This month’s open thread on climate science topics. We are well into Arctic melt season (so keep track of Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice blog for more info). Another link is the NY Times Daily podcast on the interesting-yet-flawed NYTimes Magazine “Losing Earth” piece (which is useful if you didn’t get around to finishing the written article yet). Remember to please stick to climate science topics on this thread.
Victor, #84–
There’s not a hint in the passage quoted about ‘evidence’; it’s quite simply an objective description of what is observed. That’s what this chapter sets out to do. As the introduction puts it:
I presume you have nothing against objective description?
Reading for comprehension is necessary–in this case, Chapters 8 (Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing) and 10 (Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional). Note that ‘comprehension’ here includes understanding what the aims of each chapter or section are, and how they contribute to the overarching argument.
https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf
https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf
Perhaps because you only looked at Chapter 2? You can’t see what you won’t look at.
P.S. I’m multiply bemused by several things anent your proposed terminology:
“an average temperature rise of .0083333333 centigrade per year over 120 years…”
First, why on Earth should the rate of rise be our main focus?
Second, why on Earth would we characterize the entire problem with a single number that will vary between different indices, and will change as soon as new data is added?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1899/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1899/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1899/trend
Third, why would we characterize the entire problem with a metric that implicitly excludes salient issues such as changes in circulation, intensification of the hydrological cycle, degradation of the cryosphere and biosphere, or human impacts?
Oh, right: rhetoric.
Never mind.
Victor @84, why quote from the section on observations, and then expect there to be a discussion on the causes?
Chapter 10 is where you want to be. It even mentions “causality”. You know, the kind of research you claim hasn’t even been attempted.
+——————————————————+
| Nanoparticle-Based Photoelectrode Can Harvest 85% of Visible Light
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/09/11/2113212
+————————————————–+
[0]takyon writes:
[1]Golden sandwich could make the world more sustainable
Scientists have developed a photoelectrode that can harvest 85 percent of visible light in a 30 nanometers-thin semiconductor layer between gold layers, converting light energy 11 times more efficiently than previous methods.
[…] In the study published in , the research team sandwiched a semiconductor, a 30-nanometer titanium dioxide thin-film, between a 100-nanometer gold film and gold nanoparticles to enhance light absorption. When the system is irradiated by light from the gold nanoparticle side, the gold film worked as a mirror, trapping the light in a cavity between two gold layers and helping the nanoparticles absorb more light.
To their surprise, more than 85 percent of all visible light was harvested by the photoelectrode, which was far more efficient than previous methods. Gold nanoparticles are known to exhibit a phenomenon called localized plasmon resonance which absorbs a certain wavelength of light. “Our photoelectrode successfully created a new condition in which plasmon and visible light trapped in the titanium oxide layer strongly interact, allowing light with a broad range of wavelengths to be absorbed by gold nanoparticles,” says Hiroaki Misawa.
[2]Enhanced water splitting under modal strong coupling conditions (DOI:
10.1038/s41565-018-0208-x) ([3]DX)
———————————
[4]Original Submission
Discuss this story at: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=18/09/11/2113212
Links:
0. https://soylentnews.org/~takyon/
1. https://www.global.hokudai.ac.jp/blog/golden-sandwich-could-make-the-world-more-sustainable/
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-018-0208-x
3. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0208-x
4. https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=28940
+———————————————————+
| Nanoscale Objects Can Radiate Heat Much Faster Than What Would Normally be Possible
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/09/10/2056229
+———————————————————+
[0]takyon writes:
[1]Heat transfer surprise could lead to thermal transistors
As much as 100 times more heat than predicted by the standard radiation theory can flow between two nanoscale objects, even at bigger-than-nanoscale distances, researchers at the University of Michigan and the College of William and Mary have reported in the journal Nature. The new results could have implications for better solar cells, materials that behave like one-way valves for heat flow and perhaps even a heat-based computing platform.
Max Planck’s theory of radiation, proposed in 1900, set the stage for quantum mechanics and has held up well over the intervening century. But five years ago, a microstructure in the lab of Pramod Reddy, U-M professor of mechanical engineering, was letting an astonishing amount of heat flow between objects that should have been insulated from one another. […] In an object the size and shape of a credit card, heat would ordinarily radiate from each of the six sides in proportion to the surface area. But the team found that when the structures were extremely thin—at the thinnest, about half the wavelength of green light—those edges released and absorbed much more heat than anticipated.
Discuss this story at: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=18/09/10/2056229
Links:
0. https://soylentnews.org/~takyon/
1. https://news.umich.edu/heat-transfer-surprise-could-lead-to-thermal-transistors/
Phenomenal how many significant digits the Victor Eyeball can measure, isn’t it?
“how a temperature increase amounting to an average of less than .0083333333 centigrade per year”
If you scaled the warming to per microsecond terms you could make it look even smaller. Pro tip for a denialist mind …
Sheldon, if you think Tamino’s critique of a paper on the apparent slowdown is wrong, please show where he got it wrong. Tamino has provided many posts on this topic and shown you where you get it wrong. So far, I haven’t seen you address these criticisms properly (though at least you made some adjustments, though always with the aim of proving yourself correct, instead of the aim of finding out if there was a statistically significant slowdown).
Of course, a slowdown is largely irrelevant as we head for one of the 5 hottest years on record, with the other 4 all occurring in the previous 4 years.
Carrie @ 96
Carrie,
I know that Calamari isn’t Octopus. It’s Squid!
But I thought that “Think about that, the next time that you are eating calamari.”
sounded better than “Think about that, the next time that you are eating octopus.”
Personally, I don’t eat either of them. I think that it is barbaric, to eat something that is more intelligent than us.
I didn’t think that anybody would notice the 2 extra tentacles. But you did. You have caught me out, Carrie. I recognise your superior knowledge of Cephalopods.
Marco @ 79
Marco,
you are seriously underestimating my science skills.
You said, “Your global warming contour maps are nothing but nicely colored triangles and as such “valid”, but when you use them to claim a “slowdown” you ARE doing hypothesis testing.”
I agree that my global warming contour maps look nice. But they are a lot more than that. They show precisely (or fairly precisely), the warming rate for every possible date range, and every possible trend length.
Think what that means. Simultaneous knowledge of ALL warming rates, for ALL date ranges, and ALL trend lengths. Without doing a single hypothesis test.
No wonder Tamino is spitting the dummy. I will be publishing an article soon, which will put Tamino firmly in his place. I don’t mind if you warn him. Tamino has explained things incorrectly, many times.
A final thought, Marco. If 10,000 linear regressions all give a similar result, do you need to do a hypothesis test?
@86 sheldon
Re. “The octopus eye, it seems, evolved independently to ours, and whilst it is similar in many ways, the octopus got the retina in ‘the right way’. Its rods and cones face forwards,”
Your perception teacher was apparently unaware that cephalopod eyes have no cones!
Hank provided these two research links
+——————————————————+
| Nanoparticle-Based Photoelectrode Can Harvest 85% of Visible Light
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/09/11/2113212
+————————————————–+
+———————————————————+
| Nanoscale Objects Can Radiate Heat Much Faster Than What Would Normally be Possible
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/09/10/2056229
+———————————————————+
Are these two findings related, since they both use gold membranes?
The first link from Japanese researchers says:
This is partly due to what they refer to as a localized plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles.
The second link from American researchers says:
Nowwhere do I see a reference to plasmons in the American research. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two research findings are related. It’s well known that a good absorber of radiation makes a good transmitter of radiation.
16 – Marco
“…It also includes the moderating effect of being a global average: there are several regions that warm MUCH faster than others. For example, the Arctic has likely already had a 3-4 degree warming over the past 100 years or so.”
Do you have a graph of warming in the Arctic over the past 100 years? Any idea how many weather stations were involved in gathering the data 100 years ago? List if weather station locations 100 years ago?
Sheldon Walker
Regarding your general contention that the octopus has better eyesight than humans and your comment that the octopus has the better constructed retina. The octopus does have a better retina in the right place, but the human retina still functions well enough. I wonder if you are focusing too much on just one element of eyesight.
The following writer makes quite a good case that humans have better eyesight than the octopus, if you consider all things.
http://www.quarkphysics.ca/scripsi/vision-of-octopi-and-the-persistence-of-error/
Of course defining what is better is somewhat relative as various animals have eyesight exquisitely fine tuned to their environment and hunting patterns.
Regarding the pause or slowdown. It depends on how you define this from the publics perspective or a scientific definition. There’s definitely a slowdown in the land surface temperature record between about 2002 – 2010 clearly visible in a graph of the data. ( I know eye balling is not the gold standard but in this case its obvious). I dont need all your analysis and pictures to see the obvious.
But scientists define a pause somewhat differently. My understanding as an interested lay person is that the slow period of temperatures was too short to be significant, and that there was no statistically significant slowdown in the rate of energy accumulation in the oceans, so no pause as such in agw.
MA Rodger @ 101
How did a fool get a scholarship at the end of high school, based on exams in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics?
How did a fool get into a science based Honours course, at university?
How did a fool get A+’s for every paper that he did, in his first year at University? This included stage 2 Chemistry Honours (direct entry from high school), and stage 1 papers in Physics and Biology.
How did a fool get a Bachelor of commerce, majoring in Finance and Economics. The Bachelor of commerce degree involved 21 papers. How did the fool get 12 A+’s, 5 A’s, and 4 A-‘s?
How did the fool get 2 Finance Scholarships, from private companies.
How did the fool win the Stock Exchange Prize?
How did the fool win the Senior Prize in Accounting and Finance?
How did the fool win the Senior Prize in Economics?
How did the fool get over 30 years experience in the computer industry? Surely his employers would have fired him, for being a fool.
How can a fool do 343,206 linear regressions in 5 minutes? (how many can you do?)
How can a fool turn you into a blathering idiot?
Sheldon: “He panicked, and tried to blame it on my Global Warming Contour Map.”
How absolutely fricking adorable! Sheldon thinks he actually has something to teach a professional statistician with >40 years relevant experience.
Sheldon, again, look at definitions. What your plots show is a fluctuation, NOT a slowdown or a pause or anything that is relevant to the discussion.
The causes of the fluctuation are interesting in and of themselves. They do not impact the discussion of precisely how f*cked we are due to anthropogenic warming.
Re #104 Hank Roberts said [1]Golden sandwich could make the world more sustainable
Scientists have developed a photoelectrode that can harvest 85 percent of visible light in a 30 nanometers-thin semiconductor layer between gold layers, converting light energy 11 times more efficiently than previous methods.
Well, we’re all saved because gold is in no way in limited supply.
*sigh*
Sheldon Walker,
You want a dataset to test the “slowdown”? OK, take GISS and replace 1998 with a placeholder that’s spot on the trend line.
What you’ll find is that your “slowdown” completely disappears once an extreme outlier is removed. As I’ve said before, my take is that it’s a spike followed by a reversion to the trend as opposed to a slowdown. What’s your take on your results?
Sheldon, may I gently suggest that a Wikipedia definition–and I say this as a Wikipedia fan–hardly trumps the observed behavior of the scientific community as a whole?
I have a comment illustrating this WRT Charles Darwin, which I don’t yet see clearing moderation–presumably it will at some point–and additionally, here’s a nice pedagogical piece dead on point. It includes an ‘inside view’ of how Dr. Anne Egger used the literature to sharpen her research agenda and its ultimate expression in a published paper, and how she and her collaborators contributed to that literature.
It also summarizes the big picture very nicely:
These points also relate to you: IMO, you aren’t generally well-aware of other work on the topic, and as a result you don’t have a well-developed idea of where your own work might fit in.
102 & 103 OK OK OK, I checked out Chapter 10. Most of it, as with just about everything in the IPCC report(s), is focused on anthropogenic influences pertaining to greenhouse gases, as one might expect. I found very few passages dealing with the effects of temperature rise per se and all of these were vague, to say the least. Of course any number of references are provided, so the whole enterprise resembles one of those Russian dolls within which one finds a series of other similar dolls ad infinitum.
With respect to my basic question, regarding what would seem to be the rather small likelihood that extreme events such as floods, droughts, forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, etc. could be largely due to such minuscule yearly increments in temperature, I did find this:
“Anthropogenic warming remains a relatively small contributor to the
overall magnitude of any individual short-term event because its magnitude
is small relative to natural random weather variability on short
time scales (Dole et al., 2011; Hoerling et al., 2013). Because of this
random variability, weather events continue to occur that have been
made less likely by human influence on climate, such as extreme winter
cold events (Massey et al., 2012), or whose probability of occurrence
has not been significantly affected either way. Quantifying how different
external factors contribute to current risks, and how risks are changing, is possible with much higher confidence than quantifying
absolute risk. Biases in climate models, uncertainty in the probability
distribution of the most extreme events and the ambiguity of paleoclimatic
records for short-term events mean that it is not yet possible to
quantify the absolute probability of occurrence of any observed weather
event in a hypothetical pristine climate. At present, therefore, the
evidence does not support the claim that we are observing weather
events that would, individually, have been extremely unlikely in the
absence of human-induced climate change, although observed trends
in the concurrence of large numbers of events (see Section 10.6.1)
may be more easily attributable to external factors. The most important
development since AR4 is an emerging consensus that the role of
external drivers of climate change in specific extreme weather events,
including events that might have occurred in a pre-industrial climate,
can be quantified using a probabilistic approach.”
That’s my answer, I suppose, encapsulated in the first sentence. Or at least it’s the best answer I could glean out of the morass of inflated verbiage to be found throughout this very tedious and confusing report.
Sheldon Walker @92 wrote:
Apparently, he thinks that mentioning multiple datasets bolsters his argument that a significant slowdown existed — not realizing that it doesn’t due to the high correlation between them. Also, his “finding” of a slowdown is completely subjective: there are no confidence intervals, probability thresholds … nothing.
Assuming he understands calculus, the answer to his question can be found in any good book on time-series analysis. Back when I was doing it, my favorite was Jenkins and Watts.
Alternatively, he could replicate Tamino’s work disproving his and show where Tamino went wrong.
Fred Magyar:
Good find, Fred, very interesting. Thanks!
AFAICT, a lot of volunteer science-denial is propped up by rejection of the mediocrity principle. Magical thinking could well explain SW et al.‘s confidence in their pet self-deceptions. They may be wrong, but at least they’re sure! Perhaps their personal demon/deity/fairy godmother promised them they’d always win arguments because they’re ‘special’.
Something to look forward to:
http://www.sactownmag.com/Blog/2018/Kim-Stanley-Robinson-Aurora-Tom-Hanks/
nigelj @ 114
nigelj,
I never said that octopus had better eyesight than humans. I said that they were more highly evolved. The phrase “more highly evolved” is vague, and almost meaningless. I used it to make people curious.
I specialised in eyes, for 5 years. I studied right eyes, while my lab partner studied left eyes.
The human eye is amazing. The blood vessels are in front of the retina, so light entering the eye casts a shadow over the light sensitive cells. But evolution is not always silly. The fovea is a small depression in the retina, where the visual acuity is highest (where you get 6/6 or 20/20 vision). There are no blood vessels in front of the fovea, so you can get very clear vision.
One more interesting fact about eyes. The lens which sits just behind the iris, is made of embryonic tissue, because it is transparent. The lens has no blood supply, so waste products build up over your lifetime. This makes the lens stiffer, and stiffer, so that can’t change focal power as much. That is why most people need to get reading glasses between age 40 and 50. Evolution didn’t expect us to live past 30, so it didn’t try to solve this problem.
Sheldon, when you make your global warming map of an artificial dataset without slowdowns, just some random variation around the trend, your method shows green– claims to find a slowdown. Tamino showed you this problem quite a while ago.
So of course whatever you look at finds slowdowns. False positives. Bad tool.
https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t15.0-10/p235x350/38254237_10156447494654827_585806498060304384_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=8b98381178b217cc1ad8fe93b591d030&oe=5C22E0D3
Skeptical Sheldon’s perplexing perspective on global warming.
Alarmists have a very boring view of global warming. They are content to have a single warming rate, for the date range 1970 to 2018. Something like +1.80 degrees Celsius per century.
That is like driving everywhere in your car, at 10 km/h.
Sheldon’s first rule of global warming is,
Rule 1 – You can never have too many warming rates.
All right, this is a slight exaggeration. 343,207 warming rates is too many.
But 343,206 warming rates, is perfect.
There is an easy way to calculate how many warming rates there are in a temperature series.
Rule 2 – The phrase “temperature anomalies” has too many letters. I am just going to call them temperatures. If you don’t like me doing this, then cut and paste my entire comment into a word processor, and replace all “temperatures” with “temperature anomalies”.
If you have X temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is,
(X) * (X – 1) / 2
If you have Y temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is,
(Y) * (Y – 1) / 2
If you have Z temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is,
(Z) * (Z – 1) / 2
If the number of temperatures in a temperature series is NOT X, Y, or Z, then you are out of luck, there is no way to calculate the number of warming rates.
So, if you have 10 temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is (10) * (10 – 1) / 2 = 45
If you have 100 temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is (100) * (100 – 1) / 2 = 4,950
If you have 1000 temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is (1000) * (1000 – 1) / 2 = 499,500 [see Rule 1 – this is too many warming rates]
Once, I tried to calculate all of the warming rates for the date range from 1880 to 2018, using monthly data.
This is 138 years = 138 * 12 = 1656 months, plus 1 for good luck = 1657 temperatures.
Why plus 1 for good luck? Because I am going from January 1880 to January 2018
So, if you have 1657 temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is (1657) * (1657 – 1) / 2 = 1,371,996
This is too many warming rates. My computer blew up, so I can’t tell you what the warming rate was. But I know that it starts with a 7
I frequently calculate all of the warming rates for the date range 1970 to 2018, using monthly data. I have to calculate them frequently, because I keep forgetting what they are.
From 1970 to 2018 is 48 years = 48 * 12 = 576 months, plus 1 for good luck = 577 temperatures
So, if you have 577 temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is (577) * (577 – 1) / 2 = 166,176
166,176 warming rates is an acceptable number of warming rates. More would be better, but it is important not to be greedy.
There are only a finite number of warming rates in the universe, and if people are greedy, then there won’t be enough for everybody to have some.
Remember how there are too many warming rates from 1880 to 2018, using monthly data (please pay attention, there are 1,371,996 warming rates. I told you earlier).
I have worked out a way of “cheating”, so that I can get the warming rates for 1880 to 2018. On average, there are approximately 30.5 days in a month. While the computer is not looking, I edit the BIOS, and change the average number of days in a month to be 61.0
Then I run my program, and the computer doesn’t realise that there are too many warming rates for the date range 1880 to 2018.
Alright, I admit that I didn’t quite tell you the truth. What I do, is combine pairs of months, by averaging the 2 months together, to get 1 temperature for every 2 months. This gives me 6 temperatures per year, instead of 12 temperatures per year.
From 1880 to 2018 is 138 years = 138 * 6 = 828 pairs of months, plus 1 for good luck = 829 temperatures
So, if you have 829 temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is (829) * (829 – 1) / 2 = 343,206
I told you near the start of this comment, that 343,206 warming rates is the perfect number of warming rates.
Now you know why.
In my next comment, I will tell you how to associate a colour with each warming rate, so that you can make pretty pictures, which have nothing to do with global warming. Nudge nudge, wink, wink, say no more.
Sheldon Walker @115,
You ask “How can a fool turn you (MA Rodger @101) into a blathering idiot?”
Of course, while I wasn’t addressing you @101, I do so here. And, on past experience, this comment being addressed to you is therefore me turned “blathering idiot” as I would be usefully imparting more information into the world if I were to discuss this issue with next door’s cat, rather than discussing it with you.
Fool Walker, ask yourself this:-
♠ Why do you pretenciously parade your school record before us? ♥ Why do you digress and so happily turn the discussion onto the subject of the eye of the octopus? ♦ Here on a website given over to climate science, why do you mis-describe the scientific process so blatantly? ♣ Why do you contumeliously tell us that Tamino should have “given it to me, so that I could check it, (the “it” being from two years ago a trio of artificial temperature series created to illustrate the typically-random nature of the GISS temperature wobbles)?
Why do you not grasp that the proof of ‘the pudding is ever in the eating’? And so where is that pudding – why do you not correct all the nonsense you have had “published” on the planet Wattsupia (or at least correct it to the best of your abilities)? Why do you let it fester then bring it in here uncorrected?
Turning to the substance of the issue at hand, it did occur to me to further test the “Sheldon Step” for “slowdown.” Is it in any way possible that 2002-11 contains a period of change of the AGW trend?
More precisely than presented @101, OLS through the period Jan1970-Jan2012 relative to Jan1970-Dec2001 actually shows a tiny statistically-insignificant increase in the warming rate. The inclusion of the “Sheldon Step” increases the trend from 1.69ºC/century+/-0.08 (1sd) to 1.71ºC/century+/-0.05(1sd). However, while this simple approach may be a strong one, it is not a particularly sensitive method of checking for a trend-change.
(Note the minor amendments occasioned within GISTEMP will impact these more-precise results which here all used GISTEMP LOTI monthly as published to July 2018 with CIs uncorrected for the significant autocorrelation.)
A more grown-up approach is to fix Dec2001 as the Origin and carry out OLS-RTO (RTO=Regression Thro Origin) on the 120-month-long “Sheldon Step.” This shows Jan2002-Jan2012 with a trend of 1.51ºC/century+/-0.20(1sd), the change in trend through the “Sheldon Step” shows no significant change from the preceeding period. (Any-but-a-fool may be curious as to why OLS raises the rate while OLS-RTO reduces it, although the explanation is quite straightforward if you understand OLS.)
And I also repeated an analysis based on the advice given to the fool Walker by Tamino earlier this year, that “You can save yourself a lot of trouble by studying annual averages instead of monthly averages. … the autocorrelation is so much less that at least your results will be ‘in the ballpark.'” Using annual data and the general method of the fool Walker, the ”ballpark” statistical significance of the “Sheldon Step” remains but only just. Of course, if the fool understood the CI in OLS he would realise that such a result is what you would expect from what is effectively random noise.
Ever notice that both Sheldon and Weaktor seem to be unable to comprehend anything longer than a single sentence?
How much surface area would a troy ounce of gold cover at 100nm? I’m thinking about 16.1 square meters, which would not be cost prohibitive at the current spot price of $1207 per troy oz. If it were 30 nm, then you are talking about 54 square meters of surface area per troy ounce of gold. And how much of the 100nm or 30 nm was actually gold, and how much was the other components? Is this new process optimized? Probably not. Could less gold be used? Probably. Can any other platinum group metals be used? Don’t know. Can the panels be used in a concentrator? I bet they can. So, IMO, yeah, this is a very interesting development. Is there enough gold on the planet to create enough panels to supply the world’s current (no pun intended) electricty thirst of around 22,000 TW hours per year? Yeah. Probably way more than enough (171,300 tonnes of gold worldwide last time I checked), if their efficiency is even close to what they claim. Very Interesting.
It will be interesting to see what the next IPCC report will have to say on the subject of extreme weather events since most of the work related to this has been done since the last report was published. Given that a measly one degree is one-quarter of the difference between periods of glaciation and interglacials it would be hard to imagine that one degree would not have a significant impact on weather patterns. And the reality is, it does.
Some interesting new research covered in The Guardian
Warming oceans are changing the world’s rainfall
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/12/warming-oceans-are-changing-the-worlds-rainfall
nigel, #114–
I think this highlights (in a good way) the issues that have, IMO, bedevilled most discussion of a putative ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown,’ which is essentially the failure to agree on definitions.
Tamino has generally proceeded from a significance-testing perspective, showing that there is no evidence for a change in warming *trend*. And if you proceed on that basis, I think his points are pretty much undeniable. There has not been robust evidence of a change in trend, and still less so post 2014-16. His definition of pause, implicitly, is “a change in warming trend.” (That is also Steve Emmerson’s perspective in #121.)
But others have proceeded from quite a different definition, which is, simply, a change in observed warming rate inclusive of variability. That’s what Sheldon does; it’s just a matter of linear regression, with no question of significance. Nor do I impugn him for doing so; it’s a valid measure as far as it goes, and such an assessment has appeared in the professional literature (usually in the context of investigating the causes possibly underlying the variability).
IMO, Tamino’s perspective is rather more to the usual point at issue, which seems most often to be whether warming is still happening or not: while short-term variability may indeed be scientifically interesting, as Ray says, it doesn’t bear on the long-term trend, by definition.
But the real mischief comes when we fail to be clear about what we mean when we say ‘pause.’ We go round and round in circles, without ever being clear that we aren’t talking about the same thing.
So, yes, Sheldon is right that there was a slowdown in observed warming for a while; and yes, Tamino (and nigel and Steve) are right that there’s absolutely no evidence that that has any significance for the future.
@115 re. sheldon’s “How can a fool do 343,206 linear regressions in 5 minutes? (how many can you do?)”
Most of the many professional data people here can trivially do 343,206 linear regressions quite readily and quickly with only one statement in R. Specifically if the data–in this case random integers from 1-100 with replacement–are in a 343206×100 matrix labeled “x_Data” and a regression is done against in this case 1-100 in order and labeled “y_Data”, the single statement:
—
system.time(apply(x_Data,1, function(i) lm(y_Data~i)))
—
will run the 343,206 regressions just fine. Takes about 6 minutes or a bit more on my computer.
Parallelizing the code in the simplest possible way (shown below) runs the job in 5 lines where the extra 4 lines call and control parallelization functions. It takes about 4 minutes 15 seconds to run significantly beating your time with little effort. …
—
library(doParallel)
cl = makeCluster(11)
clusterExport(cl,varlist=”y_Data”)
system.time(parRapply(cl,x_Data, function(i) lm(y_Data~i)))
stopCluster(cl)
—
Other ways of parallelization take a couple of more lines and would likely speed things up even more but aren’t worth the effort in human time.
Anyway, the upshot is that this level of knowledge of stats analysis is so trivial it would be in an early chapter in any grad course (and in many senior undergrad courses) on stats using R. It doesn’t prove anything about being a scientific fool or not. And, it would be foolish to think and even more foolish to assert that it did. The same goes for the rest of your list. It simply doesn’t relate to scientific competence in climate science or even statistics.
That said, your whole response is quite easily seen to be !triggered!. People trying to establish their science bona fides when they have none–are extremely easy to trigger this way in my experience.
Skeptical Sheldon’s perplexing perspective on global warming.
Part zero – READ THIS ONE FIRST.
Some nice Alarmist (is there any other kind?), has informed me, that I left a bit out of my last comment on global warming. They threw a brick through my window, wrapped in a note. The note said,
“You left a bit out of your last comment on global warming, you bleedin’ idiot. Slowdowns are stupid, and so are you. You don’t have any science skills, and you are a crank. P.S. This note was NOT written by jgnfld.”
I would like to know what sort of a person, would write a note like that. Nobody uses the word “bleedin'” any more. It is so 1970’s. And what sort of a name is “jgnfld”? It doesn’t even have any vowels.
Where I live, we speak the Queen’s English. You have to spell it with a capital “E”, because it belongs to the Queen. Even though it belongs to the Queen, she is a nice lady, and she lets us use it whenever we like.
Americans are jealous of us, because they don’t have a queen. They just have Donald Trump. I overheard 2 Americans down at the pub, the other night. One of them reckoned that Donald Trump doesn’t even speak english.
I would like to help Americans to be happier, so I have worked out a plan (I like to help people). Write a nice letter to the Queen, asking to rejoin the Commonwealth. You used to belong, why did you leave? Anyway, Commonwealth countries don’t have a President, they have a Prime Minister. Bingo, your biggest problem is gone.
Sorry for saying the word “Bingo”. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang theory has taken out a court order, to stop me from saying “Bazinga”. But I found a loophole. If I put it in double quotes, then I can still say it. That is easy when I am writing it, but it gets a bit tiresome, when I have to say “double quotes, Bazinga, double quotes”. That is why I am starting to use the word “Bingo”.
Anyway, when I found out that Alarmists thought that I had left a bit out of my last comment on global warming, I checked. I didn’t leave it out. Because global warming contour maps have 3.5 dimensions (more about that later), people who are not used to them, miss the extra 0.5 of a dimension. So it appears to them, as if I have left something out.
Don’t worry, I will repeat it for you, now.
I contacted the nice people at RealClimate, to see if I could time travel a comment, back before my first comment. So that you would read it first. But they said that they were on an old version of WordPress, that didn’t support time travel. So I have put a big comment at the top of this comment, telling you to read this one first. Sorry for SHOUTING, but it is important.
The bit that you missed, explains how you can get 45 warming rates, out of a temperature series with only 10 temperatures.
Imagine that you have temperatures for 10 months, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J.
You can work out the warming rate from A to B.
And B to C.
And C to D.
And D to E.
And E to F.
And F to G.
And G to H.
And H to I.
And I to J.
There are 9 date ranges of length 1 month.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to C.
And B to D.
And C to E.
And D to F.
And E to G.
And F to H.
And G to I.
And H to J.
There are 8 date ranges of length 2 months.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to D.
And B to E.
And C to F.
And D to G.
And E to H.
And F to I.
And G to J.
There are 7 date ranges of length 3 months.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to E.
And B to F.
And C to G.
And D to H.
And E to I.
And F to J.
There are 6 date ranges of length 4 months.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to F.
And B to G.
And C to H.
And D to I.
And E to J.
There are 5 date ranges of length 5 months.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to G.
And B to H.
And C to I.
And D to J.
There are 4 date ranges of length 6 months.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to H.
And B to I.
And C to J.
There are 3 date ranges of length 7 months.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to I.
And B to J.
There are 2 date ranges of length 8 months.
Then you can work out the warming rate from A to J.
There is only 1 date ranges of length 9 months.
==========
Notice how 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 45
Remember that formula, that I told you last time (I mean next time, time travel is so confusing).
If you have X temperatures in a temperature series, then the number of warming rates is,
(X) * (X – 1) / 2
We just worked out the number of warming rates for 10 temperatures (or months), and it was 45
Well, (10) * (10 – 1) / 2 = 45
The universe is in balance, and this proves that global warming contour maps are correct.
==========
Now, I typed that last section very slowly, so that you would be able to keep up. But I am going to speed up now, so that we can cover more.
If you have trouble understanding what I am saying, please put your hand up. This will make blood rush to your brain, and it will work faster.
In my next comment (or the previous comment, if RealClimate upgrades to a newer version of WordPress, which supports time travelling comments), I will explain why global warming contour maps have 3.5 dimensions. If you have a fear of more than 3 dimensions, please bring a support person.
==========
Just before I finish, I am going to let you know one of the most closely guarded secrets about global warming.
Don’t tell anybody that I told you this.
The reason that Alarmists only allow there to be a single warming rate, for the date range 1970 to 2018, is so that nobody can claim that there was a slowdown.
To have a slowdown, you need to have at least 2 warming rates. By limiting global warming to one warming rate, there can’t be a slowdown.
Brilliant. I wish that I had thought of that.
Ray Ladbury @ 116
You said, “How absolutely fricking adorable! Sheldon thinks he actually has something to teach a professional statistician with >40 years relevant experience.”
I have 46 years of experience in science (actually a bit more, but I was only doing it for fun early on)
I have nearly 60 years of experience in mathematics (sometimes I lie, and tell people a lower number, because I don’t want to appear old)
I have 24 years of experience in economics, finance, and accounting (that is 3 * 24 = 72 years of experience in total).
I also have an additional 24 years of experience in econometrics. Econometrics is the economics version of statistics. It is amazing, they have combined 2 subjects which always get things wrong, and made one subject that always gets things right.
You may have seen the saying, “There are 3 types of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
People that do econometrics are so special, that we have our own saying. “There are 4 types of lies. Lies, damned lies, statistics, and econometrics.”
So there. I bet that Tamino doesn’t have his own “saying”.
I also have over 2 years experience in global warming contour maps, and I have just started reading a book about earthworms.
I almost forgot to mention my 37 years of experience in the computer industry. I have been a programmer, an analyst, a systems programmer (like a programmer, but twice as geeky), and a tester (or test analyst). Once, I even filled in for the receptionist, when she took a long lunch break.
Testing programs is a bit like hypothesis testing. There are millions of possible tests, which would take several lifetimes to complete. But your boss has only given you until next Thursday to finish the testing.
So, I have 46 + 60 + 72 + 24 + 2 + 37 = 241 years of relevant experience.
And Tamino thinks that he can teach me something!
==========
Ray, please explain what the difference is, between a fluctuation, and a slowdown. Please speak loudly, because I have poor hearing, and I can’t read your lips, from where I am sitting.
Killian says:
1. It’s a research finding
2. Nanometers in thickness of gold can go a long way. An ounce of nanometer thick gold-film can cover a square football field sized area.
3. Gold is recyclable and inert (but yes indeed — like FF — a finite natural resource)
4. Constant cynicism is depressing
Under the headline “Trump taps climate doubter”, the current issue of Science reports:
Folks, this guy isn’t just a climate doubter, he’s a professional disinformer with a long history of service to American plutocracy, disguised as a distinguished Professor of Physics. One struggles to retain one’s equanimity, as the current POTUS’s outrages flow unabated.
“I try to be cynical, but it’s hard to keep up.” -Lily Tomlin
Ray Ladbury:
Well said, Ray. That’s actually a two-sentence abstract of this (IMHO) excellent RC guest post from three years ago.
The point of doing climate statistics isn’t, primarily, to demonstrate one’s mastery of the methods, but to track secular trends. A rising trend of GMST over at least 30 years, the minimum interval conventionally required to exclude a slope of zero, can be demonstrated before the El Nino-augmented spike of 1998. Subsequently, the correct null hypothesis is not “is the slope different from zero?”, it’s “is there a departure from the previously-detected trend?” Using change point analysis, Stefan, Tamino, and others have shown that no such departure is detectable. IOW, “it’s the trend, stupid“, and we’re still f*cked, notwithstanding the magical mathturbations of vastly overconfident AGW-deniers.
Ray Ladbury:
Well said, Ray. That’s actually a two-sentence abstract of this (IMHO) excellent RC guest post from three years ago.
The point of doing climate statistics isn’t, primarily, to flaunt one’s mastery of the methods or expose the lack thereof, it’s to track secular trends. A rising trend of GMST over at least 30 years, the minimum interval historically specified in order to exclude a slope of zero, is detected before the El Nino-augmented spike of 1998. Subsequently, the hypothesis to be tested isn’t “is the slope different from zero?” but “is there a departure from the previously-detected trend?” Using change point analysis, Stefan, Tamino, and others have shown that no such departure is detectable. IOW, “it’s the trend, stupid“, and we’re still f*cked, notwithstanding the magical mathturbations of vastly overconfident AGW-deniers.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/paris-conundrum-how-to-know-how-much-carbon-is-being-emitted
Interesting article “Paris Conundrum: How to Know How Much Carbon Is Being Emitted? BY FRED PEARCE • SEPTEMBER 10, 2018”
Victor @120,there is no way to simply explain in plain english how 1 degree can cause significant increases in sea level and more extreme weather. We know from observation that higher temperatures cause ice to melt faster and hurricanes to form etcetera, and the rest requires equations, maths and modelling. Words are totally insufficient despite the impressive efforts of various people.
Sheldon (@Sheldon@lucid.community) – Mastodon
https://lucid.community/@Sheldon/with_replies
5 days ago – Computer programmer, interested in Science, Mathematics, and … favourite software = Excel, I can do 343,206 linear regressions in 5 minutes.
Hank Roberts @ 142
Hank,
the bit about me being able to do 343,206 linear regressions in 5 minutes, is my best pick-up line. You are not allowed to use it.
@134 sheldon: You are seriously proposing taking 45 parameter estimates from 10 data points?
132 Kevin McKinney says: “So, yes, Sheldon is right that there was a slowdown in observed warming for a while;”
And it is next to impossible for most people (here and elsewhere) to simply admit that openly plus acknowledge that directly to Sheldon.
It would save acres of verbiage of they did.
@137 Mal Adapted:
Here’s Chris Colose on William Happer, at Skeptical Science:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/even-princeton-makes-mistakes.html
Sheldon Walker @135, despite your lengthy list of credentials, I dont actually see professional statistician mentioned!
140 nigelj – good article re “a difficult truth: There currently is no reliably accurate way to measure total global emissions or how much CO2 is coming from individual nations.”
You didn’t know that already? Probably 99.99% of people haven;t, but it’s always been so.
“Until now, national figures have been taken largely on trust.”
Just one of many reasons why the UNFCCC is a pathetic joke and remains dysfunctional at it’s core. Governments rule this world and the UNFCCC. The most powerful nations have the most power at the UNFCCC and it is they who set the rules and the “controls” and their own commitments. Why believe any of them?
Putting that (nation by nation) aside, this is why the only scientifically valid Measurement for GHG emissions is the Atmospheric Readings of the 4 key gases plus increases in Ocean acidity. Over time (3 yrs plus) the accuracy of these figures are good enough to do YoY . Decadal valid comparisons of growth and the extrapolate that out to real world GHG emissions growth and increased forcing of temperatures by GHG.
These are the actual measurements that actually affect the warming levels and other impacts and direction of further feed backs. The OCO satellite helps to record the more obvious natural emissions although not all encompassing enough – but it can provide a general indication of “change” over time.
At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what each nations GHG emissions FF, cement, agriculture use is or isn’t down to the Ton of CO2.
If the numbers keep rising in the atmosphere then the numbers have to keep being cranked up for reductions on every nation by following rational logical chnages that lower emissions across the world.
Therefore the TREATY obligations should not be set by voluntary “numbers” per nation. Reductions required should be set Globally first – leading to a maximum global figure set for use of coal oil gas cement ag etc.
Then each nation need to convince the other 191 nations that their Projected GH Emissions BUDGET plan for the next 10 years makes moral ethical and rational sense… all things being equal … in order to play their role in achieve the Global Reduction needed to solve the problem at hand long term.
In such a scenario there is no way those 191 nations would agree that it’s OK for the USA to keep spewing +20% of global emissions when they are only 4% of the population.
Any nation that leaves the UNFCCC and Treaty Obligations must be severely universally Sanctioned by the rest of the nations where severe penalties apply to loss of trade, loss of diplomatic relations, and the cutting off of financial ties etc etc in a very short time leading to a Full Embargo of that Nation by the world … iow Opt Out and your Economy will be crushed by everyone else….. up to a potential actin of Military Action to bring down that recalcitrant Government in charge via the UN where there is no Veto because ti is Voted on by the whole General Assembly.
Unless and until this matter is taken to be a Life and Death issue over and above all other issues then everything will be remain vapid bullshit and a waste of time where nothing really changes.
That it never will be, is why I don’t give a shit. It’s why I won’t waste my money n a new Tesla nor be spending my money to put solar panels on the roof either…. while the real assholes of this world are chewing up a 1000 times more GHGs than I am.
When the UNFCCC and the national governments get real, then I will. So I happily live my life with no guilt at all being happy and content … and I will leave the psychopaths to do what they do.
And will keep supporting the science and the scientists even though they are spending their lives spinning their wheels in the mud going nowhere fast.
It is what it is! :-)
Sheldon,
“And Tamino thinks that he can teach me something!”
Clearly he did. All your experience and knowledge, years of discussing on the internet about trends and whatnot…and you didn’t even know that you should correct for autocorrelation and take into account the multiple testing problem. You admitted you didn’t.
So far so good, we can’t know everything. Just one problem with that: your proclaimed expertise in econometrics. You’d think you’d learn how to take this into account, considering that econometrics deals with data that has these issues.
jgnfld @ 111
You said, “Your perception teacher was apparently unaware that cephalopod eyes have no cones!”
Congratulations for nit-picking a minor point, and missing the major ones.
The quote about rods and cones was not directly from me. I took the quote from the website that I found.
I did find a reference that said (about Octopus eyes), “Histological studies indicated that the retinal photoreceptors are not rods and cones as in the vertebrate eye, but are groups of rods that form rhabdoms similar to those described for the arthropod compound eyes.
I admit that I didn’t know that. But I have known about the “inverted” or “back-to-front” difference between humans and octopus, for nearly 40 years.
Hank Roberts @ 125
You said, “Sheldon, when you make your global warming map of an artificial dataset without slowdowns, just some random variation around the trend, your method shows green– claims to find a slowdown. Tamino showed you this problem quite a while ago.
So of course whatever you look at finds slowdowns. False positives. Bad tool.”
==========
Hank, does it make any difference to you, if you get hit by a bus driving randomly, or a bus being driven purposefully?
If you cool down to 2 degrees Celsius, do you feel any warmer, if it was caused by random factors?
A slowdown is a slowdown. It is defined by the warming rate, NOT by YOUR belief.
I measure slowdowns objectively. Tamino just “knows” that there couldn’t be a slowdown. He doesn’t even bother to look.