The Oxburgh report on the science done at the CRU has now been published and….. as in the first inquiry, they find no scientific misconduct, no impropriety and no tailoring of the results to a preconceived agenda, though they do suggest more statisticians should have been involved. They have also some choice words to describe the critics.
Carry on…
“You are completely delusional.”
FCH, you’re projecting again.
“There simply aren’t enough people buying papers from paywall sites, or the journals themselves, to pay for the research that’s being performed.”
Strawman.
It doesn’t have to pay for the research, it just has to pay TOWARD research.
And the 880M doesn’t come from my taxes, so it’s not costing me any tax money.
It may be costing Open Road money or Piers Corbyn money or BAA money, but it’s not costing ME my taxes.
Gilles (753): There is no law of physics that imposes a constant relative temperature distribution, even in latitude.
BPL: It’s called “Lambert’s cosine law:”
I = I0 cos(θ)
where I is radiative flux density, I0 is I perpendicular to the path of propagation (e.g. flat on to the sun), and θ is the angle the surface is tipped away from that parpendicular (for a spherical planet, the latitude). This ignores axial inclination, but axial inclination averages out over the year.
The flux density absorbed by the climate system, for each of nine 10-degree latitude bands, would be
F = (S / pi) cos(theta) (1 – A)
where S is the solar constant, pi the circle constant, and A the bolometric Russell-Bond spherical albedo. The effective temperature is then
Te = (F / (ε σ))0.25
where ε is surface emissivity and σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.
Working with one hemisphere and assuming symmetry, let’s assume that, with cloud cover, A is 0.5 north of the 60 degree lines and 0.28 below, giving a mean planetary albedo of 0.31. Assuming the following values:
S = 1366.1 W m-2
pi = 3.14159…
ε = 0.996 (as in the ECHAM5 GCM)
σ = 5.6704 x 10-8 W m-2 K-4
We then find F and Te to be:
85° 18.9 135.3
75° 56.3 177.7
65° 91.9 200.8
55° 179.6 237.5
45° 221.4 250.2
35° 256.5 259.6
25° 283.8 266.2
15° 302.4 270.5
5° 311.9 272.6
You will find that the poles are, in fact, usually colder than the equator.
J. Bob (758): Modifying the parameters? Hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm, that sounds like “tweeking”.
BPL: You completely misunderstood what I said.
Start with two zones: A has an albedo of 0.2, and B has an albedo of 0.2. A receives 200 Watts per square meter of insolation and B receives 400. Their initial effective temperatures are 230 K and 274 K. The greenhouse effect results in surface temperatures of 263 K and 297 K.
Areas with temperatures under 265 K, let’s say, become ice-covered. So the program changes the albedo of square A from 0.2, appropriate for land, to 0.6, appropriate for ice. It changed a parameter, but it was based on a physical law, not a “tweak” to fit observations:
if Ts < 265 then
A = 0.6
else
A = 0.2
end if
You then recalculate the temperatures and test again, until the system reaches equilibrium. This is about a million times less sophisticated than a real climate model, but a real climate model does nothing essentially different. It is not "tweaking" anything. It is taking starting conditions and then seeing how they change based solely on physical law.
Sam (770),
Jupiter does have weather. In addition to sunlight, which takes it up to an effective temperature of 110 K, it has an internal heat source which makes it radiate at 124 K. And it rotates every 10 hours, as opposed to 24 hours for Earth, which just stirs things up all the more. Coriolis force on Jupiter is quite fierce. Not only is the spin time 2.4 times faster, but the radius spinning is 11 times greater.
FG (785): You’ll have to come up with a better line than that to bolster the incredibly unsubstantiated claim that AGW is going to kill 95% of everyone on the planet.
BPL: % of Earth land surface “severely dry” (Palmer Drought Severity Index -3.0 or lower) in 1970: 12%.
In 2002: 30%.
Year it reaches 100% if expansion continues at the same rate (+2.9% per year): 2044.
Of course it won’t go all the way to 100%. But it doesn’t have to. 50-70% would be enough to collapse human agriculture completely, pretty much. I mean, not all land surface is arable, is it? Nobody’s ever going to farm in Antarctica.
Jim :”Our ignorance of the thermodynamics of planetary and stellar atmospheres is not as great as you think. Please read carefully Barton’s How to Estimate Planetary Temperatures and do some problems from Ray’s workbook [pdf]. This will help convince you that climate scientists actually do know what they’re talking about.”
YOU obviously don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t speak about gross estimates of the equilibrium temperatures, I’m speaking about spontaneous fluctuations of a fraction of degree. Where are the ENSO, the PDO, or the AMO, in BPL’s calculations ?
Gilles (795): average temperature is NOT a physical quantity linked to energy, for an inhomogeneous distribution
BPL: Let’s take 2 cubes of fresh water, each 1 kilogram in mass, both at temperatures of 300 K. The energy content in Joules is
H = m cp T
cp for fresh water is 4,184 J/K/kg, so H = 1 x 4184 x 300 for each block, or 1,225,200 J for each block, or 2,510,400 J for both.
Now let’s make it inhomogeneous. Put block A at 280 K, block B at 320 K. Now their heat contents are:
H1 = 1171520 J
H2 = 1338880 J
Total = 2510400 J
The average temperature is 300 K. The total heat content would then be
2 x 4184 x 300
or 2,510,400 J. Wow, same figure. Maybe average temperature does relate directly to heat content!
We are a new climate denial skeptics group from Calgary that will take care of this problem:
http://friendsofginandtonic.org/
Did (802): Actual predictions about the near future are serious enough, without just making stuff up.
BPL: And whom, precisely, are you accusing of “making stuff up?” Please do name names.
Gilles (838): i said that you can conserve energy balance (= emissivity)
BPL: Energy balance does not equal emissivity. Emissivity is the ratio of radiation from a body to that expected from a black body. Energy balance is a condition of a system in which losses equal gains. Do you mean emission? That would be closer, though still not right.
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/23/an-inconvenient-provocateur/
[edit – that is what links are for]
Edward Greisch (789) — That was after the ice sheet had mostly melted away althugh the Cairgorns might still have had remnent ice caps. That was long before the coming of the Celts to Scotland, so long before Julius Ceasar, much less King Arthur.
FurryCatHerder (794) — Hunter-gatherers are not and have never been civilized. They have and presumably have always had societies, but not cities so by defintion no civilizations.
Neil (803) — Perhaps
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Greenhouse101.html
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/NewPlanetTemps.html
will assist you.
guthrie (805) — Yes, Neolithic. I don’t recall the exact dates, but the paper in a conference proceedings was most definite regarding the number of people, one tribe, as adequate to explain all the early archaeology sites. I had picked out this paper because in had a picture of an early dugout canoe. I probably should have used
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesolithic
although in Scotland the dates coincide with the Neolithic of Southwest Asia.
“The line has been that when one is over the top and making stuff up in favor of AGW, corrections come swiftly.”
Frank, all you’ve done is SAID that it was OTT and made up.
Got anything to back that up?
I see Dr. Roy Spencer has a new book, where he’s figured out why it’s not CO2 causing warming.
“But what they (myopic climate researchers) have ignored is the potential for the climate system to cause its own climate change. Climate change is simply what the system does, owing to its complex, dynamic, chaotic internal behavior.”
[Response: So the ice ages aren’t caused by anything, Pinatubo made no difference to climate, the Eocene just did it’s thing for fun, etc… There are huge implications to assuming that climate sensitivity is zero which Spencer simply never addresses. And since he ignores the reasons why we conclude from the data that sensitivity is non-negligible (around 3ºC), his argument for why it must be tiny is not convincing (especially since the actual paper that apparently proves it, is still not publicly available!). – gavin]
Gilles, again with the sophistry?
Yes, adding heat to melting ice doesn’t raise temperature–but that’s now long term. Eventually the ice melts.
And there is absolutely nothing mysterious about the core of a gravitationally collapsing star warming even as its surface cools (due to the lower cross section for He+He fusion).
Finally, there’s nothing mysterious about a 30-year global rise in temperature–you won’t get that happening without an input of energy. Period. And none of your red herrings will that–it’s just conservation of energy.
Tom S wrote: “More irresponsible journalism at CNN today. The Iceland volcano was caused by global warming.”
Ray Ladbury replied: “You are right. It’s absolute horse puckey.”
Well, perhaps not quite “absolute” ?
In the CNN op-ed piece, here’s what Alan Weisman actually wrote:
The Royal Society says:
And Reuters reports:
So while a direct connection between this particular volcanic eruption and AGW may be unlikely, Weisman’s statement that the possibility of geological effects of AGW — including increased vulcanism in Iceland — is “worrying geologists”, does appear to be an accurate characterization of the science.
#846–
Can’t wait, BPL! I’m anticipation all the way down. . .
;-)
>> Is 30 an arbitrary number? Maybe.
>Nope.
Actually, Hank, “maybe” is the right answer. Bob Grumbine’s analysis shows that internal variability stops influencing trends at about 21 years – there is nothing magic about 30 in itself. 30 years was established as the period for climatic normals by the WMO long ago (the 1920s IIRC), and applies to all climatic variables, not just temperature. Bob’s analysis shows that for the temperature record, 30 is certainly adequate to avoid the influences of internal variability, but any number between 21 and 50 years would do the same, so in that sense 30 years is arbitrary.
On the other hand, using a period of 30 as opposed to, say 1 as Simon suggests, is not arbitrary. Averages with a sample size of 1 are not really going to tell you much about climate as opposed to weather. What I’d like Simon to explain is why he thinks 1 is a good sample size to assess climate.
re 846
I think that Gilles will concur with me in supporting your effort. After studying very carefully his N°795, 819, 838 sq, I feel so enlightened that even the English language is beginning to be known to me.
816 Tom S, I agree. They went from the industrial revolution and greenhouse gasses to glaciers melting causing the crust to rebound, which awakens Icelandic volcanos and sets off earthquakes worldwide. The article clearly linked both Eyjafjallajokull’s eruption and worldwide earthquakes to AGW.
Markum (864) — That CO2 is a global warming (so-called greenhouse) gas is established beyond rational doubt. The remaining question is how much the climate responds to adding some extra to the atmosphere. The usual measure is Charney equilibrium climate sensitivity (of about 3 K) and here is a recent review worth reading:
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf
But the climate is currently far from equilibrium, due to burning fossil fuels and deforestation, so another measure is simply the response to date. Here is a simple analysis of the last 13 decades of the instrumental record
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/unforced-variations-3/comment-page-12/#comment-168530
in which the first formula is missing a right parenthesis and should read
AE(d) = k(lnCO2(d-1) – lnCO2(1870s)) – GTA(1880s)
Just a post from a layman. IMHO why 30 years for the models. Simply to filter out the noise. A meteorologist can give a forecast for rainfall amount for a year but the chance of being correct is a lot less than if they gave a 30 year forecast total rainfall which would simply be worked out by taking average yearly rainfall and multiply times 30.
Barton Paul Levenson @ 847
Spencer’s book is explicitly talking about ‘climate scientists’.
Sorry to have to say it but I do not think your research on ‘flat earth’ would stand a chance of peer review.
I’d try researching another topic if I were you. Then write your book to complement your research when the peer review is accepted.
Triple Bay @ 842 I am a member of the general public. My fear is a fear of the unknown. Where is this legislation going to take us. Despite my concerns, I recognize something needs to be done. Different web sites certainly add fuel to the fire that promotes the contraversy. The problem I have with these other sites is that they mainly offer critism to the scientists and no solutions.
Yes the globe is warming. The decade of the zeros (2000 – 2009) was warmer than the nineties by about .19 degrees C. That’s a lot for one decade. On the basis of recent research, sea level rise is expected to be greater than the IPCC indicated. Winters are becoming shorter (as measured by average climate, the astronomical length is the same of course). You want to talk about solutions? I think the web site you want is Climate Progress:
http://climateprogress.org/
#864 Markum
I suppose Spencer now has proof that increasing GHG’s don’t increase radiative forcing.
So if I read the inference correctly, climate changes because of magic, GHG’s are not opaque to infrared, and the magic climate fairy regulates the climate system for us.
Didn’t someone say Spencer is a creationist too?
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Hank Roberts – you still haven’t explained why discussion of PBS NOVA is “off-topic” – why do you think that is, again?
P.S. The comment that “Bob Grumbine’s analysis shows that internal variability stops influencing trends at about 21 years” is some serious nonsense right there – particularly since orbital precession is an example of “internal variability” (in Earth orbital parameters) that influences climate trends on a timescale of thousands of years.
None of the “internal variability” on timescales from millenia to days changes the basic fact, however: greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuel combustion are by far the dominant driver of current global warming trends. Reversing those trends requires replacing fossil fuels with renewables – don’t you agree, Hank Roberts?
CTG, I know what you’re saying. Bob Grumbine’s point, and the important lesson I think for anyone who hasn’t taken Statistics 101 to learn, is that the time span for detecting trends statistically has to be based on the internal variability of the particular data.
The WMO — as you point out, long ago, before calculators, let alone computers! — picked that because for the data sets involved it was long enough to be useful but still manageable for doing the actual math.
Anyone who learned Statistics 101 using one of these, as I did http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/fridenstw.html
appreciates the need to use no more data than actually required
When whoever asked if 30 years was arbitrary, I figured he meant in
the dictionary sense: http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aarbitrary
#853Barton, I understand all that, but remember one thing, albedo’s are not constant. Take snow cover as a simple case.The albedo can change by a factor of 2 depending on the terrain and composition of the snow, assuming say a clear sky. Adding clouds and particulates of varying degree, you can have a significant variation. Since most of the earth’s surface is water, water can have a even larger variations. So while the physical laws are great, those parameters, like albedos, are more then a little problem. And that’s just one parametric value.
Markum (#864),
Roy Spencer has not proven anything. His argument concerning climate changes brought about internally is simply not convincing. There is no mechanism, and “the system is complex” is not an acceptable answer. Why are clouds suddenly changing now? There are also plenty of signatures of greenhouse warming (like strat. cooling, weakening of the diurnal temperature gradient) and what clouds are doing also does not change the radiative properties of CO2. Spencer is just throwing up more smokescreens.
@854 (Gavin)
It’s available in press at JGR – Atmospheres.
DOI:10.1029/2009JD01337
http://www.agu.org/journals/pip/jd/2009JD013371-pip.pdf
I was trying to come up with some simple graphics using the woodfortrees site to illustrate the issue of short time frames giving misleading trends and why one needs to look at 15+ years of data and why climate is 30 years in response to “Where is the heat hiding out ? If for 5 years the ocean is cooling…” and “The UAH reading shows cooling at a rate of -.0356 per year.” comments from netdr — 22 April 2010 @ 4:38PM(and his link to woodfortrees graphs).
Others answered the question adequately and provided links to Tamino and Grumbine who are more knowledgeable than I am before I came up with a good answer, but I did accidently create my alltime favorite woodfortrees plot.
CFU :” No, you said it for ice. And anything else that has a temperature. – YOU said : If you increase the temperature of ice, you’re not adding energy to it.”
CFU, you’re just using strawman arguments since i NEVER stated that. Don’t blame me for your limited capacities of understanding, please.
The relation you used E=nkT is NOT relevant because T is NOT an average temperature of the atmosphere, it is a SURFACE temperature (either ground or TOA) . So actually it is related to effective temperature, or a radiative efficiency, but not to a thermal content because of the vertical gradient. It is at best close to a local thermodynamical temperature, but integrating on a surface doesn’t give anything physically relevant (there is nothing like \int T dS in any physical equation). The same for all BPL arguments with a volume with a constant C.
Of course this does not mean it is useless. It can be considered as a proxy, like the length of glaciers or the date of blooming, and it can be usefully compared with model outputs. But you can’t use physical laws to state “oh it can obviously do nothing but raise” for instance.
BPL : you’re right for emissivity, I should have said radiance, or more exactly radiant exitance, the power emitted by unit area. Again I’m not talking about gross estimates of local temperature, I’m talking about the detailed distribution of the very complicated climate machine including all radiative and convective transfers – your calculation is of course greatly insufficient to deal with that.
Ray :”Finally, there’s nothing mysterious about a 30-year global rise in temperature–you won’t get that happening without an input of energy. Period. And none of your red herrings will that–it’s just conservation of energy.”
Sorry, but it’s just plainly wrong. The average surface temperature of the Sun is varying on timescales of decades, with no variation at all of the input energy from below. Period. There can be limit-cycles with temporary storage of heat in the ocean, for instance, and nothing allows you to state that it can not oscillate at 30-year timescale – AMO is a counterexample. You may argue that the amplitude is limited, but you need very careful measurements and not simple back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Another example : the surface temperature of the Eyjafjölljökull has increased dramatically recently. I don’t think there was any “input of energy” in the Earth.
#844 J. Bob
My opinion is that you are a master of confusion and inference. You say you are looking at long term but you have repeatedly brought up this years sea ice extent, and by extrapolation of connotation vaguely presenting it as significant and causing doubt about long term trends, even though it does not represent a long term trend??? Hmmm, the lady doth contradict too much.
Why are you hung up on the error range of the extent when you can see it is fairly well constrained? And besides, confidence is very high that we are losing the multi-year (thicker ice). So why concentrate on the seasonal variation and the extent in your posts especially when you ‘suggest’ to be looking at long term???
The notion of circular inference that which your words seem wrought in comes to mind.
What does the fact that we don’t know everything have to do with the very high confidence in the loss of multi-year thicker Arctic ice?
And lastly, you stated I am making up words, well, actually I wrote/write words. Technically I did not make up those words. they are from the English lexicon, someone else made them up. I did however form some words into a sentence, that being: “Now here’s where you say, ‘well then we don’t know anything’, right?” which was my way of saying that that you would (and have) use(d) inference (or outright distraction) as a red herring distraction to avoid addressing the main point of multi-year ice loss by talking about ice extent, rather than ice thickness, a contextual mistake you seem determined to repeat over and over and over.
Inference, in your case, is the root of all argument, but it is not reasonable or good logic presentation. I disdain the method of politic which you seem to bath in on a regular basis in the shrewd inferences of distraction and slight of text, id est, ‘dead chicken waving’.
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netdr #786
“The ocean wave is a poor analogy since each wave is independent of the next and all are driven by well known simple interactions that even ancient people could use to predict the phenomenon approximately.
A better analogy is if each wave in a time period had a positive feedback and tended to cause a larger or more waves in the next period. This could set in motion the events which cause fewer or weaker waves in the next time period. This is perturbed with natural events which can cause extra waves such as storms. The proportions of each are unknown and feed back upon each other so they are chaotic”
I disagree.
If you want to look at the big picture, the overall heat balance, this can be largely (not completely) decoupled from the weather. Increasing CO2 still drives accumulation of heat regardless of how circulation distributes this.
So whilst we cannot predict with certainty, only probability, the exact consequences, we can understand there there will be significant consequences.
In the same way that we know the high tide will wash away our sandcastle, but not predict the time of the wave which overtops it.
And if you think waves are predictable, perhaps you should tell Neil Kinnock (ancient UK election reference for those to whom it’s meaningless)
Is AMSU-AU broken? Nearly 3 weeks ago, on my blog, I pointed out that AMSU-AU was showing a remarkable effect of every temperature since 11 January being higher than the temperature of the same date every year since the record began in the 2nd half of 1998. Since then, only one date has failed that test (by a very small margin), and the latest numbers are still well above the previous record year, 2005. GISS has only reported temps to March, and these are on the high side but not dramatically so.
Surely Spencer hasn’t become an alarmist? :)
BPL: I just don’t think humans are chimpanzees
CFU (849): Nobody said we were.
BPL: YOU did! In so many words! Go back and read it again!
CFU: We are genus Pan. We’re not Pan Paniscus.
BPL: No, we are genus Homo. Crack a textbook on primatology, please.
And, Richard, do you think that the removal of ice doesn’t cause the land to move?
What melts ice?
Warming, do you reckon?
Now where is your outrage when many dittos proclaim that the AGW mitigation efforts will collapse the economy?
Guys,
I still lack references for the claim that GCMs predicted an expanded range of cyclones before Catarina showed up off Brazil in 2004. Can anyone direct me to something from the literature?
I now have refs for both predictions and confirming observations for 16 of the 17 items. When I have them all I’ll post them on my web site.
“848
Didactylos says:
23 April 2010 at 11:27 AM
CFU:…”
Do you want to try again with a coherent complaint?
Some ordinary people [informal survey] now think GW is humorous. This is a really bad sign.
“BPL: No, we are genus Homo. Crack a textbook on primatology, please.”
How short your memory when it goes against you:
“651
Completely Fed Up says:
21 April 2010 at 1:46 PM
“We don’t even share a genus with chimpanzees, let alone a species or subspecies. (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus versus Homo sapiens.)”
Although taxonomically, there’s no reason apart from hubris to have Homo rather than Pan as our genus.”
Pointing out that we have given ourselves the taxonomy of Homo is not any form of counter to the proposition that we have no reason to do so taxonomically.
“882
Barton Paul Levenson says:
24 April 2010 at 4:18 AM
BPL: I just don’t think humans are chimpanzees
CFU (849): Nobody said we were.
BPL: YOU did! In so many words! Go back and read it again!”
Study taxonomy and english, BPL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo : Pan Paniscus.
Chimpanzee: Pan Troglodytes
Chimp is not Pan.
Chimp is Pan Troglodytes.
“I don’t think there was any “input of energy” in the Earth”.
Let’s chalk up Geology as Gilles’ list of “things he knows nothing about”.
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/env99/env225.htm
“Didn’t someone say Spencer is a creationist too?”
Yes, Spencer himself.
He’s said that the bible has more scientific rigour in Genesis than current science does.
I don’t have a problem with him believing God created things, nor with him believing anything.
But when he says that, he’s abandoning science. He should either avoid that realm entirely for comment (religion is a private matter) or refuse to call himself a scientist in this matter and aver his opinion is as a christian and not as a scientist.
So Weisman has discovered the ultimate AGW regulator? Guess we don’t have to worry any more. Phew!
CFU:
Enough other people have now explained why your rush to judgement was wrong. If you still can’t figure out why, then clearly you aren’t paying attention (which was the very root of my complaint).
But you will ignore this, as you ignore the substance of everything, and respond with some weird half-formed thought. However, when you do so, do not expect a reply.
Ike, your charm is more effective than your bristles at making people eager to learn. I realize that just because I’m on your side doesn’t mean you want to be on mine. But do try to play to the audience who may mistake your charming acerbity for something less educationally useful.
This named topic — not the overarching issue, but this particular thread here — is about the CRU 2nd (of three) reports. There will be a 3rd one soon. We’re way off topic, I thanked Gavin for tolerating it.
Ok? I don’t mean you’re off your topic.
I didn’t say “21 years” — someone did who read Bob Grumbine’s site, and needed a bit more help. Focus on who asks, and what the reader needs.
On your other points, yes, of course; they all bear repeating, but not so loud everywhere that the details aren’t understood. Please don’t jump on new people here who are willing to ask and learn details.
People do need help to understand why the statistics is done as it is, why particular timespans or numbers of data points are needed to do the calculations.