Our favorite contrarian, the potty peer Christopher Monckton has been indulging in a little aristocratic artifice again. Not one to be constrained by mere facts or observable reality, he has launched a sally against Andy Revkin for reporting the shocking news that past industry disinformation campaigns were not sincere explorations of the true uncertainties in climate science.
The letter he has written to the NY Times public editor, with its liberal sprinkling of his usual pomposity, has at its heart the following graph:
Among other issues, it is quite amusing that Monckton apparently thinks that;
- trends from January 2002 are relevant to a complaint about a story discussing a 1995 report,
- someone might be fooled by the cherry-picked January 2002 start date,
- no-one would notice that he has just made up the IPCC projection curves
The last is even more amusing because he was caught out making stuff up on a slightly different figure just a few weeks ago.
To see the extent of this chicanery, one needs only plot the actual IPCC projections against the observations. This can be done a number of ways, firstly, plotting the observational data and the models used by IPCC with a common baseline of 1980-1999 temperatures (as done in the 2007 report) (Note that the model output is for the annual mean, monthly variance would be larger):
These show clearly that 2002-2009 is way too short a period for the trends to be meaningful and that Monckton’s estimate of what the IPCC projects for the current period is woefully wrong. Not just wrong, fake.
Even if one assumes that the baseline should be the year 2002 making no allowance for internal variability (which makes no sense whatsoever), you would get the following graph:
– still nothing like Monckton showed. Instead, he appears to have derived his ‘projections’ by drawing a line from 2002 to a selection of real projections in 2100 and ignoring the fact that the actual projections accelerate as time goes on, and thus strongly over-estimating the projected changes that are expected now (see here).
Lest this be thought a mere aberration or a slip of his quill, it turns out he has previously faked the data on projections of CO2 as well. This graph is from a recent presentation of his, compared to the actual projections:
How can this be described except as fake?
Apart from this nonsense, is there anything to Monckton’s complaint about Revkin’s story? Sadly no. Once one cuts out the paranoid hints about dark conspiracies between “prejudiced campaigners”, Al Gore and the New York Times editors, the only point he appear to make is that this passage from the scientific advice somehow redeems the industry lobbyists who ignored it:
The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential for a human impact on climate is based on well-established scientific fact, and should not be denied. While, in theory, human activities have the potential to result in net cooling, a concern about 25 years ago, the current balance between greenhouse gas emissions and the emissions of particulates and particulate-formers is such that essentially all of today’s concern is about net warming. However, as will be discussed below, it is still not possible to accurately predict the magnitude (if any), timing or impact of climate change as a result of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Also, because of the complex, possibly chaotic, nature of the climate system, it may never be possible to accurately predict future climate or to estimate the impact of increased greenhouse gas concentrations.
This is a curious claim, since the passage is pretty much mainstream. For instance, in the IPCC Second Assessment Report (1995) (p528):
Complex systems often allow deterministic predictability of some characteristics … yet do not permit skilful forecasts of other phenomena …
or even more clearly in IPCC TAR (2001):
In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states….
Much more central to the point Revkin was making was the deletion of the sections dealing with how weak the standard contrarian arguments were – arguments that GCC publications continued to use for years afterward (and indeed arguments that Monckton is still using) (see this amendment to the original story).
Monckton’s ironic piece de resistance though is the fact that he entitled his letter “Deliberate Misrepresentation” – and this is possibly the only true statement in it.
As with secondhand smoke, primary emissions of CO2 afford a charming pretext for societal intervention , but the quality of the evidence, imposing or conflated, has little to do with the motives of those who choose to publicize it in the hope of imposing societal change. Like the poor, authoritarians are always with us, and their rhetoric of motives generally serves to impoverish, not enrich, scientific discourse.
Jim Hansen’s latest letter is a case in point, but the best way to get Monckton off the subject may be to imply that his poor judgement may prejudice the good and great against his future selection as a cricket Test umpire , although one suspects a strong desire to see England’s pitches dried out by massive radiative forcing is what compels him to generate this guff in the first place.
#168 – Mark writes:
Think of bandpass removal of noise (hiss) from LP records: remove the higher frequencies and the noise reduces.
And, having worked this out, climatologists from decades ago arrived at 50 years.
Is that an approval of my 50 year filter on the Hadcet data, and recent downward trend?
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/temp_est_12-GOpNo.gif
#189 – I think if we really look at the long term trend over the last 359+ years, it’s only 0.003 deg/year, even if the early temp were readings were off some. But how do you explain the fact that the data from then to now is “clumped” about a linear trend line, in the above figure? If there is some major move from the line, why wouldn’t it continue, instead of now flattening, or going down slightly? It still looks like a ~50 year cycle at work.
These people who took these early readings were pretty smart, and by the mid to end of the 1700’s they were doing work to come up with the laws mass and energy conservation. Even if they were a degree or two off, the linear trend line would not change that much.
> secondhand smoke
… depleted uranium projectiles; tetraethyl lead; mercury; asbestos; radium paint; closing the Broad Street pump — these public health people and epidemiologists are such busybodies! Why do they hate freedom so much and keep looking for problems to exaggerate?
Re Son of Mulder @153,
As several others have already pointed out, you are looking at a time series showing natural variation, not a trend in climate, because the length of time plotted is not long enough to distinguish a trend in climate from natural variation. Thus, as has also already been pointed out, you don’t know quite as much about statistical analysis of climate data as you think you do.
The answer to the question you put to Ray @163 is the former:
The underlying global climate system is too noisy to draw any conclusions based on such a short time period.
Might I suggest that you read Robert Grumbine’s posts on how to determine the length of time required to discern a climate trend from natural variability:
How to decide climate trends
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-decide-climate-trends.html
Results on deciding trends
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/01/results-on-deciding-trends.html
Ray (160) i’ll think some more about it and get back to you
Sorry guys particularly Mark. When I used the analogy of two red filters I meant two red filters instead of one red filter – whereas it appears some of you thought I meant two red filters as opposed to zero red filters.
I didn’t write down clearly what I was thinking. Starting at one red filter and then adding another red filter has limited affect – except if forcing gets figured in – then the equation has more variables. Mark correctly pointed out that an initial amount of something is an infinite percentage increase compared to further additions. Mark may or may not want to extend that observation to rising CO2 levels.
Phil. Felton I am just opening the link you provided
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/Mars-Earth.gif
I don’t see a particular notation to CO2 absorption lines as you suggested. How do I know this isn’t rather the (WMGHG)(Well Mixed Green House Gasses) spectral transmission? This chart corresponds to WMGHG rather than just CO2 as you stated – correct?
Hank Roberts, I opened up the 22 links on the start here page. That should keep me reading for a while. However, I’ve been told that this people on this website have made up their mind. Now, people at other skeptic websites have made up their minds too. What is the best course of action if I read these links and find problems with them? Should I discuss them with you guys – or should I should just go elsewhere?
Is everyone here very alarmist? There is a spectrum of people in the world. Some scientists seem to think that the earth is going to burn up and spawn 100 foot rises in sea level and produce hyper-hurricanes in the next century – and that it is almost too late to do anything about climate change. Other people see just a little more warming and a rise of maybe a meter or so of sea level – other people fear that we are heading into a mini-iceage due to the present quieting sun.
I also fear that there has been a political stifling of opposition to global warming concerns. This observation that prominent skeptics of AGW are stifled made me suspicious. President Obama and others say the “science is settled” and others think climate science is in its infancy.
Some people think a quieting sun and a new “maunder minimum” will counteract rising temperatures. Views are all over the place.
22 links? I will try to read them all. Is there a particular link or set of links that mostly covers the important information? Is there a particular website that has the most up to date information that best presents the AGW argument without dumbing down or engaging in hyperbole?
I’ve got to weigh through all the arguments on ice sheets and also account for probable volcanic activity known or unknown that underlies the ice sheets. I’ve got to get a good handle on CO2 levels not only from the past 600,000 years but maybe the last 200,000,000 years. Temperature changes – have these taken place in the past – are they driven by CO2 – and or do CO2 levels rise because the oceans warm and then it releases more CO2? – A dangerous forcing scenario?
I guess I’ll work out these questions.
The quest for energy independence often rides parallel to global warming concerns. I have become an AGW skeptic over the last six months or so – but I still want to see these breakthroughs in Solar technology revitalize our energy usage. Futurists see solar benefiting from nano-technology. There is a solar Moore’s law that is driving the price of solar energy lower each year. Some promising breakthroughs are underway in energy storage.
I just hope the country doesn’t get into too big a fight over carbon credits and the like that we miss the ball on incorporating new cheaper nanosolar power into our energy mix – and eventually coal will be too expensive – because solar will be so cheap.
That is my opinion.
SecularAnimist Says (6 May 2009 at 16:07):
“It started when someone pointed out that some of the same corporate-funded, so-called “conservative” think-tanks and denizens thereof who are nowadays paid to lie about the reality of anthropogenic global warming were in the past paid to lie about the carcinogenicity and addictiveness of tobacco smoke. No analogy there, just simple fact.”
There you have the problem: you have two statements, one – carcinogenicity – demonstrably true, the other the product of a social outlook that redefines the concept of addiction away from any sensible meaning. My point here is that you don’t bolster your argument re the denizens of think tanks by including such a debateable (even by someone as anti-tobacco as I am) assertion. It serves only as a distraction – as I think we’ve amply demonstrated :-)
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
It’s worth the effort.
Then: http://geodoc.uchicago.edu/
Hi Svet,
Concerning your comments about clouds:
There are several hypotheses as to how clouds will respond in a warmer climate, many of the more popular ones actually deal with higher clouds. Linden’s IRIS hypothesis asserts that warmer temperatures cause the area coverage of higher clouds in the tropical upper troposphere to decrease. Precipitation efficiency certainly increases with warming – we all agree on that, but so too does the amount of condensed water, and so at the same time the amount of water pumped up into the upper troposphere increases, and the IRIS paper only looks at one side of the picture. Dennis Hartmann and others have forwarded a “FAT hypothesis” which involves a heightening of the high cloud top with minimal temperature change, which would be a positive feedback. We have data showing thinning of lower clouds as it gets warmer which would mean a lower albedo, although there’s probably lots of issues there as well. The jury is still out on this subject, and as others noted, if an IRIS mechanism exists it is probably not very strong…we have paleoclimate data which puts constraints on the overall sensitivity that doesn’t make a strong negative feedback plausible. You do need a positive cloud feedback to get to the mid to higher ranges of the IPCC sensitivity though, and that is the main reason for the +/- 50% uncertainty bounds on the central estimate of 3 C…and as gavin noted, it is +/-, not just – as some skeptics would like you believe.
Roy Spencer has forwarded this idea of an “internal radiative forcing” which essentially (as I understand it) allows clouds to act as a forcing agent, by changing independently of the base climate on long timescales. His alleged “erroneous assumptions” are in assuming the clouds are responding to warming, rather than vice versa, but I agree with gavin that this isn’t the case. It can’t be the case based on how feedbacks are even treated as models, which emerge from the model physics. One can also say “why isn’t the Arctic sea ice just melting on its own which causes a lowering of albedo that causes warming” but we don’t tell ice to melt in the model (or not to melt)… we just don’t see long term trends in an unforced climate. I am partially receptive to the idea that an unforced climate can exhibit trends on climatological timescales (perhaps a positive AO’ish like state takes some ice out of the north which reduces albedo), but the Holocene provides fairly strong evidence that such mechanisms are not very large.
There are lots of “fingerprints” and methods showing a high CO2 signature and probably not much to do with changes in sky albedo (decreases in the diurnal temperature gradient, stratospheric cooling), and I don’t think Roy Spencer will show otherwise.
Re 206:
Thomas Donlon Says:
6 May 2009 at 11:45 PM
Phil. Felton I am just opening the link you provided
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/Mars-Earth.gif
I don’t see a particular notation to CO2 absorption lines as you suggested. How do I know this isn’t rather the (WMGHG)(Well Mixed Green House Gasses) spectral transmission? This chart corresponds to WMGHG rather than just CO2 as you stated – correct?
No, they are the high resolution spectra of CO2 in N2 at the appropriate concentrations for the two planets at the pressures and temperatures shown (approx surface conditions).
Donlon says:
“When I used the analogy of two red filters I meant two red filters instead of one red filter – whereas it appears some of you thought I meant two red filters as opposed to zero red filters.”
Well then your analogy doesn’t work.
There’s no doubling at all. Just the change from 1 to 2 filters (the colour of the two filters doesn’t matter, why would it? the effect doesn’t affect any colour that the filter doesn’t filter so an infinite number of filters would not change a thing for the ranges not filtered).
You’re going to have to look at an analogy that displays the same characteristics as “a doubling of the concentration of CO2 produces a constant change in the temperature forcing”.
Your analogy now only has one resulting difference and you can’t call it a constant change in result since you only have one result and you can’t compare one result with itself since that is by definition, a constant. One.
JBob (202), no it is an ANALOGY. You know what that is, don’t you?
Gives you why such a 50-year summation has an effect that reduces noise.
In climate averaging, that high level noise isn’t removed, but added together and averaged, therefore any randomness or signal that isn’t a long-term trend will average out.
Do you have some sort of problem with statistics?
Russel Seitz, AGW may be a golden opportunity to the ecologists to take on.
This doesn’t mean it’s false.
[edit]
the truth is out there.
In 200 he (sorry, Son of Mulder) says “Between Dan in #167 and Mark in #168 they have respectively suggested 30 years and 50 years to establish a trend? Which if either is reasonable and why”
Well, between 30 and 50 years.
At the shorter end you may not be able to ignore the effect of one suprisingly strong El Nino. At the longer end, you may not have enough points in your graph.
Much less than 30 and you are talking weather.
For paleoclimate, 100 year averages are used. There’s plenty of centuries in a million years. And that rate is still enough to get the rise and fall of the Ice ages as a CURVE rather than a discontinuity.
Theo asks “You talk of random variations, so I guess the question is when Omnibus Man asks is: could it be that these random variations are hiding a downward trend?”
It could, but what is the reason for the downward trend.
It wasn’t enough for AGW to say that CO2 caused warming, the DEMAND was that such a change be seen in the temperature records. When it was seen, the DEMAND was that we see if it stuck around and wasn’t just a blip.
Now you want to say it’s cooling.
Well, the DEMAND should continue, should it not? Just because you think it cooling doesn’t mean it’s not climate.
So let’s start RIGHT at the beginning.
1) What is causing a cooling (hypothesis)
2) Does it explain the degree of cooling (test of hypothisis)
3) Does something else explain it better (counter proposal)
4) Do you have to modify your hypothesis
5) Does the temperature profile show your hypothesis is right (proof)
You haven’t gotten #1 yet.
And #5 will have to remain for at least 20 years. That’s how long it took for people to stop saying “there is no global warming” to “there IS global warming, but we aren’t doing it” to “there IS global warming, we are doing something to it but we aren’t doing that much”.
Given there are still people (like yourself) who claim this global warming isn;t true still, 50 years may be required.
Theo, Son of Mulder and others who are focussing on the recent “cooling trend” may want to have a look at the paper quoted here: http://mind.ofdan.ca/?p=2332#more-2332
As Dan states: “This isn’t a particularly difficult concept to grasp”
John Mashey @ 195.
John directs me the site “Open Mind”. (For which I thank him).
Now, forget, please, for a moment the content of that site, but consider its name – “Open Mind”.
For “Open mind” is just the word (or phrase) I have been looking for.
On this site there is a tendency for people who are uncertain about some aspects of global warming, or like me aware that, stripping out 1998 El Nino temps, and seeing _at the moment_ the graph is roughly horizontal, to be lumped in with the sceptics/sceptics and thus seen as lackeys of the Heartland Institute or even worse, supporters of the vile Viscount Monckton. In other words, the word “sceptical” has become poisoned.
So this is my position:
I understand the core idea of CO2 pushed atmospheric warming.
I understand that there can be signal and noise.
I understand that temperature rises will fluctuate. Up a bit, down a bit.
I expect that in due course the temperatures will continue upwards.
Nevertheless, there is a small section of my mind (note a _small_ section) that is labelled “open minded on AGW” alongside the big section that says “AWG is gospel”.
Please note. I will continue to keep my footling little 1000cc Fait car, and “eco-drive” it as well, and not go out and buy the 2,500cc BMW I desire and drive around leaving tyre smoke behind me. My actions speak louder than my words.
But I will, until the temps continue rising, keep a very small section of my mind labelled “Open Minded Section”.
Should I not?
On albedo.
Sitting here eating my breakfast of toast and marmalade, a question on albedo passes through my mind.
Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?
Does this disprove AGW?
Re #180 Theo Hopkins
I think that Tamino (and many others) have answered much of your comment already, but I recommend that you look at e.g. some more of Tamino’s writings.
Even if you understand the following already , the same may not apply to all your readers. First it will not be necessary to wait another 30 years to determine whether global warming is continuing . Secondly your phrase
I am torn between wanting the global temperatures to rise….
implies that you have been looking at the recent data in a particular way. For other ways see:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/
and #165 on the following thread
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/full-ipcc-ar4-report-now-available/
[That only refers to statistically significant fits, even if you include insignificant ones, the evidence is not as clear as your remark suggests].
“Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?”
Because toasting is a chemical reaction, not a mere temperature one.
“Nevertheless, there is a small section of my mind (note a _small_ section) that is labelled “open minded on AGW” alongside the big section that says “AWG is gospel”.”
So do you have a small side that says “two plus two equals four” and another huge section that says “maths is gospel”?
Rod B wrote in #171:
I think it is, if one’s aim is to simply create confusion and stir up a controversy in the minds of the general public rather then actually try and contribute to climate science to move it forward. Monckton’s fabricated graphs are all good examples of this.
Theo Hopkins wrote in #194:
El Nino/La Nina cycles alternate as you can clearly see here:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/ts.gif
El Nino in 1998 was strong but we also had strong El Nino’s in 1991, 1987, 1981 etc. So it is not that occasional.
And if you strip out the recent La Nina, you get a lot more warming. So what?
John Mashey wrote in #195:
Indeed. Here is the graph of residuals – differences between each year global mean and the smoothed value (a lowess smooth) using GISS data:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/resid.jpg?w=490&h=361
It is clear from this graph that we are currently below the long-term trend. It is also very clear from the graph that there is nothing unusual or exceptional about it and are unlikely to stay below the trend for long (see the full post at Tamino’s Open Mind). As Tamino pointed out, staying bang on the smooth trend line will be very unusual indeed and hard to explain.
Re: Theo Hopkins
Keeping an open mind is a good thing.
As I said before, since temperature is a noisy variable it’s not only *possible* to have periods of apparent “levelling off,” it’s actually *inevitable*. Global temperature is changing in exactly the way we expect it to; if such episodes of apparent stalling *didn’t* happen, THEN would we suspect something’s misunderstood.
If I said “Today was not as hot as yesterday, so global warming has stopped” then you’d know I was either fooling myself or trying to fool you. So would Omnibus man; you both know that it’s possible for noise to give a false impression of a trend, and that one day isn’t nearly long enough to be reliable evidence. When the denialists do is play on the (false) belief that a few years, even a decade, *is* long enough — it isn’t. They also regularly show ONLY the time span that makes their claim look good. It’s really no different than characterizing temperature change by this graph (or even this one).
The bottom line is: you’re seeing noise and interpreting it as a possible signal. That’s mistaken. So how do you separate signal from noise? There are statistical tests, but that won’t satisfy “Joe the plumber” (American Omnibus man) it will only confuse him. You need to reduce the noise level in the simplest, most comprehensible way possible. You’ll find one attempt to illustrate this in this post. You may find it useful to copy this graph and/or this graph.
Of course we should keep an open mind about things. But we shouldn’t doubt global warming unless there is some *evidence* for doubt. At present, there’s none. Not even a smidgen. There’s plenty of ways to make it *look* like there’s evidence, but none of them stand up to scrutiny. None.
Open mind: good. Removing brain: bad.
#219 , #220
(OFF TOPIC)
According to Wikipedia and other sources the process is a Maillard reaction which occurs when sugar is heated in the presence of protein. It follows that your observations (#219) need to be qualified by control of these variables (quantity of sugar etc.). In fact other people obtain the opposite results as in :
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/48/1/White-bread-vs-brown-bread.html
Thus the albedo mechanism is just one of several, just as in the climate example.
On another topic, I’ve run across a citation to a new paper by one of the “usual suspects,” Craig Loehle. He’s trying to rehabilitate “ocean cooling.” It’s in Energy & Environment (surprise, surprise) and is paywalled; anybody had a go at it yet?
There are theoretical bottlenecks to hurricane formation that prevent hurricanes from increasing solely due to an increase in temps. Now, we know that clouds can’t completely eliminate fluctuations in temps or else we’d never have the kinds of temperature swings we see in the geological record. But is it possible that clouds could simply dampen the effect in a non-linear way. The forcings due to greenhouse gases are an order of magnitude larger than the forcings from Milankovich cycles, but could cloud formation act as an upper limit for the rate of temperature increase the way that wind shear and a decline in temperature gradients are thought to constrain hurricane formation?
Theo Hopkins, try as I might, I cannot get the trendline for the period 1997-2008 to come out negative. The only way I come close is to pick 1998 as my starting year and 2008 as the end–and then I get a flat line…a cherry-picked flat line that starts during a big-assed El Nino and ends in a big-assed La Nina…in an extended solar minimum. If such extreme cherrypicking is what is needed to even get a flat trend, shouldn’t that tell you something.
On your breakfast. Uh, did you weigh the two slices of bread? Before and after toasting. Water content? Are you sure your breakfast is the only thing that’s toast? ;-)
re 226, no because you’d have to say why these cloud forcings didn’t occur in the past. There is no evidence that there is so significant a negative feedback from clouds in the historical data and no theory that would mean they would occur now.
You can’t go all “The science is complex and we need proof of warming” then come up with such unsupported tosh.
James wrote: “… the other the product of a social outlook that redefines the concept of addiction away from any sensible meaning.”
With all due respect you don’t know what you are talking about. Tobacco is one of the most powerfully physiologically addictive substances known to science. It is far more addictive than heroin or cocaine. If “addiction” has “any sensible meaning” then that meaning most certainly includes tobacco. In fact tobacco might well be considered a paradigmatic example of addictiveness. Tobacco addicts are able to function because tobacco is not an intoxicant and its use does not cause acute dysfunction as do alcohol, heroin or cocaine. But tobacco is more addictive than any of those substances and of course it is also highly toxic.
A bit off topic, but this segment from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (for those not familiar with the Daily Show, it is broadcast in the U.S. on the Comedy Central cable television network) illustrates how a supposedly educated person (a HS physics teacher) can be shockingly ignorant of basic science and math (in this case, probability), and how the media portrays science and alleged scientific controversy (the danger of the Large Hadron Collider). If I were a gambler, I would bet that the HS physics teacher featured in this video is an AGW skeptic.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225921&title=large-hadron-collider
Gavin’s right that there’s no question about tobacco. Look it up– talking points on addiction from the industry _have_not_changed_.
Copypasting from the script is thoughtless.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/suppl_4/iv27
And be careful who you trust for information–they do lie to you:
http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/phnu/abstract.00006620-200811000-00009.htm
While there are clearly a few meteorologists around who are skeptical of AGW, here is one, Bob Ryan, from an NBC affiliate in Washington, D.D., who does a good job of explaining the science behind AGW theory in six-part series of blog entries:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/weather/stories/Bob-Ryan-Global-Change-Series.html
Links to his follow-up entries can be found at the bottom of the page. I’m sure he enlightened a few readers, but obviously not this one who wrote (in response to the final entry):
Hello Mr. Ryan: Please visit this link for an excellent discussion of the current controversies over AGW and Governmental policy by Christopher Monckton …. He makes an extremely logical presentation regarding the last 7 years of “global cooling” …
http://www.nbcwashington.com/weather/stories/Bob-Ryan-on-Global-Warming-Part-6.html
Thomas Donlon #206:
‘… earth is going to burn up …’?
As temperate and subtropical zones become both warmer and drier, they will become more fire prone. This probably a strong contributing factor in severe fire seasons seen recently in both Australia and California. However as far as I know no-one takes seriously the possibility of soil, rock, or dirt catching on fire (with the obvious exception of coal power).
‘… 100 foot rises in sea level …’
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) contains water equivalent to 7.2 meters or 23.6 feet of Sea Level Rise (SLR). The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) contains about 6 meters or 20 feet SLR. There is a 700,000 year CO2 record derived from ice cores which shows only two previous interglacials in which CO2 levels exceeded 290 ppm. In both cases, CO2 did not exceed 310 ppm. In both of those warm interglacials, sea levels were 4 – 6 meters, or 13 – 20 feet higher. The water may have come from GIS, or WAIS, or some combination thereof. Either way – the difference between 280 ppm CO2 and 310 ppm CO2 results in substantial melting of these ice sheets. Presently, CO2 is at about 386 ppm.
If the warming from 310 ppm CO2 results in 4 – 6 meters (13 – 20 feet) SLR, what sea level rise should be expected from 386 ppm CO2? What about 450 ppm CO2, the level at which most planners expect to stabilize CO2 levels at? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 8 to 12 meters (25 – 40 feet) SLR from prolonged CO2 levels at 450 ppm. Fortunately – most ice sheet experts think the melting time for GIS and WAIS is at least 100s of years, and much more likely 1000s of years. Greenland can’t melt in a day. Serious estimates of how much SLR can be expected by 2100 seem to cluster around 1 – 1.5 meters (3 to 5 feet) , if CO2 emissions continue unabated, and substantially less if CO2 emissions are quickly reduced to zero.
As far as I know, there are no serious climate scientists who expect ‘100 foot rises in sea level’ in the next few centuries. Any sea level rise above about 40 feet requires substantial melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), which is higher in altitude, and more isolated from global weather systems than WAIS. There are indications from paleoclimatology that there was extensive ice in east Antarctica in the distant past when CO2 levels substantially exceeded 450 ppm. Substantial melting of EAIS is unlikely – perhaps even in in worst-case burn-all-the-fossil-fuels scenarios. Keep in mind most of EAIS has a year-round average temperature well below -40 C.
‘… produce hyper-hurricanes in the next century …’
Kerry Emanuel and other scientists have shown hurricanes are roughly speaking, Carnot engines, and therefor, the intensity of a hurricane is strongly affected by the temperature difference between the top (which is usually near the tropopause) and the bottom (which is at the ocean’s surface). Climate models show the oceans will warm, and the tropopause will cool in all likely global warming scenarios. If other hurricane-affecting conditions remain similar, this will result in greater average intensity of hurricanes. However – most scientists seem think this intensity increase will be on the order of a few percent by 2100. I don’t know of any serious hurricane or climate scientist who thinks a few percent stronger hurricane can be called a ‘hyper-hurricane’.
To put this in perspective – the Northwest Pacific region has category 5 hurricanes about 9 times as frequently as the Atlantic, or about 3 category 5 hurricanes each year. This is much larger difference in intensity than is expected to result from global warming. Yet no one calls the hurricanes of the Northwest Pacific ‘hyper-hurricanes’, and nations like the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Japan, and others in the region maintain some degree civilization despite the ferocious storms. (Remember the terrible Atlantic hurricane season of 2005, with its 28 tropical storms, 15 hurricanes, 7 major hurricanes, and 4 category 5s? Well, in the Northwest Pacific, that level of activity is normal, and has been for centuries at least, and probably since the end of the last glaciation.)
Should I go on? Do I need to point out that your remarks are full of strawmen?
I am delighted that my honest perplexity has got so many posts in reply that recognise that I am perplexed, not a “sceptic”. For which I thank you.
Looking up the more public-friendly pages of the UK’s Met Office/Hadley Centre web site I come across the HadCRUT3 data. I will print out one of their graphs (I can’t “think” on a VDU screen, and detail gets hidden) get a pencil and play with things.
I note that the HadCRUT3 data is being constantly updated.
First question. Is it possible for anyone, using the data of this year to the end of April, to say _at this point in time_ how the global temperature is looking for this year?
Another question. RC posters, the public and the media often look to “signs” of global warming; polar bears morosely marooned on ice floes, catastrophic Katrina, drought in the Sahel, the disappearance of snow from Kilimanjaro. Am I correct to say that I should ignore all of this and _only_ look to the published, if boring, global temperatures, such as HadCRU, etc. Am I right that noting else is really of consequence?
Theo Hopkins Says (7 May 2009 at 5:23):
“Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?”
Does it really take longer? Have you done the timing needed to acquire a statistically significant data set? How are you measuring “toastedness”: if it’s by color change, there’s a ready explanation for why toasting seems to take longer. Toasting turns the bread brown, and that color change is more apparent against a white background than a brown one.
Theo Hopkins Says (7 May 2009 at 5:23):
“Why is it that toast made with brown bread takes longer to toast than toast made with white bread, when brown bread should have a lower albedo?”
Shouldn’t the albedo for infrared radiation should be near zero for white and brown bread alike? It is my understanding that surface color has no (or so small as to be negligible) bearing on absorption or reflection of IR radiation.
Re # 237 Correction – should have been:
Shouldn’t the albedo for infrared radiation be near zero for white and brown bread alike?
SecularAnimist Says (7 May 2009 at 10:01):
“With all due respect you don’t know what you are talking about. Tobacco is one of the most powerfully physiologically addictive substances known to science.”
Now you see what I mean when I say we’ve proved that your claim serves only as a distraction from the real issue?
Rather than prolonging the discussion, let me just ask one simple question: if tobacco is as powerfully addictive as you claim, why is it that many people are able to quit simply by deciding to, with no more than the mental effort needed to change any other habit?
In case you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, perhaps I should add that I’ve been there and done that. Started smoking in early teens (in the days before tobacco advertising was restricted at all), decided to quit my first semester in college, did so without great difficulty – certainly nothing even remotely approching the physiological effects of e.g. narcotics withdrawal.
Theo,
My recommendation is not to trust your eyeball exclusively. Look at trends and their siginficance. Fit the data to a line and look at the sign of the slope as well as the goodness of fit (e.g. chi-square, R-Square, likelihood)
As to climate in general, it is about trends, not events. That we lose an ice shelf is not news–that we have lost several ice shelves in ~20 years is. That Arctic sea ice has an anomalously low year isn’t news; that it’s been declining steadily throughout the last 30 years is. That Spring came early this year isn’t remarkable, but that the data of last frost has steadily gotten earlier and earlier for 30 years…
Toast and albedo.
I am of the impression the cut surface of brown bread is coarser than that of white.
Wikipedia tells me that fresh snow has a higher albedo than old snow. Is old snow smoother than new snow. Could this be the reason?
[Response: No. it’s related to the size and shape of the ice crystals. – gavin]
“why is it that many people are able to quit simply by deciding to, with no more than the mental effort needed to change any other habit?”
James, why is it so very many more cannot quit at all, if it isn’t addictive?
Any thoughts on the NYT’s article about a town destroyed by global warming? Is this a valid scientific conclusion?
Re 241 Theo Hopkins
The wavelength of IR radiation is also a factor. Fresh snow has a high albedo for solar IR (wavelength ~ 0.8-2.5 um), but a low albedo (i.e., it absorbs) terrestrial IR (wavelength > 3 um). I would expect the heating element in a toaster to emit shortwave IR, and I would expect this radiation to be strongly absorbed by both white and brown bread. I’m sure one of the physicists in the audience will correct me if I am wrong.
Sorry for continuing an off topic thread.
Because the response isn’t uniform among all individuals, and this is true for many other addictive drugs, as well.
> many people are able to quit simply by deciding to
Citation needed for that, or if you’d like to use the one provided, the older you are when you try it, the easier it is not to continue.
See 6-page 1981 RJReynolds memo on importance of younger adults, above.
[Response: Enough – this is the last word on nicotine and addiction. – gavin]
Phil Fenton:
The absorption spectra for CO2 that you linked to is for the 750-755 cm-1 part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Is this part of the spectrum representative of the entire spectrum or is it anomalous? Is this the only part of the spectrum applicable (or relevant) to infrared heat retention?
Mark, my point was to Igor that it is not easier to upset established science or even junk science.
I never said tobacco was not “bad.” I said it is not addictive (under the old clinically accepted definition).
RodB, no it is much easier.
You even managed to undo it by using words in new and interesting* ways
* as in unusual or the old curse “may you live in interesting times” way.
What was the clinical accepted definition, how did it change and why was tobacco not under the old definition?
The real question for rapidity of toasting is the sugar content of the bread. I’d guess that correlates weakly with white.
FWIW.
So, anyone read that Loehle paper I asked about? (2009, E & E, ocean cooling.) I’d love to know just why it’s a pile of junk. . . presuming, as I do, that it is.