The line blurs between peer-reviewed-science and peer-reviewed-public-relations.
The Big-Scare-Campaign needed an answer to the missing hot-spot question. They needed to find the “hot spot”, or failing that, at the very least provide a “hot spot” type graph that would answer the critics; something that passed for a scientific answer that might fool journalists and bloggers. The failure to find the projected hot spot is so damning, and so obviously not what the models predicted, that there is a veritable industry of people working hard to find a reason why the weather balloon results must be wrong. Steven Sherwood creatively even resorted to throwing out the thermometer readings entirely and using wind shear instead. (If only we’d known! All those years and we didn’t need the thermometers?)
In Robust Tropospheric Warming Revealed by Iteratively Homogenized Radiosonde Data (March 2008) Sherwood et al combine both windshear and temperature data to reconsider the radiosondes yet again. The Scientific Guide to The Skeptics Handbook and others use the graph from the top left corner of this paper (Fig 1 here) to suggest that the hot spot is not missing, or that the “fingerprint” was found. Sure enough, it’s a cute graph. Looks “hot”, right?
Fig 1. Sherwood 2008: observations (top two) vs models(bottom two). (Note the scale!)
Peek closely at the scale of the graph. Note the color of zero — that’s right — if there was no global warming in the entire atmosphere, no change, nothing at all happening, the Sherwood interpretation would look like one giant hot-spot:
No change means still looking “hot”
With poor resolution and a carefully chosen color scale the top graphs give the glancing impression that models aren’t doing too badly. But the color scale above is not just counter intuitive, it actively prevents anyone from comparing the trend in the upper troposphere with the surface. Any warming trend at all is “red”. Trend information is lost within the graph. (I considered trying to recolor it but all reds are red if you know what I mean. 101 shades of red might work well for snakes with infrared acuity…).
None of the authors, editors, or peer reviewers apparently had any problem with a graph with the meaningless scale. It’s just another endorsement of what you get with anonymous unpaid reviewers.
Here (below) are the earlier graphs that this paper is obviously a response too. Note back in the original CCSP documents that the colour scale helped the reader understand what was happening (even if pink is a questionable choice for the ultra cold). The models predicted a fingerprint of well mixed greenhouse gases that would look like graph A below. The stratospheric cooling (the blue bit at the top) is due to both carbon dioxide as well as declining ozone levels. The warming bit in the bottom half is possibly due to carbon dioxide (in part). But the red hot spot is due to feedbacks from humidity and clouds, with some latent heat release — at least in theory anyway.
In reality the radiosondes don’t find anything like that pattern, which tells us the feedback effects predicted by the models are not describing the real world very well.
Fig 3. The missing hot spot is obvious in these CCSP images.
Broadly consistent?
Can the claim be made that after Sherwood’s adjustments the radiosondes are broadly consistent with models? It all depends on how broad your consistency is. When a zero trend is almost “consistent” with a 0.25 warming trend (namely consistently red), what’s the difference?
In the same vein, I guess the number 1 is broadly consistent with “2”.
Make no mistake, Sherwood was looking for the missing hot spot. In the introduction he makes it clear that’s what this is all about:
The question of whether tropospheric temperatures are participating as expected in climate change has been controversial, with some observing systems reporting changes that are inconsistent with the models (CCSP 2006; National Research Council 2000)… that discrepancies between expected and measured tropospheric warming rates have not been fully explained in the tropics (CCSP 2006), …
The title may sound impressively “robust” but the dodgy color choice and the fine print tell a different story. In the abstract no one is exactly gushing:
“The meridional variations of zonally aggregated temperature trend since 1979 moved significantly closer
to those of the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) after data adjustment. Adjusted data from 5°S to 20°N
continue to show relatively weak warming, but the error is quite large, and the trends are inconsistent with
those at other latitudes.”
Note this set of graphs in his Fig 3 (especially the centre ones of the tropics, most particularly 1979-2005):
Sherwood 2008 Fig 3: The upper troposphere over the tropics (150 hPs – 300 hPa) is supposed to warm about twice as fast than the surface. The warming trend from 1979-2005 should be stronger than the longer timespan. (Yellow annotation added by Jo Nova showing the zone where the models predict the greatest warming trend.)
In the conclusion, Sherwood comments on the trend that is within uncertainty bounds (and it happens to be in the lower half of the troposphere), but I can’t see any equivalent numerical focus on the important zone from 150 – 350 hPa (which I highlighted above), and was the apparent reason for doing more adjustments.
Our 1979–2005 trends for 850–300 hPa in the tropics are 0.15°
0.07°C decade1. This is within uncertainty
of the roughly 0.17°–0.22° expected on the basis of surface trends of 0.12°–0.14°C decade1 (CCSP 2006;
Santer et al. 2005), and the agreement would improve if one were to remove the deep tropical stations whose
behavior is inconsistent with the rest of the network.
There is no justification in the paper for saying that the adjusted sonde data now finally agrees “broadly” with the models. It’s 10 years since the data from the 1979-1999 warming period came in, and team after team has reanalyzed the data every way they can think of, and almost all the reanalyzing seems to be in a non-random model-friendly direction.
The IPCC is 90% sure a disaster is on the way, but ask for evidence that the models are right about the feedbacks and the aggressive certainty evaporates into vague lines about how things are not inconsistent, if you (insert caveat), and (insert adjustment), and (insert particular dataset, in a particular era). Sherwood might have improved the trends, but if he’d have found the holy-grail he’d have said so.
Hat tip to the anonymous person or collective who wrote The “Guide” and to John Cook (maybe the same person) who drew my attention to the Sherwood graph. There’s plenty more to come 🙂
References
STEVEN C. SHERWOOD, CATHRYN L. MEYER, AND ROBERT J. ALLEN, HOLLY A. TITCHNER, Robust Tropospheric Warming Revealed by Iteratively Homogenized Radiosonde Data, JOURNAL OF CLIMATE, vol 21 p5336 [PDF]
Hot Spot Graph Sources:
(A) Predicted changes 1958-1999. Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP, Chapter 1, p 25, based on Santer et al. 2000;
(B) Hadley Radiosonde record: Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP,, Chapter 5, p116, recorded change/decade, Hadley Centre weather balloons 1979-1999, p. 116 , fig. 5.7E, from Thorne et al., 2005.
UPDATE: The former links are broken (why do government departments do that?) All original CCSP Chapters are stored at the Wayback Machine. See Wayback Machine copies of (Chapter 1) Specifically download the PDF. and Wayback Machine Copies of (Chapter 5) Specifically download the PDF. If they disappear there is a back up copies here of Chapter 1 SAP and Chapter 5 SAP 1.
I can find a hot spot in the data very easily – all I do is throw out about 150-200 measurements I don’t like. I’m surprised Sherwood didn’t do it.
Mann used this technique, so did Briffa, and the only trick involved, is the explanation why the discarded or ignored data are somehow “irrelevant” or “known to be untrustworthy.”
We know the hot spot isn’t there BECAUSE, the rainfall patterns within tropical latitudes are substantially altered in the presence of the hot spot and the observed rainfall patterns, without it. Surprisingly, this observation is discussed in the TAR.
Unsurprisingly, the issue is ignored in AR/4
30
Here am I, quoting Jo, quoting Sherwood …
Note the phrasing:
Equivocation – some do, some don’t, but I am not going to definitively tell you which they are. You are going to have to guess, isn’t that going to be fun?
What the …? It is the changes, that are inconsistent? It is what has been observed (in the real world, yes?) that are inconsistent? But the model is not inconsistent?
This is the proof positive that AGW (in all of its variants) is a religion, and that the models are the totem to which all should worship.
I make fun of this, because it is deadly serious and because somebody has to.
The role of the Court Fool in medieval monarchies was to keep the King in touch with reality. Who does that for science if not blogs like this?
30
What is a problem with hot spots? They will go ahead in the same way as they always used to. When satellites had measured the model energy balance of the planet is completely different then the model one they simply declared heating is much worse then they assumed in projections instead of telling the heat flow balances were always different then they hyped in their models. Now they are going to tell the situation is much worse as instead of small localized spots there is a single huge hot spot so wide that it covers the complete zone of assumed occurrence.
10
Well, Whaak, they wouldn’t have much of a paper if they simply related what they knew to be true, “other people didn’t find a hot spot near the tropopause and neither did we.”
10
Brian G Valentine: #4
Well Brian, I come from a generation that was taught that you arrived at the closest approximation to the truth by discarding all of the things that could be shown to be untrue.
On that basis, saying “other people didn’t find a hot spot near the tropopause and neither did we”, would have been a very positive and productive thing to do.
10
Yes and no. According to the mathematician Paul Halmos, people shouldn’t publish their negative results (“Here’s this theorem that somebody couldn’t prove, and I couldn’t prove it either, see?”)
10
@ Brian # 1
I can find a hot spot in the data very easily – all I do is throw out about 150-200 measurements I don’t like. I’m surprised Sherwood didn’t do it.
But he tried! “the agreement would improve if one were to remove the deep tropical stations whose
behavior is inconsistent with the rest of the network.”
This is how climate science is done now. Just throw out any data that doesn’t agree with your hypothesis. Jones did it too and Oxburgh said it is OK, although his enquiry was told not to look at the science.
The most surprising thing is why they are all so surprised when the rest of us shout out “SCAM”
10
Brian G Valentine: #6
Yes, I accept that. I was confusing method with publication.
But I still come back to the semantics of Sherwood’s statement. Placing the unreality of the models above the reality of observations is hardly a rational thing to do, and yet his language would imply that he believes otherwise.
No wonder students are confused.
10
Such candor would suggest a pointless Climactic Research Unit at East Anglia and elsewhere.
But not really: there are numerous open questions, such as the (unknown) origins of the El Nino and the possible existence of sub- or supra – periodicity of the known decade oscillations.
But such investigations aren’t too sexy, and probably wouldn’t find too much support amongst greenie NGO’s and so forth.
Moreover, it wouldn’t generate any information that could be used for regulatory purposes.
10
grumpy: #7
I don’t think they throw it out – too crude.
I think they all sit around with a
bottlecase or two of chardonnay, and brainstorm all of the reasons why the data might not agree with what they expect.Once they have a good long list, they rank them by potential causes and potential impact, and plot the whole lot in a two-by-two Boston matrix to identify the top performing errors.
The final stage of this analysis is to identify “mitigation measures” that they can apply to the data to bring it back into alignment with six-sigma observational expectations.
I think this is known as the Enron methodology.
10
Boy! I wish Sherwood had been around when I was launching dropsondes hither and yon. He could have saved us a lot of time by knowing what conditions were out there and just filling-in the WBAN’s for us.
No more calibrations,
No more lines to plot.
No need for calculations,
When Sherwood does the lot!
Forget the drift, and static too,
And whir and whine as well,
No need to tune the signal,
When Sherwood does his spell!
We’ll drop them out a-plenty,
One, two. three — you’ll see,
But when all is finally over and done,
It’s Sherwood that set us free.
10
The human emotional response to colour is very interesting.
A few years back I was helping with a scientific project that used satellite images, to map trends in pasture density.
The lead scientist was colour blind, and I had enormous trouble explaining to him that his images would work better, if the density trends were projected in browns, yellows, and greens.
Instead of the vivid red and blue that he was using.
I eventually succeeded by borrowing report cards from the local high school (as an academic he understood report cards) We devised a system where our hypothetical report card had a good score marked in red on a low score marked in green.
We then took a walk around the facility with our hypothetical report cards, asking people to quickly comment on which card was the best. Not surprising people consistently picked the (low scoring) report card with the most green on it.
So yes Mark 0° in a red colour and the instantaneous emotional response is that it must be hot.
10
Hansen just LOVES red on maps, he loves red hot oceans, land, snow, everything
He plotted the change 2006-2008 on some maps in different shades of red; from the looks of the map, one would conclude the Earth became uninhabitable over those two years and everybody probably died off
10
Now be honest people. If your job will cease to exist if CO2 is found not to overly influence the climate and if human caused CO2 even less wouldn’t you be clutching at straws. Not only you but many of the public are fed up with dire predictions of frying when it’s obviously cold outside. I do think that the sea rise scare is also wearing thin particularly if you have lived near the sea for decades. If you don’t live near the sea who cares?
What amazes me is the way in which august bodies such as the CSIRO and Bom continue to produce crap facts. The latest global sea rise is .31mm/yr yet the CSIRO says it’s between 1.7mm in the SE and up to 10mm/yr in the NW. This from their latest publication on Climate Change. They are now into acidification and the threat to crustacea. Funny they survived in the past but this time they are doomed. Seems I saw some research showing that lobsters react to diminished salinity by simply growing a thicker shell. This undoubtedly proves that lobsters and prawns are smarter than your average CSIRO scientist.
The website reefcheckaustralia.org.au provides resources for teachers to indoctrinate young children on the perils to the GBR caused by global warming. They list the bleaching in 2002, blaming sea temps of 22-27 degreesC, but fail to mention the reefs recovery since. They also omit the coral bleaching in April 2004 caused by a sudden COLD snap.
While I have tried, ineffectually it seems, to bring these obvious faults and misrepresentations to the notice of the respective organisations they will not change until some more powerful resources are deployed. A letter/e-mail campaign to our repective MHRs requesting that the CSIRO and BoM become less religious and more scientific could be a start.
10
One could hardly attribute the climatistas cognitive malfunctions to chardonay, or even cases of chardonay. These cognitive leaps that assign the same weighting to facts, assumptions, speculation and outright extrapolation to the extreme are more consistent with the thoroughly documented and mapped cognitive malfunctions of the [snip.. we don’t need to go into that –JN]
10
Ian Mott
The mammoth stories over at WUWT certainly give your comment credibility.
10
I was born and raised in Byron Shire, Binny. [snip. Please, lets not get into speculation about things of an ad hom nature. — JN]
10
Let’s not forget that this is quite a serious allegation. It’s not just about the color (and Binny’s comment on that is informative). By coloring the results in the most important zone of the graph all the same color, this paper offers a graph that gives no information about the issue it purported to address. This is about using a peer reviewed – supposedly rigorous – paper in a way that misrepresents results in a more positive light than it deserves. Sherwood et al is supposed to be impartial, not “wanting” any particular result.
His paper effectively becomes PR for government departments and bloggers to use to pretend that they found something they did not.
10
@Brian, #9:
“Moreover, it wouldn’t generate any information that could be used for regulatory purposes.”
I spent the first seven years of my career at a quasi-judicial regulatory tribunal, where my specialty was shredding studies (economic in nature) submitted by the industry and other stakeholders. Egregiously self-interested studies were generally the norm, with their bias oozing from every assumption and choice in methodology. Yet when I recall the worst offenders, and compare them to what I’ve read of many CAGW ‘scientific, peer-reviewed’ papers, they take on the appearance of the very model of rigorous analysis. I can’t think of many of these CAGW papers, that had I presented their equivalent (in logic reasoning, and a complete inability to account for historical data) to my former director (who has become an accomplished senior civil servant and deservedly so), that would not have made him cross with me and had him make me start over again from square one, never mind leading to any sort of usage for regulatory purposes.
On the lighter side, and apologies in advance for I seem to be channeling Rodney Dangerfield at the moment, but:
“even if pink is a questionable choice for the ultra cold”
Obviously you never met my ex-wife.
Ba-dum-pum.
10
Hmm.
Neptune’s winds have been clocked up to 1200 mph with an average speed of 700 mph.
Uranus has winds of 500 mph or more.
Neptune fluxuates between -240 degrees to -330 degrees F. Uranus averages a piping hot minus 218 C.
10
Speaking of (other) hot spots here’s Geoff (Layman) Sharp’s comment for 2 July:
“The outlook for more activity is not looking strong. SC24 needs a boost to exceed SC5.”
Solar cycle 5 was a trifle chilly, so I think he’s saying solar cycle 24 will be a trifle chillier no matter what silly hot pants colour scheme Dr Sherwood likes to use for his graphs.
10
Bruce @ 21
At risk of dropping names, I was talking to David Archibald last week….
His prediction is for Solar Cycle 24 to be considerably less intense than predicted by NASA, which is still saying SC24 will peak at 75. Given DA’s track record of late, it might be opportune to invest in some woolies.
Cheers,
Speedy
10
Isn’t it all about trying to ‘find’ something which is not and never will be found, the whole scam of AGW is all about this, the same vain pursuit, as each IPCC ‘claim’ is made, it will be shot out of the sky, this one – ‘hot spots’ was easy.
Another ‘central plank’ of the alarmist mantra is gone.
I agree with the poster (above), with SSTs going into cold phase in the PDO and AMO, upper atmosphere aerosols from volcano’s eruptions (Siberia + Alaska) in the past few years, the sun is asleep, Antarctic sea ice growing fast, it all points down, a world slide in Ts………. buy some woollies PDQ.
10
Noting the massive amount of unsubstantiated claims in face and hair product advertising, whereby they appeal to authority by claiming their products are always “clinically proven”, much like “peer reviewed” is seen as automagically authorising the climate change debate against carbon.
Who could have possibly predicted the sheer vilification of a simple carbon molecule and, which one will be next? Notably, I have had discussions with ordinary persons much like myself that think CO2 is carbon black itself, causing black-lung associated with coal miners.
It’s all about the education. The only reason the AGW crowd are in their position is due to sheer ignorance, allowing “clinically proven” and “peer reviewed” to be their “evidence”, equating to “consensus”.
Once shown this is not the case, they usually (and honestly emotionally) become very angry at their own ignorance at being used for a cause which isn’t designed to enhance their own lives.
Many however, through their own lack of scepticism of anything they’re told, continue to try and prove their faith is right, regardless the impossibility in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Although these people are completely wrong, they’e tenacious enough to construct lies.
In the scientific world of climate science, this is where the lies gravitate. This is the point where the uneducated become the liars due to the funding available. This practice is now spreading to other scientific fields as we’ve seen, reducing our collective knowledge to something equating to “global warming did it”. How long will it be before I, as a house painter and rappeller, blame my next blunder on global warming?
10
I also talked to David Archibald recently in Melbourne. He is predicting a Dalton like performance from SC24/25 like me, in the past I think that was based on Clilverd’s work. Now he is backing a Barycentre based model as I do.
Times are changing….
10
I see we can do images here. Lets see if this one works.
10
Olaf Koenders: @24 I really like your use of “clinically proven” v “peer review” nice:)
10
Check out climateaudit, he’s off to the UK ‘Gaurdian symposiom on climategate july 14th. GO go Mr McIntrye.
WOW carn’t wait.
10
Jo you are clearly overlooking that 2 + 2 = 5 for very large values of 2. We engineers have understood this for ages. Don’t get me started on statisticians…
BTW I used to have a copy of a book called “The Book of Heroic Failures” which was funny as. I seem to remember one story which told of a town in which it had been decreed that approximations of Pi should be taken to be 4. I wonder if all climate scientists hail from that town…
Tragically I no longer have the book… ’twas one of my favorites. At least I still have “Essential Foreign Swearwords”, which is also quite handy 🙂
10
Some predictions that didn’t quite pan out:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/07/nixon-was-told-sea-level-would-rise-by.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LuboMotlsReferenceFrame+%28Lubos+Motl%27s+reference+frame%29
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Bulldust @ 29
Great minds must think alike – I also enjoyed (and still have) that book. From memory, I think the US state of Indiana tried to pass a rule that Pi (approx 3.1415) should equal 3.00000 (recurring) to simplify the maths. It failed.
If you want to track that book down, there is a very good site called abebooks.com that will probably have it. Otherwise flick your contact details to Jo and I’ll lend you mine if I find it. i might look up “Essential Foreign Swear Words” – it sounds like something I can use.
Breaking news: Senior Speedyling (junior Speedy) has just located the said book in the family library – next to the Darwin Awards series.
Cheers,
Speedy.
10
Olaf Koenders:
At #24 you write:
I think you may be interested in a comment I made on another thread of this blog.
It is comment #298 at
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/06/learn-how-not-to-reason-at-the-university-of-western-australia/
The anonymous person (calling him/herself “Spencer Tracy”) whom that post addresses provides an example of each of the behaviours of AGW-cultists I state in that post.
To save you having to find it, I copy it below.
Richard
*************
Spencer Tracy:
I write in an attempt to escape from the loop of irrational assertions with which you are responding to all evidence and logical argument. I warn that what I am about to write will be very difficult for you and all other adherents to the cult of AGW to comprehend. But if you can grasp it then you will understand why several here regard members of your cult with even more contempt than you have stated about me.
I – and others here – adhere to the scientific method. That method is about disproving things. All ideas are subjected to testing against observations of the real world. We call these observations empirical data. And we assess all empirical data for its accuracy, precision and reliability because we trust nothing. When empirical data disagrees with an idea then the idea is amended or – failing that – it is replaced by another idea.
For us, an idea is ‘true’ in so far as it is supported by observation of the real world but it ceases to be ‘true’ when a new observation refutes it. And we keep looking for that new observation because we find a better ‘truth’ when an old ‘truth’ has been found to be false. In our jargon, we try to falsify everything. Indeed, anything that cannot be falsified is not ‘true’ according to the scientific method.
So, many things are not capable of investigation by use of the scientific method. For example, belief in the existence – or otherwise – of God is not ‘true’ according to the scientific method because that existence – or nonexistence – is not capable of falsification. Of course, that does not mean scientists cannot believe in the existence of God: I believe in His existence and most of the greatest scientists (e.g. Newton, Mendel, Faraday, etc.) have held such belief. But it does mean that this is one of the many subjects which cannot be investigated by use of the scientific method.
So, we try to prove nothing. And we try to disprove everything. Our activity is called the scientific method.
And, as I said, our activity is not capable of investigating everything but its adoption at the time of the Enlightenment has resulted in the world of technological wonders in which we live. Those wonders include medical treatments that work, food to supply billions, goods and services in abundance, leisure and luxuries that nobody had in previous ages, methods of transportation that enable food, goods and services to be provided where they are needed, and the reduction of pollution in which people live to levels that were unimaginably low at the time of the Enlightenment.
Given those rewards from adherence to the scientific method, we choose to use, support and defend that method.
Hence, we value the scientific method. I recognise that you have great difficulty understanding why anybody would value and defend the scientific method, but we do. And, of course, that puts us in opposition to the cult of AGW which practices the antithesis of the scientific method; viz. pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience is about proving things. It exists to support a belief and has many forms depending on the belief being supported. The cult of AGW is one of these forms. Other examples are astrology and palmistry. All such examples pretend that they are a form of science, and some have gained acceptance – albeit temporary – as being sciences with studies conducted in academia and research papers published in scientific journals. Pseudosciences that have obtained temporary acceptance as being science include eugenics, Lysenkoism and phrenology.
The cult of AGW is very, very similar to that of eugenics a century ago.
But, like eugenics, AGW is pure pseudoscience. And this was clearly demonstrated by one of AGW’s leading priests, Phil Jones, who – when asked to provide his source data – said;
“Why should I let you have the data when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?”
Of course, the assertion in Jones’ reply is correct because the activity of scientists is to “try to find something wrong” with anything they investigate.
But a pseudoscience exists to promote an idea and not to falsify it. The cult of AGW exists to promote the idea of AGW. The undeniable fact that all – yes, ALL – available empirical data refutes AGW is of no interest to the cult. The empirical data falsifies AGW but falsification is only important to scientists and is irrelevant to pseudoscientists.
Indeed, the AGW cultists do not say any evidence that supports AGW because there is none. Instead, they do all the things you have done here.
They assert the fact of the radiative physics which gives rise to the idea of AGW as though that fact were evidence for the ‘truth’ of the idea. Of course, this assertion is nonsense. Nobody disputes that physics but there is much empirical evidence that it cannot give rise to AGW (e.g. AGW is observed to be counteracted by the hydrological cycle).
They slander, demean, and libel the infidels who dare to question their true faith in AGW because practitioners of a pseudoscience adhere to promotion of their belief so they feel compelled to destroy those who would question it.
They cite something (e.g. the UAH time series) is ‘evidence’ when it can be used to support an assertion pro-AGW but claim that same information cannot be accepted (e.g. because it is “too noisy”) when it refutes an assertion of AGW.
They spread falsehoods while saying things like “To be quite honest” and – in their terms – they are being honest because anything which promotes their belief is ‘true’ whether or not it accords with reality.
They pretend that something (e.g. IPCC AR4) is undeniably right so cannot be challenged but deny that it says what it does when it does not support their view.
They define things at will (e.g. peer review makes a publication right) and redefine them at will (e.g. only certain peer reviewed publications are right) depending on whether those things support their belief.
So,Spencer Tracy, in conclusion, I can see no possibility of anything sound coming from my attempting discussion with you. I am constrained by my adherence to the scientific method and you have come here to promote the beliefs of your cult. I can no more disprove your superstitious belief than I can disprove a religious belief in the existence of God.
But I can provide – and I have provided – the empirical data that shows AGW is not happening. And I can provide – and I have provided – the empirical data that shows AGW cannot happen to a discernible degree.
Richard
10
Lubos called the Sherwood paper “global blowing”; if I may take the liberty, I included the Sherwood paper in my first list of the ten worst pro-AGW papers:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/09/ten-of-the-worst-climate-research-papers-a-note-from-cohenite/
10
Olaf Koenders:
July 3rd, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Excellent comment!
Science has totally corrupted itself due to the “Peer-Review” system and not allowing new science to flurish. Their is a reason “LAWS” are used to keep science enclosed into individual perameters. These “LAWS” in science cannot be broken as the whole system then falls to ignorance.
I find it amazing that mechanics is not allowed in science even though a great deal of our climate, atmosphere, evaporation cycle, solar system, etc. is a mechanical process.
10
Richard S Courtney:
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:27 pm
The problem with religion in science is that ANY objective opionion now has to pass “Is this against God?”
Pure science has no opionion of God just the path that science has taken it. Following the science totally without stopping at a point of certain favorable results.
Our best past scientists stopped following the science too soon and did not follow the paths totally and became “LAWS”.
10
Joanne,
A friend sent me this abstract today. It uses real data. Are you aware of it?
THE STABLE STATIONARY VALUE OF THE EARTH’S GLOBAL AVERAGE ATMOSPHERIC PLANCK-WEIGHTED GREENHOUSE-GAS OPTICAL THICKNESS
Ferenc Miskolczi
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT VOLUME 21 No. 4 2010
10
Christian I found a more complete abstract: (Bold is mine)
Authors
Ferenc M. Miskolczi1
1 3 Holston Lane, Hampton VA 23664, USA
Abstract
By the line-by-line method, a computer program is used to analyze Earth atmospheric radiosonde data from hundreds of weather balloon observations. In terms of a quasi-all-sky protocol, fundamental infrared atmospheric radiative flux components are calculated: at the top boundary, the outgoing long wave radiation, the surface transmitted radiation, and the upward atmospheric emittance; at the bottom boundary, the downward atmospheric emittance. The partition of the outgoing long wave radiation into upward atmospheric emittance and surface transmitted radiation components is based on the accurate computation of the true greenhouse-gas optical thickness for the radiosonde data. New relationships among the flux components have been found and are used to construct a quasi-all-sky model of the earth’s atmospheric energy transfer process. In the 1948-2008 time period the global average annual mean true greenhouse-gas optical thickness is found to be time-stationary. Simulated radiative no-feedback effects of measured actual CO2 change over the 61 years were calculated and found to be of magnitude easily detectable by the empirical data and analytical methods used. The data negate increase in CO2 in the atmosphere as a hypothetical cause for the apparently observed global warming. A hypothesis of significant positive feedback by water vapor effect on atmospheric infrared absorption is also negated by the observed measurements. Apparently major revision of the physics underlying the greenhouse effect is needed.
It appears that there are many interesting articles in V 21 no.4 :
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/nm45w65nvnj3/?p=eff8d2eaa9574736b4b710b390d37bd0&pi=1
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Brian stated in part:
“We know the hot spot isn’t there BECAUSE, the rainfall patterns within tropical latitudes are substantially altered in the presence of the hot spot and the observed rainfall patterns, without it. Surprisingly, this observation is discussed in the TAR.”
This is unfounded. Relying on the models, which have been reasonably PROVEN to have unuseable predictive power for precipitation, to make any statement about what precipitation should be in the case of a real world Hot Spot is not supported. WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT PRECIP PATTERNS A REAL HOT SPOT WOULD HAVE IN CONJUNCTION SO CANNOT MAKE THIS CONCLUSION.
You are relying on one unfounded conclusion to attack another unfounded conclusion. I know, I have probably used similar arguments in the past, using others statements to refute their other statements, but, it actually lends credence to at least part of their mistakes!!
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Brian @4,
They would also be out of business. Hence we will see this kind of nonsense forever…
——
About pi: It’s good to eat but I can’t find anyone who can tell me the exact size of one. My wife wants to know how big a PI pan to buy. Can anyone help?
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One of the fundamental assumptions of the AGW (by whatever name) hypothesis is radiative forcing. Try the following very simple and economic experiment:
1. Shaded desk lamp on
2. White paper illuminated by the desk lamp
3. Mirror situated so that it reflects the light from the paper and not from the desk lamp back to the paper
4. If radiative forcing is correct, you should be able to see a brighter spot on the paper resulting from the reflection from the mirror
Report back what you observe.
Answer the question: Do the observations support the assumption of radiative forcing or falsify it?
Explain your answer.
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Roy Hogue: My wife wants to know how big a PI pan to buy. Can anyone help?
#define Pi 3.14159265358979323846
This is a cut and paste of the define I use for Pi in my 64 bit floating point software. Admittedly, it’s an inexact approximation, but it seems to be close enough. Simulations based upon it make predictions that are well supported by experiment to within standard engineering measurement tolerance.
Warning: I have not used a fractional wavelength interferometer to make the engineering measurements. Hence, my measurements could be off by hundredths of a percent or possibly more. Use with caution and at your own risk. I am not to be held responsible for any consequential damages caused by the use of the defined value.
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Lionell,
I took the shortcut and simply defined PI as acos(-1.0). That’s certainly close enough for government work as they say. Whoever they are???
It won’t help though. I’m afraid the PI-pan store wants an exact size. What is my poor wife to do?
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Roy Hogue: What is my poor wife to do?
Get a richer husband and then she wouldn’t be so poor?
One alternative is to make a double or nothing bet with the PI-pan store. If the store can produce and prove an exact value for PI she will pay twice the asked price for the highest priced PI-pan in the store. If its only an approximation, she gets any PI-pan in the store for free.
Another alternative is for her to say “That one is the one I want. How much does it cost?” and then pay the asking price.
A final alternative is go to a PI bakery and buy a fresh baked PI off the shelf, eat, and enjoy.
But I am an engineer so what do I know about such things? I just make things that work out of stuff I find about me or can afford to buy. Hence, engineering approximations are good enough for me. I don’t sweat the really small stuff. A nanometer more or less doesn’t bother me at all. I can still drive to Starbucks and get a cup of coffee by missing the parking lot entrance by two, even three nanometers.
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Now there you go! The PI bakery — why didn’t I think of that?
Lionell, your sense of humor is as whacky as mine. Have a wonderful 4th of July weekend! And try not to miss the driveways by so much. We don’t want to see you back in the hospital.
Roy
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That ain’t necessarily so.
Anyway Happy Fourth of July the American Independence holiday to
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Roy @39
Roy, you’re making this way too complicated. I have it on high authority and Universal consensus that
πis independent of size so long as the pan is circular. Your wife can stop worrying about how big aπpan to buy and focus on content. 😉10
Pi is an odd one… I remember as a young lad messing around with calculators (yes, we had then back then) and noticing that Pi^3 is very close to 31. In fact, the cube root of 31 is a better approximation than the 22/7 many of us learn in school (at least in the early Pi days).
These days I find the following approximation much easier to remember:
“How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.”
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Tide @46,
I donno! I don’t think we can allow appeal to authority and consensus on this site — against Jo’s rules I think!
Roy
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Brian G,
Please state your information showing what the precip patterns will be for an unknown atmospheric condition postulated by the AGW types based on faulty physics called the Hot Spot.
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Tide @46,
I donno! I don’t think we can use appeal to authority and consensus on this site — against Jo’s rules I think.
Roy
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Well, first it doesn’t show up for quite a while and then I send it again and now it’s there twice.
What gives?
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Hi Kuhn Kat
We know that the “enhanced” greenhouse effect, if it is to be observed at all, is going to be apparent in the tropics (it can’t not, it’s a pretty straightforward relation).
Rainfall is intra-atmospheric heat transfer; again it is petty straightforward to correlate the rainfall, and if the “enhanced greenhouse” effect had any validity, then the heat transfer would have to come out right, and it just ain’t a representation of the world we happen to live in.
That’s ’bout it.
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Jo,
This is another thread in which if I don’t have all the browsing history saved I can’t see past post 47.
Sorry everyone, this has happened once before and now I’ve confirmation that it’s happening again. If anyone else clears out browsing history and then comes back here later and has this same problem please let Jo know.
Roy
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Forgive my testing my theory one more time.
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Lionell Griffith:
Your reflective theory does NOT include rotation to be more accurate.
Second a Nanometer at 1 billion miles is quite a miss.
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Joe Lalonde,
Lionell will want you to be much more specific. Rotation about which axis?
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Bulldust @ 47
Yep, I remember that mnemonic. But it’s a lit easier to hit the Pi button on my HP 11c or go pi() in Excel. 3.1415 is good enough for most applications.
BTW, dug up the Heroic Failures book and I went through it – couldn’t see the Pi story. There wasn’t a sequel was there? Stephen Pile is the author.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Mark D, Christian @ 36 & 37
While we were discussing Pi, I think we might have missed something interesting. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that article you refer to says:
1. We got the radiosonde data.
2. We analysed it
3. The amount of Long Wave (infra red) emissions from the earth haven’t changed.
4. Neither have the IR emissions from the upper atmosphere.
5. The climate models assume otherwise and are therefore precisely wrong.
6. Global Warming is busted.
Nice.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Re Pi
I think it is vital that we obtain some funding to research Pi. In particular we should look at the changes in the value of Pi over time and plot Pi anomalies. During the MWP in the Northern Hemisphere values for Pi were consistent with 22/7. However in the Southern Hemisphere values for Pi approximated to 0. This hemispheric difference needs explaining.
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Just a thought…
Does anyone know whether the depth of the atmosphere changes over time? Is this measured/monitored? This would have relevance to all manner of phenomena associated with climate.
And we would need a very precise measure of Pi to be able to undertake any calculations involved in this 🙂
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Bulldust
Here is a link:
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/mathtext/node18.html
Apparently the guy who was pushing for the bill had a copyright for Pi = 3.000 and was expecting a royalty for his “invention”.
Just goes to show that Money, Politics and Science is not always a happy union.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Grant,
Maybe that’s why the PI-pan store wants to know the exact size. I’ll need about $3 million US to
retire on, oops, do the research.10
Joe Lalonde: July 4th, 2010 at 11:02 am
I did not offer a theory. I described an experiment that is painfully easy to perform. Hence, your comment is without relevance to the point.
The fact is the exact values of the various rotations are totally irrelevant to the demonstration. As long as the various rotations are such that the relative positions are as described. Otherwise, you are not performing the experiment as described and your results will be as irrelevant as your comment. The result of the experiment, properly performed, falsifies radiative forcing and, by extension, falsifies the entire edifice of the perverse fantasy sometimes known as AGW.
In the future, try to follow the content of the post you are attempting to refute. Perhaps you intend to be irrelevant. If so, never mind.
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Grant: @60
I was under the impression that the depth of the atmosphere does change because it is affected by the moon in the same way as the tides and is tidal.
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I’ve seen a lot of people comment on clouds and their feedback effects via albedo. This is where the problem lies and exactly why models can’t replicate their effects:
Clouds form by warm, moist air moving into cooler air. If the warm air isn’t warm enough, clouds won’t form. Conversely, if the cool air isn’t cool enough – no clouds again, but the water vapour is always still there, and will continuously re-radiate its heat outwards to neighbouring molecules, until that heat is now dissipated.
The heat still exists however, until it can be dissipated into the upper atmosphere and into space. The atmosphere simply slows down this dissipation, ergo traps it for a short time as a buffer. Energy always flows to non-energy. There’s ample frigid space out there to radiate all this heat away where it naturally goes.
That’s a static model. Now imagine the reality of a chaotic one like Earth’s, where that heat flow creates turbulence in millions of large and small pertubations. The heat energy still eventually flows outward, but at a slower pace than a static model due to the chaotic pertubations.
I’ve programmed computers in assembler language for some 20 years, but couldn’t possibly know where to even start a project of this magnitude, let alone aim for any level of accuracy.
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Very good Janama @ 64. Just like the ocean tides, the atmosphere will be affected by the Moon’s gravity. Expect a vertically thicker atmosphere when the Moon’s overhead, but by how much, I don’t know. I would assume, however, that seeing water is 680x more dense than air, the tides are a little behind this gravitational pull, and the atmosphere will be first to “high tide”.
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Holy cow Speedy @ 61, when someone proclaims PI=3.00 is when I go into a coniptic fit. One of my high school maths teachers in 1981 said if you don’t know PI, just use 22/7.
I crashed her idea right there when, from memory, I wrote for her on the blackboard:
PI=3.141592654
22/7=3.142857143
I then told her that if the Apollo Program had used 22/7 instead of PI the astronauts would have been either still circling the solar system or splattered on the face of the Moon. Red-faced, she noted:
“Olaf is right, however, for this exercise we’ll allow 22/7 despite its minor inaccuracy”.
Sad day for science when accuracy is dumped for simplicity (CO2 did it).
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Mark D @ 37
So this paper measures no change in the infra-red absorption by the atmosphere over the last 60 years? I thought that was what the global warming scare was all about?
So. We can’t find the hot spot, and we can’t find the increased IR absorption that would cause the hot spot. Game, set and match, methinks.
But the good news is we’re not doomed.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Bulldust @47,
Your approximation for pi is off by over 212 ppm.
You know what sort of catastrophe that sort of thing could cause! 🙂
hmmm pi might be off but I’m feeling peckish.
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With climate science funding the AGW crowd get virtually 100% of the pi. It seems the only pi they will run a mile from is the humble pi but if nature continues to be recalcitrant it may end up being their staple fare.
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The “regulars” to Jo’s blog would most probably have seen the whole interview with John Christy. It’s worth quoting a part of it for the benefit of the AGW tyros who come here and imagine that they can account for everything re climate.
Examiner: You are commonly labeled as a ‘skeptical’ scientist who does not agree with the IPCC consensus regarding human contributions to climate change. How accurate is that, and how would you describe your own beliefs regarding this?
J.C. I am mainly skeptical about those who claim to be so confident in understanding the climate system that they know what it is going to do in the next 100 years. This is my main complaint – overconfidence. We of all professions should be the most humble because there is so much about the climate system that we simply do not know. See my testimony given to the Inter Academy Council in June concerning these ideas – I think you will appreciate it.
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Mark @ 71
Yep – you got it in one! The more you know, the more you know you don’t know! It reminds me of Socrate’s paradox – that his wisdom was limited only by his understanding of his own ignorance.
Some of the AGW crowd think they know everything, when in fact they are too ignorant to know that they know nothing!
Cheers,
Speedy
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Olaf @ 67
We need to keep science as simple as possible, but where we approximate, we need to be honest about it. Just like your teacher should have done. Just like any AGW climate modeller has a responsibility to do…
I’ve got no objections to simplicity in science as long as it spells out it’s limitations. For instance, we can say that Pi = 3.1416 and that is pretty good for most applications. But not, definitely not, as you mention, for running a spacecraft. It’s going to end in tears if you try to. But for most of us, it’s quite OK, as long as we understand it’s limitations.
What annoys me is when people like James Hansen, Al Gore, Michael Mann etc claim an accuracy that is just not there.
What annoys me even more is when those same people claim a certainty when their dodgey data and suspect assumptions give them no entitlement to do so. When they compound this by trying to mislead the public (see Jo’s post) it reaches the realms of criminal!
Cheers,
Speedy
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Lionell Griffith @40,
I was going to answer your experiment yesterday but got sidetracked. I can say without trying the experiment that there will be no brighter spot observed. Otherwise anyone standing in front of their bathroom mirror with a light on over it would see their face lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree.
Falsify it.
In simple terms — there ain’t no such thing as radiative forcing.
I admit I would be at a loss to explain it in terms of physics. But does the nonexistent really need explaining?
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Roy Hogue: But does the nonexistent really need explaining?
Apparently yes because the AGW alarmists insist on the existence of the nonexistent. They have daily experiences, such as you describe that contains within them the proof that radiative forcing does not exist. Yet, they continue to believe in it. They are able to do that by blanking out that it is energy TRANSFER at work and not energy replication.
They, without thinking about it, believe that the energy can be emitted from a surface and still remain at or in that surface. So when the emitted energy returns it adds to the original energy store. In their form of math 2-1 = 2 so obviously 2+1 = 3. Absurd? Yes but that doesn’t bother them. They have lost contact with the fact that contradictions don’t exist.
More specifically, when light is reflected or emitted from a surface, its energy is no longer at the surface. It is loosely analogous (quantum physics fuzzes this picture a bit) to a ping pong ball bouncing between a table and a paddle. If its at the table, its not at the paddle. If its at the paddle, its not at the table. If its in between, its at neither the table nor the paddle. As a consequence, reflected/emitted energy cannot add energy to the the original surface when reflected/emitted back toward it. This is a description of the gross mechanism by which the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics is expressed in this situation.
To you and to me, this is so painfully obvious that we don’t have to think much about it. Its simply the way the real world works. We notice things. We try to understand the things we notice. Then we move on. It is more important to us that our understandings match what is than that what is match our understandings.
For true believers, its a different matter. They are told by their significant others what to think, what to believe, and what to say. To question such things is psychological and intellectual death for them. They would no longer have feelings of belonging. What actually is, is irrelevant from their perspective. That this position is self contradictory is also irrelevant from their perspective. The important thing is that they feel they *belong*.
There is a reason for giving such an explanation as to why something does not exist. There is the wild hope that some few of the true believers still have part of a functional mind left. Just maybe they can finally see their fundamental error. Unfortunately, the evidence that this will happen is just about as sparse as that for radiative forcing. There appears to be a much larger population of people who don’t know what to believe. There is somewhat more hope that they can be induced to understand what all the fuss is about.
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Slight enrichment of my previous discussion:
Reflected energy cannot continuously add energy to its original source.
The math analogy being: 2-1 = 1 to 1+1 = 2 rather than the AGW presumed analogy being: 2-1 = 2 to 2+2 + 3
The reason we don’t see the fluctuation is that each energy packet is very very small and that there are so many of them it all averages out in our eye. Given sufficiently sensitive and fast instrumentation, the so called quantum noise can be measured.
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The title to Sherwood’s Figure 1 should be: “Autumn comes to Sherwood Forest.” The title to JoAnne’s modified picture should be: “Sherwood Forest after the mammoth migration.”
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Oops. That last expression should have been 2+1 = 3
Sunday morning may not be the best time for me to write technical discussions.
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Lionell,
Should you not say that 2 + 1 equals approximately PI?
Your explanation is exquisite. Thanks for putting it such straight forward terms.
Again, have a wonderful 4th of July.
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Janama @ 64
Please indulge me a little longer. I can see that there would be diurnal variations in the depth of the atmosphere due to the moon’s gravity. However, is there any long term change or cycling of depth.
The reason I ask is that the Volume, Pressure, Temperature relationship of gases could be a factor in global temperature trends. Does anyone know if this is measured and taken account of in GCMs?
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Roy Hogue: Should you not say that 2 + 1 equals approximately PI?
In my simple engineering mind I take a pile of two rocks and a pile of one rock and count them and find EXACTLY three rocks rather than PI rocks.
If, as the climate scientists do, you take multiple super computers and run multiple longitudinal time series for both orthogonal and non-orthogonal linear and non-linear partial differential equation simulations there is a finite probability that the result would approximate PI. The RMS of the simulation results demonstrate that my original simple minded finding is to be considered provisional and that IT IS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT. Its actually equal to 3*ln(e).
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Well Lionell I was just about to nominate you for the Nobel prize when I remembered http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/09/light-dawns-there-are-styles-in-science.html
You’d also find any left over foil useful for making yourself a hat.
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Lionell,
That is pretty terrible! I’ll need another $3 million to research the problem. I can probably get a grant from the NAS for it.
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Define sequences of arithmetic and geometric means
set
c(n) = 4a(n)b(n)/[1 – SUM(j=1,n))[2**j+1[a(j)**2 – b(j)**2]]]
let a(0)=1, b(0)=1/sqrt(2)
a(n+1)=(a(n)+b(n))/2, b(n+1)=sqrt(a(n)b(n))
Then lim C(n)=pi and I’ll give one hundred thousand dollars* to anyone who can prove it
*in Saddam money
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Roy Hogue: I’ll need another $3 million to research the problem.
You are not thinking right. If we include the idea we are going to connect the simulation results to the burning of oil and coal by man we should be able to get ten or twenty times that much. Although, we do have to be sure we hide the decline under a pile of hockey sticks and get some university such as Penn State to investigate us.
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Bulldust: #47
The approximation that I use is 355/113.
This gives a value that is accurate to 6 decimal places [it is low by approximately 2.668 *10 ^(-7)]
It is also faster than hunting for the arcane key combination for Pi on my RPN calculator.
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Interesting article from the guardian of all places
Boy these guys are still reeling.
and
Yes, that’s Judith Curry….
I wonder if the Australian reporters who reported about climate gate just being a bunch of nasty emails that were a mere blip on the landscape would like to apologize to the Australian public for their blatantly obvious attempts at misguiding the Australian public?
Of course, no one is asking why the Blogosphere was the medium of choice for exposing and analyze the issue.
Printed media (in Australia) is now only good for lining pet cages now, IMHO.
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Madjak, I couldn’t agree more with your last sentence above. Frankly, if Rupert Murdoch wants 8 hours of my time each week with which to parley into his own revenue then he can sign me onto his payroll for that time and pay my invoices promptly.
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Lionell,
In that case we’ll need an office with room for a large staff along with a PR firm to make sure the public understands that our waste of their money is really in their best interest. Perhaps we can hire Al Gore to do the PR for us. Then we’ll need some oil and coal company endorsements to help get the grants. I would suggest Dr. James Hansen to coordinate all the endorsements since he seems to be so enlightened about their opinions. But he seems to be otherwise occupied. I’m sure we can find a suitable replacement though.
Then there’s the equipment: I would think that a million teravolt e-PI collider would be useful. I’m sure the president can get us one of those. He’s so used to spending money these days. Then we’ll need all sorts of measuring and recording equipment. The IPCC seems so good at measuring and recording. Perhaps they can provide what we need.
And well need security clearances for everyone. This will need to be top secret work. We can’t have any of our massaged data leaking out to spoil things for us. Phil Jones should coordinate that effort.
I’ll start work on this immediately. Let me know if I’ve left anything out.
Roy
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Roy,
*tongue in cheek*
Let’s plant some of our people in the Journal committees, so any dissenting views get crushed instead. We’ll redefine the peer review literature to help with this.
Somehow we need to get into peoples mind that peer review is a robust quality control mechanism rather than just a rubber stamping to make sure we’re not plagiarizing.
You write it and I’ll rubber stamp it. Don’t send me the data though, whenever I count I end up with larger numbers than I should, but don’t worry, I’m sure we can get someone at the CRU to change the data accordingly, but hey, I’m a climate scientist, not a statistician, so who cares?
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MadJak,
Couldn’t hurt a bit! *tongue in cheek* of course! Larger numbers are always better, are they not? So by all means take the data as well!
Roy
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Lionell Griffith:
July 4th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Your very funny!
Without rotation included, there would be no atmosphere and nothing to reflect but the bare planet.
Rotation generate energies you do not fathom yet as it is an extremely complex and highly facinating area.
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Ahhh my memory was not so shabby:
http://everything2.com/title/The+Book+of+Heroic+Failures
Amazing how one remembers such trivia but forgets important things like where you left the keys…
See also:
http://www.inwit.com/inwit/writings/indianapilaw.html
Obviously there was some dispute over the actual approximation, but the important thing was to get Pi patented in order to charge big bucks for it.
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Anyone noticed if CO2 levels have dropped arond the Perth are alately? We have two weeks of sub-5 degress and not a lot of rain. I wonder if its the end of global warming due to water vapour changes or less CO2 in the air? (ha).
I bet the tropics are still quite moderate.
PS. David Archibalds book is a good read. Very layman orientated and compelling due to the number of different sources that might be contributing/influencing climate OTHER than CO2. Well done.
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How do Monbiot and co explain this EU madness. No wonder their economies are falling over a cliff.
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/europes-latest-green-mega-folly-burning-forests-to-save-the-planet-worse-than-coal/
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Joanne,
Are you going to address the issue that the Hot Spot, whether it exists or not, is not a “greenhouse signature” like you say in your handbook? It’s a signature of any warming, be it man-made or otherwise.
Whilst you’re at it. I notice this year is setting new records for temps again. Does this mean your cherry picking claim that there’s no warming since 2001 needs to be updated? Or will you begin to acknowledge that natural decadal fluctuations such as El Nino affect surface temps even though the long term trends continue to show a rise in temperatures?
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luke 82; you link to the rabbit and his perpetual motion contraption based on lightbulbs; this of course is one of the greatest problems with AGW; namely that radiation emitted from the surface can be backradiated from an atmosphere warmed from the surface emitted radiation and warm that surface further ad nauseum; first of all for you:
http://www.vermonttiger.com/content/images/2008/07/25/toaster.jpg
Cook away luke, no more elctricity bills for you!
For the rest of us concerned with facts and laws of physics which Lionel, Roy and Brian have alluded to; a light bulb perfectly insulated with a constant source of energy cannot keep getting hotter; the reason for this is that both energy and heat are driven by a difference in the heat potential; the light bulb would heat to the heat of the source, no more. Consider back radiation, the deus ex machina of AGW; according to K&T backradiation is 323W/m2;
http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/colloquia/080430.htm
If you compare the 2008 K&T cartoon with their 1997 one you find The NET fluxes from the Surface are: from the 1997 version;
a. Direct radiation “through the window” to space is 40W/m^2.
b. Fluxes into the Atmosphere:
(1) Evaporated Water Vapour, 78W/m^2
(2) NET Radiation, 26W/m^2
(3) Conduction, 24W/m^2
[Numbers are from Kiehl &Trenberth, 1997. See IPCC, AR4, WG1, Chapter 1.]”
The 2008 K&T cartoon gives a NET upward radiation flux from the surface of 33w/m2 with a downward adjustment to water vapour to 76w/m2 and conduction to 16w/m2 but the point holds; that point is MORE net heat is leaving the surface through methods other than radiation, particularly water; that to me means 2 things; water is a dominant mover of heat compared to CO2 and the sun’s 168/166 w/m2 is a far more dominant heater than CO2 backradiation.
The point here is that, even if CO2 did send more and more back radiation to the surface [it doesn’t due to operation of Beers law], you would not get more and more heating; the methods of convection based on lapse rates and conduction would prevent that.
Luke, why don’t you send eli a torch; after his work with light bulbs he obviously needs one.
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Double fun; not only luke but Bredon at 96 to cause mischief; great graph Brendon; what about these:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/to:1976/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1976/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:1880/trend
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2702/4503452885_79b5c09c4f_o.jpg
Look at the slopes for trends 4 and 6; similar eh? What caused 4 if AGW caused 6? Now let’s have some fun Brendon; you tell us that 2010 is the hottest year ever so we can all have a good laugh.
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cohenite: July 5th, 2010 at 11:22 am
How is it you think AGW can be attributed to one section of the graph and not the other parts? Why is it you are trying to list one attribute as the cause of temperature changes?
The radiative forcing of the additional CO2 is steady and increasing over the time period that we have been releasing it.
The surface temp fluctuates, but the long term trend is very clearly upwards.
Unlike Nova, I’m not into cherry picking short term dates when studying a long term effect.
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Brendon,
Anyone can find a warming trend if a specific time frame is selected. What is your time frame?
Eg. many of the worlds galciers have been retreating more rapidly starting back in ~1860 and look to have been doing so at the same rate POST 1980. So how come that when the industrialised oil, coal and gas emissions (escalting CO2 levles) has not increased that rate of retreat? The same can be said for a whole range of other influencers of climate -seen it and being doing it long before ( and after ) mans miniscule CO2 contributions.
That aside, what does that warming have to do with CO2 levels anyway? Yes, CO2 is a postive feedback on temperature but its very small and vastly over-shadowed by other effects. Try reading about all the other theories instead of hanging onto one thin thread – taht being CO2 -manmade or otherwise.
In terms of a hot-spot, try looking at the IR image of a thundercloud. It will show you when water evaporates as heat builds over oceans (~70% earth coverage), heat is transferred into clouds (as water vapour). That energy is carried by convection into the upper atmosphere and cooled (space is cold you know). perhapos then it even rains? This is very much the same way a simple evaporative airconditioner works, hence the oceans are kept moderated (ever seen measurements with surface ocean temps ~32C?).
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Some good news from Lawrence Solomon:
“Last week’s G8 and G20 meetings in Toronto and its environs confirmed that the world’s leaders accept the demise of global-warming alarmism.
One year ago, the G8 talked tough about cutting global temperatures by two degrees. In Toronto, they neutered that tough talk, replacing it with a nebulous commitment to do their best on climate change — and not to try to outdo each other. “
The Collapse of Catastrophism
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Brendon; at 99, you say: “How is it you think AGW can be attributed to one section of the graph and not the other parts? Why is it you are trying to list one attribute as the cause of temperature changes?” This is what AGW does; it also says the temp increase during the second 1/2 of the 20thC is exceptional; the links I provided show the temp increase during the 2nd 1/2 of the 20thC are not exceptional; look at trend 2 in the graph below;
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2702/4503452885_79b5c09c4f_o.jpg
CO2 did not increase in any meaningful way until 1910;
http://www.cotf.edu/ete/images/modules/climate/GCcarbon1PICT2.gif
How do you explain the temp increase from 1850 and the temp decreases when CO2 is still increasing? AGW cannot explain elementary discrepancies like this; how do you expect to be taken seriously?
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Ross 95, The dishonesty in this Gossling article is in the way it implies that the major source of wood for biomass is from deforestation rather than sustainable forestry. This is standard green sleaze of the first order. I was the forest owners rep on the Australian Greenhouse Office’s consultative panel on Land use change and forestry. I am appalled by the ignorance of the industry that passes for informed green comment. Leahy should at least be aware that only a small portion of a production forest is harvested each year and in most cases that small portion will only be a partial harvest which removes the bent and suppressed trees so the remainder can continue to develop to maturity. In such cases the volume removed in year 1 will be replaced by growth in the entire forest in less than a year. And it follows that the volume of carbon released by harvesting in year 1 was the same volume that was absorbed by the whole forest the year before. When forests are left alone their growth slows and they quickly become carbon neutral as on-site decay = on-site growth. But by continually removing part of the forest, the remaining trees grow faster and to a size that allows the carbon in them to be placed in secure, stable, off-site storage in houses, fences, poles, books etc. And this end-product wood carbon allows the forest to make a cummulative contribution to long term carbon budgets that far exceeds the on-site storage capacity of the forest itself.
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Macha: July 5th, 2010 at 12:32 pm writes
A preindustrial time from when CO2 emissions is a good place to start.
Do you have a link to where this data can be found? How comprehensive is it and to what accuracy? I would question the value of such a study if only a few glaciers were involved in the study.
If this website http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/glacierlist.html is anything to go by, in 1880 they studied 9 glaciers, in 2009 they studied 88.
In 2009 the number of glaciers in retreat were 81 with 2 advancing and 5 stationary. Compare that to 1980; the number of glaciers in retreat were 26 with 63 advancing and 12 stationary.
I agree glaciers have usually been in retreat, what is alarming now is the acceleration of that retreat especially in response to the last few decades.
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig2-18.htm
The problem is in your expectation that a given level of CO2 should immediately impact a large amount of ice.
The CO2 we emit today will exist in the atmosphere for over 100 years. The full effect of what we have released so far has not yet been fully realised.
The basics? CO2 has a basic radiative forcing property. It traps and re-emits heat.
It may be over-shadowed by other forcings but it is long lasting and slowly increasing.
Climate sensitivity studies show that we will get warmer in response, that the effect of clouds might be negative, but not enough to be effective over a longer term.
So why then does the planet get warmer at all? Surely if the negative feedbacks are overwhelming, why is it that the planet is accumulating heat? Why do surface temps show a long term increase if your cloud theory is taking away all the extra heat?
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Macha @100, and everyone else for that matter. Can we please stop this absolutely moronic interpretation of glacier decline rates as any indicator of climate change. The primary determinant of the rate of advance or decline in a glacier is the slope of the glacier at the altitude/temperature gradient. Lets go back to first principles. Temperature declines by 1C for every 100 metres of altitude. So a glacier with a gentle slope in the melting interface will shrink faster, for any given rise in mean temperature, than one with a steeper slope. The reverse will also apply for any given drop in temperature and when the slope varies within the relevant altitude/temperature interface the speed of change will change in line with that change in slope. And given the fact that glacial slopes vary considerably within themselves and between themselves the very concept of a mean annual rate of glacial advance or decline is “AAA” rated nonsense. But it seems necessary to point out that the slope of a glacier is determined by the tectonic forces that produced the mountain it sits on. End of story.
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For a response, please see 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics.
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Brendon: #104
July 5th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
You say….
And…
I’m a little confused by these statements Brendon, maybe you can clear it up for me.
Are you saying the CO2 molecules we released 30 years ago in 1980 have NOT YET TRAPPED and RERADIATED HEAT?
There was an accelleration of emissions since the 80’s due to the emergence of China and India. In view of your statements, it begs the question…
When will these CO2 molecules start working? What are they doing in the atmosphere NOW? If we haven’t experienced their full effect yet, when will these CO2 molecules start working full time? Where do they hang out in the atmosphere, floating idle?
Also, if the current forcing by CO2 is being “overshadowed” by other forcings, what are these other forcings and what are their values?
At what stage do these other forcings cease to “overshadow” CO2 forcing?
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Brendon at 104 says:
“The CO2 we emit today will exist in the atmosphere for over 100 years. The full effect of what we have released so far has not yet been fully realised.”
This is not true and is another false assumption of the IPCC to support AGW; there are many studies to refute it:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a5e507c9970c-pi
Here is another, recent study not included in the above list:
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/08/atmospheric-residence-time-of-man-made-co2/
But really, calculating the approximate residency time of a molecule of CO2 is pretty straightforward and can be done using ‘official’ IPCC data [sic]. On page 515 of AR4, at Fig 7.3, the annual fluxes of CO2 are listed; the total of these fluxes is 218.2 Gt; of this 8 Gt is from human activity, or 3.67% of the total. The other relevant data is from the US Department of Energy at Table 3, page 26 from here:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304
This shows the total emissions and absorptions; of that 218.2 CO2 flux from fig 7.3 98.5% is reabsorbed leaving about 1.5% of emitted CO2 from all sources to remain at the end of the year. How much of that 1.5% is from human sources can be simply calculated by 1.5/100×3.67/100=0.000552. Put another way, after 1 year 1 CO2 molecule has a 1 in 1811.594203 chance of still being in the atmosphere; in the second year a 1 in 120772.9469 and so on. Like every other aspect of AGW the notion of long residency periods for CO2 is nonsense.
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Grant # 106. I fail to see how the 1st & 2nd laws of thermodynamics apply here. CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) simply absorbs some wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation headed for space, and then re-emit that radiation in all directions – hence the atmosphere stays a little warmer. If you can explain to me why that is in conflict with the laws of thermodynamics, I would be very interested.
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Joe Lalonde: @ 92 speaks of rotation again. rotation of what I am not sure.
Again you are not on point. I was describing a simple experiment that demonstrates radiative forcing does not exist. You popped up with an uninterpretable without context comment about rotation. Here you are again with a similar comment about rotation.
Are you dizzy or something? Is your head spinning? Do you know what you are talking about? I hope so because I sure don’t.
Try making a complete statement with enough context so we can understand what you are saying. Please try to follow the point rather than go of in some wild tangent.
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do you really call this “accumulating heat” when it’s put into a proper scale?
Global temperature from 1979 – 2009
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/temps_scale_2.jpg
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woops – got my quotes arse about 🙂
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John Brookes; this sort of comment [109] really is the problem with the AGW debate; this simplistic, erroneous idea that CO2, to quote you ” simply absorbs some wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation headed for space, and then re-emit that radiation in all directions – hence the atmosphere stays a little warmer” is totally inadequate. CO2 has 3 modes, 2 of which are “infr-red active”;
http://www.ipr.res.in/~othdiag/fir/stability/node15.html
However, both of those wavelengths are dominated by H2O absorption; H20 is responsible for ~ 97% of the greenhouse effect, CO2 comes a distant 2nd; CO2 is further constrained by Local Thermodynamic Equilibriums [LTEs]; in an LTE, which are the mechanism by which convection moves air parcels vertically according to the lapse rate, air, including CO2, within the LTE, cannot emit anywhere because there is no energy/heat gradient within the LTE parcel. Furthermore most energy absorbed by CO2 is transferred by collisional transfer to the mass of the atmosphere and no reemission occurs. AGW is a totally flawed concept.
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John Brookes # 109. This is tricky business, my understanding is that the CO2 molecule will absorb an IR photon, becomes vibrationally excited and then, more often than not this vibrational energy will be ‘extinguished’ through molecular collisions (Brownian motion) before the CO2 molecule is able to re-emit (at least at the temperatures and pressures that dominate in the lower troposphere). Equipartition says that the gas, in this case, the atmosphere isn’t hot enough to “want” to “store” energy in the vibrational state of CO2 molecules, so the absorbed IR should be quickly “thermalised” through molecular collisions, raising the average molecular velocity, meaning “hotter” gas. Hotter gas of course means that the available equipartition states are shifted, but only slightly. I think the troposphere is kinetically hot enough to excite H20 molecules which can then radiate energy away as microwave radiation, I don’t think it’s hot enough to incite CO2 molecules to radiate (re-radiate).
I welcome corrections. I got as far as equipartion when I was looking into radiative transfer.
Cheers!
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@ Cohenite. How’d I do mate?
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MikeW, I just wing it and rely on some numerate aquaintances to get me out of trouble. My antipathy towards AGW is pretty much instinctive. As far as my reading informs me, while the basic idea of radiative process is pretty much understood the scale of the climate defeats extrapolation and effective prediction beyond about 24 hours; people forget that climate is both complex and chaotic.
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You know this ‘re-emits in all directions’ thing bugs me too, although it’s generally moot thanks to collisional transfer. Point being we’re dealing with an upwelling stream of IR photons, photons have momentum, if CO2 re-radiates in all directions, mometum isn’t conserved. Even if that energy is thermalised I think the whole chaotic process has to carry some ‘memory’ of that IR photon’s original momentum – which is up!
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A little OT.
Burt Rutan has updated his Engineer’s Critique of Global Warming ‘Science’
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Thanks Mike W #114. I like your explanation. But you are too honest to be on this site!
Your explanation basically says that the photon of IR radiation that was going into space is caught by a CO2 molecule, which then loses this energy to other molecules nearby, and turned into heat. To which I would add – so the atmosphere gets warmer, and this warmth is radiated equally in all directions. So we basically end up at the same point – CO2 absorbs heat heading for space and re-emits it in all directions.
Cohenite #113, I know that water molecules do most of the greenhouse work, but thanks for pointing it out again. I don’t understand the rest of your argument. You say:
This implies that the energy which was headed for space, but was caught by the CO2 molecule, ends up staying in the atmosphere. I thought that was precisely how the greenhouse effect worked – by trapping in the atmosphere some of the energy which was on its way out to space.
I’m also a bit confused, because quite a few people on this blog are happy to admit that CO2 does cause some temperature increase in the atmosphere.
Anyway, my brain is small, and I’m learning slowly. I know that the next few answers (come on Eddy) will baffle me, and I’ll have to go back to learning a few more things to help me understand better.
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John Brookes at 119, I meant no reemission from the CO2 molecule; despite the intellectual ferocity of the G&T debate I don’t dispute there is a greenhouse effect, although I dislike the name ‘greenhouse’ because it is deliberately misleading. However, CO2’s role in that ‘greenhouse’ effect is small and for all intents and purposes, exhausted at about 100ppm.
In particular, the catching of IR by CO2 is relatively small and most of the emissions leaving the planet are from water vapor and through the ‘window’ which is wavelengths of IR direct from the surface; the size of the window, which is guess-estimated by K&T at 40W/m2, is one of the main sticking points of the debate; Miskolczi, for instance presents a convincing case that it is much larger at 60W/m2; at that size there is no ‘missing’ heat sufficient for a ‘pipeline’ or delayed effect from AGW.
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Brendon (#104) in response to Macha:
“Do you have a link to where this data can be found? How comprehensive is it and to what accuracy? I would question the value of such a study if only a few glaciers were involved in the study.
If this website http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/glacierlist.html is anything to go by, in 1880 they studied 9 glaciers, in 2009 they studied 88.
In 2009 the number of glaciers in retreat were 81 with 2 advancing and 5 stationary. Compare that to 1980; the number of glaciers in retreat were 26 with 63 advancing and 12 stationary.
I agree glaciers have usually been in retreat, what is alarming now is the acceleration of that retreat especially in response to the last few decades.
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig2-18.htm”
Your first link refers to a study of 88 Swiss glaciers – let me spell it out: they are all in Switzerland!
The second link refers to 20 glaciers sourced worldwide. 20!
No one has counted the world’s glaciers, believe it or not, but there are AT LEAST 100,000 of them, at least that’s the number monitored by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. http://nsidc.org/data/g01130.html
Let’s assume for the sake of simplifying your argument that retreating glaciers ARE a sign of warming, let alone warming by man-made CO2 (This is of course not the case!):
The 88 Swiss glaciers may well be retreating, and the 20 hand picked glaciers across the world may well be retreating “at an alarming rate”, but what about the remaining, oh, 99,892 glaciers? What are they doing?
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John Brookes: #119
July 5th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Now why would you make such a silly pointless statement like that?
What have you gained by making that statement?
How has that statement contributed to the debate you’re involved in?
Having made the statement, would you now expect bloggers to engage you in a civil manner?
If this site and it’s bloggers are not honest enough, what the hell are you doing blogging here?
I would strongly suggest a retraction…NOW
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Brendon:
July 5th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Step outside Brendon, do your own observation.
This from ABC News. June 30, 2010
If the temperature in Melbourne fails to hit its forecast maximum today, it will be the first time in 14 years the city has recorded three consecutive days of temperatures below 12 degrees.
Last night Brisbane was coldest at 9:00pm (AEST), when the mercury dropped to below 8 degrees, but experts say it will be even cooler tonight.
Sydney recorded its coldest June morning today since 1949, with temperatures diving to 4.3 degrees just before 6:00am (AEST).
I admit this is weather, not climate, but coupled with the extended freeze in parts of North America and Europe at the start of the year, snow ski slopes open in America at the end of June into July, growing ice in the Antarctic, Arctic ice recovery over recent years, it’s going to be hard for stretch the truth Hanson, “no one will notice our data set doesn’t match observations”, to convince any one this is the hottest year on record
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Bernd Felsche @ 118
Thanks for that , I like Burt`s methodical approach to the problem .
And I know it`s just weather not climate but there`s been a lot of this “localised cold weather” in Hansen`s “Warmest Year Ever”
Snow delays summer season for Lassen Volcanic National Park CA:-
http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/news/ci_15428182
Yeesh ! It`d be like getting snowed out of a National park here in January !
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New chinese paper in GRL.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/04/new-chinese-study-in-grl-disputes-the-hockey-stick-conclusions/#more-21377
Yet another nail in Mann’s hockey stick coffin.
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This is worth a good read!
The Psychology Of Leftism:-
http://jonjayray.tripod.com/psychlef.html
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Thanks Mike W #114. I like your explanation. But you are too honest to be on this site!
Awww shucks, thanks John, don’t take it an authoritative answer though! Actually, I was only able to come to that understanding after asking lots of questions and getting what was at times, a fairly hostile reception from the folks on realclimate.org and physicsforums.com. So I understand that it can be hard to convince others that your intellectual curiosity is genuine. I was able to get what I needed because I was very mindful to pay respects to those whose brains I was attempting to suck dry (hint, hint!).
I started with a skeptical position on AGW and tried to chase the physics as far as I could. I get the impression you’re starting with a position that’s more supportive of AGW, that’s OK, just chase the physics. First year Physical Chemistry textbook and the chapters on spectroscopy helped me a lot.
BUT! (big but!) once you understand a few tiny details of the interactions between photons and molecules, molecules and molecules, you then have to think BIG! What’s the real system ACTUALLY doing? What do observations of the real world tell me about my understanding of how I THINK the tiny pieces work?
It’s unbelievabley complex! Trying to follow the packets of energy around in your head you start to realise it’s not very simple, I wonder if it’s modellable at all? If it’s even worth trying to simulate? I wonder if the simulations have any relevance outside the computers they’re run on?
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Brendon:
Your post at #96 is so typical of AGW cultism that it is a ‘keeper’ for use as illustration. It says;
Joanne,
Firstly, your post is provided from behind the screen of an alias so its author cannot be held to account for its disingenuous and silly assertions.
Then it provides two blatant falsehoods; viz.
1.
“the Hot Spot, whether it exists or not, is not a “greenhouse signature” like you say in your handbook?
2.
“It’s a signature of any warming, be it man-made or otherwise.”
The IPCC and the CCSP each assert that different causes of warming cause different spatial patterns of warming throughout the atmosphere. They each show – from model studies – that the ‘hot spot’ is induced by enhanced concentrations of greenhouse gasesd (i.e. AGW) and NOT by other sources of warming. This ‘hot spot’ consists of warming happening at ~10km altitude in the tropics at 2 to 3 times the warming at the surface in the tropics. So, the IPCC and the CCSP both say the ‘hot spot’ is a “greenhouse signature” as Ms Nova reports in her ‘handbook’, and if you have a dispute with that then you need to take it up with them and not her.
But that elevated warming in the tropics has not happened. This is indicated for the last 50 years by radiosondes mounted on weather balloons and for since 1979 (when the first pertinent satellites were launched) by MSU mounted on satellites. The balloon and satellite data show good agreement. Howewever, you assert that the ‘hot spot’ is a “signature of any warming, be it man-made or otherwise”. If your assertion is right then the absence of the ‘hot spot’ is an indication that there has been no warming from any cause.
So, which is it that you want to assert?
(a) as the IPCC says, the ‘hot spot is a signature of warming from enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations (i.e. AGW) so its absence indicates there has been no global warming caused by enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations for the last 50 years?
or
(b) as you say, the ‘hot spot is a signature of warming from any cause so its absence indicates there has been no global warming from any cause for the last 50 years?
But (a) is included in (b), so in either case you are asserting that there has been NO warming caused by AGW for the last 50 years.
Then, you complete your post with a set of disingenuous questions intended to mislead the gullible and uninformed; viz.
“Whilst you’re at it. I notice this year is setting new records for temps again. Does this mean your cherry picking claim that there’s no warming since 2001 needs to be updated? Or will you begin to acknowledge that natural decadal fluctuations such as El Nino affect surface temps even though the long term trends continue to show a rise in temperatures?”
There has been no statistically significant (at 95 confidence) change to global temperature for the most recent 15 years. This is indicated by the RSS, UAH and HadCRUT3 data sets. The elevated temperature from ENSO over the past few months has not changed that, and the elevation can be expected to reverse as ENSO changes phase in the next few months. In other words, your assertion concerning “long term trends” is blatantly false as an indication of what has been happening during the present century.
Yes, your post at #96 really is a classic of AGW-cult propaganda: it consists entirely of anonymous self-contradictory, illogical falsehoods.
Richard
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Oops! Of course, I intended to write:
“But (a) is included in (b), so in either case you are asserting that there has been NO warming caused by AGW for the last 50 years.”
Sorry.
Richard
[typing corrected] ED
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Not even Phil Jones agrees with him over the last 15 years!
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Phillip #126
That was a good read; the last paragraph is particularly cogent and well worth another run.
“But in all cases, bitter experience has shown that Leftists in power are very dangerous and destructive people. Where their power is effectively unchecked, they generally seem to resort sooner or later to mass murder (as in the case of the French revolutionaries, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Jim Jones and many Communist regimes and movements worldwide) and where they are partially thwarted by strong democratic traditions and institutions, they at least bring about large-scale impoverishment (as in post-independence India and pre-Thatcher Britain). By contrast, conservatives just muddle along with piecemeal reforms that don’t require them to murder anybody. So giving any power to Leftists is a most dangerous thing to do and working to prevent that happening is a matter of no small importance.”
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cohenite: July 5th, 2010 at 1:12 pm writes
No part of AGW says a specific rise in surface temps is solely because of CO2.
Prove me wrong. Show me where the IPCC says this.
Yeah. I know. Natural fluctuations occur over the background of a rising long term warming trend. So what is your point?
CO2 is not the only cause of surface temp changes. The long term warming trend caused by an increasing concentration of GHG is blended with the natural variations of surface temps.
You expect CO2 to overwhelm everything. I’m not sure why you think like this because no climate scientist says as much.
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105Ian Mott: July 5th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
That may be the primary determinant of the rate of decline and it would make comparison of decline rates between different glaciers difficult.
But you can look at the decline rate of a glacier and see how that changes over time. The gradient is not changing so the rate of change in glacier size can be useful to determine what’s happening.
Do this for each individual glacier and you build up a better view of the climatic impact.
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cohenite: July 5th, 2010 at 3:33 pm says
As per the your link …
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Anne-Kit Littler: July 5th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Sure, but I can’t find a site that lists all known glaciers that are being monitored. We can only go off the data which is known.
When there is news about glaciers, it’s usually about how they are melting at an alarming rate. Such as the following:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090129090002.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090622064813.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090807091435.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090923143331.htm
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Bob Malloy: July 5th, 2010 at 7:05 pm says
Yet in Cairns it was mostly warmer than the mean max temp by several degrees.
Not only are you citing weather, you are cherry picking particular local events rather than looking at the global picture.
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Brendon @133,
You want to talk about glaciers, so let’s actually talk about them.
The claim has always been that they’re melting because of global warming. So it would seem to me that any useful discussion of the subject should include a measurement of the actual temperature at the point where these glaciers are “melting”. Even more important, I would expect someone to support the claim with a history of temperature measurements so an actual temperature trend can be established. Then we have something of substance to talk about.
Do you have any such temperature data for even one receding glacier?
I have been fed numerous photos of the glaciers supposedly melting but none of them show any trace of water that I can tell. Perhaps you have some data (photographs or other) that will prove me to simply have an incomplete picture. If so, please present it.
We deal in empirical evidence. Actual measurements are something we can rationally debate. Vague claims of cause without any support are not something we can debate. Simply put, what’s to debate?
There are other possible causes of retreating glaciers. The most obvious one is that weather patterns, changing over time, have simply not dumped enough snow at the source of the glacier to keep it going (remember, ice and snow will simply disappear over time even if kept below freezing). My courses in physical and historical geology tell me that such things have been happening in the past, even before the advent of humans, much less after. The Great Lakes were carved out by glaciers. But where are those glaciers now?
The bottom line is — instead of scaring me, inform me. I can then make a very good determination myself. But with what I have so far, I’m just laughing at the whole affair because the thing is all too likely to be normal and unavoidable. You give me no real information about the subject to tell me otherwise. Effect tells us nothing about cause.
So do you have the actual data to debate or not?
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In Oct., 2007 a paper by Douglass-Christy-Pearson-Singer at http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/Published%20JOC1651.pdf
showed that for >8km. equatorial troposphere, models claimed positive temp trend while data showed a negative trend. Who ya gonna believe?
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[…] topic here. The fruitless effort to find what is not there has led to an egregious effort to try to fudge the visuals to show what is not there. Here is the simplest comparison of what the models require to what the […]
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Brendon @133, You are mistaken, the gradient of a glacier is not constant, just as the gradient of a river is not constant. The landform can plateau, then drop, and plateau again. And if we are trying to interpret the impact of, say, a 0.5C increase in temperature over the past 30 years then the length of glacier between the recent 50 metre contour interval will determine the apparent speed of decline. The Himalayan glaciers are generally found between 6000 and 7000 metres so they cover a full 10C temperature gradient. http://www.himalaya2000.com/himalayan-facts/himalayan-glaciers.html The largest, Siachen, covers 72km with an average of 7.2km within each 100 metre (1.0C) contour interval. The link doesn’t provide detail on altitude variation on the other glaciers but does record their lengths. Most are 60km long and, if they traverse the same 6000 to 7000 metre interval would be likely to appear to decline slower than Siachen because of their steeper slope. But the actual recorded length of decline for any given temperature change will depend on the actual slope of the lower portion within the temperature/altitude interface, not the average slope of the whole thing. What we can be reasonably certain of is that global temps will need to rise by a full 10C before the himalayan glaciers completely disappear.
And as for measuring raw numbers of declining glaciers vs advancing ones, big deal. No-one is contesting the fact that temperatures have increased over recent decades, it is the true extent of the increase and the human induced portion of it that is under question.
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uh-huh
Translation: The picture is more complicated than the alarmism that activist NGO’s foisted on IPCC authors.
So – where’s Judith Curry’s outrage over that?
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Climategate: how a story the media pooh-poohed changed everything
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/climategate_how_a_story_the_media_pooh_poohed_changed_everything/
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I see we have ANOTHER communist troll spitting vacuous and fallacious drivel in the form of this “Brendon”.
Give it up sunshine, you goose is cooked!
http://wallstreetpit.com/32342-co2-negated-as-cause-of-global-warming
Time to call the Pest Exterminators!
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Brendon @ 134 selectively mines a quote from the Essenhigh paper about CO2 residency times which I linked to at comment 108; Brendon’s quote is this:
“(1) a long-term (100 years) adjustment or response time to accommodate imbalance increases in CO2 emissions from all sources”
This is completely out of context and refers to IPCC studies; in fact the Essenhigh paper concludes thus:
“With the short (5−15 year) RT results shown to be in quasi-equilibrium, this then supports the (independently based) conclusion that the long-term (100 year) rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is not from anthropogenic sources but, in accordance with conclusions from other studies, is most likely the outcome of the rising atmospheric temperature, which is due to other natural factors. This further supports the conclusion that global warming is not anthropogenically driven as an outcome of combustion. The economic and political significance of that conclusion will be self-evident.”
Your mind is closed Brendon; I find that kind of misrepresentation typical of the eristic manner of AGW acolytes and their approach to this ‘debate’.
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Brendon @ #135:
“Sure, but I can’t find a site that lists all known glaciers that are being monitored [ …] When there is news about glaciers, it’s usually about how they are melting at an alarming rate.”
Yes, that’s exactly right, you just made my point for me! Could it be because all the other monitored – or non-monitored for that matter – glaciers are doing … lemme think …. Hmmm …. nothing much at all? (some of them may even be growing, for all we know, eh?) If they were, I’m sure the warming brigade would have made sure we knew about it!
At any rate, as Jo states in her Handbook, evidence of warming is not evidence of what caused the warming, so even if ALL the world’s glaciers started melting at “alarming rates” it would say diddly-squat about the cause of that warming!
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NO PROOF THAT HUMANS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR GLOBAL WARMING
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m7d1-Global-warming-Interview-with-John-ChristyModels-sensitivity-the-PNAS-paper-and-more
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Richard S Courtney: July 5th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
That you begin ALL of your posts towards me using an inflammatory tone rather than debating the point says more about you than it does about me. Keep it up!!
It is interesting to read the posts at skepticalscience and note the lack of name calling and personal insults compared to this site.
Wrong. They show a hotspot as would be expected by different forces. The differences between the hotspots is due to the amount of a forcing, not because of the source.
The GHG does not directly cause the hotspot. The GHG causes surface warming which in turn causes the hotspot. It would not matter the source of surface warming in order to create the hotspot since the surface is unaware of the source of warming.
George: June 26th, 2010 at 11:13 am said it well enough back here:
Richard S Courtney: July 5th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Can you direct me to the part of the IPCC document that says the GHG signature is different to any other hotspot for any other reason than the forcing amount. Perhaps they should also be corrected? Oh and be sure to read post 48 at skeptical science’s What-causes-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html page before answering. 😉
Not happened, or not found? A subtle yet important difference.
skepticalscience.com list many papers that show there is much uncertainty about the results.
Santer 2008 may well have found it.
Well it’s either:
A. The warming is not there on the surface in order to cause a hotspot.
B. The hotspot is less than predicted by the models.
C. Our measurements have not been accurate or detailed enough to measure the hotspot.
Given that satellite and land based observations, along with changes to ice caps, glaciers, animal behaviour, the flowering of plants all point to a warmer climate, it’s safe to rule out A.
That leaves B & C. I personally would think it’s a combination of both.
Does either one mean AGW is disproven. Nope, not in the slightest.
Ahh. Back to more insults. Well done again. 😉
Not statistically significant “at 95 confidence”, but warming none-the-less.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/trend
Really? So this graph is upside down is it?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/trend
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Brendon says: “Can you direct me to the part of the IPCC document that says the GHG signature is different to any other hotspot for any other reason than the forcing amount.” That is quite an insidious comment and really confirms from what position Brendon is coming from; that is, a position of being a believer in AGW rather than having an open mind about it; the comment is insidious because of the disclaimer; “for any other reason than the forcing amount”; since a THS is entirely a product of forcing the only differences or similarities would be produced only by differences in the forcing amount. But since Brendon has asked the question about which part of an IPCC document says this; the answer is first, SAR, page 411; secondly, TAR, Fig 1.3; AR4, Fig 9.1, as shown here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Hot-spot-proof.jpg
Brendon continues on with this just ghastly observation; “Santer 2008 may well have found it”; Santer is a thug as the CRU e-mails indicate and a proven truth prestidigitator;
http://www.john-daly.com/sonde.htm
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cohenite: July 6th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
I’ll quite openly confirm I believe the consensus of opinion until evidence is presented that confirms otherwise.
I’m no expert and I’ve certainly learnt a lot from skeptics that bring quite valid concerns to light.
At the moment, the arguments I hear from “skeptics” are well countered by the “warmists”.
For instance, Nova’s comments regarding the 800 year CO2 lag are very shallow and lack any detailed study. She concludes “Amplification is speculation: it’s a theory with no evidence in the real world”, but not once are the numbers crunched or a paper on the topic ever discussed.
Compare that to the likes of skeptical science where they will cite numerous different studies that help support their argument (eg http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Lorius_etal.pdf). It’s a stark contrast.
Nova makes no attempt to support her arguments using scientific studies, but instead makes a number of unfounded statements that might appear, to the novice, like reasonable skeptical comments. Dig just a little deeper and you find the flaw in her arguments time and time again.
Thanks for confirming this. That’s the exact point “warmists” are trying to make.
That isn’t saying it will be different for any other reason than the amount of warming. Did you read http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-causes-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html and especially post 48 with Moderator response like I suggested?
Once again you’re attacking the person rather than the argument!
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Brian Valentine #84 – Calculation of pi.
Eugene Salamin. Mathematics of Computation Vol 30, No 135, July 1976, Pages 565 to 570
You might need to brush up on your elliptic integrals though
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Brendon; do you have any conception of how much a 2% increase in solar activity is? IPCC and your SC spruikers equate a ghg forced THS with such a 2%. From 1983-2001 there was a 0.16W/m2 increase in SW received at the surface; that is about a 0.01% increase in solar radiation, yet that increase is sufficient to have produced ALL warming during that period. Do you realise how asinine, how preposterous that equivalence of 2xCO2 = 2% in insolation is? Yet this is the theory of the THS. There is NO evidence for this; neither the satellites or the balloons show it; only the models and Sherwood’s wind shear.
I have no idea what you mean by an 800 year CO2 lag.
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Phillip @126,
I finally found time to read, “The Psychology Of Leftism,” that you linked. And there I was reading about the President of the United States. It describes my observations of him from the time his campaign began and I first heard of him, right up until now.
We are in deep trouble! It’s not that I didn’t already know this but that the reinforcement of it from a psychologist is so glaringly real. Nothing is quite a shocking as finding out that your own amateur suspicions are confirmed from a time before you ever even heard the name Obama.
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Brendon:
Your post at #147 says to me:
Nonsense!
I began my post at #128 by stating the simple truth; viz.
Indeed, I have copied to use for that purpose.
And my post at #128 spelled out the falsehoods and illogical assertions in your post. Having done that, my post at #128 concluded:
I demonstrated that this is so, and my conclusion is merely a statement of fact, as anybody can check for themselves.
And your response to me at #147 attempts to justify your anonymous, self-contradictory, illogical, falsehoods by presenting three more falsehoods; viz.
1.
You assert that the IPCC does not say the ‘hot spot’ is a function of AGW and not other causes of warming.
Your assertion is a plain falsehood. Either it is a lie or you need to read up on chapter 9 of IPCC AR4.
You suggest that your assertion is based on ignorance and not a deliberate lie by asking me:
Of course I can!
See fig 9.1 on page 675 of IPCC AR4 Chapter 9.
You can read all of the pertinent Chapter at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
And if you want words then these are from IPCC AR4 Chapter 9 on page 674:
(my emphasis: RSC)
2.
And you assert of the ‘hot spot’:
No! Not a “subtle difference” but a damned lie! It has not happened. As my post explained, both the balloon and satellite measurements show it has not happened.
3.
You attempt to deny the fact that there has been no statistically discernible warming at 95% confidence for the last 15 years:
Twaddle! There has been no discernible warming exceopt in your imagination.
Despite your claim that I have insulted you, I have not insulted you in any way (and I doubt that it is possible to do that).
Richard
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Richard S Courtney: July 7th, 2010 at 3:40 am writes
Not it’s not. Hence why I specifically said “be sure to read post 48 at skeptical science’s What-causes-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html page before answering.”
I was hoping to save a bit of time here and let you catch up a bit. 😉
You say this without addressing any of the concerns in the number of papers on the skeptical science site that I mentioned earlier.
Saying something is a falsehood is not the same as demonstrating it.
No I didn’t deny that there was no “statistically” warming. I pointed out that the graph still showed warming, the line goes UPWARDS!
Is it my imagination that the line goes upwards?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/trend
Further to that I pointed out that you, and others here, including Nova, like to cherry pick the short term rather than look at the long term trend.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/trend
You’re right, I’m not easily insulted, but your tactics of resorting to troll/name calling says a lot about your integrity, or lack of.
That’s ok though. I understand your exasperation. Looking at a graph and then trying with all your statistical might to have them go back down, only to fail must be tough.
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Baa Humbug: #126
I retract! It was a puerile attempt at humour. I’m sure most people here, on both sides, are arguing in good faith.
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Brendon: #154
July 7th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Unless somebody will correct me, statistically not significant means (for instance) you can draw 6 graphs with the same data and have 3 of them (visually) going “upwards” and the other 3 (visually) going “downwards”.
John Brookes: #155
July 7th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Thanx John
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With regard to temperature trends, the short term data alone doesn’t support any argument.
The pattern of temperatures for the past few years could just be random noise, or it could start going down again soon, or it could accelerate upwards.
The data only takes on any meaning if one has a reason for believing that there is some underlying mechanism driving it. Say you have data which appears to be trending upwards. Are you seeing a linear trend? Or are you seeing a small part of an exponential trend? Or are you seeing the rising trend of a sinusoidal pattern which will reverse itself eventually? Unless you understand what is driving the trend, you have no idea what you are seeing.
The hotties believe that the data plus their climate models amount to evidence of warming.
Note, I’m not saying the hotties are correct. I’m just saying that the reason frosties and hotties see things differently is because the hotties have a mechanism and model which happen to roughly fit their data. The frosties don’t agree with the mechanism or the model, and so rightly see the data as meaningless.
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Brendon:
At #154 you again present falsehoods. It seems that your masters think this somehow has merit. In this case you purport to quote me when you write:
I did not call you names and it is a simple lie when you assert; “name calling removed”.
Your assertions are daft. I have shown they consist solely of falsehoods and demonstrable errors.
Stop telling lies and go away.
Richard
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John Brookes:
Well summarised at #157. Thank you.
Richard
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I know this is off target but for any Aussie voters out there I highly recommend The Great Renewable Energy Rort
Kathy Russell
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/7-8/the-great-renewable-energy-rort
– solar and wind are inefficient and need subsidisation and the only beneficiaries are the renewable energy companies
I suggest if you agree that you write to the major parties suggesting that the RET legislation be scrapped; probably not worth approaching the Greens
Just a thought; the passing of the legislation was at a time when Turnbull was leader of the Opposition (I think)
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Richard S Courtney: July 7th, 2010 at 8:38 pm writes
True, I guess calling someone a “AGW Cultist” doesn’t qualify. Or does it?
In any case, it does set the tone for the rest of your comments.
So you should have no problem demostrating such.
No there are several things you didn’t address, and if you want some of your own medicine, then in making the above statement you’ve also made a few lies/falsehoods of your own.
Firstly you said that I “deny the fact that there has been no statistically discernible warming at 95% confidence for the last 15 years”.
But I didn’t deny that at all. I’ve just pointed out that the graph still showed warming, the line goes UPWARDS!
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/trend
It may not satisfy the standard 95% confidence you are looking for, but it does show warming.
Another way you could also view this is to say the cooling has not changed with “95% statistical significance” from the previoud 15 years of warming.
The second falsehood you make is to say you’ve addressed the hotspot GHG signature argument. Once again yu says this without addressing any of the concerns in the number of papers on the skeptical science site that I mentioned earlier, nor do you address the What-causes-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html page especially post 48 where your exact argument is well countered.
The other falsehood you make is the claim that you have addressed the “long term” issue.
I pointed out that you, and others here, including Nova, like to cherry pick the short term rather than look at the long term trend.
You have said nothing that disputes this.
Instead what seems to happen is you feel frustrated with someone that can beat your own arguments, then make a remark like this.
Bravo Richard S Courtney.
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AGW cultist a.k.a. Brendan:
At #161 you post two more falsehoods when you write:
Your falsehood can only be
(a) lies to mislead the uninformed,
or
(b) ignorance of the meaning of statistically significant
or
(c) plain stupidity.
Of course, your statements I quote here could be a combination of all three (and I suspect they are).
You asserted to Ms Nova that there has been warming “this year” that disproves there has been no warming since 2001. Your precise wording at #96 was:
And at #128 I showed your assertion is plain wrong when I wrote:
My rebuttal is and was correct. Your assertion is and was wrong.
Your subsequent stupidities and lies do not change that.
Go away. Your comments here are a waste of space.
Richard
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AGW Cultist a.k.a. Brendan:
At #161 you make another falsehood and falsely accuse me of a lie when you write:
I addressed the issue completely. Firstly in my post at #128 and with a complete rebuttal – including link, reference and page number – of your denial of the fact that the IPCC says the ‘hot spot’ is a unique fingeprint of AGW.
The silly excuses in the items you mentioned were completely addressed in my post at #128 before you tried to obfuscate by presenting those items.
The pertinent points in #128 said:
I repeat, your comments here are a waste of space. Go away!
Richard
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RSC
I do believe Phil Jones himself said exactly the same thing:
“No statistically significant warming over the last fifteen years.”
About the only time most here would have agreed with him!
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Richard S Courtney: July 8th, 2010 at 2:55 am writes
Yey, more name calling in the hope of being antagonistic. Spelt my name wrong too. 😉 never mind – I take this as a sign of your frustration at not being able to attack the argument.
Actually the “assertion” was that since we can cherry pick out more warming in recent years, will she update her cherry picked years or will she start to look at the long term trends.
LONG TERM TREND – I write it like this because you AGAIN fail to address this point even though you said earlier that you had. Another one of your “falsehoods”.
I then went on to show that even your cherry picked 15 years shows warming, even though it is not statistically significant to the standard 95%.
You now suggest your following comment address the long term trend.
However you again talk on timeframes of 15 years and then even worse, revert back to months. None of that explains the 100+ years of gradual long term warming in the background of short term natural variation.
Your rebuttal did not address the 100+ years of gradual long term warming.
Your silly insults confirm your lack of dignity.
No. I will be back to continue the argument and point out where you continue to fail.
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Richard S Courtney: July 8th, 2010 at 3:06 am writes
Again you continue the personal attack rather than the argument. This is a reflection of your inability to address the points I have made.
No, you repeated yourself without bothering to address the point I made.
Another falshood. Your post #128 contains no link, reference or page number.
In post #153 you attempt to quote the IPCC, however it seems you purposefully left off the end part of the quote.
You quoted
but if you had added the COMPLETE sentence it ended with
So you are wrong to say that this difference is in regards to the hotspot.
You acted deceptively and omitted the part that proved they were not referring to the hotspot, but instead the whole atmosphere.
Repeat all you like but that does little to further your position, instead it makes you appear incapable of arguing the point.
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Brendan:
At #153 I pointed you to
Clearly, you are incapable of understanding a diagram. Perhaps nursery rhymes are your limit?
Now, I have had enough. You are clearly either an idiot or somebody who is pretending to be an idiot.
Nothing you have presented here (n.b. NOTHING) is correct and I have pointed out all your errors. Anybody can check this for themselves. Only members of your cult would fail to check it and, thus determine, that
(a) you have presented nonsense
and
(b) I have rebutted your nonsense with statements of fact.
I shall not waste my time answering any more of your drivel. Others can – and will – check the facts for themselves, and I am content with that.
Clearly, you will now have the ‘last word’, but that will give me and all others a final laugh.
Richard
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Richard S Courtney: July 8th, 2010 at 6:18 pm writes
Brendon.
If you had bothered to read my posts, or the page http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-causes-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html as I suggested you would not be making such a suggestion.
You have failed to realise that the hotspot in that picture is different because of the amount of warming, rather than the source of the warming.
I guess you are more interested in ignoring the evidence rather than considering the argument. You seem more intent on insults rather than actually reading what I have posted and responding to it politely.
Great. More insults rather than addressing the argument.
Let’s have a look.
1. You’ve yet to address the hotspot and why you think it’s different for a given force. You’ve only pointed out that the atmosphere is different, or that the hotspot will look different when differing amounts of force are applied.
2. You fail to show where I denied the lack of statistical warming in the past 15 years.
3. You’ve yet to address the long term warming trend. Why is that?
No. You’ve repeated some mistakes that you could have avoided if you bothered to read my posts or the links I provided.
Sure. Hopefully they can conduct themselves without the need for name calling and insults.
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Hmmm…
Unusual for galahs to be screeching at this time of day.
Zzzzz….
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Friends:
The troll who hides behind the name of Brendan claims I have insulted him/her/it/them.
For the record, I state that I think my comments towards him were far from being insults. Indeed, when considering the untrue, illogical and plain silly posts he/she/it/they have made here, my responses were so mild that they could be thought to be compliments.
I am content that anybody can check for themselves that
(a) there has been no statistically significant (i.e. at 95% confidence) global warming for the last 15 years according to each of the RSS, UAH and HadCRUT3 data sets,,
and
(b) the ‘hot spot’ is warming at ~10km altitude in the tropics that is 2 to 3 times the warming at the surface in the tropics,
and
(c) the satellite and balloon data each show similar warming at ~10km altitude in the tropics to the warming at the surface in the tropics,
and
(d) the IPCC AR4 asserts that the ‘hot spot’ is an effect of enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations and other causes of global warming induce other spatial patterns of warming throughout the atmosphere,
These facts are simple to check and anybody can do it.
So
1.
if, the IPCC’s assertion (stated at (d)) is correct, then the absence of the ‘hot spot’ indicates that there has been no global warming from enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations (for the last 50 years according to the balloon data and since 1979 according to the satellite data),
but
2.
if, as the troll posting as Brendan asserts, the ‘hot spot’ is induced by global warming from any cause then the absence of the ‘hot spot’ indicates that there has been no global warming from any cause (including enhanced greenhouse gases) for the last 50 years.
So, how does one “insult” a denier of these facts when that denial is merely a proclamation of adherence to the cult of superstitiou belief in AGW?
Richard
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Richard S Courtney: July 8th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
That you purposefully and continually misspell my name is once more a reflection of your lack of integrity.
And the Troll word is back. Ooooh I am so intimidated!!!
None-the-less I do enjoy pointing out how desperate you’ve become resorting to such tactics.
You said I denied this, but I did not.
I showed that the graphs show warming and I specifically said it was not statistically significant at the 95% level.
I also went on to show that there is a long term warming trend.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Picture-381.png
Something you are incapable of acknowledging, let alone trying to argue against it.
One would remind you that you forgot to respond to my previous comments in post 147.
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Brendon:
I refer you and the two others who seemed to like your post at #171 to my post at #323 in the thread at
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/the-unskeptical-guide-to-the-skeptics-handbook/
I do not recall if I mentioned Sherwood’s paper or not and I cannot be bothered to check. So I will say (repeat or add?) that the paper by Sherwood does not “find” the ‘hot spot’. It pretends to do two things; i.e.
1.
It claims that the completely independent satelite and radiosond data (that show very good agreement) may have sufficiently large errors to just about make it possible that the ‘hot spot’ may exist.
(This claim is statistically dubious to put it politely).
2.
It analyses wind shear data in a manner that purports to deduce temperature data which also has sufficiently large errors to just about make it possible that the ‘hot spot’ may exist.
(This claim is risible).
Wind measurements are a better indicator of temperature than calibrated temperature sensors? The suggestion is laughable. Indeed, only members of the cult of AGW would not laugh.
Richard
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PS to my above post, Santer was responsible for the ‘Chapter 8’ scandal. Is anybody really so gullible as to trust anything he was involved in writing?
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