Guest post by Mark Richardson who is a Research Scientist in the Aerosol and Clouds Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. All opinions expressed are his own and do not in any way represent those of NASA, JPL or Caltech.
Should scientists choose to believe provably false things? Even though that would mean more inclusive debates with a wider range of opinions, our recent paper Richardson & Benestad (2022) argues no: “instead of repeating errors, they should be acknowledged and corrected so that the debate can focus on areas of legitimate scientific uncertainty”. We were responding to Connolly et al., who suggested that maybe the Sun caused “most” of the warming in “recent decades” based on a simple maths mistake.
Connolly et al. point out that there are many solar activity datasets, then attempted a statistical calculation and said that some datasets support that “most” of the warming in “recent decades” could be due to the Sun. The problem is obvious when you look at the statistical results below, with temperature data (T) in black (NH = northern hemisphere), estimated solar effect in blue and human effect in orange*.
Obviously, no blue line explains “most” of the warming. Connolly et al.’s most important mistake was that instead of calculating solar and human effects at the same time, they decided to first assume that all possible correlation is explained by the Sun, and then any leftovers are from human activity. This is a baseless assumption, and you could just as easily do human activity then the Sun. Both are wrong, and there’s no physical reason to pick either.
Doing humans first gives a solar effect near 0 %. If your conclusions depend on the order in which you enter numbers into a computer, maybe you should check your methods. Some Connolly et al. authors noticed this in 2015 (Soon et al., 2015) but rather than fix it they now chose to report just the (wrong) calculations that supported their conclusions.
There’s a simple test for statistical methods, where you create a toy world in which you know the real answer. If your calculations give that known answer then they pass, while failure means the method should be thrown out. Let’s try that and assume that a Watt of solar heating and a Watt of human-caused heating cause equal warming. One toy world is shown below: blue is its solar effect, orange the human effect and black the combined changes. The thin black line is what’s measured and includes weather.
The thick dashed lines below show the statistical results. Standard regression on the left passes the test, while Connolly et al.’s method on the right fails. As part of its failure, it invents a massive and non-existent solar effect, and this mistake is the only reason they could make a claim about “most” warming “in recent decades” potentially being from the Sun.
Below are real temperature data and a modern solar dataset. The mistaken Connolly et al. calculation (dashed lines) gives a huge solar effect, while the actual result (solid lines) is nearer 0 %.
Some older datasets show huge solar variability before satellite measurements, such as this one:
In this case even Connolly et al.’s wrong dashed-blue line is flat since about 1940 but they reported that this solar dataset supports 58 % of warming being due to the Sun. How does it explain “most” warming in “recent decades”? Also, even the incorrectly calculated solar activity’s 0.3 °C above 1850 is clearly not 58 % of the 1.6 °C total warming.
The way to get those big fractions is to fit a straight line, even though the datasets are obviously not straight lines. This makes the recent solar contribution look bigger, e.g. if we zoom in to “recent decades” since 1950 and zero everything then:
The wrong Connolly et al. solar fit (thin wavy blue line) shows a cooling Sun recently, but the straight-line fit is tilted upwards by the effect of the historical wiggles. This calculation literally turns a recent cooling effect into a warming one. Another result is that human activity and real-world warming accelerated after the 1950s, but the historical changes lower the linear temperature fit (dashed black line) to falsely make the solar fraction look bigger.
Should scientists rely on calculations we know are inaccurate? We strongly believe no: errors should be corrected. In our opinion, this is crucial not just for success in science, but for the credibility of science. Our position is that clearly the Connolly et al. approach is nonsense, there is no evidence for the paper’s main claim and it should be corrected or retracted.
*Technical note: each solar activity dataset gives one blue and one orange line. For “recent decades” I removed solar datasets that end before 2005. I also plotted Northern Hemisphere land temperatures, since that’s what Connolly et al. use
References
- M.T. Richardson, and R.E. Benestad, "Erroneous use of Statistics behind Claims of a Major Solar Role in Recent Warming", Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 22, pp. 125008, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/ac981c
- R. Connolly, W. Soon, M. Connolly, S. Baliunas, J. Berglund, C.J. Butler, R.G. Cionco, A.G. Elias, V.M. Fedorov, H. Harde, G.W. Henry, D.V. Hoyt, O. Humlum, D.R. Legates, S. Lüning, N. Scafetta, J. Solheim, L. Szarka, H.V. Loon, V.M. Velasco Herrera, R.C. Willson, H. Yan, and W. Zhang, "How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate", Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 21, pp. 131, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131
- W. Soon, R. Connolly, and M. Connolly, "Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century", Earth-Science Reviews, vol. 150, pp. 409-452, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.08.010
Please provide the citation for Connolly et al. I like to know which journals allow such papers to slip through the review process.
“Please provide the citation for Connolly”
This is it
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131
Ronan Connolly et al 2021 Res. Astron. Astrophys. 21 131
An Institute of Physics journal, which is a reputable organization in physics research.
Stepwise regression has its uses, But the fact that when the data are renormalized by extracting all the variance associated with the first variable PLUS ANY PORTION of the error variance also correlated with the first variable before repeating the analysis on the remaining variance, one routinely ends up with all sorts of confusions from moderator effects, suppressor effects, mediating variable effects and the like (all subsets of multicollinearity).
There is an easy way to assess whether the sun could possibly be affecting the temperature record significantly. See if there is power at an 11-year period, that is, at a 0.0909 year frequency. There are various ways to get a fairly clean Fourier analysis out of the rising HADCRUT record (I used the global temperature HADCRUT5 record). The several I tried all gave a similar result:
Not only is there virtually no power at that period, nor at a 22-year period, but there is actually a null. And the entire spectrum in the general vicinity has low power.
So the solar cycle’s effect on the temperature record is basically invisible.
Apparently more to it than 11 or 22 year cycle. They show data from a 1993 paper (Hoyt & Schatten) which seems to go well past 1993 when they plot it out, which means they have a time machine.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fi6Uh5ZXEBMppXI.png
Tom,
As a signal processor from way back this has always troubled me. You are correct, there is absolutely no discernible signal at 11 or 22 years in the frequency domain. I know the variation is small (0.1%) but with almost no other frequency components it should be clearly visible Many people have looked, and here is a sample spectrum I have made:-
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bjnx87NqMZFdFjvm7
This uses the 125 year daily average Perth temperature, debiased. The annual variation stands out obviously, as well as the first harmonic. But other than that there is no other real features. The same happens if you average many long term records
So the question is, why isn’t there a signal at 0.09????
Originally my thought was there must be some sort of negative feedback counteracting the solar variation. Clouds are the obvious choice and on that assumption I tried looking at diurnal range in the frequency domain as a proxy for cloudiness but it was no clearer.
My thought currently (and I don’t know how to test or calculate it) is that the thermal inertia is just to strong to let a 0.1% change over 5.5 years have an effect.
….. and as a back of the envelope calculation, if TSI went to zero, surface temperature would go to close to zero over some amount of time, ignoring upgoing heat. So a 0.1% change in TSI should lead to about a 0.3K change in temperature. Clearly we could detect that signal, and we can’t
So I have just proved myself wrong.
I have always thought fourier analysis was powerful enough to detect the solar variation but it is not. I took the same dataset that I referenced above and added a +/- 0.1 degree 11 year sin wave. and there is no way you would pick it from the background. I then changed the amplitude of the perturbation to +/- 0.5 degrees and the signal becomes visible, but far from convincing
So no, you can’t and shouldn’t be able to detect the solar variation in the temperature record using the frequency domain
“if TSI went to zero, surface temperature would go to close to zero over some amount of time, ignoring upgoing heat. So a 0.1% change in TSI should lead to about a 0.3K change in temperature. Clearly we could detect that signal, and we can’t”
No. Temperature is proportionate to the 1/4th root of flux density. You have it directly proportionate.
Yes, I am sure you are correct BPL. In fact
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-incoming-sunlight
Says :-
“the impact of this 11-year variation on global surface temperature is likely around 0.1 degrees Celsius or less”
My old fashioned signal processing brain would still have thought that signal was detectable using the frequency domain, but I was wrong. In my sensitivity analysis a signal twice that size was not detectable and even 10 times that size was far from convincing.
So Tom’s original statement “There is an easy way to assess whether the sun could possibly be affecting the temperature record significantly. See if there is power at an 11-year period, that is, at a 0.0909 year frequency. ”
Is incorrect. Whether you assume only 0.1 degrees over 5.5 years, or two or three times that amount, they cannot be seen using FFT.
The argument that the sun cannot have a significant affect on temperature BECAUSE we can’t see the solar cycle in the frequency domain is false.
Note I am not trying to say that the sun IS having a significant impact
Keith Woolland,
You say you cannot see any trace of the 11-year solar cycle with your analysis and then add rather bizarrely that this absence does not mean the TSI impact on global temperature will be insignificant because you say we can assume it is waggling global temperature by 0.1ºC and cannot see it and also wouldn’t see it if it were 0.2ºC and even 1.0ºC you say would be “far from convincing.”.
An alternative explanation is that the impact of the 11-year solar cycle is small and your methods are incapable of tracing it.
There is discussion of the solar impact on climate change in IPCC AR5 Box10.2 with the size of the 11-year temperature wobble shown in Fig 10.6d although these are suggested as being over-estimates. One study mentioned is specifically seeking the solar wobble, Lockwood (2008) >i>‘: Recent changes in solar outputs and the global mean surface temperature. III. Analysis of contributions to global mean air surface temperature rise’.
More recently Amdur et al (2021) lists nine observational estimates for the size of the wobble and three model-based estimates, noting the models suggest smaller wobbles than do the data analyses. While none of the nine use FTs, Clive Best did use FTs and found a wobble size of 0.06ºC peak-to-peak.
Benestad
I am a bit alian to this. I have it very hard to fo0llow that statistics decides and commands- rules on A being the cause of B or vice versa or they being “co- related”.
Is the moon co- related to the earth and vice versa? Yes, tradeitionally but that is by gravitation and traditional orbits however wiggeling, and not by statistics.
I had my car towed off by a roap, That is a physical connection and cause different from gravitation and different from statisticsw also. And there should allways be a “fender” in that rope or chain, that will damp the sudden bumps and shocks. If you have notyhing else, then allways tie a used car tire up in between. A and B. Then there must also be cunning and experiensed , conscious controllers and drivers in both cars., to stear and to carefrully operate the motor, the clutch, the gears, and the brakes. Then you have good co- relation all the way between the masses A and B.at the variable velocity V on the road S.
What rather rules there is f = m. a , and its derivative f t = m V, simply by a for acceleration is dV/dt, giving the sledegehammer law. If m and V are real enough and theta gets short enough near to zero, the f for force may become enormeous and break both metals, chains, and ropes. however strong. So stretch out theta a bit by a proper damper or fender.
This is not statistics. It is sheere newtonian physics, that must be taken serious first.
Statistics does not cause and secure and keep that in approximate order. Statistics is a matematical methgod, and no physical force or chemical potencial / acidity pr9oton activity or similars, no combustible or gasoline,. and no overwhelming mushrom or virus in the system. It does not even cause or reduce friction in the system.
What heats up and what cools down?
Why does the moon cycle around the earth when there is no rope and no chain and no rod in between and why Charon anround Pluto and vice versa, but not the Earth around the Moon?
Statistics can never tell. From anxient on they believed Gode in his thoughts that were pure cyclic, until they found that itb is rather elliptic and oval. Hardly square or linear.
Newton had to tell and Einstein had further to tell and to explain that.
I have Keppler Harmonices mundi book 5 on it. He wrot that Gode is in the sun in the center of the universe and rules it all, and that unluckily he had failed to explain all this. But on that point Keppler really got extatic.
What keeps the rods and chains and rubbers and roaps together is not newtronian gravitation but van der Waals forces of electromagnetic nature in the square of space., But however strong, they are still limited and may suddenly break if you ignore Newtons hammer- law d/o and forget a fender in between when you thow B by means of A. in space or on the roads.
This is very deep, about REALIA, ande about GOD in space, in the air, in the universe, in matter and everywhere, not least present in the climate.
I just found ande recalled Goethe, Ernst Haeckel, and B. de Spinoza. They were all pan- theists, by the idea that religion and the church were misconsceived and that they knew better.
GOD is equal to those laws of Nature, the very REALIA and reality of things, also apparently dead and mineral things.
Neither of theese great GURUs and philosophers and grand demagogs committed statistics.
They believed in REALIA and in the things as they are and look and smell and taste and feel and sound to the enlighted mind, and seem to co- relate and co- exist
( Edward & Nina Grieg were also such unitatians and pan- theists. Even Fridtjof Nansen. And Thambs Lyche, the terrible man in our old math books Who was better on mountain flora)
I’d say that physics and statistics are two different fields and all systems that produce a state that can be quantified will also produce data. Statistics is our tool for understanding that data – it’s a kind of Latin of modern science. I also like to think of statistics as the ‘law of randomness’ as it deals with probabilities and hypothesis testing, which this piece is about. There is no dichotomy between physics and statistics, as they often are two sides to the story. Mind you, quantum physics is very much statistical and there is of course statistical physics. I think we can leave God out of the equation. -rasmus
Benestad
“… all systems that produce a state that can be quanified will also produce data. Statistics is our tool for understanding that data..”
The systems hardly produce data.
The human operator, the “scientist” , the observator,, the engineer, the human laborant, is who makes and produces those data, and who is to be kept responsible and blamed. For all the errors and the bluntness, for what is chosen to be seen (“documented”) and not seen (ignored)..
I have made and invented so many “transducers” online connectors with datalogging and display in my life…. oscilloscope and servography…. photography….,
….That is quite an art,…
and the very statistics to it is inferiour.
Todays “statistics” is mostly just for backstage dilettants and paracites to earn their hourly wage, , not for the frontline and online pioneers to be able to deliver ,
Hr Benestad, I am proud of having personally re- invented a basic tool for science in the lab,
That was not known to them, but well known to humanity in nature and daily life all through the iron age, bronse age and stone age and later forgotten.due to boldv and proud mental bluntness. and clumsiness ..
Namely the sublimely chosen, hammered out n welded and grinded welded and grinded, tiny iron spear on an electrically isolating shaft
When going into the electric cirquits and networks and especially the electronic printchards though all isolations corrosions and dirts….
Then better use a tiny fashionable autentic spear on a shaft. Knife scissers axe saw and tong is there, but the spear has been ignored and forgotten.
A tiny adequate spear connected via the turning coil galvanometer or the oscillosope through Ørsteds electric cirquit and to the “ground”.
Then you find quite better what goes on between A and B, the potensials and currents through and between the things and the “earth” ground reference.
Thus , I have often been the one who make the intelligent and relevant DATA.
How you connect, what you connect, and why you connect, , that decides.
Hardly the statistics thereafter.
Do not be so unprecise and blunt, Early humanity invented the toothpicker and the spear .for distinctly precise empirical approach.
I feel personally quite sharp and human by that higher spiritual to it by such basic methods.
A next fundeamental rule is that of 3 systematically independent empirical methods for being sure , for stating proof, , and dare to deliver … and hope that it will stand.
One hardly needs 100 doctors or 1000 repeated measurements by the same device., when all doctors are dressed in white , (the vatican in black,…) and all are members of The Norwegian Medical Association, that is talking with one voice. You need only one doctor then.
So, allways ask a veterinarian also… because we are also fur animals you see… … and perhaps the patient also.. and even make up your own mind. Then you have 4 independent controls allready.
“G0od statistics” does not betray systematic errors. such as its being falsely approached and connected, and device errors.
Falsely connected and lack of connection is probably what you are discussing here. I had that many times. It is often the error.
A colleague from Tromsø remarked after several years ” Det er ikkje problæma, det er toillate koblinga!”.
Which seems to be what you are discussing here. There must be a next and systematically independent empirical control and check of it at least before it should be delivered, not just anonymeous “peers” all from the same doctors or experts association.
“systems” is an illusion wherever there is stupid lack of systematics.
On God in the equations, that is along with troll or souls or ” skrømt, ….gremlins” in the engines and the network systems. People see themselves , their sins, and their errors in the things if they see nothing better.
The Engineer is to have soul, insight and understanding, else he is a troll in the engine room and in nature.
@rasmus says: – ” Serious mistakes found … Should scientists choose to believe provably false things?
ms: — We all believe in things that are proven wrong – including you and me. As proof, please allow me an example that demonstrates very well how mathematics, physics and reality can differ.
We all think we know that the surface of the earth is ~ 510 million km², since the circumference, radius and mathematical definition of the earth as a spherical planet assigns this area of 510 km².
However, if you consider the surface of the earth as the boundary layer between the air of the atmosphere and the surface of water or soil, we may well all be wrong by a factor of 10 – 100,
and the actual verifiable surface area may be as much as 5-50 billion km² with seasonal and yearly variation.
The more precisely science measures the earth’s surface (e.g. 3D scan in the nanometer range), the larger it becomes. The leaf area index of tropical vegetation in a rainforest far exceeds the base area on which it stands. And also behind the stomata and below the surface of the earth or water, the gaseous air of the atmosphere is in surface contact with solids.
You can rightly point out that this has no effect on the amount of incoming energy – but it does affect other parameters in the global energy balance (GEB).
The TSI has been measured quite reliably by e.g. CERES for 2 decades and is by far one of the GEB values with the smallest uncertainty (0.1W/m²).
The weakly declining annual mean value of the incoming solar irradiation for the globe is (−0.07 ± 0.06 W/m2). The Southern hemisphere obtains ~ 0.7 W/m2 more than the North due to the eccentric orbit and the inclined axis of the Earth.
This knowledge should be enough to expose Connolly as a troll. (don`t feed the trolls !)
There is actually no need to read both papers or to debate them. I am only interested in articles that show that they deal with acceptable solutions to the climate crisis. I think my interests coincide with those of most climate activists, who expect concrete measures instead of boring and time-consuming blah blah.
Another verified statistic shows that most homeowners would probably call the fire department immediately if they found their house on fire. They expect red vehicles, sirens, pumps and hoses.
What they don’t expect is a troop of debaters standing in front of the burning house and discussing whether the fire is natural or man-made.
doctor…
They ( the surrealists) have not yet learnt and refuse to grasp that the sun is shining in on the global earth square area. And teach around that I believe the earth to be flat when I tell them.
Not unsimilar to the Schürlers.
They are unaquainted to and unaware of the very low sun at midday at winter solstice and its effects and lacks of effects here where I live, Also along with the Schürlers, and similar flat earthers.
I discussed the same with astrology, who made me aware of my “ascendent”. I checked up and saw that they keep also the heavens to be flat, The flat heaveners. Beat that, but the Schürlers are close to it.
The Schürlers are also unaquainted to and unaware of the shadow plants who have no “sun” at all.
At the polar circle Bauta on Saltfjellet, the very zodiak lies around and looks at you all around in the birch- bushes twice a day and there is no ascendent at all, The ascendent may even be negative further north.
They discriminate all the human babies that ar born north of and even up to the polar circle .. They treat them as flat earthers and heaveners like themselves, and claim that they are better understanding along with that.
That astologist from Westfalen did quit astrology after I told her of this, and later even with me.
So I hope after all that I helped her a bit in time for the purgatory at least.
You should look better at the potatoe- leaves Solanum tuberosa L. that mooves and arranges the leaves finely to get the best out of sunshine and where you can see at once on the leave musters if it is disturbed. It is a really very fine decorative and flowering garden plant because of that.
macias shurly: “We all believe in things that are proven wrong – including you and me”
Seeing rasmus’ and your writings – I think this is a false equivalency, if I have ever seen one.
Speaking of “Gode”, is this the time to bring up the fact that Pascal used the primitive statistics of his day to prove that believing in Gode is statistically the best option?
As for “Why does the moon cycle around the earth when there is no rope and no chain and no rod in between and why Charon anround Pluto and vice versa, but not the Earth around the Moon”…
Weellll…Besides the absurdity of this statement in physics terms–since all orbiting objects orbit around the orbital systems’ barycenter and not one around the other, statistics would be a completely amenable to discovering the relations between body size, separation distance and barycenter location (though that would be silly now that we are post-Newton.
Finally, as has been mentioned, statistics has been integral to physics since Boltzmann in the 19th century and every bit of quantum mechanics. It is the statistical nature of QM that led Einstein to use his oft-MISrepresented quote that Gode does not play dice. Einstein’s point was he believed there must be some direct causal relationship underlying the statistical one not that the statistical connections weren’t easily and clearly visible.. If he was correct, no one has ever yet been able to show it and QM is now in its second century.
I should add that if you think gravity has been described at the level of any causal mechanism (which apparently you do), think again. No scientist has any real clue of how gravity is mediated. Newton/Einstein made assumptions that some force or innate property of matter does, in fact, generate the observed “attraction”. Essentially gravity is modeled, not described. Kinda’ like climate science at times.
Your absurdity Dr jgnfrld
going around a thing does not mean goinjg around its barycenter,
What you seem maybe not to have understood the physical reason for, is that the moon can be periodically seen from any side of the earth . But the earth cannot be seen from the backside of the moon. But for Pluto and Charon , both are in phase couppled co- herent rotation to each other. and will allways face the same sides to each other. Thus it came up that even Charon is a planet that travels around the sun and not a moon travelling around Pluto.
Maybe for that reason also, Pluto was disqualified as a planet.
The question here is phase- couppled coherence, that has been suggested by many in the earth climate systems ( Scafetta Humlum Solheim & cetera,) Thus you better widen your horizons and learn what that is about and its premises.
Because it seems obscure to so called classical physics that is only served by dry sandstorm
random particular material statistics.
It takes electromagnetical material interaction in the square of space. (sticky viscous slime and glue- forces between material things)
It takes strong enough, coherent microchosmic molecular forces in addition to newtonian forces. It hardly takes gravitational “barycenters” however popular.
Tidal forces take large enough mass volumes travelling close enough to each other, and possible coherence of that takes high enough tidal viscous friction and damping.that can transform fast wiggeling energy into heat…. that is radiated by the speed of light. Else vapour cannot condense into water that settles down either.. It takes chemical, different from “cloassical” forces.
Else no stars in the universe either.
It has to stick and glue and run hot in large enough masses first before nuclear fusion can start..
As for “gode” I have published that I never use correcture programs and for several reasons.. One of those well conscidered reasons is that , it also will work as a sticky tempting flie- paper, that catches mental myopsia in the swarms of social websites, , for possible display..
Carbo writes: “As for “gode” I have published that I never use correcture programs and for several reasons..”
Consider your readers. Proofreading is a dying art.
Conscider my readers?
yes, I alolways do. That is called “semantics”
“proofreading is a dying art”
Yes indeed, and because of lack of semantics, and because of those robotic correcture programs for industrialized dilettants..
Tidal locking and orbiting are two rather different things though of course both are caused by gravity..
NO object orbits around any other object.. In all orbital systems bodies orbit around barycenters.
NO one has described gravity at the level of a causal mechanism. Not even general relativity. Gravity is modeled by making assumptions and then measuring how well the models work.
@jgnfld
There you are wrong again. “Tidal locking” is not caused by gravity, but by microchosmic forces of electromagnetic nature. Chemical bonds, ad- hesion, viscous friction andc so on, slime and glue and rubber- forces.
any thing can orbit around anything else. If more forces are involved than gravitational forces, then it will not orbit around barycenters.
You have a very fameous situation when fameous comets do not quite obey kepplerian and newtonian laws. You are further uneducated and unaquainted to it when it comes to atomic nuclear and electronic orbits, that are quite common in daily life and to be taken serious and reckoned with.
Only blunt and clumsy dilettants do still believe in models and mechanisms.
Mechanics and model makers, such as me above you in the grades, do not set on, and do not believe in such things. .
Gosh, jgnfld, I thought that question had been solved for both gravity and QM… turtles, right?
I think the question really is how the concept “casual mechanism” applies if you are visualizing a block universe.
Apologies for the off topic deviation first of all.
@jgnfld
Quite right jgnfld,
In fact, Newton, in his day, was ferociously criticized for abandoning the positivistic, mechanistic philosophical approach to science and retreat to a mere phenomenological approach where one describes the properties of a phenomenon without fundamentally understanding its causes.
Newton refused to postulate the medium by which gravity force propagates between mass particles. He merely describes in equations how that force affects mass bodies
Largest of Newton’s critics was Leibnitz who accused Newton theories of instigating atheism on the basis that Newton’s ultimate explanation for the gravity force was divine intervention.
Leibnitz points out that Newton’s theory would imply a God whom is neither omnipotent or omniscient but rather quite fallible as in Newton’s worldview, God created a world in need of constant adjustment or winding up, like a clock, rather than having the foresight to create it perfect with means of perpetual motion for example.
C: “Tidal locking” is not caused by gravity, but by microchosmic forces of electromagnetic nature. Chemical bonds, ad- hesion, viscous friction andc so on, slime and glue and rubber- forces.
BPL: There are no chemical bonds, adhesion, viscous friction, slue, glue, or rubber-forces between bodies that are NOT IN CONTACT. Tidal locking is caused by gravity. Period.
@ Zebra and everyone
“I think the question really is how the conscept “causal mechanism” applies…”
To my experience, the problem is rather that the conscept of “mechanics… Mechanisms” has inflated and become popular vulgar supersticious explainations of everything quite regardless., as the quick snobbish quasi- scientific answer to any question of why and how.
Example: ” Why are you going to town?” … “What causes you to go to town?”
answer: ” I shall go to the sports festival, I hope to meet my true love there..”
That is not a mechanical reason. It is a CAUSA FINALE, something hoped or seen on conscious level in the future.. Or why are you saving money, taking an insurance? ,… the same, to be prepared for event believed to be there in the in the future.
Why does n`t that football fit into the bag?… that screw into the button? That is CAVSA FORMALE. , that is, because of the forms of things, the way they are or forms in which they exist. .
Why does not that metal hang on a magnet neither does it dissolve in nitric acid?… why does oats flour hardly hang together by baking? Why is wheat and rhye much better for pizza bottoms?
That is CAVSA MATERIALE. all the way.
CAVSA EFFICIENS is about who performs it or mooves it, who or what works it. It is about the horse and the waggon, and the engine and the car.
Practically, we use an think in terms of all theese fameous scolastic or aristotelian causal categories even today, but not everyone is aware of that. It shall damned allways have that silly popular classical atomistic determkinistic dry material … vulgar supersticious alternative religious philosophical causal even statistical mechanical explaination.
Why do I ask for another beer?.. a glass of water? that is no mechanistic reason, it is rather due to Causa finale maybe, a hope or belief for something in the future, that causes our mooves.
Why does the moon go around the earth? That is hardly efficiens. That is rather materiale and formale.
Moral:
A minimum of elementary mideival scolastics may contribute to understanding . Causality should not allways be discussed or explained on efficiens- level.
Hr levenson
“there are no adhesion and glue , slime and rubber, rope or chains between bodies that are not in contact…, smile smile….”
That is the peculiar, strange , incredible and mysterious side of it, not yet seen by everyone..
If those planets and bodies were absolutely rigid, there would be no tidal effects and forces. There would be interactions like absolutely elastic bumps where energy and impetus is conserved.
But large bodies that are viscous and not ideal elastic,…. there some of the rotational and translation energy and impetus goes over into frictional heat,.l…. energy is allways consderved thus translation and rotational energy has to deliver for it and thus necessarily be changed.
And what causes that friction and transformation of energy into heat, that leaves that system in joules and watts by the speed of light….. is microchosmic molecular and electyromatgnetic forces different from newtonian gravitation.
Tidal locking is impossible between idelally and classically physical , rigid and elastic,
massive and particular bodies regardless of gravitation, ,…. PERIOD!. .
You must see for once that your car when it crashes and crumbles up by heat effects on metal molecular level,…does not moove much further. It gets rather locked to the site and settles there. PERIOD 2
Try with a snowball what happens if it hits something at very high speed, and there are very hitgh speeds in the planetary systems..
Proper Planetary research is easily done with snowballs. I learnt it that way. PERIOD!
I wish that the major search engines, when they match the Connolly et al paper and list it as a result of a search, would then, before posting the search results, automatically search a database of error analyses, which would find this one, and post it with the link to Connolly et al, with the message, “This paper contains errors. The errors are explained here: ”
And maybe even clicking on a link to Connolly et al could trigger the same error database search, because these old papers are shamelessly reused all the time in the whack-a-mole world.
The “Connolly et al.” cited by the OP above (and also by the abstract of Richardson & Benestad (2022) which is paywalled) is presumably Connolly et al (2021) ‘How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate’, which runs to 71 pages of nonsense although it doesn’t say much more than that presented within the 49 pages of Soon et al (2015) which is properly referenced by the OP above.
Don’t you think responding to this low-quality research is the equivalent of hippie-punching? When will they pick on a strawman of their own size? Many more interesting ideas to choose from than tired old sunspots.
Premise: The AMO is not a real oscillation with a strict period. It’s been pointed out that if it was then the global temperature record would soon show a cooling since the AMO historically tracks HADCRUT4. This is explained well by Euan Mearns here: http://euanmearns.com/the-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-and-the-temperature-record/
So is that AMO cycle of ~66 years real? It certainly isn’t caused by sunspots as the cycle doesn’t match — throw that out since 11 years /= 66. Several NASA JPL scientists, C. Perigaud, J. Shirley, S. Marcus, have independently suggested gravitational/tidal effects from the moon and sun influencing the climate on a periodic basis. It’s not known at all that the two strongest long-period tidal factors Mf (fortnightly nodal) and Mm (monthly perigean) will create a long-term 134 year cycle when interacting with an annual impulse. In other words, the Mf and Mm create the nonlinear Mt tide so that an almost integral number of Mt cycles occur in a single year, and the period at which this will go through interference cycles is 134 years (assuming the length of the year = 365.25 days). This is readily apparent and plausible based on length of day (LOD) measurements of the Earth’s rotation. The point is that tidal fluid mechanics is capable of creating harmonics. Can’t throw this out since the first harmonic of 134 years is 67 years.
So why doesn’t NASA JPL fund this line of research, as it would be directly in their wheelhouse?
Thanks for the article. I’m left with the impression that the ‘error’ is that Connolly haven’t considered that the variations in solar irradiance over the last 100 years have had a much weaker warming effect in W/M2 than anthropogenic warming. Is that correct?
Or is their error something more arcane in the statistical analysis of the correlations? If so can you or someone please explain it briefly in simple lay persons terms?
@nigelj
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJIw7ulYaGk&t=14s
MS, thanks for the video which certainly seems relevant and interesting. However its just not that convincing to me.
Firstly there was nothing about how much warming the solar fluctuations would have caused, just vague statements about feedbacks.
And lets assume purely for the sake of argument that solar irradiance was indeed strong during the 1980 – 2000 period. Since that period it has fallen and as far as I know that’s uncontroversial. At the same time warming has (essentially) continued its upwards trajectory to 2022 so this casts doubt on solar irradiance being a factor since at least 2000.
Then Robson started suggesting nefarious intent / conspiracy by governments who apparently manufactured an anthropogenic warming theory and crisis, even although it creates a huge problem for them. This seems odd to me because politicians seem to dislike problems. My observation is the first instinct of most politicians is to downplay problems and crises. And if governments manufactured the crisis its not clear why, because they have been weak with their responses. The conclusion I reach is politicians have not manufactured the global warming problem, and neither has the IPCC, and that Robson is a deluded conspiracy theorist.
Thanks for what seems–video unviewed by me!–a sensible response.
Macias, it’s bullshit. Look at TSI–it’s been flat to decreasing (on average) since the 50s.
I confess that I’m not quite following what the issue is – either the error is over my head or the explanation is too simplistic. I believe it is the latter situation that you describe – Connolly et al. seem to have made egregious misuse of statistical techniques.
Thanks for commenting nigelj and AlanJ. I’d love it if I could explain clearly to as many people as possible, so any feedback you have would be great.
The issues are *entirely* statistical. Here’s the Connolly method:
1) take datasets of solar forcing and human activity.
2) statistically fit to get “how much does temperature (T) change in response to the Sun/humans in general” (in symbols: dT/dsolar and dT/dhuman)
3) calculate how human or solar activity actually changed and combine with step 2 to calculate causes of historical warming (in symbols the solar part is (Δsolar) multiplied by (dT/dsolar) )
The main issue in Connolly et al. is that they did step 2) wrong. A second issue is that their step 3) results are also very biased.
Their step 2) calculation mistake is pretty basic but it’s the *entire* foundation behind their main conclusion. They present no other quantitative evidence so it’s pretty clear to me their paper should be corrected or retracted.
The phrase “assuming your conclusion” comes to mind.
Also, “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”
Less than a year ago, I informally reviewed a paper by Ziskin and Shaviv (2012) that also claimed to find a very strong solar effect. Not as simple a model as the one from Connolly et al discussed here, but a similar short of error. Start with a model that can’t help but force a strong solar effect into the results, then shout it from the rooftops.
Full review of that paper is located over at Skeptical Science;
https://skepticalscience.com/from-email-bag-ziskin-shaviv.html
Could it actually be for logical folks that the Sun does have an effect on what happens on the Earth?
“A Scary 13th: 20 Years Ago, Earth Was Blasted with a Massive Plume of Solar Plasma [Slide Show]
On March 10, 1989, a CME about the size of 36 Earths erupted from the sun’s roiling surface and ripped through space at a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per hour. Two days later, the torrid gas cloud crashed against Earth’s magnetosphere—the magnetic field generated by the planet’s spinning molten iron core that helps deflect the solar wind and more potent solar jetsam. This blast from the sun severely disrupted the magnetosphere and set off a geomagnetic superstorm.
Most significantly, at about 2:45 A.M. local time on Monday, March 13, Canada’s Hydro-Québec power utility’s grid crashed when safety systems sensed a power overload caused by the currents pulsing through the ground. The failure knocked out electricity to six million people in northeastern Canada for as long as nine hours—the biggest outage ever caused by a geomagnetic storm.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geomagnetic-storm-march-13-1989-extreme-space-weather/
Irrelevant to the paper under discussion, and not news to anyone.
In 2015, discovering a large spread in the stable isotope stats of tropical giant clam shells, Soon, who hails from Sarawak persuaded some South China Sea marine biologists to assemble the outliers into a data set.
Giant Clams are of some interest in discussions of biosequestration of CO2,
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/01/captain-watts-carbon-neutral-chowder.html
but Willie had other ideas.
After a refreshing statistical massage, the clam data were collated into grand revision of global palaeoclimate published as another Et al & Soon paper in Earth-Science Reviews , which concluded :
“This composite multi-proxy marine record, together with the reconstructions from mainland China and tropical Western Pacific, indicates that the late Holocene warm periods, the Roman Warm Period (RWP) and Medieval Warm Period (MWP), were prominently imprinted and documented in the climatic and environmental history of the East Asia–Western Pacific region. ”
There was no mention of the fact that clam data away from the equator pointed in the opposite direction:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/01/willie-soon-clams-up.html
Since all 12 of Rowan Connolly’s climate publications:
https://globalwarmingsolved.com/dr-ronan-connolly/#5-climate-science-and-environmental-science
Have been coauthored by one famously prolific coal PR Deliverables provider, literatures searches should in all fairness be headed:
Et al. & Soon:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2020/10/soon-moves-op-ads-to-coal-subsidized.html
I wish scientists would believe their indications instead of indicating their beliefs. I don’t believe anyone anymore.
I’m over the climate gaslighting. Most of the science shit being reported is nothing but political bullshit.
Todd, read a climate science book. Science is your friend.
Translation
Todd: “Oh, it’s all too hard to figure out. I’ll just play video games and do bonghits!”
Todd, quit being a baby, put on your big-boy pants and do some actual work to figure out who is credible and who isn’t. Hint: Look who is publishing in reputable journals and getting cited by other scientists.
Thanks for showing everyone you really have no idea how science is conducted. The scientific method. Which you ought to have learned in grade school. The cornerstone of science for centuries. And the way peer-reviewed climate science is done. Your comment about “most of the science shit (you just outed yourself as being clueless right there, sport) being reporting is nothing but political bullshit” just proves that, because you do not understand the science (basic thermodynamics and conservation of energy really), it must not be true since you won’t admit to lack of knowledge. Or bother to learn, Busted! lol!
Waaah!
I.e., your ideology is a poor substitute for reason, logic, data and analysis.
Put another way. “some scientists (are paid to) lie, therefor all scientists lie” is a logical fallacy.
Unsupported smear.
Sorry you feel that way, but if you wish to make such claims persuasive, you really need to supply actual evidence that what you say is true.
Based on the evidence you’ve presented, I too see no reason to conclude solar radiation played a significant role in the temperature upswing so evident during the last 20 years of the previous century. What bothers me, however, is the troubling discrepancy between the graphic representations presented in your post and this graph, based on the latest UAH satellite data:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_September_2022_v6.jpg
The picture offered in the graphs you present suggests a simple straightforward increase in global temperatures from the mid-70s to (roughly) 2020, while the UAH graph indicates no significant increase over the first 16 years of the present century. Nor does it reveal a trend, as the two temperature peaks in 2016 and 2020 can be seen as outliers, produced by unusually powerful El Ninos.
Which leads me to the following question: are the two pictures the result of a discrepancy in methods of data collection – or do they reflect different modes of presentation?
Victor the Troll,
You are not the only AGW-denying fool who thinks the blunderful Roy Spencer is capable of analysis that stands up to scientific scrutiny. There was another of you deniers just recently who prompted me to post a graphic showing there is indeed little warming in UAH TLTv6.0 through the early years of the 21st century. That graphic is here, posted 26/11/22. Of course, you may be able to provide explanation for this UAH divergence from all other temperature records, through these years. And you may even make a better fist of such explanation than Roy Spencer (although that doesn’t require much effort).
You’re comparing two different things. The picture in the graph is Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature observations. The one you offer is for the whole Earth, and relies on algorithms to get the average temperature of the lower troposphere.
If you want to throw out the “outliers, produced by unusually powerful El Ninos” then you need to throw out 1982-83, 1997-8, and 2015-6. Those were the three episodes that produced an ENSO index exceeding +2.0. https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php
In fact, the 2020 index reached a very weak +0.5. So, 2020 ought to be included.
.
Hmm, every single temperature data series shows rapid and sustained warming except for UAH. And UAH doesn’t even follow the radiosonde data nominally for comparable altitudes. What could cause this? Truly a mystery of Scooby Doo.
Ray, here’s a graph comparing radiosonde data (via HadAT) with satellite data from both UAH and RSS: https://images.remss.com/figures/measurements/upper-air-temperature/validation/rss_radiosonde_ts_compare_mears.png
Overall agreement among all three data sources is clear.
>Overall agreement among all three data sources is clear.
But it’s not surface temperature.
The graphic of TLT temps 1979-2011 linked by Victor the Troll comes from this RSS webpage and is now a little out-of-date with RSSv3.3 & UAHv5.5 now superseded by RSSv4.0 & UAH6.0. But quite what the idiot is attempting to demonstrate with this graphic is not entirely clear. Upthread he is claiming there is a “troubling discrepancy” between two other graphics so where this third one that he now presents sits in regard to his “troubling discrepancy” is yet to be explained by the idiot.
Moderators, I thought you said you weren’t going to allow this anymore.
Can we please remove ANY comments that include name calling regardless of what you feel about the name-=calleee
Au contraire! Referring to Weaktor as a troll and an idiot is not an insult, but a diagnosis.
@ K. Wollard
I am not so sure of that. Despite of dirt and blasphemies, I have the impression that the foa and websites who respect peoples writings and opinions allmost regardless, they are the healthiest ones whereas those who are kept by political, national linguistic and moral purists, they dry up and fall apart. They are broke and vanish like a soviet union due to their strict purist beliefs and liturgies. SENSOR behind the iron curtain is mad and drunk and shall have nothing but rat poison in cheapest paper to eat, sent to him by registerede express mail. Then he dies slowly and painfully.
( Learnt From The University of Praha in the good old days, known as DIE PRAGER PILLE)
Because, he produces systematicaloly and industrially, very clever enemies to himself and his own purely “scientific” , and moral system.
He blocks his own admission to know who and what he is dealing with.
Many of us here are trained and brought up to play on several strings, also the ugly ones in between to give the whole truth, the contrast, and the autenticity in the picture.
Several important philosophers scientists and authors did publish especially on the same.
I have the impression also that if it is rather let free, people think, and control themselves better after a while.
Re. ” the UAH graph indicates no significant increase over the first 16 years of the present century. Nor does it reveal a trend, as the two temperature peaks in 2016 and 2020 can be seen as outliers, produced by unusually powerful El Ninos.”
Of course you know that if you restrict the span of a trend to only 16 years, or far worse to only 4 years, ANY regression “indicates” no trend. If one is ignorant enough or dishonest enough (take your choice…I suspect #2, personally) to “infer” no trend from a cherrypicked shortened span, that is
Either there is a trend or there is not. If there is no sign of a trend then there is no trend. Duh!
That is pure mathematical nonsense. It’s like saying that if your binoculars don’t split Star X and show it’s a double star then it isn’t a double star…even if better optics will clearly and easily show the double star nature of the system.
ALL stats come with resolving power, just like optics do. In essence, you dearly love running around with cheap low/no real resolution drug store binoculars and improper low/no power stats claiming you know more about the stars and climate trends than actual astronomers and climate scientists using proper instruments and statistical tools. It’s completely clueless.
But of course you already know all this: It’s not like you haven’t been schooled on the subject literally hundreds of times.
As usual, jgnfld, your objection is beside the point. Clearly, I was referring to the lack of trend since the turn of the 21st century as represented in that particular UAH graph. I was comparing it to the graphs displayed by Rasmus, which give the impression that a trend does indeed exist — and questioning the discrepancy.
Weaktor, Take a look at your 401k. Is there a trend? If not, fire your financial advisor.
Or, more to the point, look at it once a week and fire your advisor if there is no “significant increase” each and every week as opposed to looking at quarters and years. I mean if there is no “significant trend” after each week, there is no “significant trend” there at all, right?
This is literally high school math these days. Maybe AP classes at some schools, but still high school.
Rasmus uses surface temperature. You use TLT, ie the average temperature of the lower troposphere.
V: I was referring to the lack of trend since the turn of the 21st century
BPL: You need 30 years to tell a climate trend, Victor. We’ve been over this before.
The sad thing here is a lack of imagination, or knowledge respectively. If you want to argue against anthopogenic GHG related warming, there is a much more comfortable way forward. You could quote the IPCC..
“The potential effects of contrails on global climate were simulated with a GCM that introduced additional cirrus cover with the same optical properties as natural cirrus in air traffic regions with large fuel consumption (Ponater et al., 1996). The induced temperature change was more than 1 K at the Earth’s surface in Northern mid-latitudes for 5% additional cirrus cloud cover in the main traffic regions.”
https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/aviation/index.php?idp=40
or NASA..
“This result shows the increased cirrus coverage, attributable to air traffic, could account for nearly all of the warming observed over the United States for nearly 20 years starting in 1975.:”
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/releases/2004/04-140.html
And if they did their own research, they might find plenty of evidence to support such a narrative. But instead of finding alternative forcings, they can not help but to enforce it on the sun. What can you do..
P. Pukite (@Whut)
My experience from pnevmatic and electromagnetic oscillators is that ” higher harmonics, doubble tripple quadruple…….. frequencies are commonly phase- couppled and do not beat with the groundtone. Unless you have a “Burble- Rumble-Wolf im Ton”. Which is cathastrophic, unlinear , dis- harmonic partial beat.
But sub- harmonics doubble- tripple quadrupple…. period oscillation is never coherent and exactly harmonic in tune the same way. Thus cannot be caused or ruled by the groundtone.
And this is not known, it is ignored by a series of surrealists speculants spindoctors and so on, in the climate denial industry. Who seem mostly Luna- tic, as they ar doubbling trippling quadruopplinup lunar periods. and earthly years in the solar and oceanic & climate- system. and giving it for physical explainations.
Another fameous phaenomenon is the consequent swarming and breeding of tropical coralo reefs and sea tortoises synchroneously, allways at fullmoon. And even more remarkable,, breeding and record arctic fisheries along with the regression and the ecliptic revolution period of the lunar nodes , of 18.6 years where the large and bright fullmoon stay over the horizon all day and night around.
But, all this is neither Astrology nor Luna- tic
.
It is simply Moonshine sonata & sereenade romantics for many fameous healthy swaming species in the animal world. Even humans tend to it for serious.
They chose max full moonlight for it by old, evolutionary tradeition, such as origine of species by struggle for life and survival of the fittest..
In the arctic winter, the sun is under the horizon all day, thus fullmoon allday round becomes quite important, and that repeats in periods of 18.6 years and is remakable both to humans and animals. As fullmoon all the time on white snow is practically bright as day and midnight sun.
Human full moon festivals are well known and utilized further south due to this. Many swarming animals do practically the same.
But it is a vital and social political…(Commercial?), hardly a physical function and reaction. And not to be confused with physical and climatic.
Carbo, I can’t follow anything you write, which is OK because I don’t think anyone else can either. As a stab at translating, fluid dynamics has unusual properties including the capability of producing vortex trains, which essentially contain multitudes of harmonics.
@ P.P (@ w)
Yes, there you tend to see something.
I do quite often and rather regularly write things in order to get people off their track, out of their silly snobbish, adult and uniform, professional mind and on their nose / arsh.
This is also quite an art. I am only an amateur there.
But my point this time was also quite basic. Whole numeral proportional frequencies are rather common and natural in physics. Whereas successive strictly coherent whole numeral natural periodicity hardly occurs.
The groundtone seems to cause, phase- coupple, stear, control and keep together and in order its multiple higher frequencies, but not its multiple periods. As suggested and believed by Scafetta & al.
Moral:
It is not that easy to repeat the success of Milankovic. Many people tried in our days, and failed to do that.
Johannes Keppler delivered a very clever advice to it, that I havent got in original latin, so I try and translate again from Max Caspars modern German translation:
“The efficient constellations must not only be intelligible. One must also know about them. Then they work.”
On astrology and ” efficient” planetary constellations.
That is rather obvious, and not mysterious at all. . The sunshine or moonshine hardly “mooves” you unless you see it and are aware of it. Then it mooves you.
Thus you can explain all the ceremonial political popular sunbaths and the collective full moon festivals.
Kings and Emperors, Warlords, and even even Popes could be mooved that way by their clever court astrologists.
Horoscope:
It is quiteb cloudy here, but there is a phaenomenal constellation of Venus, Mars Jupiter Saturnus and the Moon now in December 2022 , that shoud moove people rather to go out and take a look and to wonder, and maybe conscider, to worship and to believe more autentically also .
No idea what you are saying, but the same forcing that drives the Earth’s slight changes in rotation rate also does a number on its fluids, both water and air. It’s not the linear mapping of a solid body, but solvable via Laplace’s Tidal Equations LTE). Lookee here — how impressive the results are in modeling the Earth’s QBO of equatorial stratospheric winds:
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2855758/206869693-d1ca8d5a-97a1-4e1a-883a-452251122c98.png
Your shown graph of “OBO” oscillations show what I would call a severe “burble” and overtone- beat. It is higher partials typically out of tune.
Such events give a quite much higher friction with damping also of the groundone. “poor resonance” one would say.
It is very common in engines and electric and pnevmatic oscillators that are drive too hard, and not well enough refrined and tuned. Rumble and burble and ugly noise, engine or device alarm.
The best and easiest way to really see it is by RC- couppled oscilloscope, where pure sinus give a pure. elliptic ring. If the ring repeats exactly along with itself for several rotations even through the extra- loops, then you have phase- couppled coherence. But when it rumbles and splashes like this, it is like white breakers at sea, and a system of partial superposed waves that are poorly phase- couppled, and do not repeat regularly periodically. The system is then “quite dis- harmonic”.
Vivaldi, Tempeste di mare, youtube. is audible But Heavy metal rock grinds down the soul and the musical mind.
Winds & weathers like that grind down its end- conditions such as the white cliffs of Dover and the Dijks in Holland and on Cape Hatteras. The cliffs and the shores are then “weathered”. That in turn gives better fisheries.
Elementary royal and imperialo astrology Dr. (@ whut), elementary royal and imperial astrology.
It decided over the wars and the beliefs and the salaries and payments in those days, and over the same in our days if you can only grasp what it is about and take it for serious.
E. Schaffer 6 DEC 2022 So then I wonder why IPCC AR5 showed a mere 0.01 w/m**2 globally-averaged for contrails and only a mere 0.05 w/m**2 globally-averaged for contrails including their cirrus cloud effect (as compared with the 0.38 w/m**2 / decade additional now due to the steady increase in the GHGs) and IPCC AR6 has only 0.01+0.02+0.02+0.03+0.04+0.04+0.05+0.06 = 0.27 w/m**2 globally-averaged for contrails for 1960-2019 and only 0.027 degrees of global (Global) warming so far for aviation contrails (because it all has to run through the ocean for 400 years of course). Considering your asserted 1 degree of Northern mid-latitudes warming do you think they put the decimal point in the wrong place ? I know that sort of thing does happen far too often.
No, the AR6 figure is only 0.06W/m2. These forcings are NOT cumulative, thus the 0.27W/m2 you name are wrong.
What is interesting if you check the literature on aviation induced cirrus forcing, and I posted the quotes above to outline this issue, is that we have two different dimensions so to say. The one position is a tiny contribution, the other position is about attributing all or almost all warming to it. Not just are these opposite positions totally inconsistent and contradicting, but the latter is implicitly also denying a GHG related AGW I mean in the sense that if contrails (in whatever shapes) do it, there will be little left for GHGs.
If we go down this rabbit hole, everything is up again and that is pretty interesting. What I can say is, there are a lot of hints this might be correct.
1. Linear contrails, aviation induced cirrus and subvisual cirrus appear to cover a lot more of the sky than the IPCC assumes. And I mean a totally different dimension.
2. The forcing of this “sky whitening” is far outpacing any GHG related forcings
3. It follows that we are heating Earth way more than we thought, but we have not accounted for it
4. We run into an attribution problem, because there is only so much warming
5. It is a problem that can be solved, if we just take spectral line calculators at face value. Then ECS should be extremely low (~0.5K) anyhow.
6. Accordingly giving up on feedbacks, that were taylored to fit the GHG forcing narrative, will provide enough headroom to allow for contrail forcing
7. Then including contrail forcing will easily solve all the problems there otherwise are. It naturally fits to explain the warming starting in the 1970s, and why it is so strictly bound to the NH.
Correction to mine just now my “0.01+ … +0.06 = 0.27” S.B. “0.06” because Table AIII.3 “Effective radiative forcing (W m–2) time series of all climate forcers from 1750–2019” shows the cumulative value since 1750, not additional forcing from one period to the next.
First, I’m surprised that you didn’t make a straight-up appeal to the lack of a plausible physical basis for the argument that the sun caused the warming.
Second, in economics, this is a classic “omitted variables bias”.. The regression of warming as a function of solar factors only omits the human-caused elements. In that case, the solar factor will serve as a statistical “instrument” for the human factors. The resulting coefficient will reflect not only the impact o the solar factors, but also whatever portion of the human-induced warming that gets picked up by the solar factor serving as an instrument for human-induced warming.
Third, I think you can make better use of a causality argument simply by noting that humans do not cause changes in solar output. And, a photon is a photon is a photon. So if solar energy is a strong driver of temperature change, that portion of solar variation that is independent of human activity should show up as a strong driver, all on its own. I’d have done that with a two-stage regression. The first stage “explains: solar variation as a function of human factors., The second explains temperature increase as a function of the residual from the first regression.
Then you ask the original authors to explain why the photons associated with human activity seem to cause a lot of warming, but the photons not associated with human activity seem to do very little. (the second-stage regression above).
You get the same effect the way you did it, entering human-caused factors first, then allowing solar factors to enter afterwards. I just think its easier to explain if you literally use the residual from a first-stage regression as an explanatory factor in a second stage regression of warming on “unexplained” variation in solar activity.
(using only the solar variation not “explained” by human factors as the regressor in the second stage), but you do the equivalent when you enter the human factors first, and the solar activity second.
Were there graphics in this post? Where can they be found now?
[Response: Not sure what happened there. I pulled them out of the wayback machine and replaced them. Sorry about that! – gavin]
This post by Mark Richardson is a much needed type of response to provably false publications by scientific writers and researchers.
Good job Mark!
Even though scientific papers should be “falsifiable”, they should not be obviously false.
When when a journal’s peer review process does not catch it, citizen journalists or town criers should be allowed to IMO (The Citizen Journalist In America – 4).
???
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1978/mean:13/scale:0.002/plot/uah6/mean:13/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1978/trend/scale:0.002/plot/uah6/trend/plot/uah6/from:2007/trend