a high correlation coefficient, even though the relationship between the two variables is not linear.
These examples indicate that the correlation coefficient, as a summary statistic, cannot replace visual examination of the data.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence
166 CCHolley says:
“The purpose of statistical analysis of time series is to make up for the inability of our eyes to determine trends.”
Spoken like a true true believer. A meaningful trend should reveal itself very clearly to the eye. On the other hand, it is often possible to produce a misleading “trend” by careful selection of endpoints, or trying this method or that until the desired “correlation coefficient” is achieved. While I am not a statistician myself, I’ve worked closely with professionals in the field over many years, who have made me aware of the many pitfalls involved.
48 Fred Magyar says:
FM: When one wishes to enjoy a nice cup of tea, one generally places a kettel of water on the stove and allows it come to a slow boil, which happens at exactly 100 °C at a pressure of 1 atm. As we know from high school physics, as long as there is liquid water in the kettle the temperature will not rise above 100 °C. However if the temperature should reach 101 °C, that means all the water has evaporated and has now turned to steam! Should you attempt to lift the lid off the kettle at this point, in an attempt to look inside it, you will be hit in the face by a blast of scalding steam. Perhaps it would not be fatal and might just leave one with a rather ruddy complexion… ;-)
V: Very amusing. When CO2 emissions drive Earth’s temperature to something close to 100 °C, I’ll start to worry. Thanks for the tip. :-)
49 nigelj says:
nj: Regarding your original question of how to explain in plain english how only 1 degree can cause significant sea level rise and more extreme weather etc.
1 degree represents a lot of heat energy even if spread out, and if applied over a century it causes significant sea level rise and more extreme weather to become the established pattern. Time and heat energy are the factors here. A 1 degree change during the diurnal cycle wont melt much ice and seems small, this fools us into thinking 1 degree is insignificant.
V: But there has NOT been a significant sea level rise, not yet at least. And it’s not clear as yet that more extreme weather has become the established pattern, that remains to be seen. If a rise of 1 degree or more were that important, and contributed in any significant way to extreme weather, species extinction, flooding, drought, etc., then we’d have seen a long term migration by now from the Southern United States to Minnesota, New England and Canada, which would have become the ultimate refuge from warmer temperatures. No? What am I missing here?
57 Ray Ladbury says:
Weaktor’s disingenuous squealing aside, another way to look at the “But it’s only one degree” foolishness is to look at the latent heat contained in a mass of air. It’s proportional to the amount of water in the air, and it is a big factor in the energy of storms. Assuming constant relative humidity, water vapor content–and therefore latent heat increases by 7-9% for every degree. This will increase wind speeds roughly 2.6%, as well as increasing the frequency of impulsive rain events. And as has been repeated to Weaktor (though not understood) incessantly, a 1-degree global average can easily translate to 5 or 10 degrees temporarily and locally. Think about what happens to the destructiveness of hurricanes when the gulf is a couple of degrees warmer. Or think about the difference between doing hard physical work when it’s 24 degrees C and 30 degrees C.
V: C’mon Ray, you’ve explained nothing. We’re talking major disruptions all over the world, hurricanes destructive as never before, record-breaking droughts, floods, the collapse of the W. Antarctic ice sheet, precipitating disastrous sea-level rise, heat waves beyond anything experienced previously anywhere on Earth, record breaking cold, record breaking snowstorms, etc. And you’re worried about the difference between doing hard work at 24 degrees and 30 degrees? You never heard of a siesta?
Differences of 1 degree and much more than 1 degree exist all over the Earth, at different latitudes, different altitudes, different times of day, different seasons, etc., so how does a difference of 1 measly degree lead to such a long list of extreme events, supposedly happening NOW?
I’m not saying the scientists supporting such a view are necessarily wrong, but I do feel the need for some sort of explanation that takes normal variances in temperature into account and goes beyond vague generalizations regarding “latent heat”. If this is widely understood, as you’ve claimed then by all means point me to at least one peer-reviewed paper that explains how a gradual increase of only 1 degree can lead to so many disastrous events.
It is gravity which sets up the temperature gradient in every planetary troposphere, not back radiation. Loschmidt explained this in 1876 but climatologists choose to ignore this direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Prove me wrong in my 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.”
The fundamental assumption in all climate models and climatology energy diagrams is that one can add to solar radiation about twice as much radiation from the cold atmosphere and then use the total (less non-radiative cooling) in Stefan Boltzmann calculations to explain the global mean surface temperature.
Radiation cannot be added that way.
No empirical experiment has ever been published demonstrating that it can be. It would be contrary to Wien’s Displacement Law and their false assumption ignores the fact the Stefan-Boltzmann Law is based on the integral of a single Planck function.
Even if there were a mean of about 500W/m^2 of radiation from a much hotter or closer sun, that radiation would be variable all over the globe and thus produce a lower mean temperature than would the uniform flux needed for Stefan-Boltzmann calculations to be correct.
So it’s laughable that NASA energy diagrams show a net of 390W/m^2 and assume that will produce a mean of 288K. They make a double mistake – adding back radiation and then assuming variable flux will produce the same temperature as uniform flux. Prof Claes Johnson explained why the back radiation merely resonates and is not thermalized in the warmer surface.
Prove wrong my peer-reviewed 2012 paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Themodynamics.”
How does a location on the equator of Venus warm by about five degrees (from 732K to 737K) over the course of about four months on the sunlit side? Where does the new thermal energy come from? The direct solar radiation reaching the Venus surface is about one-eighth of that impinging on Earth’s surface. There cannot be any heat from the less hot atmosphere that could raise the temperature of the hotter Venus surface.
What does happen is that solar radiation can only raise the temperature of regions in the upper troposphere and above. But then gravity maintains a non-zero tropospheric temperature gradient which is the state of maximum entropy (thermodynamic equilibrium) and so the whole thermal profile in the troposphere rises by about five degrees at all altitudes.
The same kind of thing happens on Earth and in every planetary troposphere, and that is why it is hotter than Earth’s surface at the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus.
Prove wrong my 2016 paper “Comprehensive Refutation of the Radiative Forcing Greenhouse Hypothesis.”
Oh, sorry, Dr Pete Sudbury. I just learned that you’re a retired psychiatrist. Apparently, you’ve learned all about climate change by reading the fictitious, fiddled physics of climatology. Well, well, well! So sorry if I’ve confused you with correct physics that refutes the whole scam.
So let me keep it simple for you Dr Pete Sudbury, seeing that you probably don’t even know what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says or what entropy is.
It was warmer than the present back in Roman times, and there was certainly overall net (natural) global cooling between then and the Little Ice Age when they skated in the River Thames in London.
Temperatures have to do with gravity and the height of a planet’s troposphere. Luckily Earth’s troposphere is about the right height for comfort. If we had just as much greenhouse gas but a troposphere only half the height, then global mean temperatures would be less than zero C, just as we know the global mean is well below that for our Moon.
And so that is why it is hotter than Earth’s surface at the base of the tropospheres of Venus and Uranus, despite the latter having no solar radiation and no solid surface down there.
We now know that cosmic rays assist cloud formation and, guess what, cosmic ray intensity varies partly due to solar activity and also to magnetic fields from the planets. Those clouds do shade the Earth and keep us cooler, you know.
We also know that the greenhouse gas water vapor varies in concentration between about 1% and 4%, so that’s a 3% variation. With carbon dioxide taking up a whole 0.04% of our atmosphere (one molecule in 2,500) that extra 3% of greenhouse gas that we find above rain forests could be assumed to have roughly the effect we might get by increasing carbon dioxide to 76 times its concentration, that is, from 0.04% to 3.04%. The trouble is, it doesn’t happen. Rain forests are cooler than dry regions at similar latitude and altitude as I found when I studied 30 years of temperature data from locations on three continents.
Prove wrong the study in my 2014 book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All.”
MA Rodger @ 128
I came to RealClimate, hoping to discuss global warming with intelligent people.
Instead, I was attacked repeatedly, and was told:
– that I had no science skills
– that I was a crank
– that I was unable to comprehend anything longer than a single sentence
and YOU called me a “fool” 6 times in your comment @ 101,
and YOU called me a “fool” 4 times in your comment @ 128.
You can call me over-sensitive, but I am beginning to think that somebody doesn’t like me.
==========
You asked, “Why do you pretenciously parade your school record before us?”
It is interesting that you call my academic record, a “school record”.
My academic record is from university. You know, the place where big boys go.
This is another stupid “put down”, by you. Are you jealous?
I am not ashamed of my excellent education. Are you ashamed of yours?
==========
You asked, “Why do you digress and so happily turn the discussion onto the subject of the eye of the octopus?”
My life consists of more than just global warming. I am very interested in the natural world. From the reaction that my octopus comment got, I would say that other people found it interesting too.
Since you are not interested in such trivia, I won’t tell you about my research, investigating why earthworms are a major cause of global warming.
I believe that knowledge is valuable. You do not always know which bits will be useful. I got most of my knowledge, by making stupid “mistakes”. I made not just 1, but 2 wrong decisions, when choosing a career.
The first mistake meant that I learned all about psychology. This included human perception, vision, hearing, and 5 years of learning about eyes.
I then swapped to computer programming, which didn’t require any knowledge about eyes.
Did I waste my time learning about psychology, etc. Some people would say that I did. But those times were some of the best fun that I have ever had. The knowledge that I got, has been a lifelong treasure.
Then, after programming for about 12 years, I decided that I hated programming. I went back to university, and did a Bachelor of Commerce degree. I had never done these subjects before, so it was a bit of a risk.
I loved it. I got top marks, and lots of scholarships and prizes. When I finished, I looked for a BCom related job. They wanted me to work 60 hours a week. I said that I wanted to work 30 hours a week. We both agreed that the job was not right for me.
I did some thinking. I decided that really, I loved computer programming. It was the people that I had been working for, that I hated. So I returned to programming, and have been doing it ever since.
Did I waste my time getting a BCom. I don’t think so. Because I can piss Alarmists off, by pretentiously parading it.
==========
Since YOU brought it up, let’s talk about Tamino.
Tamino set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner, and found me and my graph guilty, based on a computer program that Tamino wrote. He never tested MY program. He never let me see HIS program.
Tamino generated the temperature series that he input to HIS computer program. The temperature series was never input to MY program.
The temperature series was generated using “random” numbers. But Tamino “knew” that there was no slowdown in the temperature series. Apparently Tamino can accurately predict “random” numbers.
Tamino never showed me the temperature series. In democratic countries, a person has a right to defend themselves, AND see the evidence against them. I was denied both of those rights.
I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. Tamino just “knew” that there was no slowdown. He didn’t even look.
I politely asked to comment on Tamino’s website. Here is the conversation, cut and pasted off Tamino’s own website.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/how-sheldon-walker-views-global-warming/#comment-97895
If Tamino’s web page is not there, I archived it here:
http://archive.fo/IJtBw
==========
Sheldon Walker: I am happy to discuss all aspects of my global warming contour maps.
Tamino: No, you’re not. You will not discuss the effect of noise on those graphs. You really don’t get the difference between climate and weather, so you continue to take all the impact of noise and think of it as climate change. Until you recognize the error of your ways, you will be stuck in your fantasy world. We have tried to reason with you, but your mind is closed.
[edit]
Sheldon Walker: I will discuss other issues about global warming contour maps in other posts.
Tamino: Not here you won’t. As I’ve said before, this site is not for deniers.
==========
I asked nicely, but Tamino banned me, and insulted me, by calling me a Denier.
Anybody who knows me, knows that I believe that global warming is happening.
My graph shows that global warming is happening, VERY CLEARLY.
My graph also shows when global warming started, how fast global warming is happening, and which parts of the earth are warming faster, and which parts of the earth are warming slower.
Do I really sound like a Denier to you.
My CRIME, is that I believe that there was a recent slowdown. As I said before, I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. I can show you the evidence. I have been trying to show Alarmists the evidence for 2 years, but they refuse to look at it.
==========
Most people (including Alarmists), do not understand statistical significance. The easiest way for me to explain it to you, is with a funny story.
A Skeptic is walking through a paddock (on a farm), on a moonless night. He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He walks around where he thinks the cow is, and continues walking across the paddock.
Now, an Alarmist is walking through the same paddock (on a farm), on a moonless night.
He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He tries to see the cow, but can’t make it out, because it is too dark. He thinks, “there is no statistically significant cow here”, and tries to continue walking straight ahead.
He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He tries to see the cow, but can’t make it out, because it is too dark. He thinks, “there is no statistically significant cow here”, and tries to continue walking straight ahead.
He bumps into something. He thinks, “this could be a cow”. He tries to see the cow, but can’t make it out, because it is too dark. He thinks, “there is no statistically significant cow here”, and tries to continue walking straight ahead.
This is exactly how Alarmists deal with the slowdown. They think that because it is not statistically significant, that it does not exist (just like the cow).
Have you ever thought about what “statistically significant”, really means?
It really means, “statistically significantly different from zero”.
Guess what? A pause has a slope (warming rate) of zero.
Zero is NOT “statistically significantly different from zero”.
So a pause can never be statistically significant, even if it lasts for 10,000 years.
Alarmist statistics are based on lies.
My global warming contour map is based on the truth.
MA Rodger @ 128
Since YOU brought it up, let’s talk about Tamino.
Tamino set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner, and found me and my graph guilty, based on a computer program that Tamino wrote himself. He never tested MY program. He never let me see HIS program.
Tamino generated a temperature series, which he input into HIS computer program. The temperature series was never input into MY computer program.
Because Tamino’s computer program showed a slowdown, MY computer program was found guilty.
The temperature series was generated using “random” numbers. But Tamino “knew” that there was no slowdown in the temperature series. Apparently Tamino can accurately predict “random” numbers.
Tamino never showed me the temperature series. In democratic countries, a person has a right to defend themselves, AND to see the evidence against them. I was denied both of those rights.
I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. Tamino just “knew” that there was no slowdown. He didn’t even look.
I politely asked to comment on Tamino’s website. Here is the conversation, cut and pasted off Tamino’s own website.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/how-sheldon-walker-views-global-warming/#comment-97895
If Tamino’s web page is not there, I archived it here:
http://archive.fo/IJtBw
==========
Sheldon Walker: I am happy to discuss all aspects of my global warming contour maps.
Tamino: No, you’re not. You will not discuss the effect of noise on those graphs. You really don’t get the difference between climate and weather, so you continue to take all the impact of noise and think of it as climate change. Until you recognize the error of your ways, you will be stuck in your fantasy world. We have tried to reason with you, but your mind is closed.
[edit]
Sheldon Walker: I will discuss other issues about global warming contour maps in other posts.
Tamino: Not here you won’t. As I’ve said before, this site is not for deniers.
==========
I asked nicely, but Tamino banned me, and insulted me, by calling me a Denier.
Anybody who knows me, knows that I believe that global warming is happening.
My graph shows that global warming is happening, VERY CLEARLY.
My graph also shows when global warming started, how fast global warming is happening, and which parts of the earth are warming faster, and which parts of the earth are warming slower.
Do I really sound like a Denier to you.
My CRIME, is that I believe that there was a recent slowdown. I believe that it was caused by Ocean Cycles (like the PDO and AMO).There are a number of Climate Scientists who believe the same thing that I do.
As I said before, I measure slowdowns objectively, by looking at the warming rate. I can show you the evidence. I have been trying to show Alarmists the evidence for 2 years, but they refuse to look at it.
Hello everybody,
one of the biggest difficulties with solving global warming, is the fact that most people are not interested in global warming.
The obvious solution is to make global warming more interesting. And I am not talking about standing in a circle, and singing Kumbaya.
I am suggesting effective measures, like easter egg hunts, and bar charts, that adults and children can colour in.
I have already developed a simple, and cost effective way of solving global warming. All that it needs, is the approval of more than 50% of the people who post comments on RealClimate.org, and then we can begin “rolling it out”.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/solving-global-warming-is-easy
Please read the proposed solution, and if you think that it should be implemented, leave the light that is outside your front door, on tonight. The satellite which measures night time “brightness”, which is used to correct urban temperatures for UHI, will register the fact that your outside light is on, and add your vote to the total.
If too many people are in favour of the proposed solution, The UHI correction may be wrong, because of the extra light. But it will only be wrong for 1 night. A small price to pay, for solving global warming.
global warming what? climate change what?
“even perfect models would give misleading results if there also are pronounced but unpredictable natural variations present” yes there are.
climate has stopped warming for 20 years. already as of 2005 I have predicted it in my original thesis on solar activity and climate. In fact I have developed the only climate model that projects dropping temperatures. A link to my papers https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dimitris_Poulos
Was the recent Slowdown caused by the super El Nino of 1998?
If you take the GISTEMP temperature series, and replace the 1998 temperature anomaly with a new value, that is spot on the trend line, does the Slowdown disappear.
Warning – the results of this article will be shocking, for some people.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/was-the-slowdown-caused-by-1998
According to Tony Heller, “Every ten years, climate scientists say we have ten years left to save the planet. Sometimes they want to save it from global warming, other times they say they want to save it from global cooling.”
Here’s his latest take on this issue, in response to the IPCC report cited above:
https://youtu.be/VPGK6pNO0Qw
And yes, Heller bases his comments on Hansen’s prediction of a flooded West Side Highway on the same misleading “Salon” article I too fell for, until I took the trouble to double check the reporter’s book. If the video contains anything else that might be incorrect or misleading, this would be a good opportunity for anyone reading here to correct it.
Seems to me, the “experts” have been crying wolf for a LONG time, and this time isn’t likely to be any different.
RE: “First of all, climate model-based studies used to assess the degree to which current extreme weather events can be attributed to climate change are likely underestimating the climate change influence“.
So very very tired of hearing this again and again for more than 25 years!
While a few moments later then hearing this untruth again and again in the same article: “But in the scenario where we rapidly move away from fossil fuels and stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations below 450 parts per million, giving us a roughly 50% chance of averting 2C/3.6F planetary warming (the so-called “RCP 2.6” IPCC scenario)”
AND “we could likely prevent any further increase in persistent summer weather extremes. In other words, the future is still very much in our hands when it comes to dangerous and damaging summer weather extremes.”
—
As much a waste of time and energy as the IPCC SR 1.5 report – not worth reading.
To me this article as a whole and the specific quotes in particular have all the hallmarks of dishonest, disingenuous, illogical, unscientific hogwash!
@408 ppmv in 2018 by what major breach of the laws of Physics does increasing alone CO2 to 450 ppmv not lead to “any further increase in persistent summer weather extremes”?
In which alternative Universe does such a scenario take place – for surely it will not can occur on this planet.
Please stop with the BS and the prevaricating nonsense mike – and actually properly QUANTIFY the consequences of the Scientific knowledge and the Laws of Physics in real terms in a real world scenario that real people can comprehend the logical meanings therein.
Quantify it in how many Coal fired powers stations still exist in such a world . Quantify how many airlines and shipping companies are still using Oil based fuels. Quantify how many people are still driving Oil based fuels in their cars, SUVs and trucks. Quantify how many Gas Fired Power stations are still operating in a such a world.
In order to achieve this present Fantasy of NET-Zero Global GHG emissions before 2050 to meet this “scientific delusion” of a RCP 2.6 scenario.
Stop lying to the people mike and start telling the Whole Truth and QUANTIFY it clearly without the mumbo jumbo BS.
Or just shut up about it and get out the way of those people like James Hansen and many many others who are actually willing to tell it like it is in a REALLY HONEST published scientific Paper and in public talks and articles.
Maybe you’re confused?
This is how a Climate Scientist
needs, no MUST QUANTIFY your rhetoric into meaningful understanding.Climate goal demands huge boost in Chinese nuclear
31 October 2018
China’s nuclear generating capacity must increase to 554 GWe by 2050 if the country is to fulfill its part in meeting a proposed target of limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5°C, according to a study by the National Development and Reform Commission’s Energy Research Institute.
Researchers at China’s Energy Research Institute analysed the nuclear power capacity needed in the country by 2050 to realise the 1.5°C target, as well as the feasibility, necessary measures and difficulty. The results were published in Advances in Climate Change Research earlier this year.
China’s nuclear power capacity will need to increase from 26 GWe in 2015 to 554 GWe in 2050, the study concluded. The share of nuclear power in country’s energy mix would increase from 3% to 28% over this period.
An additional 290 reactors will need to be constructed in order to add a further 361.3 to 433.3 GWe of generating capacity, depending on the size of the reactors built.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Climate-goal-demands-huge-boost-in-Chinese-nuclear
You need to totally change your rhetoric and write as if you’re talkign to an 8 year old who can count. No one “gets” what RCP 2.6 means automatically.
But they can comprehend the difference in scale between 26 and 554 by 2050 and use their natural intelligence to understand what that means.
If the Chinese can do this then every Climate Scientist and the IPCC should be able to explain what they mean as simply as this too.
1.5C is meaningless unless it’s connected back to the real world with real numbers that mean something.
QUANTIFY the verbose rhetoric int meaningful terms anyone can understand.
The total Global nuclear output is currently 404 GWe. In 30 years China alone says they need to be producing 554 GWe to have ANY CHANCE of remaining under 1.5C Goal. The SCALE of this is quite easy for anyone to understand.
They even wrote and Published scientific paper on it. This study analyzes the nuclear power capacity needed in China by 2050 to realize the 1.5 °C target, as well as the feasibility, necessary measures, and difficulty.
http://www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/advances-in-climate-change-research/open-access-journal/
China’s nuclear power under the global 1.5 °C target: Preliminary feasibility study and prospects
Xin-JianXiao; Ke-JunJiang
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accre.2018.05.002
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674927817301181
“Only if the additional nuclear reactors all feature large capacities similar to CAP1400 in the future, and the annual uptime of nuclear power plants reaches 7500 hours, can the demand of the 1.5°C target for nuclear power in China be met narrowly.”
So rather than talking across points and losing people in incomprehensible verbiage and data and graphs, how about just spelling it out what MUST change to stay below 1.5C and have a NET Zero GHG emissions by 2050?
As I asked before:
What is the MAX number and GWe Coal fired power stations there can be?
How many cars and trucks are there on the roads today?
How many MUST be electric or hydrogen powered by 2050 to hit the Goals?
How many Gas fired power stations can still be operating globally in 2050?
How many gas fired stations are there now?
How many GenIV Nuclear Reactors with x GWe output by 2050 is needed to meet the goals of Zero Net emissions?
and on and on, these are the answers that must be provided so people can understand what the “science” actually means.
iow please stop Prevaricating and speaking out of both sides of your mouths all the time.
“We can still do it!”
Yeah?
DO WHAT?
Be specific and clear.
Athletes intentionally dump powerful global warming gases into the atmosphere. No criminal charges to follow! Where’s Killian when you need him?!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/darts/2018/11/17/magic-darts-replaced-fragrant-farts-players-accuse-breaking/
139 – Hank
Mr. Speth is doing an outstanding job of transforming politics in the USA. Ds now occupy fewer offices than at any time since the 1920s. From trusted source NPR:
https://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/469052020/the-democratic-party-got-crushed-during-the-obama-presidency-heres-why
Gobble gobble! Happy Thanksgiving!
Amazing how mistakes always tend to lean toward it being worse than we thought.
Another hockeystick, another bad paper.
How child-like errors got past the reviewers… actually I know.
Had this paper concluded there was no problem with ocean heat for the future, it would have been picked apart and gone through with a fine comb.
and worst of all, the media still have this story topping google search on ocean heat, uncorrected
44 Piotr, if “climate scientists incl. Michael Mann” say: “the future is still in our hands”.
You’re missing the point and the meaning here, not uncommon. What MM and many if not most others never say when they allude to motherhood statements and their almost pathological avoidance of speaking truth to power is that they never ever define what “our hands” are supposed to do or achieve.
They may couch in vague terms of following the very vague IPCC reports recommendations, or adopting the UNFCCC treaties but anyone with any knowledge about climate science and climate chnage knows for a fact that both those sources are totally full of shit and not fit for purpose.
Besides that, the governments of the world are not even capable of meeting those minuscule targets nor are they lifting a finger to get real about the massive global changes required to actually stop ongoing increases in GHGs and the like.
SO what’s the point? the meaning in what I say about what people like MM say when they use BS terms like “the future is still in our hands”?
It’s this – they are speaking utter garbage, that’s what. Why anyone would not reject such deceitful dishonest not fit for purpose commentaries beggars belief.
What global actions gets GHGs down to net zero by 2030, because that is what is required now, not next week or next decade or after that. No new science paper is required, not one! MM et al need to put some meat on those bones which clearly and uncompromisingly defines the WHAT into HOW and WHEN and by WHOM leaving the powerless (ie us, you and I et al) out of the loop.
Because OUR HANDS can do nothing while the MMs of this world (for there are tens of thousands of them speaking out of both sides of their mouths 24/7 now today) keep talking garbage vapid spin to salve their own consciences as they walk away from the manifold truths of what the science has been saying for 50 plus years already. Like doh! This is no time for cowards unable to tell the whole truth and stand up for it 24/7.
That I even need to explain this is what it meant by what I said is an indictment on supposedly educated humanity and climate scientists in particular. It should be absolutely obvious already to all. But it is not. Thus the BS motherhood statements that place the blame and responsibility onto people who have NO POWER and NO VOICE globally. Gutless excuse makers and SOPHISTS is what they are.
A sophism is a specious argument for displaying ingenuity in reasoning or for deceiving someone. A sophist is a person who reasons with clever but fallacious and deceptive arguments.
Resplandy et al should not be the only people admitting their errors.
Science is now faced with another major dilemma.
We don’t know who reviewed the study or why they missed the errors.
We don’t know what their responses to the authors were prior to publication.
Their reviews of this study need to be made public in order to limit the damage to the authors of the study.
As it stands, a claim could feasibly be made that Gavin was one of the reviewers. We don’t know if this was the case because Gavin is not compelled to tell us, nor is Ralph.
The authors are unfairly carrying the full blame and responsibility for what has happened.
This story has gone global after all, with a lot of snide comments about what presumably are inadvertently made mistakes.
And we don’t know whether the actual reviewers are now posting online elsewhere defending the peer review proces or belittling Nic Lewis for making the discovery.
We need to know exactly what’s going on to protect science.
The reviewers also need to be identified in order to assess whether their past reviews (or published work) are of similar poor quality by making it known who they are, and what they have previously reviewed.
This episode unfortunately involves far more than the Resplandy et al team.
https://youtu.be/lmmxXSvj-3s
From “The Unsettled Science of Climate Change: A Primer for Critical Thinkers”:
If you consider all those living in every corner of the world now dependent on: heating generated by gas, oil, coal, charcoal; electricity generated by gas, oil and coal; gasoline produced from oil; affordable food prices made possible by the relatively low costs associated with farming and the transportation of agricultural commodities, thanks to the relatively low cost of petroleum products;
and you take into account the possibility of unintended consequences, such as the disastrous increase in food prices due to the government imposed turn to biofuels — which incentivized farmers to switch from food production to fuel production;
in addition to the fact that subsidies to low income people won’t be of much use if the resources they depend on are no longer available for them to purchase;
then you will realize what a complete calamity we’d have on our hands if any attempt were made to drastically cut back on the production of fossil fuels on a worldwide basis. Resistance to such proposals is not limited to the oligarchs controlling the fossil fuel industries, that’s pure rhetoric. Once ordinary people wake up to the sacrifices expected from them by these starry eyed idealists they will revolt. And we’ll have a calamity on our hands every bit as disastrous as anything that might be produced by global warming over the next hundred years. It would be nice if we could do without fossil fuels, but at this point in history, unfortunately we cannot. As I see it, any serious effort along such lines is likely to be the most self-destructive act in the history of humankind.
I found a 45 minute video that persuasively argues CO2 is not the major driver of global warming, and that CO2 is not a problem at all. Lots of good graphs/data – it moves quickly. Please comment ONLY on scientific errors in the presentation. Do not go into politics please; I do not want to be accused of hijacking the thread. Do not attack me or the man making the presentation; attack ONLY the science errors. Grab a pad of paper and pencil, and take notes. Pretend this is the final exam in a freshman course on Intro to Climate Change. Inform those of us less knowledgeable about CC why the science is wrong in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtHreJbr2WM
Sad state of affairs, comrades. It’s sad to watch our climate hoaxes go up in proverbial flames. American, French, and now Canadian populists flipped our Mother Gaia tyranny on its head and reversed our scheme to ban carbon-based fuels by taxing them. I’m going to renounce my veganism and go eat a hamburger. Oh well, we tried. Maybe next we can try and tax porn.
Christmas is a time when Alarmists gather together, roast chestnuts, and share memories.
– They tell their children how there used to be a cold white substance, called snow.
– They reassure their children that Santa really does exist, and that he delivers presents to all of the good children (the ones who believe in global warming).
– And they give thanks for the 97% consensus (that global warming is real, that it is caused by humans, and that there was no recent slowdown).
In keeping with the true Christmas spirit, Alarmists have just published 2 new papers, which (they say) demonstrate convincingly that the recent slowdown wasn’t a real phenomenon.
It is a pity that they didn’t read my article first. They could have saved themselves a lot of time, and millions of dollars (of your money)!!!
The article is called “Alarmist thinking on the recent slowdown is one dimensional”
https://agree-to-disagree.com/alarmist-thinking-on-the-slowdown
Warning – this article contains undeniable proof, that the recent slowdown WAS a real phenomenon.
So if you want to continue believing that the recent slowdown doesn’t exist, then don’t read this article.
Just in time for the New Year, an article which will stop you feeling gloomy about the future.
How far would you need to move towards the nearest Pole, to reverse one degree Celsius of global warming?
You may have already been thinking about moving towards one of the Poles (the North Pole, or the South Pole), in order to avoid global warming. But how far should you go?
Don’t worry any longer, this article tells you exactly how far you should move, to get the perfect climate.
Not only that, this article also shows you how to find your pre-industrial paradise.
And there is more. Experience global warming, before it actually happens (that way, you can see whether you like it, or not).
Don’t wait any longer, click the following link.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/how-far-to-reverse-global-warming
At last a response reflecting some degree of intelligence:
Zebra #60: Ockham’s Razor does not tell us what a “correct” explanation is, it is a pragmatic rule to optimize the process of discovery. Certainly, it doesn’t mean “the simplest answer is always right”. Rather, it tells us to work with the explanation that has the fewest assumptions.
V: Not bad. Though I wouldn’t call it “a pragmatic rule to optimize the process of discovery.” It’s a heuristic principle intended to aid in the weeding out of unnecessary, ad hoc complications — complications introduced in an effort to save a failing hypothesis. And yes, I agree, it does NOT mean the simplest answer is always right. It’s the simplest answer necessary to account for all the known evidence that should be preferred. And it’s not a question of being “right,” because there is always the possibility that new evidence might be unearthed in future.
Z: “So in the case of a period of lower temperatures, we consider two alternative explanations.
1. Quantum physics is wrong about the absorption of radiation by CO2 molecules in the atmosphere.”
V: You’re kidding, right? “Quantum physics”? The sensitivity of the atmosphere to the emission of CO2 molecules involves a lot more than any formula derived from quantum physics per se. What we’re dealing with here is a hypothesis, based on an interpretation of certain physical principles, dependent on a complex and controversial process of positive feedbacks, since CO2 levels in themselves are not sufficient to make much of a difference. (Actually quantum physics has little if anything to do with it.) In your terms, an “assumption.”
Z: “2. Industrial aerosols are reducing insolation.
But, we have laboratory evidence that aerosols reflect energy, and that CO2 molecules absorb it. So, which explanation requires fewer assumptions?
That is, which one requires us to demonstrate yet another phenomenon which is not now part of established physics?
Number 2 is not at all a “speculation”. It is exactly how science is supposed to work; we explain things based on what we know, and we avoid introducing new concepts for which there is no evidence.”
V: The cooling effect of atmospheric aerosols has been well established. But the possibility that such aerosols could explain the post-1940 cooling is NOT evidence for the warming effect of CO2 emissions. The usual explanation goes something like this: if it weren’t for atmospheric cooling due to industrial aerosols, the rising rate of CO2 emissions would have caused the atmosphere to heat rather than cool. And yes, that might well be the case, IF CO2 emissions actually did have the properties you are assuming they have. To present the cooling effect of aerosols as evidence that this assumption is correct is therefore a circular argument, since it would be evidence only IF the assumption were already correct to begin with. And if you want to insist that such a POSSIBILITY nevertheless explains the 40 year period of cooling and leveling we see from ca. 1940-1979, then that is a perfect example of the sort of ad hoc saving hypothesis Occam’s Razor was designed to weed out.
62 nigelj says: “Victor @57, we know that when a volcano erupts, the climate cools quite sharply for about a year, due to sulphate aerosols reflecting the suns energy. So given there was a surge of sulphate aerosols from industry after the 1940’s why wouldn’t that also have a cooling effect? Obviously it would, and a great deal of in depth science and hard evidence backs this up.”
V: Well, first off, see my response to Zebra, which should appear above. Aside from the circular argument to which I alluded, this sort of ad hoc explanation is a perfect example of why Occam’s Razor is so important. If such aerosols had not been a factor at that time then some other “explanation” would no doubt have been found. This sort of recourse is a recurring theme in the AGW literature. Think of all the many explanations offered for the so-called “hiatus”: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/11/updated-list-of-64-excuses-for-18-26.html
nj: As explained at least a dozen times (literally) mid century cooling is easily explained by sulphate aerosols from coal fired power plants, and this effect dissipated by the 1970’s with a) the introduction of appropriate air flltering on the power plants and b) concentrations of accumulating CO2 became substantial enough to overwhelm much of the cooling aerosol effect.”
V: Perfect example of an ad hoc assumption. First of all, as I demonstrated sometime ago, aerosol emissions continued to rise in Asia at the same rate as before throughout the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries and yet Asian temperatures rose from 1979-1998 at roughly the same rate as in the Americas and Europe, where clean air legislation had been adopted. It was only after I pointed that out that your second ad hoc explanation emerged. Sorry, but if you want to argue THAT point you’ll need to provide evidence.
What’s particularly vexing is the likelihood that the sort of lame excuse provided here by nigel will be counted as yet another example of how the error of my ways has been pointed out to me, with no effect due to my stubborn refusal to listen to reason. Sorry, folks, but the endless repetition of dogmatic arguments based on dubious premises won’t cut it.
The climate change money trail article and comments. Covers some of the money trails on both sides.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-07/lets-play-follow-climate-money
The Comb of Death
===============
What, you may be wondering, is the “Comb of Death”?
In simple terms, it is a graph that looks like a comb.
But, what has it got to do with Death?
Well, “The Comb of Life” didn’t sound very exciting. But “Death” is a certain winner.
And it is showing “global warming”. That causes a lot of deaths.
Or it will in the future, if the “Comb of Death” is correct.
The “Comb of Death” displays temperature ranges, for more than 24,000 locations on the Earth.
And I am talking about REAL, ACTUAL, ABSOLUTE temperatures. Not those weak, pale, temperature anomaly things. But real, actual, absolute temperatures. The sort that REAL men use (and REAL women too).
====================
The Oil companies offered me a lot of money to “forget” about the “Comb of Death” with +3.0 degrees Celsius of global warming. But I am an artist, and they didn’t offer me enough money.
Because people are not making enough effort to reduce their carbon footprints, the IPCC has asked me to show you a “Comb of Death” based on +3.0 degrees Celsius of global warming.
They expect that this “Comb of Death” will make Alarmists scream in fear, and will make Skeptics repent their evil ways. A word of warning, this last “Comb of Death” is not for the faint-hearted.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/the-comb-of-death
The recent Slowdown – on trial
=======================
Alarmists have started a legal battle, in an effort to convict the recent Slowdown of a serious crime. The crime in question is, “impersonating a real Slowdown”. This heinous crime carries a maximum sentence of 20 years of watching Al Gore “documentaries”.
The trial is about to begin. We have managed to get our “climate reporter”, Sheldon Walker, on to the jury hearing the case against the recent Slowdown. We asked Sheldon if he thought that it was “fair”, for him to be on the jury? Sheldon replied, “Is it “fair”, that Alarmists won’t admit that there was a small, temporary Slowdown, that doesn’t have any significant long-term implications for global warming”?
Sheldon is prepared to go to extreme lengths to help his friend. He has taught himself to text message with his toes, using a cellphone that is hidden in his shoe. Sheldon will be sending us text message “reports” from inside the room where the jury members are deliberating. These text message reports will be limited to 160 characters per text message (Sheldon refuses to use Twitter), so Sheldon will use abbreviations where necessary.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/the-recent-slowdown-on-trial