Continuation of the open thread. Please use these threads to bring up things that are creating ‘buzz’ rather than having news items get buried in comment threads on more specific topics. We’ll promote the best responses to the head post.
Knorr (2009): Case in point, Knorr (GRL, 2009) is a study about how much of the human emissions are staying the atmosphere (around 40%) and whether that is detectably changing over time. It does not undermine the fact that CO2 is rising. The confusion in the denialosphere is based on a misunderstanding between ‘airborne fraction of CO2 emissions’ (not changing very much) and ‘CO2 fraction in the air’ (changing very rapidly), led in no small part by a misleading headline (subsequently fixed) on the ScienceDaily news item Update: MT/AH point out the headline came from an AGU press release (Sigh…). SkepticalScience has a good discussion of the details including some other recent work by Le Quéré and colleagues.
Update: Some comments on the John Coleman/KUSI/Joe D’Aleo/E. M. Smith accusations about the temperature records. Their claim is apparently that coastal station absolute temperatures are being used to estimate the current absolute temperatures in mountain regions and that the anomalies there are warm because the coast is warmer than the mountain. This is simply wrong. What is actually done is that temperature anomalies are calculated locally from local baselines, and these anomalies can be interpolated over quite large distances. This is perfectly fine and checkable by looking at the pairwise correlations at the monthly stations between different stations (London-Paris or New York-Cleveland or LA-San Francisco). The second thread in their ‘accusation’ is that the agencies are deleting records, but this just underscores their lack of understanding of where the GHCN data set actually comes from. This is thoroughly discussed in Peterson and Vose (1997) which indicates where the data came from and which data streams give real time updates. The principle one is the CLIMAT updates of monthly mean temperature via the WMO network of reports. These are distributed by the Nat. Met. Services who have decided which stations they choose to produce monthly mean data for (and how it is calculated) and is absolutely nothing to do with NCDC or NASA.
Further Update: NCDC has a good description of their procedures now available, and Zeke Hausfather has a very good explanation of the real issues on the Yale Forum.
Walter Manny,
First, to say that the 30 years is inefficient suggests that in many cases a longer period is needed rather than a shorter one. Thirty years is cited as a MINIMUM standard. And if 30 years is “inefficient” then 10 years is simply delusional.
Walter Manny says, “Your reading causes you to believe that significant temperature rise is due to increased CO2 and that nothing else can explain it. Mine takes me to conclude that is pretty unlikely given the number of variables, short- and long-term, well-understood and mysterious, swirling about and responsible for an ever-changing climate.”
The difference, Walter, is that my “reading” has equipped me with specific facts and evidence, whereas all you have is a vague impression that it’s all to complicated to understand. Which attitude is more scientific?
Walter, do you dispute that the consensus model of climate has had remarkable successes? See for example:
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html
This record of success would seem to belie an assertion (and that is all it is) that the climate is beyond human understanding.
Walter says, “You think the history of science shows us that the consensus is proven true the vast majority of the time, and I am fascinated by the heretics whose science has so often won the day or at least changed the consensus.”
No, Walter, there are no heretics. It is fine and honorable to challenge the consensus. However, one does so by gathering evidence that challenges the consensus and PUBLISHING IT; not by endlessly examining a single set of tree-ring data used in a 12-year old paper; not by cherry-picking data; not by torturing noisy data until it yields the trend you want; and certainly not by hacking into an email server to release emails out of context with an intent to impugn the reputations of your rivals. The latter are the same tactics used by creationists, tobacco companies, anti-vaccine activists–in other words anti-science.
It is fine and honorable to challenge the consensus science, but a true skeptic scientist does so by generating new science and new understandings, not by giving up and saying it’s all too difficult. And if you do not trust Realclimate, then read the goddamned technical literature. If anything it is even more dominated by the consensus position
The publication record of the so-called skeptic scientists is woeful. This is not because they are stupid or evil. It is because they cannot, for whatever reason (and yes, the reason is usually ideological) accept critical aspects of current climate theory. This precludes their having insights that advance understanding. Walter, I’ve referenced this page by Jim Prall many times before. It shows leading climate authors and how often their work is cited. Please go there and study it. Really look at the productivity of consensus scientists and compare it to the so-called “skeptics”. What do you think explains the difference?
http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/
I would suggest staying away from the Exxons, Greenpeaces, lawyers, lobbyists and focus on the scientists’ work, not their corporate or government funding. It’s taken a while, for example, for Lindzen to begin to emerge on this site as a serious scientist and not the oil industry shill the regulars preferred to label him as, not so many years ago. He’s still taking his potshots, to be sure, perhaps because he is a threat to the hegemony, but I note that serious folks here are taking him seriously, even if they believe he is wrong. Conspiracies are fun, but I doubt the “Climategaters” and “Denialists” are that nefarious.
J states as if he’s a mindreader:
“Re: SecularAnimist and FedUp:
The problems of wind and solar power are not unknown just often ignored here. ”
Please where are they ignored?
You don’t mention the risk of nuclear contamination of water tables, but has ANYONE accused you of ignoring them?
Nclear power has to be taken offline so you still need more than 100% of power supply to supply 100% power.
Nuclear power ramps up over time so cannot be used for spikes in demand, so you still need another power source.
Now show where it says ANYWHERE that the power available from those wind farms are “maximum possible if the wind blows all the time”.
Or are you ignoring the possibility that that reduction could have already been taken into account.
And wind power for the UK can replace 300% of power requirements alone.
So it can handle 1/3 of the power output rated maximum ***IF*** that is the power they are talking about, which you haven’t shown is the case.
J why don’t you suggest a couple of nuclear power plants in the Mojave as a replacement?
If complaints about solar power plants there are the reason why solar power is unusable, then if you can’t get your new nukes built there, then nuclear power is likewise unusable and all we have is “reduce power needs by 80%”.
Which is doable.
Manny:
“I would suggest staying away from the Exxons, Greenpeaces, lawyers, lobbyists and focus on the scientists’ work, not their corporate or government funding.”
How about the nonscientists, then?
E.g. Monckton. Morano. Ihofe. Watts. McIntyre.
> Walter Manny says: 9 January 2010 at 8:28 AM
>
> I would suggest … focus on the scientists’ work, not
> their corporate or government funding.
Walter would suggest not looking at what difference the funding makes because — why?
It’s been done–repeatedly–and that look consistently turns up something really interesting.
When Walter and his ilk say not to look — trust them. Look.
Walter and his peers are a reliable indicator, in their own way.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=scientific+journal+article+study+funding+source+results
——-
Hank, I have no ilk. I do my own reading, thanks, as do you. If you want to get into Jones’ and Lindzen’s funding issues, to try to infer motives in either case, then go for it. In this case, though, you will find much of your ilk – Got Ilk? – in favor of studying the science and not the funding. The climate cares not a whit who is funding the study of it.
233: Hey Jim. Didn’t see that post until now. Hope all is well w/ you. I hope to be out in your neck of the woods sometime this year.
> Doug Bostrom says: 9 January 2010 at 1:17 AM
> Industrial deception
I wasn’t aware of that earlier history, and would welcome a pointer.
History books all tell about the triumph of closing the public pumps and halting cholera. But it’s amazing how much more was happening, e.g.
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mandx/page22cholera.htm
It’s also surprising to me–there being no end to my ignorance–how directly relevant this history is to understanding climate change, e.g.
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=lydia_stewart_ferreira
“The struggle between authority and liberty, the tyranny of the majority, the prevention of harm, unlimited state control, the necessary rights belonging to citizens, and the establishment of constitutional checks by a consent community – is the theory and practice of public health.
…. To ensure the well being of the whole community, the majority of the given population – most often represented by the State – will take steps …. and usually does – impact on the rights of individuals…..
… this essay explores how the 1665 Great Plague of London demonstrated State rights versus individual rights and may have influenced John Locke and his ideas outlined in “The Second Treatise on Civil Government [1690]. This essay also explores the London cholera epidemic of 1854 in terms of State vs. individual rights which may have influenced J.S. Mill perspective outlined in “On Liberty”.
…. Individual rights were different for the rich and the poor.
“Cunning, privilege and private power stood above the laws, mocking the regulations ….”
———
Sorry for this Q if it’s been addressed; I don’t have time to read over the site.
The denialsphere has made much of the cold weather, implying it disproves GW. Of course, I understand the difference between weather and climate. What I understand is that the cold weather is due to an “arctic blast,” or coming from the north (for the N. Hemisphere, at least), that the weather is sort of zig-zagging north-south rather than the more usual west-east. Why is that, or is it just one of those variations.
The other Q would be what is the global situation. Is it colder than usual everywhere (incl the S. Hemisphere), or do the warming than usuals balance out the colder than usuals. I did hear it is warming than usual in Washington State and Alaska. Also that it was warmer than usual in Minnesota last month, though the snowfall was heavier (but that was just an impression of a resident there).
Ray Ladbury (691), your basic point is of course correct, but dazzling folks with BS big ole numbers is not very scientific.. Compared to 100 trillion CO2 molecules in the path roughly 2,000,000 trillion (2 quintillion) photons are released in the 15um band every second (if my math holds up). Using just big numbers for the argument photons would overwhelm the puny CO2 molecules!
Just my opinion for the record: your all’s continued bashing of skeptics because they also didn’t fully agree with the conventional or your wisdom of tobacco, evolution, asbestos, or had blond hair or only had one leg or all studied physical education or were divorcees or whatever scapegoat association you can come up with is really getting tiresome. You sound like, as you charge, so-called “deniers” asking the same old questions over and over.
Rod B BS with numbers: “Compared to 100 trillion CO2 molecules in the path roughly 2,000,000 trillion (2 quintillion) photons are released”
That means that almost no energy is in any one of those photons, Rod old bean.
Your implication is that many photons get through without hitting anything.
However, this is incorrect: each one has to pass each of those molecules individually. Run the gauntlet.
If the absorption rate is 1% for an IR photon within that distance, then the chance of getting through isn’t 1% of 100 trillion, but 0.99**100 trillion.
What’s the chance of that, Rod, or do you know nothing about maths?
Funny how you projected your BSing by maths of big numbers on to someone else.
I posted this yesterday in the wrong thread and some people might not have seen it:
Letter sent yesterday by a varied group of 40 scientists, to the American Farm Bureau Federation, questioning their stated position regarding the weight of evidence for human-induced climate change, and requesting a meeting with the AFBF director. The AFBF position letter states: “There is no generally agreed upon scientific assessment on the exact impact or extent of carbon emissions from human activities, their impact on past decades of warming, or how they will affect future climate changes. The UCS and Grist have stories.
And on that 2 quintillion number, I don’t have my physics book with me, but if it’s a 0.1eV photon (1.6×10^-20J), then 2 quintillion of them is 3×10^-2 J of energy over a 1umx1um square.
A radiant energy flux of 3×10^10J/m2.
If the entire energy from the sun is in that range, then that would be over a period of 10^8 seconds or about 4 months.
Not 1 second.
No problem John. Send a note when you’re coming–I’ll be all over the place this year.
Jim
Sorry, that would be ~10 years. Or 100. But years, anyway.
Walter maintains: “Hank, I have no ilk. I do my own reading”
However, this doesn’t seem to be the case:
“637
Walter Manny says:
7 January 2010 at 11:03 PM
To the deafening silence on whether the 30-year climate standard”
“662
Walter Manny says:
8 January 2010 at 12:51 PM
Ray, your continuing non-response ”
You don’t actually seem to do any reading Manny.
Rod B pouts:
“Just my opinion for the record: your all’s continued bashing of skeptics because they also didn’t fully agree with the conventional or your wisdom of tobacco”
Nobody here bashes skeptics, Rodney.
Denialists, yes.
They can be spotted by their slow movement and repetition of the same phrase and how they’re always looking for brains.
Skpetics would be saying “hang on, what if I’m wrong”.
Denialists repeat “Brains”
Rod: your all’s continued bashing of skeptics because they also didn’t fully agree with the conventional or your wisdom of tobacco, evolution, asbestos…is really getting tiresome.
It speaks to judgment. Would you consider a person to have good judgment who says things like:
“Smoking doesn’t cause cancer.”
“Evolutionary biology is wrong because the Bible says so.”
“You can breathe asbestos all day and it won’t hurt you.”
“Vaccines cause autism.”
“Global temperature has been declining for the last 12 years.”
Anyone who makes one of these statements immediately reveals himself to be ignorant.
[Response: Please note this is not the place to start discussing all these issues (except the last, and frankly, even that has got boring). – gavin]
Rod B
#711: you overlooked one more big number: a second is an eternity for a photon or a molecule.
#712: your condition is likely treatable, check with your physician. We’re getting tired of suffering too.
Doug Bostrom @698 and Hank Roberts @709, a similar well-documented historical example of entrenched resistance by self-interests to public health projects would be the battle to construct the Paris sewer system, a public works project that should have taken far less time to construct and fully connect to private buildings than it actually did. John Ralston Saul uses it to illustrate the struggle between public and private interests in his Voltaire’s Bastards, although there are obviously more in depth examinations in the literature.
I did something I really had no desire to do and that is I went through Singer’s arguments regarding second hand smoke. They seemed like a fairly sound arguments to me. They all seemed to deal with the poor scientific methods used by the EPA and not arguments about what the final results should be. Since I was obviously fooled perhaps someone can tell me why he is evil for making those arguments? I can think of only a few reasons.
1. He lied? Can anyone state how he lied?
2. He took money, not sure this is true but really don’t care, from someone we have determined is evil in order to tell the truth and because of this he is evil also. If this is the case I can think of many experts in many fields that should be scorned, but we still consider the right to a fair trial a good thing, I think?
3. It doesn’t matter if the science wasn’t done properly, the cause is good and we just “know” what the right answer is. Scary if this is the reason don’t you think? It is if it is the reason any scientists are using anyway.
I am interested in the psychology behind why it makes a difference that Singer presented the argument he did regarding second hand smoke. Perhaps I missed a possible reason?
Rod B., What is the area for your photon density? My figure was for a square 15 microns on a side. Yours?
Walter, Lindzen was a serious scientist long before the climate debate caught fire. The problem with Lindzen is not so much his science, but rather his ex cathedra remarks to laymen (e.g in public debates, editorials) who do not know enough about the science to spot a patent deception (e.g the “Mars is warming red herring.)
He has uttered enough of these that it has me wondering whether he is more interested in understanding climate or simply scoring pointw with adoring denialists.
Oh, and Walter, it’s easy to get off of the “denialist” list. All you have to do is acknowledge the evidence–all of it.
@710 “The other Q would be what is the global situation. Is it colder than usual everywhere (incl the S. Hemisphere),”
Not sure about the whole southern hemisphere but it’s probably easy enough to get from NOAA or similar. Down where I am in SE Australia we’ve finally got a bit of rain after several years, but the temp hasn’t dropped.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=tmax&area=seaus&season=0112&ave_yr=0
Ray,
You keep sending me interesting references to back up my skepticism. Your reference to the science fiction writer’s
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html
yields the score 17-5, and this from an ardent AGW proponent. You’re focused on the 17, me the 5. What is the big deal? I’m skeptical of CO2 as the sole driver, and you present it as though it’s a dunk shot. There’s nothing wrong with an uninfluential writer such as me keeping the jury in the box, though for some reason it seems to rile up the pseudonymed regulars here. But screaming, “Agree with me or I’ll call you bad names again!” has never moved the ball too far.
Ray, et al: Never mind! My double checking/guessing (as it seems you have, too) tells me you were using a much narrower column of air/CO2 than was my column of photons. Sorry. To complete the mea culpa there would be about 1,000,000 times the number of CO2 molecules in a column emitting my photons, though my photons repeat every second. — again assuming my math is close…
Completely Fed Up (719), save your self-serving definitions for the pep rally.
You also say “…Skpetics would be saying “hang on, what if I’m wrong”.
As I would expect scientists to do also, eh?
Is there any way the second two paragraphs in this NYT article can be seen as correct?
Heavy Rains End Drought for Texas
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/science/earth/09drought.html
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: January 8, 2010
(excerpt)
“State officials say the period from September 2008 to September 2009 was the driest on record in the state.”
“[John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist] said the drought owed much to the two winters in which surface water temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean were above normal, a phenomenon known as El Niño. In addition, the tropical storms that raked the Texas coast in 2008 dropped almost no rain inland.”
“But this winter the Pacific cooled off, producing the pattern known as La Niña, which generally brings wet weather to Texas, he said. The central region around Austin and San Antonio received 8 to 12 inches more rain than normal from August to October. Farther south, around Corpus Christi, a wave of storms in November and December dropped up to 10 inches more rain than usual, he said.”
Can anyone point me in the right direction for my question. It is my understanding that global warming cools the stratosphere. If that is the case, could it increase the prevalence of PSCs and increase the rate of ozone depletion?
[Response: Yes, and it depends. Increasing CO2 cools the stratosphere in general and the reactions governing ozone formation and destruction are temperature sensitive. However, for the bulk of the stratosphere, the ozone loss dependence is dominant and so you get slightly higher ozone (i.e. less loss) with colder temperatures. In really cold parts of the stratosphere (i.e. inside the wintertime polar vortex) ozone loss is dominated by heterogeneous reactions on the surfaces of PSCs. These only form in very cold environments and so cooling adds to the PSCs and would be expected to lead to more polar ozone loss. – gavin]
> I’m skeptical of CO2 as the sole driver
So is everyone.
A few people claim that someone somewhere thinks CO2 is the sole driver.
It was said of the early Puritans in Boston that they were worried that someone somewhere might be having a good time.
730 Tim Jones says:
Is there any way the second two paragraphs in this NYT article can be seen as correct?
No. The reporter (I assume) got it backwards. Texas has been under La Niña conditions in ’08 and ’09, leading to drier than usual conditions. That has changed to El Niño now, with rainfall returning.
OK, Walter, I’ll put aside the fact that you are willing to ignore 17 successes that provide strong to very strong evidence in favor of the models. Let’s look at your (or rather BPL’s) list of 5 shortcomings. Let’s see how and how much they might be likely to affect warming we see:
1)ITCZ–There are a variety of possible causes–perhaps even as simple as insufficient resolution. And I don’t see any potential cause that would significantly affect CO2 sensitivity. What is more, it is being researched quite actively (see below). This hardly looks like a problem that has been “missed”.
http://www.google.com/search?q=double+itcz&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7PCTA_en
2)ENSO variability–Actually, given the current resolution of GCM, it’s amazing they exhibit ENSO at all. Again, though ENSO is a short-term behavior, so it will not affect CO2 sensitivity measurements. And again, being researched actively, not swept under the rug.
3)Insufficiently sensitive sea ice–OK, now here’s one where it is clearly a positive feedback. Also being actively researched. This one counts against you, though, given the sign of the feedback.
4)Diurnal moist convection cells–Again, note the presence of “diurnal”. This is a short-term effect and very unlikely to affect CO2 sensitivity estimates. And again an area of active research.
5)Clouds–Ah, finally, a possible candidate. However, a very active area of research, and in this case the observations do not favor a strongly negative feedback AND the sensitivity estimates are independent of the data and models for clouds. In this case, the sensitivity estimates provide a likely constraint for what the clouds will give.
So, Walter, unless you are claiming that the shortcomings of the models are indicative a fundamental failing in our understanding of climate, I don’t see the grounds to cancel the crisis. And given the very real successes of the climate–many of which wouldn’t be there without a fairly strong CO2 sensitivity–it’s hard to countenance a claim that there is something fundamentally wrong.
You love to go on about how complicated climate is. Do you have any comprehension of how hard it would be to get such complicated models ALMOST RIGHT and still have something fundamentally wrong with phenomenon as central as CO2 forcing and feedbacks?
And you should notice another thing. Who are the ones actively doing research into current model shortcomings? Here’s a hint–it ain’t microWatts, McI or even the real scientists among the denialists/skeptics. Nope. If there were research that overturned our current understanding of climate, it would be the product of the mainstream consensus scientists, because they are ones actively pulling on the threads of the models.
Walter, many questions in climate science are complicated. WRT AGW, the question we’re asking the climate science is pretty simple:
Will an increase in a well mixed (makes it global), long-lived (means long-term averages are the crucial metric) known greenhouse gas significantly alter Earth’s climate over a period of decades to centuries?
So we aren’t saying that no other influences are important. We’re just saying that the other influences are unlikely to persist for centuries. Know of any influences that affect climate for centuries other than Milankovitch cycles and the carbon cycle? Have any of them been changing dramatically of late? How likely do you think it is that we would utterly miss such an influence?
“Rod B says:
9 January 2010 at 2:14 PM
As I would expect scientists to do also, eh?”
And they do: read the IPCC reports.
Plenty there about “we don’t know X and we’re not sure of Y”.
Where was your “what if I’m wrong”? e.g. with the photon count stuff?
Rod backpedals
“Ray, et al: Never mind! My double checking/guessing (as it seems you have, too) tells me you were using a much narrower column of air/CO2 than was my column of photons…”
Rod, your column would be a 1cm square to fit your figures. Why were you taking a 1cm square?
You were also using maths incorrectly: the chance of a photon getting out is the combination of NO CO2 interception.
And that’s not a linear fit: that’s geometric.
And EVEN THEN your physics doesn’t make any sense: with a relaxation time of ~microseconds, you’d need to take a snapshot of how much is going on in your colum before they relax to the previous state. Not how many goes along in one unit of arbitrary time.
I mean, there’s multiple lines of epic fail going on in there.
To be capped by a mega-epic-fail of rubbishing Ray for BSing with big numbers.
Even were that the case, at least they were the right physics.
Walter, #727, the way I look at it is “hope for the best (no GW, no ill effects from GW), expect the worst” or in my case “strive to mitigate GW, hoping that it really isn’t real.”
I use Pascal’s wager to help me think about it.
Q1: THE FALSE POSITIVE: What are the harms in thinking GW is happening (and mitigating it) when in fact it isn’t happening (the false positive, which scientist strive to avoid like the plague, which is why they are closer to denialists than environmentalists). I have found that mitigating down to 75% reduction of GHG emission can actually be done cost-effectively, without lowering living standards or productivity, AND mitigating GW also mitigates many other environmental and non-environmental problems, there is virtually not reason not to mitigate global warming, even if it isn’t happening.
Q2: THE FALSE NEGATIVE: What are the harms in thinking GW is not happening & failing to mitigate it, when in fact it is happening. Since it can lead to world food shortages thru droughts, floods, storms, heat stress, CO2 overload/acidification — a vicious killer musical chairs of diminishing resources, and many other problems to boot (pollution, resource waste, military/warlord conflict, etc), and apparently the worst that could happen just got much worst last year (re scientists’ knowledge — see pg. 24 of http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes_20081217.pdf ) — the Venus syndrome of permanent runaway warming as on Venus, in which all life on planet earth dies a billion years before necessary, when the sun goes supernova — it might just be a good idea to mitigate and save money, than fail to mitigate and lose not only our shirts from a profligate, wasteful lifestyle, but our (mainly our progeny’s) lives.
So we have a way of making a decision on this even in the face of our layman’s lack of scientfic understanding, even in the face of not trusting the climate scientists.
Re #710 Lynn Vincentnathan:
The cold weather in much of the northern temperate zone is due to a strongly negative phase of the arctic oscillation. NSIDC has a discussion of current conditions:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Global anomaly maps are available at (e.g.) http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/glbcir_rnl.shtml
http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30a.rnl.gif
http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_90a.rnl.gif
http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_365a.rnl.gif
Zonal mean anomalies:
http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/hovmoller/timeplot.pl?var=air&level=2000&mon1=10&mon2=1&dy1=1&dy2=31&yr1=2009&yr2=2010&datatype=reanalysis&type=anom&fxdlon=yes&postscript=no&lon1=0&lon2=360&lat1=90&lat2=-90&cint=.5&lowr=-4&highr=6.5&size=100&Submit=Create+Plot
For comparison last year and 2006/2007 (warmest Nov/Dec/Jan so far):
http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/hovmoller/timeplot.pl?var=air&level=2000&mon1=10&mon2=1&dy1=1&dy2=31&yr1=2008&yr2=2009&datatype=reanalysis&type=anom&fxdlon=yes&postscript=no&lon1=0&lon2=360&lat1=90&lat2=-90&cint=.5&lowr=-4&highr=6.5&size=100&Submit=Create+Plot
http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/hovmoller/timeplot.pl?var=air&level=2000&mon1=10&mon2=1&dy1=1&dy2=31&yr1=2006&yr2=2007&datatype=reanalysis&type=anom&fxdlon=yes&postscript=no&lon1=0&lon2=360&lat1=90&lat2=-90&cint=.5&lowr=-4&highr=6.5&size=100&Submit=Create+Plot
(Note that these aren’t equal area maps)
stevec comes up with some brammers:
“1. He lied? Can anyone state how he lied?”
Because it was already known to be false.
“2. He took money, not sure this is true but really don’t care,”
You don’t care? Why on earth don’t you care if someone can pay wodges to a scientist and they will lie when the same scientist is “bucking the trend” again (with someone with lots of money to spend wanting this to be said standing nearby)?
“3. It doesn’t matter if the science wasn’t done properly,”
Then why are you even asking? Seems you don’t care about anything to do with it.
So stop asking.
Oh, and on 712, the same old responses come back because the same old question is being asked.
It would be like someone asking “so what is 1 plus 1?” and when they’re told, asking again. And again. And so on. Then when they’re asked to stop repeating, you come along and say “well, you keep repeating too!”.
Hank Roberts wrote in 706:
Well, since Walter Manny was talking about Richard Lindzen, I decided to look at whose funded the organizations that Lindzen has been associated with.
Going to:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/index.php?mapid=1496
I see:
Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, Cato Institute, Tech Central Station, George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, all of which have received funding from Exxon.
In the following:
Factsheet: Richard Lindzen
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=17
… they give the following relationships:
Member, Annapolis Center – Science and Economic Advisory Council.
Contributing Expert, Cato Institute.
Contributing Expert, George C. Marshall Institute.
Digging a little further for the other two organizations, ExxonSecrets also shows that a biography existed at Tech Central Station although it is no longer there – but an image can be gotten at www-archive-org
http://www.techcentralstation.com/biolindzenrichard.html [obsolete]
… and you can also find for example:
A Mayor Mistake
By Dr. Richard Lindzen, Published 09/17/2003
http://www.techcentralstation.com/091703C.html [obsolete]
So Richard Lindzen has been a contributing expert/author for Tech Central Station as well.
Likewise, Heartland Institute has him listed here as one of their experts:
Heartland Institute – Global Warming Experts
http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/experts.html
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But what of Lindzen himself?
SourceWatch states:
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Now I had three of the five organizations down as being involved in both the tobacco and AGW denial campaigns. The were:
9. Cato Institute
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cato_Institute
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21
16. George C. Marshall Institute
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_C._Marshall_Institute
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=36
18. Heartland Institute
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=41
Some coincidence. Richard Lindzen is also well-known as having made statements that the tobacco industry have found useful. For example, reporters have stated after interviewing him how he argued that the evidence against tobacco is weak.
Please see:
… then at the very last paragraph of a tobacco industry propaganda piece:
… where, incidentally, the very same authors wrote,
Smoke and Mirrors: The EPA’s Flawed Study of Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer
by Gary L. Huber, Robert E. Brockie, and Vijay K. Mahajan
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv16n3/reg16n3c.html
… available at Richard Lindzen’s Cato Institute.
Given these coincidences, I decided to dig a little deeper on the two Exxon-funded organizations which did not at first glance look like they had been involved in tobacco denial campaign.
Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy (previously known simply as Annapolis Center)
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=13
The Google Search…
site:tobaccodocuments.org “annapolis center”
… returned at least 6 distinct “Weekly Activities Reports to Issues Management” about various discussions with the Annapolis Center.
Yes, it would appear that they were involved in the tobacco denial campaign as well. But what of Tech Central Station?
Directly they have no relationship that I know of with the tobacco industry. However, looking at:
Tech Central Station
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tech_Central_Station
… we see that they were created by DCI Group (a PR firm) in 2000.
Digging a little further:
DCI Group
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DCI_Group
… we see that they were involved in the tobacco denial campaign.
You just gotta love those coincidences!
Walter Manny — 9 January 2010 @ 1:22 PM says “You’re focused on the 17, me the 5.”
It seems to me that you are betting that the 5 known inaccuracies in the climate model predictions will someday resolve by overturning the 1 most important model prediction – doubling CO2 will cause ~2-4.5 degree warming.
The underestimation of cryosphere response is also an underestimation of albedo feedback, so we know that the models underpredict sensitivity because of this.
The models underestimate diurnal cycles of moist convection and rainfall intensity as shown here, so storm damage will likely be worse than currently predicted.
According to Lin
“About half of the models have significant double-ITCZ problem, which is characterized by cold SST bias over much of the tropical oceans…” so correcting model inaccuracies which result in a double ITCZ will give warmer tropical SST, and bias the sensitivity higher. (Not to mention that warmer SST=>more H2O evaporation=>stronger water vapor amplification of global warming).
Since ENSO is a climate “wobble”, not a trend, more accurate modeling of changes in the frequency/magnitude of the ENSO won’t effect the predictions or trend of warming being caused by CO2, but may help prevent food riots in Indonesia. It’s possible that “future seasonal precipitation extremes associated with a given ENSO event are likely to be more intense due to the warmer, more El Niño-like, mean base state in a future climate.”
Which leaves cloud feedbacks as your only possible winning bet that doing nothing is the least risky approach. Have Lindzen or Svensmark and Friis-Christensen explained why GCR-cloud physical processes which occur fast enough to be seen within ~7 day after a Forbush event somehow get filtered out of the 11 year solar cycle with which they are correlated, leaving no trace of modulation on our rising temperatures?
Don Shor wrote in 633:
Jinchi wrote in 657:
Don, it looks like Jinchi is right: that isn’t a direct quote.
The following is a bit more mainstream, and it is a direct quote — regarding 2030:
No, if you want something a bit more technical that gives an earlier date you might check the presentation Wieslaw Maslowski gave in Japan back in 2008:
When will Summer Arctic Sea Ice Disappear?
Wieslaw Maslowski, Naval Postgraduate School
Sustainability Weeks 2008 – Symposium on Drastic Change in the Earth System during Global Warming
Sapporo, Japan, 24 June 2008
http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/34395/5/Maslowski.pdf
On page 15, after noting that sea ice volume decreased by 40% roughly linearly from 1997 to 2004, Wieslaw Maslowski states, “If this trend persists the Arctic Ocean will become ice-free by ~2013!” And at that point the data that he was using didn’t even take into account the great melt of 2007.
The exclamation point might seem like a bit much, and we might prefer that he distinguish between first- and multi-year ice. But there you are: someone arguing that simple extrapolation based upon sea ice volume suggests that we might see and ice free Artic sea as early as 2013 — and doing so in a technical presentation.
But lets bring in the distinction between first- and multi-year ice. Later in 2008, first-year sea ice barely increased in volume. In contrast, multi-year ice volume decreased from roughly 7500 km^3 to 4500 km^3 going from the winter of 2007 to the winter of 2008, 40%, dropping more rapidly than any earlier period from 2004-7.
Please see:
Trend in winter sea ice volume (2004-2008)
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/365871main_earth3-20090707-full.jpg
Images: New NASA Satellite Survey Reveals Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning, 07.07.09
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/icesat-20090707.html
This was during a period that many a skeptic would regard as a recovery — simply going on sea ice extent.
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And what of 2009?
You might look at:
Arctic sea ice age at the end of the melt season
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure5.png
Figure 5. These images compare ice age, a proxy for ice thickness, in 2007, 2008, 2009, and the 1981 to 2000 average. This year saw an increase in second-year ice (in blue) over 2008. At the end of summer 2009, 32 percent of the ice cover was second-year ice. Three-year and older ice were 19 percent of the total ice cover, the lowest in the satellite record.
… from:
6 October 2009
Arctic sea ice extent remains low; 2009 sees third-lowest mark
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html
Second year ice saw a substantial of a recovery according that map. However, third year fell to a dramatic new low, perhaps only half of what it was the year before. Some recovery.
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But much of this is going off of IceSat images — showing us what is and what is not second and third year ice — and now observations made by Barber and his team have cast that into doubt. What looked to IceSat like multi-year ice in the Beaufort Sea as far south as 71°N was rotten ice until about 74.5°N
Please see:
Barber, D. G., R. Galley, M. G. Asplin, R. De Abreu, K.-A. Warner, M. Pucko, M. Gupta, S. Prinsenberg, and S. Julien (2009), Perennial pack ice in the southern Beaufort Sea was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L24501, doi:10.1029/2009GL041434. (abstract only)
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL041434.shtml
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Personally I don’t know when the arctic sea ice will melt completely for the first time. Personally I don’t know whether it will make much of a difference distinguishing between the point at which all the multi-year ice melts and all sea ice melts for the first time. But I see no reason to think that we are anywhere near a recovery of any sort and it looks to me like an we will see ice free Arctic Sea sooner rather than later.
[Corrected html]
#668 Completely Fed Up
It also prod-uces THREE TIMES the UK needs.
I’m not sure what your ‘It’ repres-ents here. But this morning on Radio 4
I heard a report of the government’s announcement:
Licenses granted for 32 gW off shore wind power, cost about 100b UKP,
producing about 1/4 of UK’s needs and creating about 70,000 jobs
This would be a factor of 12 less than the THREE above.
>
> This evening Radio 4 consulted their spe-cial-is-t in numerical data (who
presents a programme called ‘More or Less’) and got this
1. The 32 gW reps max. power ; average would be 10gW and this would be
about 4% of UK needs (I suppose the lower value includes such needs as
fuel for cars, aviation and keeping warm , the higher one refers to
electrical power ?) We would now be a factor of 75 below your THREE.
2. The government has promised it will be paying for about 3m UKP out of
the 100bn (factor of about 33,000 here)
3. the number of jobs cre-ated will lie in the range -2,000 to +20,000
Is ‘More or Less’ biased? No idea. But they have ignored my suggestion
to discuss some of the simpler examples of statistical blunders made by
climate conrarians.
The government always exagg-erates but they have done one thing right and
that is to employ Prof. David McKay as an adv-isor on energy matters. I
wonder if that deci-sion and the deci-sion to go for off shore wind might
be related?
Fed Up, it appears your change of name has not changed your willingness to leap in with meaningless answers. You say he lied. Could you be a bit more specific?
Re:733 Don Shor says: “No. The reporter (I assume) got it backwards.”
[edit – stick to the facts]
James C. McKinley Jr. certainly can’t get climate reporting right. Before anyone thinks Texas A&M’s Dr. Nielsen-Gammon is just another Texas doofus consider this article in the San Angelo Standard Times:
WINDMILL: El Niño may bring more rainfall,
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2009/jul/15/el-ni241o-may-bring-more-rainfall/
by Jerry Lackey,
Posted July 15, 2009.
(excerpt)
“The current drought conditions are partly because of La Niña, during which cold sea surface temperatures are found in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, said John Nielsen-Gammon, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University who also serves as Texas’ climatologist.”
“Nielsen-Gammon said history records that when La Niña occurs, winters in this part of the country are typically drier and warmer than normal, frequently with strong, drying winds from the southwest and west.”
[…]
“El Niño, the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters, occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months.”
The comments above are correct – just the opposite of what McKinley writes in the NYT. He should post an apology for his grasp of science – posted in comment 730, and below:
“[John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist] said the drought owed much to the two winters in which surface water temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean were above normal, a phenomenon known as El Niño. In addition, the tropical storms that raked the Texas coast in 2008 dropped almost no rain inland.”
“But this winter the Pacific cooled off, producing the pattern known as La Niña, which generally brings wet weather to Texas, he said. The central region around Austin and San Antonio received 8 to 12 inches more rain than normal from August to October. Farther south, around Corpus Christi, a wave of storms in November and December dropped up to 10 inches more rain than usual, he said.”
McKinley’s been the Mexico City bureau chief of The New York Times since 2006. [edit]
Geoff, go to the bbc link I gave.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8443865.stm
is it again.
#738, Andreas, thanks a lot. This is very useful. First of all what I make of it is that even on short time scales, such as Dec 2009 (and one should not really do “climate” on short time scales) there seem to be the same or more temp anomolies in the warmer direction as in the cooler direction on the upper northern hemisphere circumpolar map (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ see esp. http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100105_Figure4.png ), and many more warmer latitudes on the world zonal chart (http://esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/hovmoller/timeplot.pl?var=air&level=2000&mon1=10&mon2=1&dy1=1&dy2=31&yr1=2009&yr2=2010&datatype=reanalysis&type=anom&fxdlon=yes&postscript=no&lon1=0&lon2=360&lat1=90&lat2=-90&cint=.5&lowr=-4&highr=6.5&size=100&Submit=Create+Plot ).
On longer time scales, 90 days to one year, there are definitely more warmers/hotters than coolers; in fact almost all (if diff from zero) are in the warmer direction in recent years.
I think these maps and graphs are worth 100,000 words. That’s what the denialists need to see, as they seem to be taking keen note of unusually cold days in their communities and regions, and ignoring warm days or the bulk of the daily temps, and ignoring the rest of the world.
Even the hockey stick doesn’t say it so eloquently, in terms of showing that, yes, it might be cooler in Chile & a couple of other places over an entire year & in the U.S., parts of Europe & Russia during Dec-Jan 2009-10, but nearly everywhere else it’s either the same or warmer, and quite warmer in the Atlantic-side Arctic region…where BTW the Greenland ice sheets are being regaled with warmer than usual weather.
It is also revealing that while the sea ice extent Sept 2009 was not as minimal as in 2007, it is about the same Dec 2009 & Dec 2007, which looks actually more ominous, like warming is kicking in more to stay for the winter, or something. And I think that fits global warming, like one can’t blame the sun for that, not in the arctic during winter.
Hank Roberts wrote in 706:
Nice link!
…
Couple that may be of interest…
http://www.the-scientist.com/templates/trackable/display/blog.jsp?type=blog&o_url=blog/display/55671&id=55671
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/25428.php