Thermometer circa 1790
UPDATED: Post note below, with a couple of extra caveats…
Lüdecke, Hempelmann, and Weiss found that the temperature variation can be explained with six superimposed natural cycles. With only six cycles they can closely recreate the 240 year central European thermometer record. There is little “non-cyclical” signal left, suggesting that CO2 might have a minor or insignificant effect.
The three German scientists used Fourier analysis to pick out the dominant cycles of one of the longest temperature records we have. The Central European temperature is an average of records from Prague, Vienna, Hohenpeissenberg, Kremsmünster, Paris, and Munich.
The dominant cycle appears to be about 250 years. There is also a cycle of about 60 years, corresponding to the Atlantic/Pacific decadal oscillations.
Data is of course, always the biggest problem. If we had 10,000 years of high quality global records, we could solve “the climate” within months. Instead, we have short records, and Lüdecke et al, make the most of what we have. The European records are only 240 years long, or (darn) one dominant cycle, and only one region, so to check that the results are valid over longer periods they also analyze a the 2000 year Spannagel Cave stalagmites proxy, where the dominant cycle of roughly 250 years is confirmed. To show that the results apply to other parts of the world, they look at the German Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI), Antarctica series.
Ominously, the temperatures of the dominant cycle (in Europe at least) peaked circa 2000 and if the six-driving-cycles do represent the climate then things are going to get cooler, quickly. Wait and see…
Fourier analysis can’t tell us what causes the cycles, but it can tell us the likely frequency, amplitude and phase of those cycles* (see the post note). If these are accurate, it can be used to rule out significant effects from man-made forces and ultimately to predict what will happen next.
— Jo
Image: Celcius thermometer made by Pierre Casati, Lyon circa 1790. Source Historical Climatology
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Periodic climate oscillations
Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, EIKE, Jena, Germany
Alexander Hempelmann, Hamburg Observatory, Hamburg, Germany
Carl Otto Weiss, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig, Germany
In a recent paper [1] we Fourier-analyzed Central-European temperature records dating back to 1780. Contrary to expectations the Fourier spectra consist of spectral lines only, indicating that the climate is dominated by periodic processes (Fig. 1 left). Nonperiodic processes appear absent or at least weak. In order to test for nonperiodic processes, the 6 strongest Fourier components were used to reconstruct a temperature history.
Fig. 1: Left panel: DFT of the average from 6 central European instrumental time series. Right panel: same for an interpolated time series of a stalagmite from the Austrian Alps.
Fig 2: 15 year running average from 6 central European instrumental time series (black). Reconstruction with the 6 strongest Fourier components (red).
Figure 2 shows the reconstruction together with the Central-European temperature record smoothed over 15 years (boxcar). The remarkable agreement suggests the absence of any warming due to CO2 (which would be nonperiodic) or other nonperiodic phenomena related to human population growth or industrial activity.
For clarity we note that the reconstruction is not to be confused with a parameter fit. All Fourier components are fixed by the Fourier transform in amplitude and phase, so that the reconstruction involves no free (fitted) parameters.
However one has to caution for artefacts. An obvious one is the limited length of the records. The dominant 250 year period peak in the spectrum results from only one period in the data. This is clearly insufficient to prove periodic dynamics. Therefore, longer temperature records have to be analyzed. We chose the temperature history derived from a stalagmite in the Austrian Spannagel cave, which extends back by 2000 years. The spectrum (Fig. 1 right) shows the 250 year peak in question. The wavelet analysis (Fig. 3) indicates that this periodicity is THE dominant one in the climate history. We ascertained also that a minimum of this 250 year cycle coincides with the 1880 minimum of the central European temperature record.
Fig 3: Wavelet analysis of the stalagmite time series.
Thus the overall temperature development since 1780 is part of periodic temperature dynamics prevailing already for 2000 years. This applies in particular to the temperature rise since 1880, which is officially claimed as proof of global warming due to CO2, but clearly results from the 250 year cycle. The 250 year cycle was driving the temperature drop from 1800 to 1880 (see Fig. 4), which in all official statements is tacitly swept under the carpet. This same general fall and rise shows in the high quality Antarctic ice core record in comparison with the central-european temperature records (Fig. 4, blue curve).
Fig 4: Central European instrumental temperatures averaged the records of Prague, Vienna, Hohenpeissenberg, Kremsmünster, Paris, and Munich (black). Antarctic ice core record (blue).
As a note of caution we mention that a small influence of CO2 could have escaped this analysis. Such small influence could have been incorporated into the 250 year cycle by the Fourier transform, influencing slightly its frequency and phase. However since the period of substantial industrial CO2 emission is the one after 1950, the latter is only 20% of the central European temperature record length and can therefore only weakly influence the parameters of the 250 year cycle.
An interesting feature reveals itself on closer examination of the stalagmite spectrum (Fig.1 right). The lines with a frequency ratio of 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.25 are prominent with respect to the 250 year periodicity. This is precisely the signature spectrum of a period-doubling route to chaos [2]. Indeed, the wavelet diagram (Fig. 3) indicates a first period-doubling from 125 to 250 years around 1200 AD. The conclusion is that the climate, presently dominated by the 250 year cycle, is close to the point at which it will become nonperiodic, i.e. “chaotic”. We have in the meantime more clearly ascertained the period-doubling and in more detail.
In summary, we trace back the temperature history of the last centuries to periodic (and thus “natural”) processes. This applies in particular to the temperature rise since 1880 which is officially claimed as proof of anthroprogenic global warming. The dominant period of 250 years is presently at its maximum, as is the 65 year period (the well-known Atlantic/Pacific decadal oscillations).
Cooling as indicated in Fig. 2 can therefore be predicted for the near future, in complete agreement with the lack of temperature increase over the last 15 years. The future temperatures can be predicted to continue to decrease, based on the Fourier components. Finally we note that our analysis is compatible with the analysis of Harde who reports a CO2 climate sensitivity of 0.4 K per CO2 doubling by model calculations [3].
Finally we note that our analysis is seamlessly compatible with the analysis of P. Frank in which the Atlantic/Pacific decadal oscillations are eliminated from the world temperature and the increase of the remaining slope after 1950 is ascribed to anthropogenic warming, resulting in a 0.4 deg temperature increase per CO2 doubling. The slope increase after 1950, turns out in our analysis as simply the shape of the 250 year sine wave. A comparable small climate sensitivity is also found by the model calculations [3] .
POST NOTE: April 3, 2014 Don’t read too much into the cycle lengths or the predictions. Thanks to Filius for reminding me to look at the use of the DFT here. I found out a couple of months after posting this that the DFT assumes all the cycles fit perfectly into the chosen end points (a gobsmacking assumption really), so readers should be aware that the cycle lengths are entirely speculative. If we used different end points, the six cycles would still be there, but they’d be different lengths. There are good reasons I have not cited this paper as demonstrating anything in particular, except that natural cycles could possibly explain the current patterns. I still think it is a paper worth discussing. I was not aware of the depth of the European historical data. I do believe we’ll find some natural cycles that are meaningful that we are currently unaware of. The search needs to start somewhere.
*Theoretically true for a proper fourier analysis, not for DFT. Also with the caveat that even the proper fourier analysis will find the cycles that best fit the data but that does not guarantee they are the causal cycles.
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REFERENCES
[1] H.-J. Lüdecke, A. Hempelmann, and C.O. Weiss. (2013) Multi-periodic climate dynamics: spectral analysis of long-term instrumental and proxy temperature records, Clim. Past, 9, p 447-452. [PDF] doi:10.5194/cp-9-447-2013,
[2] M.J. Feigenbaum (1983) Universal behavior in nonlinear systems, Physica D, 7, p 16-39
[3] H. Harde (2011) How much CO2 really contributes to global warming? Spectroscopic studies and modelling of the influence of H2O, CO2 and CH4 on our climate, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 13, EGU2011-4505-1. [PDF]
Correction: I had written “Vostok” in the introduction. That was wrong, it’s German Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI).
Good grief! Is this the anti model to the alarmists modeling?
Who would have thought you could examine actual real data with a well known mathematical tool that has been around more than 100 years find something useful?
A new wind is indeed blowing.
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Not so fast. Sure the temperature might correlate with the composite of various oscillations but correlation isn’t proof of cause. Until the physical processes by which each of these oscillations influence temperature are described this paper amounts to nothing more than a description of an interesting curiousity.
I’m not a warmist and I think they might be onto something here, but what’s described seems a long way from solid proof and a lot more work needs to be done.
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you should read down further. your comment is oft repeated.
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Yes, tell it to Trenberth on his deep ocean heat would you?
TELL HIM LOUD!
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Yes but that’s a bit beside the point isn’t it? They don’t have to prove what’s caused all the cyclic influences, they’re proving how low the influence is of the non-cyclic linear anthropogenic climate forcing.
Tip of the hat to Bruce of Newcastle who tipped me off to the modelling work of Dan Pangburn who has reputedly gotten close temperature prediction results and has more recently highlighted the growing gap between IPCC CO2 forcing and actual temperatures.
Mention must also be made of Nicola Scafetta who also created a cyclic model two years ago similar to this Lüdecke et al. Again, without needing to explain the cause of every cyclic component that falls out of the analysis, his model was able to hindcast the 5-year running mean of global averaged temperature from 1850 to 1950 when trained only on temperature data taken from 1950 to 2000. There is surely no better illustration that our climate is still operating on natural cycles, with the man-made remainder being very small.
As for what’s causing it all, well the solar magnetosphere, the PDO, and the effect of Jupiter’s position on the angular momentum of the sun are all suspects, and yes we can’t really make long range forecasts until they are well quantified. We can let ourselves off the hook in the meantime.
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A similar decomposition of data given tacit support to AGW was done by Parker et al in 2007.
Parker found 3 cycles and concluded that:
Parker’s variations were all found to be alligned with SSTs but erroneously concluded that AGW played a part in the modern SST trend; this idea has been profoundly contradicted by the complete absence of any correlation between SST and CO2 increase since 2003.
This paper, would in a legitimate scientific environment, put paid to AGW but with AGW where reality is determined by model scenarios not actual data that is not happening.
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I think we need to get these scientist some more stalagmites to examine so the can show this 250 year pattern going on back much longer than the last 2000 years. If they can find it going on for many more thousands of years the “true believers” may get worried that even more people may stop believing their green religious beliefs that their so busy imposing on the rest of us. Have what ever religious beliefs you like, please do really but please don’t go around both imposing it others and please don’t force it on us thought laws like the Carbon Tax on everyone please. There should be no belief based taxation for the ones of us who don’t share such a belief now should there ? Hey just a crazy idea but if the greens have a political party than why shouldn’t the Skeptics have a political party too. MP Joanne Nova any one. Election just around the corner now isn’t. Sorry Joanne if your not interested in sinking to the level of a politician. What was I think. Your much to good a person for that, my apology for suggest such thing.
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As an MP or the PM I’m quite sure Jo could not possibly do a worse job than what you have now. On the other hand, in her shoes I wouldn’t take on that ulcer for anything.
Just an aside: it isn’t necessary to sink below honesty and integrity to enter politics. I have a county supervisor for my district who proves the point. And though we disagree on some issues I know I can trust her to be honest and fiscally responsible because she has proven it over and over. She will not sell her principles to anyone and has also proven that in a failed bid for a seat in Congress.
So Jo, keep up the good work whether out of or inside of politics. 🙂
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The biggest problem in politics is those who are most qualified to do the job don’t want it. So we get Obama and Oz gets Julia.
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Robert,
I think you’re right. The problem as I see it is that the right people aren’t willing to lie left and right to get elected. People have always tended to want to hear what they want to hear.
The problem tends to be self correcting because as things get worse, a good dose of reality sets in and people start listening to the honest voices. Let us hope the budding trend in that direction will continue.
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Juliar
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I know but I didn’t want to upset the trolls too much, you know how sensitive they are.
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Over the years, I have done a fair amount of work for various politicians (or rather their support staffs), and practically all of them have integrity and are honest and hard working. The problem is that very few of them have professional expertise in their portfolio, or shadow portfolio if they are in opposition. Instead they are reliant on the bureaucrats who are responsible for implementing the party policy, (sometimes under duress, although you would never guess), and who brief and advise the politicians on a regular basis.
Most politicians accept the advice that is given, but occasionally they will seek an alternate opinion from “independent researchers”, to verify what they have been told. Problems arise when the “independent researcher” refuses to toe the bureaucratic line, and produces counter or contradictory evidence. There is a saying, “A man with one watch knows the time, a man with two watches is never sure”.
The normal reaction of the bureaucrat is to try and discredit the independent research by using the same techniques that we often see here. “Does not hold the appropriate qualifications to comment”, often appears in the conversation. “Has not published papers in the peer reviewed literature”, is definitely a favorite. And the worst insult: “Is only motivated by mercenary ideals”. Gosh, how that one hurts.
Now it might strike you as odd, that what I have just described is very similar to the way that the trolls behave on this site. That tells me three things: 1. Jo is doing a lot of things right because they feel the need to counter attack; 2. A lot of the trolls who come to visit are either bureaucrats or academics who have a lot to loose, should the global warming scam be publicly seen for what it is; and 3. They are relying almost entirely on the politicians not wanting to admit that they have been “ill-advised” for all this time, so they need to strongly suppress any form of counter argument to “the consensus”.
May we all live in interesting times.
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It is in interesting perception that you have that where there are two opinions the opinion of the independent research is generally correct and the beureaucrats are generally incorrect and the bureaucrats have to use undesirable means to discredit the independant research. Because I can assure you that if you get a third watch you are as likely to get three different times as you are to get two independent ones that say the same time as each other but are different to the 1st watch.
I can honestly say, btw, that I have nothing to loose if AGW turns out to be a scam.
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note I inadvertantly copied your loose, but not to poke fun at the typo.
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Mattb, the hypocrite – under coal fired lights he types is nonsensical theories on polymer (made of petroleum) and connecting to circuit boards made of gold, lithium, silver, copper and aluminium. Of course, its OK fro Mattb becuase he can consume, but others cannot……………………well at least that’s what you think [snip]
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Mattb says …
What great luck for you that you are not living in the third world where the AGW Scam is starving people to death. I just suppose that given your blasé comment, that those people are beneath your notice and beyond the boundaries of your concerns.
That’s right MattB – you have nothing to lose (?assumption much…) – however the poor will continue to lose their lives.
Yours sincerely, ExWarmist
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My comment is clearly made in the context of Rereke’s comment:
“2. A lot of the trolls who come to visit are either bureaucrats or academics who have a lot to loose, should the global warming scam be publicly seen for what it is;”
In the context you weant Ex-warmist well we all have a lot to loose if it is a scam, and we all have a lot to loose if it is not.
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Rereko, I’ve often wondered about this and your post seems to suggest what I have long suspected, that the state sector is an intensely political animal. It may be a tad idealistic but for me the the state sector should be apolitical. Democracy is badly served by unelected political crusaders subverting the will of government and by extension, the people. I can imagine that pollies love to get advice that suits their purpose but ideally it should be dispassionate. I’d hate to think that a government minister was being deceived and manipulated in a way they don’t fully comprehend. I also wonder if governments employ “sleepers” in important positions who serve them both in government and in opposition.
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Matt,
I don’t want anybody to misunderstand what I meant. I did not mean to imply that, “… the opinion of the independent research is generally correct and the bureaucrats are generally incorrect …”. In truth, the bureaucrats tend to follow the consensus. But since they all do that, the consensus is defined by the majority of opinion, it is an organic thing.
And once a consensus has been reached, it takes on a life of its own, and it occasionally needs somebody independent to point out that there are other alternatives, that the Minister or Member might like to consider.
Of course, that is rocking the boat, which is one reason why I don’t receive many Christmas cards.
Ceetee,
I do not believe that any Public Services in the British Parliamentary tradition are politicised in any organised sense. But it might be fair to surmise that the distribution of political philosophy, of those people attracted to the Public Service, would be skewed to the left of centre because they have a strong sense of “community.” I have also observed that the people who get promoted, often tend to share the political philosophies of those on the selection panel. But you shouldn’t read anything into that. It happens in big corporations as well. People feel more comfortable with people like thamselves.
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So, Rereke, why are we so excited by this latest piece of modelling?
It’s based on all of 6 temperature records, all in Europe.
On top of that, it seems to be (yet another) model that removes the trend in order to conclude there is no trend.
Is there some reason for you lack of scepticism for this one?
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Just point us to all the other long temperature records, right… There aren’t any apart from the English one (which is included in Lundqvist 2012, Graph A, “Documentary” which also shows the 250 year cycle).
Ludecke aren’t doing modeling. Correlation does not mean there is causation, but “Climate modelers” thought a correlation over one rising line from 1979 – 1999 that didn’t match any turning points was “overwhelming” evidence, what Ludecke et al did has more scientific basis than that.
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The correlation between CO2 rise and temperature rise was predicted by physics, and is now observed. *That* is a “scientific basis”.
Ludecke has turned a bunch of real-world data into an algorithm (something known as “modelling”) and then invented 6 “cycles” that fit the result. There is no basis in physical reality for his “cycles”.
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You need to retake a few basic logic courses. The reasoning in AGW is that 1) CO2 strongly influences global temperatures, and 2) increases in CO2 will cause increases global mean temperatures. To then however turn and say “lo, the temperature has increased, therefore we are right!” is to commit an affirmation of the consequent logical error. It does not offer a scientific basis. Physics per se does not “predict” anything about global warming. The prediction is true if an only if the physical properties and responses proposed by climatologists and used to drive the models are properly understood, properly linked, properly signed, and properly weighted. If any one or all of these factors is misconstructed, the correlation is best considered as conincidence. Mere secular variation.
At present the available evidence is that the planet has been warming since the depth of the LIA, ca. 200 to 115 years ago depending upon your source. It has continued to do so since human-releases of CO2 have become measurably significant(if they have), ca. 60 years ago. Despite the best efforts of many very serious people there is no indication in the data that there has been any non-random uptick or unprecedentedly sharp uptick in warming that differentiates the latter 60 years from the prior 140. In fact for roughly a quarter of that 60 year span, there has been no consequential warming at all.
The only certainty we can claim is that there are multiple hypotheses of how the physics of climate operate and that no uncontestable theory of climate has as yet emerged.
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Margot,
I am sorry for my delayed response. I didn’t see your question at the time.
Fourier Analysis is not a model, in the sense that models try to emulate the behaviour of some object or some phenomena. It is simply a well proven mathematical technique for extracting underlying cyclic signals from the overall noise.
Fourier Analysis will result in a number (sometimes a large number) of sine functions plus a constant value. Each sine function has its own frequency – the number of times the cycle occurs in a specific time period, and this can also be expressed in terms of wave-length — the time required for each cycle of the sine function to complete. Wavelength is the reciprocal of frequency.
Each frequency interacts other frequencies. Sometimes the frequencies are in phase with each other, so the amplitudes are additive, and sometimes the frequencies are out of phase, in which case they are subtractive. Combined frequencies also interact with other combinations of frequencies in the same additive and subtractive way. If you tune an old AM radio to a space between stations, you get a hiss which is the sound of lots of weak radio frequencies interacting with each other.
The adding and subtracting of different frequencies also occurs on a cyclic basis, that is a mathematical function of all of the contributory frequencies, so there are periods when the amplitudes of a large number of frequencies become “positive” together, and other periods where the amplitudes of the frequencies become “negative” together, and some periods where they cancel each other out. This is sometimes referred to as “amplitude trending” and is visible in all cyclic phenomena, including the weather, the most obvious being changes in the seasons. (Note: I am not discussing causes, I am only describing the mathematical treatment of the outcomes.)
When we are looking at climate, overall, we see what appears to be random noise. What this study has done is to demonstrate that it is possible to apply Fourier analysis to that noise, and thereby show that it is not random. Furthermore, it implies that the cooling trend of the sixties and seventies, and the warming trend of the eighties and nineties, may have been significantly influenced by amplitude trending, and thus the accumulative results of natural cycles.
This is not to say that anthropogenic activities will not “add more noise to the existing noise” , but it does demonstrate that the vast majority of climate change is natural, at least within the area of study, and is amenable to mathematical analysis.
So this means that any hypothesis that seeks to demonstrate that the cause of global climate change is due to anthropogenic influences, must now exclude that particular area of study, by demonstrating why it is an anomaly.
And that is why I am excited by this approach. It gives us some insights into how anthropogenic climate change can be proven, or disproven, in an empirical way.
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Yes, Rereke, but the point is that Ludecke wasn’t looking for a specific cyclic signal, he simply extracted some made-up “cycles” that fit the specific set of data he was working on.
He would have had a hell of a lot more credibility if he had first identified the cycles he was looking for, then used his analysis to establish them in fact.
I’d say the fact he had to use 6 made-up cyclical signals to represent the data he had is a strong indication that his resulting model is *way* out on the fringe of representing reality.
And a very, very, simple test would be for him to run the model forwards and backwards 250 years each. It’s pretty obvious that if his model fits his slice of data, but fails entirely to forecast or hindcast credibly, then the entire exercise has not been useful, surely?
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Ludecke did “run” the 250 year cycle on longer timeframes. You didn’t read the post much did you?
Climate modelers would have “a hell of a lot more credibility” if they could verify their models with observations wouldn’t they? Unlike Ludeckes work, which might be wrong, we know the modelers are wrong. Their models are disproven. – Jo
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Interesting comment Margot. So then, you admit that the climate models may be discarded, since they have all now been falsified by actual temperature data.
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I thought I had given a pretty clear explanation, but obviously not.
So, I will emphasise: we are not discussing a model. We are discussing a mathematical procedure, that just happens to be computerised in order to handle the large number of calculations required. Models make decisions. The procedure we are discussing does not.
You cannot choose which frequencies you want to select in a Fourier analysis, nor can you “extract some made-up “cycles” to fit a predetermined point of view. You apply the math (if you are doing it manually) or you run a standard computer function (in the modern world), and the frequencies emerge from the input data — in this case a series of temperature readings over a reasonable length of time. From one perspective, you could say that the frequencies choose you. You certainly get surprises, sometimes.
In any set of frequencies, (with the exception of white or pink noise, which are human artefacts) one frequency will be dominant in that it has the highest amplitude. The analysis will find that frequency, and then go on to find the next dominant frequency, et cetera, until the amplitude gets to the point where it can be considered to have no frequency at all. This is the constant value. That is the way it works, and it is a mechanical process that could be done on a whiteboard by an army of students living on pizza.
The only way it might be “fiddled” (which is what you seem to be implying), is to do the analysis, and then change the source data to “enhance” the amplitude of some frequencies over others. But I am not even sure if that would be possible, because of the complex harmonic relationships that exist in the real world.
No, the frequencies they have discovered, are the ones that exist in nature.
They now need to establish what resonates in the natural world at each of those frequencies. The amplitude of each frequency will be relative to the influence that particular source had, on the original temperature readings.
I hope I have managed to explain it clearly enough this time.
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One final thought, because this is not a model, but an analysis of real measurements in the real world, the concept of backcasting is meaningless and irrelevant.
Backcasting is simply a way of establishing a degree of confidence in a particular model. Because the Fourier Analysis is a mathematical process, using empirical measurements, we already have that confidence.
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As I stated here, Fourier analysis of a period of observations is descriptive only – without an understanding of the physical processes producing the data, and how they change, there is no predictive power in that description. None of the physics of global temperature are contained in a simple spectral decomposition/approximation.
Add to that the limited dataset used (central Europe, as opposed to the rather different global tempertures), and they are only describing regional data – not global.
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Maggot says:
Really the most profound example of the state of “science” today: Don’t go looking for anything unless you’ve already found it.
Funny if it weren’t so serious.
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KR says:
The obvious stupidity in this statement is that the authors of the paper demonstrate (or attempt to) sensing of something based on real empirical data subjected to known and respected methods ie “decomposition” . This apparently offends KR because he’d rather accept models and theory over observation.
Limited? KR explain the difference between quality and quantity please? Then offer any other comparable quality datasets from any other regions that could be added to and expand this analysis.
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Interesting that you first claim that politicans have integrity and want anyone to believe anything you have too say. Where have you been the past decade? With what is and is not getting done in Washington I have to wonder if anyone of the politicans have any ethics. A few weeks ago they vote unanimously that it become perfectly legal for them to use “insider trading” while the rest of us would go to jail. In the mean time all other bills get the backside shake. At the start f the year a Presidental executive order raises the pay of upper level federal government employees as the rest of the federal government has pay freezes and the sequester thingy hanging over taxpayers as well. Where is the integrity that you are claiming? I don’t believe a word you say.
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John,
I did make the point that my comment only related to governments in the Westminister tradition – Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc. where my input has merely been part of the checks and balances that are invoked from time to time, to keep the bureaucrats honest. In no way does my comment relate to the US.
In the US, it costs a great deal of money to run for political office. That money must come from donations. Each donor will, quite rightly, invest in the prospective politician that they believe will provide the best environment within which they can fulfil their personal ambitions.
Hence the expression, “America has the best politicians that money can buy.”
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There was quite large study done on some caves at Womma SA (cant find reference sorry) and it focussed on using the stalagmite ring records to assess rainfall patterns through history. Some very interesting data from that, which suggest SA has had droughts lasting over 1000 years. It just highlighted really how little we know about what is “normal” or “average” in Australia’s climate.
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I’d heard about 30year drought periods before but not 1000. interesting!
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…and find something useful.
I do need more coffee. 😉
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Similar post over at Wattsupwiththat. A group of Russians (Viktor Ermakov, Viktor Okhlopkov and Yuri Stozhkov) used the same analysis some years ago and linked the temperature via planetary albedo ( as I recall) and the fluctuating arrival of zodiacal dust in turn actuated by the suns activity and planetary interacions from Jupiter and Saturn ( or Neptune?).
As an engineer who works with the reality of vibrations, sea state and tides, the use of Fourier analysis is about as out there as a screwdriver in a toolbox.
The notion that you would NOT use Fourier analysis regarding a system to do with a spinning planet with an orbiting moon, orbiting a star in company with a bunch of other planets all with different orbit radii, periods and mass , the star having an well understood and measured cycles in its behaviour, the planet having a whole bunch of internal cycles in its oceans and atmosphere etc etc IS SO EFFING DUMB and BIZARRE that I simply cannot comprehend it.
To cap off, these intellectual pop guns of climate “science” deliver us hockey sticks, hide the decline and … and LEWANDOWSKY!!! and wonder why there are skeptics out here in reality land.
I just love the irony that the Russians will be the ones to help pop the balloon on this. Finally, all that investment in useful idiots in the West paying a dividend! Who’d a thunk it? As an old KGB boy, Putin will be strutting his stuff and laughing his little titties off.
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Premier Putin is a seriously serious gentleman, and I have never heard a report of him laughing. Although I understand that he did smile once — a frightening experience, by all accounts.
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The many faces of Mr Putin.
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This is a potentially useful paper. If nothing else it opens the door for replication. I’ll await the assessment of statistical folks before assuming too much. If it is a valid analysis it should at least poke another hole in the warmest bubble, and inject more uncertainty into the debate. It must be shared across the web for greatest perusal. One must be careful using proxies, however, as a non-correspondence may relate to the coarseness of the proxies rather than the analytical frame. It may, indirectly, also serve to evaluate the proxies themselves.
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Is it just me, or is there a glaring contradiction in the text! On the one hand we read that the climate is controlled by the interplay of 6 cycles, then on the other, a 0.4K is controlled by a doubling of CO2! Doesn’t the discovery of the 6-cycle controller blow away any notion of a CO2 influence?
It should also be noted that CO2’s primary role (after being plant food) is that of a coolant. If the two main components of our atmosphere, Nitrogen and Oxygen, are NOT IR reactive, yet 100% of earth’s cooling is by radiation to space, then the IR reactive gasses, including CO2, are responsible for all the cooling. Aren’t they?
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Simon,I can understand why you’d wonder, but there is no contradiction. Climate sensitivity is not just the climate’s sensitivity to CO2, but to any forcing. 0.4K is a weak
positivenegative feedback* . That still means a forcing will cause a net warming.And the same processes that mean CO2 cools the stratosphere are the ones that mean it warms the troposphere. A combination of IR absorption-emission combined with kinetic collisions. But please let’s not turn this thread into a greenhouse discussion. Try this one, or an unthreaded.
*Thanks Bill/ Rob. My slip.
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Joanne, please check for a Pingback from my site. I sometimes see them on other sites so I’m not sure if there is a standard delay to legacy sites or if I’m entering the trackback correctly.
Thanks.
—
Found. Thanks. Released from moderation. :- ) – Jo
13
Thanks, Jo.
REPLY: Nice looking site you have there Grumpy :- ) — Jo
10
Jo its saying 0.4degC per doubling which is moderate negative feedback and only 0.2 deg to date, aka almost undetectable.
30
Which is wrong since each doubling absorbs half of the remaining energy thus has half the effect of the previous doubling!
Of course each doubling has the same effect when you make the school boy error of using absorbance instead of absorption like the IPCC!
20
The 0.4K feedback also agrees with the forgotten Idso 1998 paper.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/04/idso-1998-eight-different-ways-to-show-co2-will-have-little-effect/
71
This is a pretty unconvincing paper. Why do this analysis with local temps and a single proxy? It looks like the proxy was cherry-picked here–why did they go running to Austrian stalagmites of all things?
224
What would you suggest that they use Boris?
60
Global temperatures for a start. And global reconstructions if they want to go back in time.
111
So where exactly are these “global temperatures”? Are you suggesting a particular set of data? How exactly do we do a reconstruction?…. stalagmites perhaps?
40
Jo’s introduction explains that they did use the longest contiguous record we have, and then validated it against single proxies of longer periods.
We can’t use the reconstructions with any real confidence because, as far as I am aware, the algorithms and methods used in the reconstruction process have not been published, nor independently verified.
80
There are two reasons.
First is that it provides a 2000 year temperature proxy.
Second, is that it is in the same area as many of the temperature records. The Spannagel Cave is located south of Innsbruck near Hintertux, Tux. From Google, the distances by road to the following are
Hohenpeißenberg, Germany – 159km
Vienna, Austria – 487km
Munich, Germany – 175km
Prague, Czech Republic – 563km
Kremsmünster, Austria – 294km
Paris, France – 1017km
As Backslider suggested – any better ideas Boris?
Might on suggestion of the Central England Temperature record is secondary, with a less extreme climate – and also 1500km by road (and ferry) from Hintertux.
151
May I ask, how much better is anything else doing as far as being convincing? 🙂
61
Boris, over the last three weeks I have asked Ludecke and others about their choice of thermometer record and proxy.
They had considered many different proxies (he pointed at the NOAA database) and acknowledge that often proxies conflict. They don’t like tree rings partly because they are summer proxies, and prefer the annual stalagmites record. This particular stalagmite record is the best he argues of the NH: “the SPA12 stalagmite record has the best time resolution to be had anywhere in NH stalagmite analyses”. He explained that the “6 instrumental records are monthly, they have similar Hurst exponents and fit well together”. Plus “the AWI ice core record had an unusual good time resolution and fitted the 6 instrumental records”.
I was concerned that the last 250 year peak was in the Little Ice Age and didn’t fit with my knowledge of the generally cold temperatures. But look at Ljunqvist 2012. The 250ish year cycle is at least present in the black “documentary line” circa 1750 which uses records spread from Iceland to central England, Europe and China (it’s also present in all “250 year points” except 1500AD). It is also strongly present in the low latitude line (see part C), a point I found quite interesting.
Obviously it would be better if there were more sites and they could pin down the length of the cycles. But I felt their approach was very much worth discussing.
If you know of better proxies or longer records I’m sure Ludecke et al would like to know of them. His criteria is a good match with the SPA12 record of Mangini (showing the medieval warming and the little ice age), the original time resolution needs to be good and the Hurst analysis should yield reasonable results. Does that help?
164
Joanne Nova says,#7.4: “He explained that the “6 instrumental records are monthly, they have similar Hurst exponents and fit well together”” … I was concerned that the last 250 year peak was in the Little Ice Age and didn’t fit with my knowledge of the generally cold temperatures.”
====================================================
So, they seem to have cherry picked the records that “fit well together”. Naughty boys.
About the Little Ice Age, let me tell you this, Jo: no, neither you nor anyone else has a real knowledge of the generally cold temperatures in the so called “Little Ice Age”. It is at best just an impression, created by the term “Little Ice Age”. The same goes for the so called “Medieval Warm Period”. There are no reliable representative for the whole world temperature records. For any period of time.
Yes, I know about their evidence. They even refer to paintings and Vivaldi’s “Winter”. This is so called climate science.
422
Real science is taking whatever evidence you have, and then incorporating it into the mental model you have already constructed, changing that model if necessary to let it fit.
To reject “social comment” of an historic period is truly being selective with your data. Different groups of people do not lie in unison on the off chance that somebody in the future might include it a computer model, thereby skewing the results. When people think of it in those terms, they realise just how pompous your dismissal sounds.
133
Fair crack of the whip Rereke. Greg has a point. Let me explain it this way..
If today was 1853, people of the northern hemisphere would be struggling through a very harsh winter. It’s still snowing in many parts and it’s May already.
They’ve already had at least 3 harsh winters in a row, hundreds of thousands of stock have perished from the cold and snow drifts and tens of thousands have died from the cold. (imagine how bad it would have been for ‘primitive’ people of the 18th/19th centuries)
Writers, painters etc would be chronicalling all this right across the Northern Hemisphere. It wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that we were in a “little ice age” looking back 150 years from now.
22
Steady on Baa. Ljudqvist used 120 proxies. It was warm way back, then cold, now it’s warm.
There were thousands of samples of lake sediments, pollen grains, stalagmites, and tree-rings. Right now these five cold winters are a blip in a warm period of current stalagmites, pollen grains, lake sed… etc
Greg, find me some evidence that the world was warm in the little ice age. Calling it an “impression” because you are ignorant about the evidence is hardly compelling. This is not “climate science” it’s lazy waffle.
113
Joanne Nova says: “Greg, find me some evidence that the world was warm in the little ice age.”
=======================================================
Thank you, Jo, for giving me the opportunity to engage in exactly what I am criticizing. “Some evidence”.
I suggest you ask for evidence that the “evidences” you are familiar with are representative for the whole world. Because if this is not scientifically proven, which I have reason to believe, then you can not refer to those warmings or ice ages as scientific facts.
Let me guess: there was no thread on the “representative for the whole world or not” issue on this blog, right?
28
In science, there is no proof, only disproof. I provided you with 120 proxies, and asked you for evidence. You provided none. Can I suggest that adding up the number of my blog posts on the topic will not give you global temperatures circa 1700, no matter what integer you get.
50
Joanne Nova says (May 3, 2013 at 2:49 am): “In science, there is no proof, only disproof.”
========================================================
Unbelievable. So, any claim should be considered correct until proven false? Is it what you mean? I am asking, because you statement has a problem with simple logic.
First, a “disproof” is also a proof, in this case a proof that a claim is not correct. So, you contradict yourself.
Second, if we take the alleged “ice age” as an example, then according to your “no proof, only disproof” concept anyone can claim that the same period of time was “heat age”. So, you can not demand a proof, but you need to disprove the claim. Logically this would be equal to you proving your claim about “ice age” to be correct. Assuming you can not do it, now we have 2 equally “right” claims: “heat age” and “ice age”. You really need to give it a second thought.
06
Joanne Nova says (May 3, 2013 at 2:49 am): “I provided you with 120 proxies, and asked you for evidence. You provided none.”
====================================================
You asked me for evidence, right: “Greg, find me some evidence that the world was warm in the little ice age.” Let me make it clear: I never said “the world was warm in the little ice age”. Why would you ask me to prove a point I did not make?
My point is that I have never seen the usual claims about global warmings or global coolings proven, for any period of time. Despite my extensive debates with warmists, and some of them seemed to be professional.
If you can provide links to a study (full texts) easily accessible online without payment proving that, then please, go ahead. Or do you expect people just to believe?
04
Joanne Nova says (May 3, 2013 at 2:49 am): “Can I suggest that adding up the number of my blog posts on the topic will not give you global temperatures circa 1700, no matter what integer you get.”
==================================================
So, “global temperatures” 1689, 1700, 1701 are known to you? Well, then please, share this knowledge with the community. Please, do not forget to present the calculations and the source of local temperatures, all the records, please. Last not least: if you have a sort of a sample, please, do not forget to prove that it is really representative for the whole world.
Of course, you do not need to do it all yourself, there must be studies where all this has already been done, right? And you studied the studies, the methods etc. and found them scientifically correct, right?
04
Right, so we just abandon all the science that studies past temperatures because they were not taken with a thermometer?
So Greg, please tell us what you believe in regard to AGW, then we shall look at the data that has been used for it, huh?
I doubt very much any scientist knows the exact temperature between my butt cheeks (although most could hazard a fairly close approximation). Following your logic, we may as well stop talking about climate and temperatures altogether because of that alone.
Now, be serious – what is an acceptable record to work with for you?
111
Greg House says
By implication, your argument is that there is no basis for claiming that the twentieth warming is unprecedented.
I cannot accept such extreme skepticism. We must always look at the little evidence that we have and endeavour to confront diverse hypotheses about temperature movements. My beef with the climate alarmists is not with their examining past data, but that they do so in a highly biased and unscientific manner. Finding evidence, improving our analysis and generally increasing the boundaries of our knowledge about the world is what I find exciting about science. Over the past few years improvements in quality of data collection and analysis have established that there was a medieval warm period and a little ice age. Even the deeply flawed Gergis paper of last year showed this. The biases just suppressed the MWP, not eliminated it like the original Mannian hockey stick graphs.
61
Manicbeancounter (May 2, 2013 at 3:10 am): “By implication, your argument is that there is no basis for claiming that the twentieth warming is unprecedented.”
==========================================================
No, my argument is that no warming or whatever is proven.
If you wish, there might be unprecedented something or not, but we do not know.
04
It might be so that no warming or cooling is “proven” if you set a high enough level.
Is that proof at level a mathematician not accepting the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture until Andrew Wiles had proved Fermat’s last theorem.
Is that proof about the “proof beyond reasonable doubt” that is required for a jury to convict a criminal in English Common Law?
There is considerable evidence that average global and local temperatures do fluctuate over time. Even the deeply flawed Gergis paper of last year showed pre-twentieth century temperature fluctuations.
There is dispute about how the evidence is interpreted, the quality of that interpretation, the magnitude of those fluctuations and the timing. My objections to consensus climate science are similar to my moral objections to a prosecution in a criminal that suppresses contrary evidence, intimidates the jury and denies the accused a proper defense. The result will be getting major decisions wrong, as they will be built on inbuilt prejudices.
Like with criminal trials, empirically-based science must have people with integrity, who aim at the highest standards of evidence. The difference is that in criminal law there are laid down standards and rules. Science at the frontiers of knowledge had less rules, so must define its own frameworks for assessing conjectures and data. And lack of boundaries demand much higher standards of integrity in dealing with evidence than police officers.
00
Greg raises the shibboleth that the MWP and LIA were regional effects.
That is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, in respect of the MWP there is a myriad of studies showing a global effect.
In respect of the LIA there is an interesting paper showing how a regional climatic effect can have a global impact. Shindell’s paper also shows the impact slight variations in TSI can have on global climate.
Alternatively, there is cogent evidence the LIA was global.
61
cohenite says (May 2, 2013 at 10:31 am): “Greg raises the shibboleth that the MWP and LIA were regional effects. That is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, in respect of the MWP there is a myriad of studies showing a global effect.
In respect of the LIA there is an interesting paper showing how a regional climatic effect can have a global impact. Shindell’s paper also shows the impact slight variations in TSI can have on global climate.
Alternatively, there is cogent evidence the LIA was global.”
=============================================================
Well, then choose 1(one), the best, not hidden behind a paywall study proving that, not just repeating the same story, and we’ll look into it. Until now I have heard only unproven claims about all these warmings and coolings and no one I talked to has been able to provide a link to such a study.
Your “myriad” is a bad sign, nobody need a myriad studies to prove something. A single study is sufficient.
About your “can”… Really? This is your science? Anyone can say something like “there can be life on Mars”, or “it could have been colder/warmer in the past” and this would be true. You do not need any study for your “can”. Unbelievable…
18
Greg,
For more information on the MWP see here
http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/subject_m.php
For more information on the LIA see here
http://www.co2science.org/subject/l/subject_l.php
70
crakar24 says (May 2, 2013 at 11:29 am): “For more information on the MWP see here… For more information on the LIA see here…”
(Sigh.) I did not ask “for more information”, I asked for 1(one) study… see above.
So, there is none, anyway none known to you, will you admit it? Only “information”…
16
I just got a call from Heywood, he wanted to know if i was banging my head against my desk again because of some idiot on Jo’s blog, apparently he could hear it on the other side of the country.
Greg,
If you have look, a close look at the links i sent you, you wil………never mind let show you.
This study
Williams, P.W., King, D.N.T., Zhao, J.-X. and Collerson, K.D. 2004. Speleothem master chronologies: combined Holocene 18O and 13C records from the North Island of New Zealand and their palaeoenvironmental interpretation. The Holocene 14: 194-208
Found,………Williams et al.’s speleothem master chronologies reveal a warmer-than-present “late-Holocene warm peak” between 0.9 and 0.6 ka BP that they equate with the Medieval Warm Period in Europe. In New Zealand, they note that this period “coincided with a period of Polynesian settlement (McGlone and Wilmshurst, 1999).” Thereafter, they report that temperatures “cooled rapidly to a trough about 325 years ago,” which they say “was the culmination of the ‘Little Ice Age’ in Europe.”
This study
Neukom, R., Luterbacher, J., Villalba, R., Kuttel, M., Frank, D., Jones, P.D., Grosjean, M., Wanner, H., Aravena, J.-C., Black, D.E., Christie, D.A., D’Arrigo, R., Lara, A., Morales, M., Soliz-Gamboa, C., Srur, A., Urritia, R. and von Gunten, L. 2011. Multiproxy summer and winter surface air temperature field reconstructions for southern South America covering the past centuries. Climate Dynamics 37: 35-51.
Found…..The international research team — composed of scientists from Argentina, Chile, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States — write that their summer temperature reconstruction suggests that “a warm period extended in SSA from 900 (or even earlier) to the mid-fourteenth century,” which they describe as being temporally located “towards the end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly as concluded from Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions.” And as can be seen from the figure below, the warmest decade of this Medieval Warm Period was calculated by them to be AD 1079-1088, which as best we can determine from their graph is about 0.17°C warmer than the peak warmth of the Current Warm Period.
This study
Mauquoy, D., Blaauw, M., van, Geel, B., Borromei, A., Quattrocchio, M., Chambers, F.M. and Possnert, G. 2004. Late Holocene climatic changes in Tierra del Fuego based on multiproxy analyses of peat deposits. Quaternary Research 61: 148-158.
found………Mauquoy et al. report finding evidence for a period of warming-induced drier conditions from AD 960-1020 that “seems to correspond to the Medieval Warm period (MWP, as defined in the Northern Hemisphere).” They note that “this interval compares well to the date range of AD 950-1045 based on Northern Hemisphere extratropical tree-ring data (Esper et al., 2002),” and they thus conclude that this correspondence “shows that the MWP was possibly synchronous in both hemispheres, as suggested by Villalba (1994).”
All you needed to do Greg was actually read what i presented to you, but instead you respond with sarcasm which is why i continually call people like you IDIOTS
111
Easy Crakar, he’s trolling. Do keep the pressure up but ignore the bait. Good job.
82
Myriad, as in confirmed, as opposed to AGW where there are a myriad of studies disproving.
Thank you Cracker; here is another one:
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html
Here you can click on particular studies at various locations around the globe; but Greg, I’m afraid is not here to learn.
80
“[What I’ve noticed is an extreme lack of tact and diplomacy among people like you. Either change your approach or find it difficult to get along.] ED”
===================================================================
I understand, it is not about warmists losing their case, it is about diplomacy, like calling my an idiot twice in the approved comment above. Good to know.
[Your posts remain in moderation. Because of your behavior. Get that?] ED
24
Greg,
You asked for one study to show the MWP and LIA were global, i gave you two links. I gave you the links because i thought you were seriously asking a question as in you had a thirst for knowledge on the subject.
Your response was:
Now if you really had a thirst for knowledge as i first assumed you would have looked at the links and as they say “follow your nose” and read the information. However this was not your response instead you responded with sarcasm and then had the effrontery to challenge me to admit that no such study exists.
To me there is only one word to describe you and it starts with “I” others may have another word that starts with “T” but i like mine better.
80
“[Your posts remain in moderation. Because of your behavior. Get that?] ED”
=======================================================
I get what you said.
Just let people know that there is probably not a single study proving , not just claiming any global warming or cooling. Warmists not being able to provide a valid link to the full text of a study proving that is anyway a strong indication.
And let me tell you something. I debated radical greens or whoever on the Greenfyre’s blog (http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/challenging-the-core-science-comment-thread/), and not a single comment of mine was deleted, censored or suspended there. Not a single one. Here there are already two on this thread.
[Let me tell you something, you have to make your point here with a bit more effort. This post is here for the whole world to see.] ED
25
crakar24 says (May 2, 2013 at 1:23 pm): “Greg, … Now if you really had a thirst for knowledge as i first assumed you would have looked at the links …”
=========================================================
OK, since you are talking about “a thirst for knowledge”, let me clarify that.
To my knowledge, there is not a single study proving, not just claiming any global warming or global cooling or global unchanged concerning the past, the present and, right, the future, probably. I raised this issue in debates and no one was able to prove that or present a link to such a study. It was sad and funny at the same time to watch, how people were trying to save their phony case.
So, I guess, I am familiar with many tricks. You can employ whatever tactic you want, I do not care. Eventually, it will be clear to everyone that you do not have a case. Neither “warming” nor “greenhouse effect”.
07
Greg House:
Ok Greg. SO I take it that you do not believe in climate change in any shape or form, is that correct? There was never any studies ever made that showed ice ages and warm periods.
I asked you earlier, however you were rude enough to ignore my question. This time I am not letting you off so lightly:
What do you believe in Greg?
50
Look Greg you asked for a study that showed the globe as a whole had warmed and cooled, i gave you links which showed both Nth and Sth Hemispheres had/has experienced the MWP and the LIA like conditions during the same time period.
Granted it was not all contained in one study but by a multitude of studies, regardless you asked for some evidence and i gave you some. This is no trick, this is no tactic, this is simply evidence, evidence which you requested.
Read all the studies and you will see time and time again it can be shown that major colling and major warming occur in unison between the two hemispheres.
50
crakar24 says (May 2, 2013 at 1:23 pm): “Greg,
You asked for one study to show the MWP and LIA were global, i gave you two links.”
============================================================
You listed studies without a single link (http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/fourier-analysis-reveals-six-natural-cycles-no-man-made-effect-predicts-cooling/#comment-1271126), so we can not discuss them. No, the readers on this blog can not read and discuss them. I can not believe you do not understand that.
Cohenite provided many (instead of just 1), I clicked on one (http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/Luckman-2007.html), the full text is hidden behind the paywall. Even if I bought it, the readers would surely not.
Until now you have not been able to present anything easily accessible proving your case.
15
crakar24 says (May 2, 2013 at 2:04 pm): “Look Greg you asked for a study that showed the globe as a whole had warmed and cooled, i gave you links…”
====================================================
No you did not, I repeat: “You listed studies without a single link (http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/fourier-analysis-reveals-six-natural-cycles-no-man-made-effect-predicts-cooling/#comment-1271126), so we can not discuss them. No, the readers on this blog can not read and discuss them. I can not believe you do not understand that.”
Link means a URL address. You know that, right?
04
Do your own research butterscotch; after all you’re the one asserting the MWP was NOT global; here’s some,you pick one:
80
cohenite says (May 2, 2013 at 5:49 pm): “Do your own research butterscotch; after all you’re the one asserting the MWP was NOT global; here’s some,you pick one:
Bertler, N.A.N., Mayewski, P.A. and Carter, L. 2011. Cold conditions in Antarctica during the Little Ice Age — Implications for abrupt climate change mechanisms. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 308: 41-51.” […]
======================================================
Of course, no link again, as I expected.
Right, “cold conditions in Antarctica” prove existence of global Little Ice Age… 🙄
Let me guess: warm conditions in Sahara must prove “global warming”…
My thesis about so called “climate science” not being really a science has been confirmed so far.
06
Greg, you really need to go back to “The Fundamentals of The Scientific Method”.
So you are writing a thesis?
You will find that most here agree that there is a distinct lack of real science in much of what passes off as “climate science”, however that does not mean that all of it is rot. Science is not above proving, but disproving… eg. It appears from all observations and data at hand that there was a medieval warm period: disprove it.
I have asked you this twice already Greg, without reply: What do you think is and has happened with the climate?
30
Backslider says (May 3, 2013 at 3:53 am): “Greg, …So you are writing a thesis?
=======================================================
Look it up in a dictionary, the word “thesis” has also another meaning.
05
Greg House – You are the rudest, most UP YOURSELF person I have ever encountered on this blog.
I think that it is pretty clear to everybody here that you are nothing other than a warmist troll who pretends to not believe in anything.
You have no “thesis”… in fact you have nothing other than ignorance.
50
Joanne,
I agree with the poster above. If a doubling of CO2 causes a 1 to 1.5 K rise
without any feedbacks, then the 0.4 K rise is showing moderate negative feedback,
not positive as you stated.
Bill
00
Sorry Bill, yes of course, climate sensitivity of 0.4 is negative feedback (as I said here). I’ll fix that comment. Thanks.
41
Just wondering Boris. Did you have any problems at all with Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick?
50
I will begin by saying I am a strong believer in natural climate cycles. It is just one of those beliefs shared by almost every non-government geologist.
Assuming this paper is correct, then perhaps we should consider: i)the total cost of the global warming non-problem to date, ii) the perfidy of ‘climate scientists’, iii) the gullibility of politicians, and iv) foolishness of the left/liberal establishment.
The concept of CAGW was always nonsense, while that of some very modest AGW might make some sense, except – despite what the IPCC says – we have no way of measuring it, as it is impacted by so many potential forcings and feedbacks, which we are simply unable to measure and quantify with any degree of certainty.
Natural climate cycles have always been, and always will be, the great heresy of the Global Warming cult.
Why? Because these cycles are very dangerous and should never be acknowledged, as any discussion on them could have the disastrous repercussion of derailing the Global Warming gravy train.
260
First I wonder if this post will survive since wordpress says I have an invalid email. Second I wonder if this paper will see the light of day in the next IPCC report or if it’s findings will in some way influence the summary for policy makers. I suspect it won’t since that would finish the scare.
70
First: Any curve can be fourier transformed, and the result will mimick the original, except for some alience caused by the curve not being continous and repeating. Second: The transform gives the spectrum lines, so no wonder you only have these lines.
The most amazing is really what they can deduce from the mathematical treatment, it is not far behind Sherlock Holmes.
I wonder some times about how much knowledge they have of all the advanced tools they use.
There could be something hidden here, but the first impression is, that they just dicovered what a tool DFT is.
20
Fourier invented the transform because he had data he suspected had a periodic nature. And the transform does indeed show the periodic nature of any data quite well. So this analysis looks like a valuable reality check to me. If the Fourier Transform has been misused someone will be only too glad to point that out.
I’m pretty well familiar with the Fourier Transform from implementing it to analyze low frequency RF data. Among other things about it, it will turn even random numbers into whatever it can. So I’m not naively buying into this result.
Let’s wait and see if anyone finds a real flaw in what was done. 🙂
80
I might add that the transform’s result tells absolutely nothing about the meaning of the spectrum it kicks out. For that you must know the context in which you’re using it. The authors appear to be doing OK in that regard.
20
Roy Hogue says, #9.1: “Let’s wait and see if anyone finds a real flaw in what was done.”
=================================================
The flaw is there and in all the other unscientific climate science papers about “global temperature” as well: they can not prove that the thermometers they refer to represent the reality so well that their conclusions were right.
The same goes for their “proxies”, too.
—REPLY See my answer in #7.4 – Jo
011
“—REPLY See my answer in #7.4 – Jo”
=============================================
Thanks, I have read it. They say it is OK what they have done, in a nutshell. Not a surprise. No one would say “have just written a paper, total crap” :).
011
True, but on several occasions, I have said, “[a time period] ago I wrote a paper on, …, which was verified by …, but I now discover that it was total crap, based upon what I now know about …”.
In science, you don’t have to be right, but you should really be honest?
Also, I would be interested in learning your definition of an “unscientific science paper”.
120
“I would be interested in learning your definition of an “unscientific science paper”.
——————————————————————————–
I would hazard a guess that an unscientific paper in this context is one that doesn’t support his point of view.
50
wow. Greg. you didn’t even try. The longest high res stalagmite, hurst analysis, actual temperature records, and that’s all you can say?
131
Whatever the utility of this paper – and its conclusions much be viewed as extremely tentative – the authors make bold predictions make their model falsifiable. That is average temperatures should start falling in the next decade. It is certainly more bold than the climate models, with the lame excuses and readjustments when temperatures fail to move in the predicted direction. However, there is a cop-out.
How long could a lack of fall be blamed on the arrival of climate chaos before the authors would accept the falsification of their analysis? Given that the predicted fall is already happening and rapidly accelerating, one would expect less than a decade.
Another check that could be made is against the Central England Temperature record, which is not only relatively close to Central Europe, but goes back a further century. This should show the previous cycle peak in the middle of the eighteenth century.
Being always a quite sceptical of numbers, I note that the twentieth century temperature change was nearly three times that of global average surface temperatures. I know that the warming was concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in the Arctic areas, and that land-based warming was greater than the oceans, but nearly 2.2 degrees against 0.8 degrees is a significant difference.
40
We need only wait and see.
30
Not for too long i think Roy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22341502
Wide spread snow in Spain, in April???
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/04/28/a.html
Now i have been to this place its not supposed to snow in places like this, some idiots may blame AGW but lets not forget you only get snow and hail when it is C-O-L-D.
82
Crakar, I cannot but agree with you on that point. 🙂
10
These cycles may only be observed under the current narrow band of interglacial temps. The approach of chaos may in fact be the gradual 3000 years of cooling leading to us plunging into the next Ice age.
70
So absolutely beautiful in it’s simplicity, this analysis must be wrong.
There is no way that a competent climate scientist could ever hope to retain the grant cash flow if “climate” could be explained this easily and with empirical evidence to boot.
Sarc / off
Seriously; carefully recorded and reliable data, trusted method of analysis, unequivocal results. If any warming at all results from co2, it would appear to me that we humans got a slight break from what might be uncomfortable cooling. We have maybe a hundred years to figure out a better solution than what has been proposed.
221
They haven’t explained it at all. They have identified six cylic patterns that collectively replicate century and decadal scale variation quite well. Until you can explain in no uncertain terms how those cycles are driven, you really have no theory at all.
01
Terrific blog.
140
[…] Click here to read the full article […]
10
I find this work of Lüdecke et al.(2013) riveting and wonder WHY a similar methodology has not been previously and comprehensively undertaken over a broad range of empirical temperature measures and proxies, as others have suggested.
I see that the journal in which this article is published – ‘Climate of the Past’ is described as an ‘Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union’ and that among the stated aims of the journal, the following is included: ‘Studies focussing mainly on present and future climate are not within scope’.
While this article does not contradict the aims of the journal, it is nevertheless testament to a changing cultural landscape, given that the authors conclude: ‘Cooling as indicated in Fig. 2 can therefore be predicted for the near future, in complete agreement with the lack of temperature increase over the last 15 years. The future temperatures can be predicted to continue to decrease, based on the Fourier components’, and the journal did not reject the article.
I suspect that this is ‘open access’ science publication in action, where science appears able to eclipse the political mores of the moment.
Meanwhile, somewhere far, far away, indeed on the other side of the planet in a dystopian green paradise, the Minister of Climate (NZ) has ordained that cooling is unthinkable.
120
Manfred
You made me wonder how expensive this current bit of analysis would have been. How much would this have cost compared to (say) the 4-5 IPCC reports, the NASA climate budget and the taxpayer funded “research” being done by alarmist academics world-wide?
This lot looks not only cheaper but a lot more rational.
Cheers,
Speedy
20
“Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory: “we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years” (WUWT)
‘Cooling as indicated in Fig. 2 can therefore be predicted for the near future,”
Global cooling! We’re doomed!
50
Well maybe not doomed, but in comparison to a couple of degrees of warming, we are really going to have something to whine about with a few degreees of cooling. No doubt though this will be sold by the “great unwashed” as “the planet defending itself maaaaaan”
20
Gaia’s Revenge – more die as progressive cooling and towering power prices create the perfect storm. CAGW aficionados will never concede the error of their obsession. They’ll claim they’re victims of evil and misleading scientists.
60
It’s still the four horsemen we need to worry about, although you can think of global cooling as being Famine’s horse!
30
I want to know what causes the cycles – that Fourier fellow has some explaining to do!!!
(Have you given up trying to post thoughtful comments?) CTS
08
Fourier provided us with an extremely helpful analysis tool. Some tools are more useful than others, but a tool in the right hands can do amazing things, while some others are just Tools.
10
Actually, in the wrong hands a tool is just dead weight and we might as well acknowledge it. If you ask the Fourier Transform the wrong question all you get is the wrong answer and the math doesn’t even blink.
Garbage in, garbage out. So as has been pointed out, make sure your input data means something in the first place. I still think this is a useful analysis.
10
That was what we were told when I first learnt about Fourier Analysis. I had forgotten that, thank you for the reminder.
10
Although my gut tells me they’re right, it must be recognized that Fourier analysis has its limitations. For instance, the Nyquist criterion makes that 250 year cycle problematic – you’d need 500 years of data to nail down both the amplitude and phase. Any longer-term cycles (say, a 10000 year cycle) wouldn’t be resolvable at all. Using the stalactite data as a temperature proxy lends support to their theory, however it is still a proxy and the correlation with measured temperatures in the region is not 100%. It would be helpful if other long-term temperature records from other regions of the world were subjected to the same analysis; if they’re on to something, the same periods (and phase angles) should show up in those datasets as well.
00
Their selection of Eastern European temperatures is a bit limiting – here’s the data for global land temperatures with the same running mean. Note that it has little in common with the Lüdecke et al data – they have chosen a very small region.
One of the problems with Fourier analysis is the “aperture effect” – unless you zero-pad, and in many cases even if you do, the fact that Fourier analysis assumes an infinite repeating signal means that the discontinuities at the edges of your analysis window end up as major frequencies in the spectra – in this case the ~250 year cycle. I have often had to apodize (smooth the edges around the window to cover the wrap-around) to the signal average to minimize this problem – you still have some extra frequency information, but at least it’s well distributed rather than having sharp peaks at the window length and its harmonics.
And again, as I’ve mentioned in previous comments, this is merely a description of how the signal behaves in this analysis window (curve-fitting), not a causal analysis that might give some idea of how the temperatures might change outside that window. It has no predictive value.
00
KR, it is a shame that you have not submitted your own paper for peer review on this method and the exact proxies. I hope you do soon.
I’ll wait with baited breath.
If I should run out of breath, perhaps you could comment on why you believe these authors are unable to see what you believe to be obvious?
00
Mark D. – I see no reason to submit a comment on this paper, as it is clearly a ‘curve-fitting’ exercise. Their cycles have the same causal significance as would the coefficients of a N-th order polynomial fit to the data; descriptive of the behavior in that observation period, completely divorced from causality. And I believe that is entirely clear to those in the field.
—
I am not clear on whether the authors are “unable” or simply “unwilling” to see the obvious here. My very personal opinion:
Looking at the three authors of this paper, Prof. Dr. Lüdecke is the press contact for EIKE, Prof. Dr. Carl Otto Weiss is on the EIKE advisory board, and Dr. Alexander Hempelmann has been an EIKE guest debater on at least one occasion. EIKE is a climate contrarian organization, with links to (and people in common with) the well-funded conservative lobbying group CFACT, based in the US. EIKE is in essence a lobbying organization with undisclosed funding, not a science group. I (personal opinion here!) would consider this work an advocacy paper, not a scientific one – with its conclusions closely aligned with the EIKE political goals.
Now, I will say that some information produced by advocacy groups is worthwhile, worth reading, in particular because those advocacy groups are invested in knowing what’s going on in their field. But you really have to take their work with a grain (if not a block) of salt, as they are also invested in lobbying for their interests. Their results are therefore inherently and inescapably biased, and you have to consider that when evaluating their conclusions.
00
You have made your thoughts clear enough.
As long as you are pointing out the conspiratorial connection with the above groups, you might apply the same scrutiny to your own resource: Sourcewatch I’d like to suggest you read the entire link right down to the list of various foundations and NGOs that fund them.
Now far be it for me to assume that you to are a left wing shill here at Jo’s site. I’d never want to tar anyone with that unless they really deserved it. I even seem to recall you having clearly said you avoid the political argument with regard to AGW. I suggest then, that you find a different resource than Sourcewatch because you are getting information that is extremely left biased and deeply Green activist.
00
Mark D. – As I said, that was a personal opinion; motivations are not part of the science, and properly speaking shouldn’t be. Although you did ask…
But that isn’t my objection to this work. The real judgement is on the merits of the science as presented, on a paper by paper basis – and on that basis Lüdecke et al fails. It is a simple descriptive curve-fitting exercise, and not very well done at that (see the aperture issue I discussed here, also the very limited data subset they used). As such it doesn’t examine causation, and the description lacks predictive power outside the fitting region. The same could be said about simply fitting a polynomial to the data – a reasonable description of the data analyzed, but lacking causation it will have little predictive power.
Therefore their conclusions regarding causation, such as greenhouse gases, are not supported – nor are their predictions as to future temperatures. They never examined causation in the first place – the paper is therefore poor science, and its conclusions unsupported.
00
If you don’t mind KR, denial of the bias of Sourcewatch doesn’t suit you. Please clarify.
00
Quack,
The math is well known and if you aren’t familiar with it there’s no space here to do an explanation. But the math is completely sound.
There are good books on the subject if you need them. 🙂
20
I did reread the post JoJo but I still don’t nuderstand what’s causing the cycles!!! You haven’t said. unless I am missing something which is quite possable.
[Quack I will just re-quote the line from the post which you claim to have read: “Fourier analysis can’t tell us what causes the cycles, but it can tell us the likely frequency, amplitude and phase of those cycles. If these are accurate, it can be used to rule out significant effects from man-made forces and ultimately to predict what will happen next.” – It is the IPCC/CAGW position which claims human greenhouse gas emissions are the primary climate driver since 1950. It is up to them to prove their case. Jo has posted examples of work on solar and other cycles in the past, here and here and here and here for instance. – Mod]
10
So according to Fig. 2 the temperature has risen since about 1900. Here at this site we already know that is crap so what the hell is that all about? Haven’t shot your own argument in the bum crack have you?
[Childish language will be moderated in future JFC. – Mod]
119
either = CO2 not dangerous, nuf said!
40
Actually few people on this site disagree that there has been some warming.
The same graph shows that it was pretty warm around 1770 as well. Was it Captain Cook driving SUVs around the newly discovered Australia that caused that warming?
130
No it cant have been warm in the 1770s when Cook arrived at New Zealand (1769) the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers terminals were flowing out to sea! Now they are several km inland! this was due to warming following the LIA 1650 to 1750 on record!
30
“So according to Fig. 2 the temperature has risen since about 1900. Here at this site we already know that is crap so what the hell is that all about? Haven’t shot your own argument in the bum crack have you?”
I have never seen a sceptic on this blog dispute global warming from 1900 to 1998. What on earth are you on about. If you can’t get simple stuff correct don’t bother commenting.
120
This is why people laugh at the CO2 panicing science deniers; they don’t actually listen to the discussion.
To summaries for you JFK…
Warmists – CO2 is ‘warming the world to hell’ and ‘man is to blame’
Realists – The real world data has not remotely matched the predictions. We believe CO2 is not to blame to the extent the Warmist claim and would really like less effort blaming big industry and more spend actually finding out what is going on.
If you don’t understand the question, JFK, and continue to not want to understand the question, then people are going to laugh at you.
141
Please provide a link to any post by Jo on this site which implies that there’s been zero or almost no warming in any 30+ year segment after 1900AD.
Or else continue to be known as a spammer of false allegations.
I mean really, you are trying to tell us what we believe?
Shouldn’t you spend more time talking about what the climate does and doesn’t do rather than what climate skeptics do or don’t believe?
61
NO!
10
As we all know, mathematics can find equations that can fit any piece of data. Let me repeat that. ANY. Having found a best fit, the next step is to validate the finding by explaining how it occurred. So what is the “250 year cycle driving the climate” caused by?
42
250 seems a good fit for solar. I’m just disappointed they didn’t look for longer cycles (THC/oceanic)
The missing driver in solar is the UV/ozone/stratosphere/jet stream/meridional-zonal weather patterns.
20
Actually that’s a very well studied effect in climate science. The warmist peer review and journal publication process relies heavily on the effects of THC.
Oh. Sorry, could you clarify which “THC” you were talking about?
20
Sorry, was referring to the Thermo Haline Circulation, aka global conveyor. There seems to be a 800-1500 year cycle evident in greenland Ice cores and involvement of a deep ocean cycle would explain the 800-1500 year lag of CO2 behind temp. Of course it may be driven by orbital parameters or something else.
My theory is that Ice ages are driven by an acceleration of THC which acts just like a radiator in a car engine. Faster flow = cooler system. As brine formation during sea ice freezing is critical in driving THC, the triangular shape of the north atlantic would lead to positive feedback as the area of sea ice increases with cooling. It also supplies the moisture source required to cause continental glaciation. Deglaciation seems to occur after a sustained period of dust accumulation in Ice cores, raising the possibility of albedo reversal if a short melt was triggered. Orbital factors seem to be triggers, otherwise there would have been Ice ages prior to 2.5Mya. The ice age only started when the zonal oceanic flow was disrupted when the ismuth of panama formed, creating the meridional gulfstream/THC about 2.5Mya.
Just a little theory of mine 🙂
Cheers
00
[SNIP insults – Jo]
There is nothing startling here, they have taken known temp records and applied a known analysis to the data. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of MATLAB could do this hell even EXCEL has the functionality to do this of course MATLAB has the advantage of you being able to process a higher aount of data.
This process simply looks for cycles in the data, do not think this is some holy grail only known yo those who work with climate, we have done flight test where we have used this process to analyze the data, it is nothing new.
To answer your question
T-H-E S-U-N and not some miss guided religious belief in a trace gas you nincompoop
58
“I don’t know”, would have taken you less time to type. Aren’t you curious to know what physical aspect of the sun runs at a 250 year cycle? Surely discovering this will reveal more about the sun than can be discovered by rude invective.
32
GA,
Yes i am curious [SNIP] i must ask what has suddenly perked your interest?
[SNIP – don’t just toss insults – J]
23
Good question. Maybe a paper that makes her uncomfortable?
(like this thread is about?)
20
I am a curious person Mark
03
I think the point might be rather that it’s not generally known or appreciated by many (if not most) of those working in climate. Takes an Engineer to make sense of things.
Now it would be interesting to see a lot more records & proxies examined in this way (and not least to silence cheers of ‘cherry picking’ ).
Is it fair to expect Climate Scientists to drive Excel though (Sorry Phil:-) ?
10
Missing the point here Gee Aye. If the function is cyclical, then the cause of the recent rise in temperature is not likely to be anthropogenic CO2. It doesn’t matter what is causing the cycles. It could be solar irradiance, solar magnetism, ocean currents, a periodic migration of pixies, or some combination of these (or hitherto unknown mechanisms).
We don’t have to know what is causing the cycles if we know that none of these cycles correspond to our industrialisation (as we obviously weren’t industrialised before the industrial revolution).
70
I understand this but scientifically finding cycles in an analysis that seeks a best fit is lacking in verification. Finding a cycle by such a method needs support to rule out the possibility that it is simply an outcome of the method applied.
34
The Fourier transform is a tried and trusted mathematical transform for examining periodic data. Unlike some we could mention, they haven’t invented a method because traditional mathematical methods didn’t give the answers they sought.
The study shows a very strong periodic component (look at the red graph overlayed on Figure 2). There is virtually no non-periodic component.
I agree that there should be more study in this area, maybe we could look at what sort of cycles exist that have these sorts of periodicity.
40
GA,
A classic example of your stupidity and arrogance here
You have no idea what you are talking about but yet you come in with all the swagger of a drunk John Wayne claiming to be an expert. This is why i call you an idiot every second day, but dont worry i call MattB an idiot every day.
[no need for name calling please – Mod]
64
In an attempt to try and educate [snip] i will try and explain a situation where FA is a valuable tool.
Lets create a scenario where you fly a helicopter and then one day you want to stick a box outside of the chopper but you are not sure how that would affect the performance/vibration of the fuselage what can you do?
Well you can start by fitting tiny things (keeping it simple [snip]) inside the fuselage that can measure vibration, the measures will be in a binary format (thats numbers [snip]).
You then fly the chopper and record the measurements, when you land your data (numbers) will be in the time domain (magnitude and time)you can then do a FA to convert the data (numbers) from the time domain into the frequency domain and you are left with a graph that has magnitude and frequency.
This graph will show spikes along the frequency domain, one spike will represent the vibration of the fuselage (the bit you want) another spike will represent the vibration induced by the engines, another by the 4 blades etc.
You then put the box on and fly again and if you repeat the FA process you can then deduce if the box increases the vibration (magnitude) and at what frequency.
So you see there is no “curve fitting”, this study accurately reproduces the frequncies within the temp data and from that we can conclude that it is cyclic in nature, no dodgy computer models just real science with a splash of mathematics.
Now i understand this concept is above and beyond the average idiot but really it is not that hard to accept.
What this study does in conjunction with 100’s of other studies is that it once again shows the AGW theory is junk science. I appreciate that for the idiots here this is akin to the pope getting a visit from Allah but still its not something that even they could not understand…..surely?
104
I think the problem is, that the fourier transform is a tool that is known, used, and loved by Engineers. Because it is used by Engineers, and it is mathematical, it is obviously too prosaic to appeal to the more esoteric scientific mind. Oh, and it doesn’t need a super computer, so obviously it can’t be any good.
122
Exactly! With an optimized FFT I can do a 16,384 point transform in milliseconds on a PC. Fourier had to do it manually and would not have lived long enough to complete the job.
The discrete Fourier Transform is taking over the world of signal analysis, whether or not someone here believes it’s useful.
By the way, Fourier’s data was in the social sciences, not engineering. So we have the social sciences to thank for a valuable contribution to our arsenal of analysis tools, even though it wasn’t until the late 1960’s that it began to be a practical computing job.
30
I think what Gee Aye is looking for is the DC component in the transform. He will then want to know if that has a slope, and if so will claim that as the signature for climate change.
10
In that case I have some bad news for him. The DC component is a constant and the first derivative of a constant is zero = no slope. And in fact, there’s no use in looking for the linear trend with Fourier. Any good curve fitting algorithm can can do it (and have done it) and we know that over the recent past there has been warming. Big deal.
We seem to be stuck where the argument is over how to figure out what all this data means. I just read my outdoor thermometer every day and the trend I see over the past 3 or 4 years is cooling. What does that tell me? It says weather is not a constant like g or pi. A longer look at historical evidence says climate is not a constant either. And both of those things have been changing for a lot longer than humans could possibly be responsible for it.
I still want to see some empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 can actually do something and is in fact doing it. Without the definitive answer to that question we’re just howling at the moon. The Skeptic’s Handbook still asks the right question.
10
Fourier is used all the time in econometrics!
10
justjoshin, My thoughts exactly, cycles within cycles within cycles are evident every where in all records and proxy records, it is obvious we did not cause them. Cycles such as these shall be found in the harmony of the spheres and not in the output of our power stations.
This study showing some cycles needs to say no more, it is up to others in a different field to find the why. It is the climastroligists that have been inhibiting real research, the last twelve months have seen the real beginning and acceptance of climate research as it should be.
Unfortunately it has had to bypass fortress AGW but the unwarm snow is starting to raise doubts in high places and many studies are getting past the keeper. Myself I would prefer warm as I ride a motor cycle, but such is life and the vagarities of the weather gods.
00
This is the glaring contradiction that shows the CAGW clique up, cyclic vs. linear. The alarmist mob claim that linear projections dominate, where we know from all observational data and documented history (including historic literature, news reports and scientific reports) that climate is cyclic.
The logical conclusion from the linearists must be that the world should have boiled/roasted or frozen solid before now, but it clearly hasn’t. The other glaringly obvious conclusion to draw therefore is that feedbacks are net NEGATIVE, and we have no reason whatsoever to believe that the minute addition to total CO2 that is man’s will make any difference, that the climate systems are so delicately balanced that a drop in the ocean will cause run-away effects.
As Lord Monckton put it so eloquently though, if the alarmists/linearists are correct, mitigation would require 33 years of ZERO CO2 emissions to prevent 1 degF of warming – which means shutting down the world’s entire economy and systems, completely! No power, no business, no manufacturing, no heating, no schools, no hospitals, no water, no sewerage, etc.
51
Gee Aye
The paper doesn’t claim to know what the cyclical drivers are – only that variability in temperature profile in the given region can be explained by a combination of 6 or so cycles working together. Given that artificial CO2 emissions is not cyclical, but linear, then the logical conclusion is there isn’t much “unexplained” warming to attribute to man-made influence.
In short, 97% of “climate scientists” (all 77 of them) were wrong.
Any questions?
Cheers,
Speedy
60
I’m very sceptical about the results of this study. It looks to me to be guilty of massively overstating the conclusions can be drawn from such a Fourier analysis.
When reading this you need to bear in mind that ANY function can be subjected to Fourier analysis and a reasonably close approximation of it reconstructed from the main Fourier components. That is completely unsurprising. And that seems to me to be essentially all they have done. Yet somehow they leap from this to concluding that there is no linear component and no effect from CO2. You can’t conclude those things without a heck of a lot more argument.
If you are looking to show that there isn’t a linear component you need to start by thinking about what it is you are looking for and how it would announce itself in such an analysis. So let us suppose for a minute that there WAS a strong linear component to the temperature. What would we then see in the Fourier analysis? Because you would still be able to do the Fourier analysis and the function would still be very closely approximated by its main Fourier components. That is true of almost all functions. What the linear trend would do is contribute a strong peak with period close to the length of the record. In fact you’d expect that to be the strongest peak in the Fourier analysis. The exact location of that peak would be sensitive to how the curve was bouncing around, but roughly speaking I’d say you’d be looking for the strongest period to show up in the range between half the length of the record and twice the length of the record. And what do the authors see when they analyse a temperature record of length 233 years but a main peak with a period of 258 years. Sorry guys but that is pretty much exactly what you would expect to get from a record with a strong linear trend in it. And yet the authors conclude the exact opposite. I cannot follow their reasoning here.
They do show some concern for this fact when they mention that the short length of the record may cause an “artifact”. I think their choice of words is a bit odd. This is the strongest peak in their analysis they are talking about, not a minor defect. So then they analyse a much longer temperature record. And you know what bothers me most about that is that they get a completely different looking bunch of Fourier peaks. Somehow they don’t seem to comment on this but you can see it by simply comparing the two graphs – just look at them! They are side by side! If the temperature was purely governed by periodic processes with well defined frequencies you’d expect the same frequencies to show up in each case. But you don’t. The frequencies are not the same. And what is of greater concern to me is that in the longer temperature record you get new peaks showing up now with even longer periods so that once again the strongest peaks are those with frequencies close to the length of the record. The Fourier graph rises towards the left. There is a significant peak with period 512 years but obviously there is a huge peak with even longer period. It is hard to see if it crosses the threshhold of significance since they’ve truncated precisely the bit of the graph you need to stare hard at to see that. But I wouldn’t say this graph disproved there being a linear trend.
And remember a linear trend isn’t what the CAGW people are claiming anyway. They only claim a linear signal on the most recent part of the graph. Their favorite graph is a hockey stick not a straight line going back thousands of years. So even if the authors had shown that the record lacks a linear trend (which I don’t think they managed to do) we would still be left scratching our heads as to what this means. It seems like huge significance is being attached to an insignificant result. Sorry guys but I find all of this completely unconvincing, especially when they try to jump from their rather limp looking graphs to making claims about the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere. That really is going too far.
This skeptic is unconvinced.
81
hey… this is a long version of what I wrote above. Cue rude remarks to you by Craker.
57
[SNIP]
23
Lol Gee Aye did you run some fourier analysis to predict obsceity from Crakar?
76
The instance of mindless abuse from das Craker boy is about as predictable as sunrise. 🙂
06
Cat,
Mindless abuse? Not at all if you behave like an idiot i will call you one nothing mindless about that.
31
One way to add heft to their conclusions would be if there was a plausible mechanism for the 250-year cycle.
The 60-year cycle is close to the Atlantic/Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
How about the weaker 80-year, 47-year and 34-year cycles?
Fitting curves is easy. As the great mathematician John von Neumann said: “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
This skeptic is also unconvinced.
60
Well, I see there is a paper called “A 250-year cycle in naked-eye observations of sunspots” published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2002.
That cycle was identified by “spectral analysis”. Interesting.
30
Dr Joan Feynman, Dr. Alexander Ruzmaikin1, and Dr.Yuk L. Yung looked at other data and published a paper in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
10
Ian H,
Apparently some people here feel as though they are incapable of conducting a debate so they have requested that i do it on their behalf, unfortunately i have no idea what their position is so i cannot debate you based on what they believe so i will attempt to generate a simple discussion so as they can read along with the hope that they interject now and again with a question or at the very least learn something.
If we look at Fig 1 for a moment, it is telling us that the data from the 6 data sets strongly indicates that a majority of the data oscillates around a 248 year cycle. There are other data points but these are orders of magnitude lower. This may indicate other factors affecting the temps over the period or it could be errors in the data itself, but all in all this fig would tend to suggest that the temp is driven in a cyclic nature.
Fig 2 and 3 etc
This fig represents a longer time frame and the 250 year cycle can be clearly seen in the data and it can be seen in the Antarctic record as well as the CET record. Once again the FA was used to derive Fig 3 data.
The FA function is in the freq domain which means it looks at the rate of change between data points it does not care about time/years etc what we are looking at is the changes in values of the data over a period of time and the data is telling us the data reduced and then increased across many frequencies (seen as cycles in years) but a vast majority of the data centers aroung 250 years.
This suggests there is a 250 year cycle in the climate, the final quarter wave length of the cycle (approx 60 years, thats peak to trough to peak again) occurred during the last part of the 20th century.
We are now going back down as the cycle starts again (well it can start anywhere of course) therefore the authors believe it will get progressive cooler for at least 125 years i suppose.
Now it is the turm of others to debate what i have said and if you have nothing to say that is relavent then say nothing at all (you know who i am talking about)
43
Crakar… the point was that Ian has already made a post that disagrees. So while you’ve outlined the paper’s case, youve not addressed Ian’s point which was:
“The exact location of that peak would be sensitive to how the curve was bouncing around, but roughly speaking I’d say you’d be looking for the strongest period to show up in the range between half the length of the record and twice the length of the record. And what do the authors see when they analyse a temperature record of length 233 years but a main peak with a period of 258 years. Sorry guys but that is pretty much exactly what you would expect to get from a record with a strong linear trend in it. And yet the authors conclude the exact opposite. I cannot follow their reasoning here.”
28
What is your point MattB apart from “Yeah what he said”.
You cannot get a cycle of 250 years if the data has a strong linear trend but you are too stupid to know this (can i call you stupid without being snipped like when i call you an idiot?….Mods?)
FA looks at the rate of change from one data point to the other, i have given numerous examples in other comments but i cannot force you to read them let alone comprehend.
I cannot help you anymore.
41
“You cannot get a cycle of 250 years if the data has a strong linear trend but you are too stupid to know this”
And this is in direct conflict with Ian’s statements.
“So let us suppose for a minute that there WAS a strong linear component to the temperature. What would we then see in the Fourier analysis? Because you would still be able to do the Fourier analysis and the function would still be very closely approximated by its main Fourier components. That is true of almost all functions. What the linear trend would do is contribute a strong peak with period close to the length of the record. In fact you’d expect that to be the strongest peak in the Fourier analysis. The exact location of that peak would be sensitive to how the curve was bouncing around, but roughly speaking I’d say you’d be looking for the strongest period to show up in the range between half the length of the record and twice the length of the record. And what do the authors see when they analyse a temperature record of length 233 years but a main peak with a period of 258 years. Sorry guys but that is pretty much exactly what you would expect to get from a record with a strong linear trend in it.”
05
Please let me come at this from a different direction.
I take it that we have all heard, as some stage, the hiss that comes from an amplifier when there is no input signal, but the volume is turned up. That hiss is caused by imperfections in the components of the amplifier. If you record the hiss, and then do a Fourier analysis on it, you find that it consists of a number of sine waves, and a direct current component. The frequency of the sine waves, and their amplitude, are clues to where that particular part of the hiss is coming from and the components involved.
All noise can be decomposed into a number of sine waves and a linear component, and you can substitute any cyclic phenomena for the word “noise”.
Now we know that nature consists of lots of cycles. In fact, it is cyclic by nature. But any influences caused by mankind are more likely to be random, or linear, but almost certainly not cyclic, within the timeframes we are considering. Such influences, should they exist, will show up as part of the linear component, and if mankind is causing the other cycles in nature to shift (as the wharmists claim) then that linear component must have a positive slope (i.e. be increasing).
So the real questions are not about the frequencies found, for they are of secondary importance, but about the linear component, because anthropogenic climate change must either have a linear signature, or a cyclic frequency that is so low as to appear linear.
30
Rereke,
That is a very good analogy Rereke, in fact if you do a FA on noise you will get small spikes across the frequency spectrum as you say the noise is not cyclical.
You never cease to amaze, you seem to have a good deal on knowledge on many subjects.
Cheers
11
Whoah there, Silver, not so fast.
No they didn’t. If you read the article all the way to the end you would have noticed the authors concluded the cyclic components account for most (but NOT ALL) of the temperature series:
The Fourier transform of the ramp function gives a real component strong on low frequencies, which is compatible with what you said and what the authors said. You can actually test this with this handy little applet: [ http://webphysics.davidson.edu/Applets/mathapps/mathapps_fft.html ] Just type x*t as the function and press play, you will see how as the input line tilts from horizontal to sloped the Fourier transform develops high strength components in the low frequencies which are false and aren’t in the input function. That’s basically what you are saying has happened in their analysis, and it’s what they concede in their cautionary note. But they are saying the linear component became “incorporated” into (or added into) the cyclic 250-year component which is really there.
You only have to look at the 1800 to 1960 temperature chart to see it goes down then up, that’s quite real.
If the 250 year component is entirely false you would then have to explain how a 250 year period emerges artificially from the wavelet analysis of the two thousand year series. It’s still there. If you are going to argue that this is also produced by a consistent linear trend then… thanks for proving our point. 🙂
However cooling is going to happen in the next 30 years, that’s been separately predicted from the cycles of the primary cause of warming, the sun.
Your extensive argument for the presence of a linear component could only serve to disprove the Slayer view (which is that CO2 has zero greenhouse effect because there is no greenhouse effect).
But your conclusion is quite consistent with the lukewarmer view (the opinion that Jo, and the authors of this science paper, and most of this blog’s readership subscribe to), which is that CO2 is a GHG (ie some linear component exists) but the sensitivity to CO2 inclusive of feedbacks is weaker than 1.2 deg per doubling.
If there is any part of their inferences and conclusions I would be questioning the most, it would be this part:
Climate chaos? Really? How? Presumably this is not an analysis artifact of the MWP bump?
And if this “signature” occurred in 1200AD shouldn’t we have seen “chaotic” climate already? Their own analysis supports a largely periodic climate over the last 250 years! The chaos is the part that sounds like hand-waving.
80
Andrew, from what I can make out there is no suggestion that when looking at the 2000 yr record you’d see a spike at 250 yr frequency due to a linear trend… such an effect would be unique to looking at a record that was around 250 years. Unless I’m looking at the wrong graph the 250 yr spike in the longer record is smaller, and there is a 350 yr spike, and a massive spike very close to 2000 years (just like a spike close to 250 years in the 250 year record).
11
The correct response should be of course – “let’s test this”. How? By validating the hypothesis using the next 30-40 year’s observational data.
00
OR – as suggested, to run the analysis on the data minus the last 30 years, and see how well it predicted the last 30 years. Waiting for 30-40 years to prove a point is one of the skeptical concerns about AGW, isn’t it?
01
Given the amount of comments you have made on this thread in the last few days, I do wonder how much time you are spending representing your constituents…
40
methinks you do not understand the role of a local government councillor.
03
You really have no idea do you
20
I have a fair idea you are a moron.
04
Ha, so i am a moron and you are an idiot………..what a pair we make.
30
It should be relatively simple to do a linear fit to their data sets. As someone has already pointed out, Excel can do this kind of thing easily as can Matlab. But let’s use unadjusted data this time!!!! 🙂
10
Ian H, I was just about to respond to your quite well put arguments when I noticed Andrew McRae had done an excellent job! So I would only add that what you can say conclusively, and it is a very reasonable point to make, the authors did not ‘prove’ that CO2 was a significant factor. There is nothing wrong with the methodology; they haven’t inverted graphs or decided to re date results because they didn’t fit the curve they wanted. Remember the CAGW mob are claiming that CO2 isn’t just a significant factor, it is the main climate forcing factor since 1900 and is responsible for the majority of the warming which has occurred since then. Given that scenario, as the authors stated, they would have expected to see the results verify that hypothesis. They didn’t.
30
We are supposed to be sceptical of all studies.
The study is interesting because it identifies possible natural cycles that can explain most of the current warming, and it provides a testable prediction.
The goal is to be able to understand and predict climate after all so we have a better chance of survival.
Trying to dismiss a theory before its been tested is just stupid.
Not dismissing a theory that failed the test is even worse (ie CAGW)
10
Bloomberg & Reuters’ new push to “fix” the CO2 market, with Bloomberg quoting anonymous official:
1 May: SMH: Bloomberg: EU officials set new date to revive ailing carbon market
Climate experts from European Union governments will next discuss a proposal to bolster prices in the bloc’s carbon market on May 27, an EU official said.
The meeting in Brussels will aim to give governments an opportunity to quickly respond to any potential action on the proposal in the European Parliament and see if they can update their positions, according to the official, who asked not to be identified, citing policy.
The Parliament’s environment committee is discussing the fate of the proposal after the full assembly rejected the measure on April 16 and has two months from the vote to propose a solution. Some members of the Parliament are reflecting on the result of the vote two weeks ago, which prompted a record decline in carbon prices, the official said.
The environment committee is next scheduled to meet on May 6-7 in Brussels and the gathering could bring some decisions on how to proceed on the future of backloading, the official said.
Potential options to change to the original proposal drafted by the European Commission to allay the concerns of those who opposed it could include some restrictions on the frequency of intervention in the carbon market, volumes of permits to be delayed or circumstances under which sales could be postponed, according to the official…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/eu-officials-set-new-date-to-revive-ailing-carbon-market-20130501-2irna.html
Future revenue at risk after EU makes $7 bln from CO2 sales
LONDON, April 30 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Failure to prop up carbon prices in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme could see government revenue per CO2 permit sold halve over the next eight years compared with the previous five, according to data compiled by Reuters Point Carbon, potentially blowing a hole in national budgets…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2330377
yet the day before:
29 April: RTCC: EU carbon market reform unlikely – report
There will be no short term reform of the EU carbon market due to opposition within the EU Parliament, according to analysts from Thomson Reuters Point Carbon.
The firm now believes it is unlikely that the plans to withhold 900m carbon credits in order to boost the flagging price and address an oversupply of credits, will come to pass…
“While there remains the possibility that the proposal may come back to plenary for a new vote before summer, it remains unlikely that backloading will ever be implemented,” said Hæge Fjellheim, analyst at Point Carbon…
“It’s hard to see what Matthias Groote, the Environment committee chair, can do to the proposal to persuade the ‘No’ MEPs to change their mind given the stalemate in the debate,” said Marcus Ferdinand, analyst at Point Carbon.
Following a successful vote the plan would need to be accepted by qualified majority at the European Council where votes are weighted by size.
***Germany is keen to sit on the fence at the council with both members of its ruling coalition pulling it in opposite directions.
“The only game changer would be if Germany decided on a position in Council, but there is nothing that leads us to believe this would happen before the German elections in September.
“Timing is key for backloading, so any further delays at this stage in the process would render the whole measure irrelevant,” added Ferdinand.
Point Carbon has revised its carbon prices down 45% for the third phase of the scheme, which started this year runs until 2020. It predicts a price of €3 per tonne in 2013 and an average €6 through the full term of the phase…
http://www.rtcc.org/eu-carbon-market-reform-unlikely-report/
30
This is a genius post. Fourier Analysis. Who even knows what that is. It must be right. AGW is FALSE!!!! *yap yap yap*
324
Here’s a genius reply Matt:
Not forgetting Mann/Briffa and their trees..
110
Obviously Mattb doesn’t know what Fourier analysis is.
141
Well I know what it is. And I’m very unconvinced; see my comment above.
I agree with you about the *yap yap yap*. Some sceptics seem to be showing a surprising lack of scepticism. However this is unfortunately the nature of the medium; there is a lot of *yap yap yap* on any blog. The warmist blogs in particular have a very loud chorus of opinionated *yap yap yap*’s of the green persuasion.
101
Yup, and that’s what makes it interesting. What “scepticism” driven by? Information or orientation? Wide spectrum of motivations in all of the groups involved in the conversation i think. And its a hot political topic that throws in more variables as to how the conversations evolve and are reported by the various interest groups.
The yap, yap, yap, is definitely part of the medium. Its the vitriolic, humourless, and simply nasty abuse that crops up all to often that shouldn’t be.
Personally, i’d love the whole warming issue to turn out to be caused by natural to climate cycles and getting a good handle on what those cycles are (if they in fact exist), how they are caused, and where we are in them time-wise is a very valuable contribution to science. This paper is interesting (but hardly the “final nail” for any position) and it will be great to see it debated, refuted, supported and followed up.
06
Try this[snip]
http://www.mathworks.com/moler/fourier.pdf
Cheers
Yap, Yap, Yap
72
Oh great – Crak gives a link to a textbook about Fourier analysis, the existance and usefulness of is not in question, therefore AGW is bunkum. lol.
212
You see MattB this is why i call you an idiot every day, the mere fact that FA exists has no bearing in your belief in AGW i merely provided the link so as an idiot like your self can understand what all teh adults are talking about.
And i quote:
This is a genius post. Fourier Analysis. Who even knows what that is. It must be right. AGW is FALSE!!!! *yap yap yap*
In bold, you stated that you did not know what FA was so i (in an attempt to educate an idiot) provided a link so you could learn something new and how have you proved me wrong.
101
“you stated that you did not know what FA was”
no I didn’t. It was a literary/dramatic tool.
114
You clearly stated that you do not know what FA so i provide a link for YOU to read so as you can learn more about it but now you state you did not say such a thing.
Another classic example as to why i consistenly refer to you as an idiot.
72
Oh don’t talk crap Crakar. I was playing the role of the yapping masses here. If you are too thick for such things so be it I guess.
213
Oh my appologies MattB i did not realise you where “only joking” when you claimed to not know about FA.
You would have covered FA during your 4 year degree as a physicist, please share with us your knowledge on this subject and offer an opinion on the veracity of the claims made in the study.
Regards
Crakar
92
Sheesh Crakar give it a rest. He was obviously employing irony/sarcasm/satire (pick one).
25
it’s only a 3 year course.
My comment does not relate to the mundane application of fourier analysis to a single temp record, nor even to the analysis presented, but to the yapping masses who will think use it to claim AGW is bunkum.
While I’m a tad more colourful with my language, I’m not the only person here saying there’s not much in this to get excited about. They seem to know about this Fourier malarky… how about you ask them.
212
Ian H look I was probably also employing being a bit of a twat.
29
Once again my apologies MattB you only studied for 3 years, maybe i should be conversing with an engineer?
Once again your idiocy shines through, you claim that you are not attempting to debunk the study
However your comment is directed towards the “yapping” from people claiming this study debunks AGW?
Strange i thought the way to respond to the yapping would be to debunk the paper?
You seem unwilling or more likely unable to debunk the paper therefore you simply believe the paper to be wrong ergo the “yappers” are wrong even though you cannot explain why.
Hence why i continually call you an idiot.
92
Oh well it is 6 years if you are including my engineering degree.
18
Crakar – since you think I’m an idiot, why don’t you engage Ian H’s well made points… instead of just some snipped abuse.
18
MattB,
I will give you snipped abuse until i get banned from this site because that is all you deserve.
You claim……..actually i have no idea what you claim, do you claim the paper is crap or is your issue simply with people that are agreeing with it? (the yapping ones?)
You refuse to enter into any formal debate on the paper but rather cast aspersions and then have the gaul to challenge me to debate Ian which as i said is something you are avoiding at all costs. You even acknowledge that you are being a twat which by the way means one of two things
▸ noun: obscene terms for female genitals
▸ noun: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool
No need to guess which one you are referring to, so you see MattB i am simply calling you what you claim to be yourself so i cannot see what your problem is.
This is why i call what i do, if you dont like it then simply report me again.
62
again?
05
Lol @ Mattb – Fourier analysis is one of the most used mathematical functions in modern physics. Without it, there would be no AC electronic circuits, no computers, no internet, no wifi, no radio communications. It is the transform of a function from the time domain to the frequency domain. It is the best way to study the periodicity of data. If you don’t know what Fourier analysis is, then you have never picked up a university level physics textbook. It isn’t surprising you haven’t heard of it.
100
Well given I have a university physics degree…
012
LOL
71
Mattb…. just how low can you stoop? I didn’t see anybody say that this is “settled science”. It is however worthy of further study and research… would you not agree?
You claim to be a physicist, so surely you must be at least slightly interested?
What university BTW?…. I know these things can be purchased online 🙂
90
yes indeed the climate is worthy of further study and research.
19
So why are you bagging this without even looking at it?
70
I’m not, I’m bagging the reaction to it, especiually based on some tenuous conclusions.
010
What reaction?
40
Whaaaat reaaaaction?
40
I think you’re in the middle of a chain reaction.
09
Right, so it was just another of your typical trolls.
Why are you, a physicist, not interested in talking about science?
40
Matt,
Ignorance should be a reason to stay silent, not make off the wall statements.
50
And where would that leave the blogosphere?
16
Touché!
00
Touché! 🙂
00
Tim Patterson of the University of Alberta has been saying same thing for years now.
First proposed climate in North America follows 3 or 4 solar cycles, from sea bed samples on west coast.
Currently taking lake bed sediment samples up ice road north of Yellowknife, every winter.
Testified to Canadian Senate;”Prepare for cooling”.
70
The other clue that cooling is coming is the urgency of the AGW movement. I wondered why it was so important that a deal be reach in Copenhagen 2009. And now every year since it is our last chance. IMHO I think they know where the climate is headed and are trying desperately to get a deal done so they can a) gain the power they seek b) claim there plans worked c) show that a global government can work and create a global a market to boot.
Keep in mind they do not care what is really happening. they will always lie and say it was them and there policies that solved the problem not natural variations.
121
Patterson’s fish profiles revealed the sun’s 87 and 210-year solar cycles–and the longer, 1500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles.
HOLOCENE SOLAR VARIABILITY AND PELAGIC FISH PRODUCTIVITY IN THE NE PACIFIC
So Feynman et al find 88 yr and over 200 year cycles, Patterson finds ~ 87 yr (Gleissberg solar cycle), ~ 210 yr and ~ 1500 yr cycles and Lüdecke, Hempelmann, and Weiss find similar cycles.
It is not this study alone but in conjunction with others that adds weight to cycles controlling climate instead of a linear response to a’CO2 control knob’.
50
At least they did look into oceanic cycles and other natural data, however the planet being fundamentally chaotic with some long-term predictable cyclic oscillations (cyclic until that changes), it would be difficult for any mathematical equation to make solid conclusions, especially considering their short time span of data and influences from Milankovich, Lunar, Solar and exo-planet cycles.
They have to fully understand the chaotic Solar cycles before inclusion.
Does anyone know if they used “raw” or “tampered” temperature records? This AGW scam is such a disease that it could have infected their study from the beginning.
I have knowledge of Fourier Transforms but if any of the data or influences are omitted or incorrect, there’s little hope of a reasonable conclusion.
51
Olaf,
What would lead you to believe the solar cycles are chaotic?
52
Crakar, the Sun does have regular cycles such as magnetic/sunspot where the poles switch every 9 to 11 years, however within those large cycles are smaller ones that are chaotic, just like weather systems here such as jet streams below its surface. A study some time ago from NASA thought Solar cycle 24 was going to be as big as 23, but as we know has barely risen above zero in comparison. Changes in the Solar wind including Solar flares and such have influences here that are not well understood.
It’s rather difficult to predict Maunder/Dalton minimums when cycles are affected by chaos in Solar variation. This planet resides within the Sun’s evaporating atmosphere and comes directly under its influence.
The fact that this planet rotates on its axis essentially creates the weather and tropical/temperate zones, but the chaos is compounded by changes in axial tilt, ecliptic, the Solar influences mentioned above and extra-planetary forces influencing ecliptic.
From Wiki (axial tilt):
I know your question was geared toward Solar cycles however I decided to include the rest for a more complete view in regards to other readers.
62
Olaf,
Thanks for the comment, the point i was alluding to was that the sun goes through cycles based on its movement around the barycentre (centre of mass). This is primarily driven by the orbit of Jupiter with assistance from Saturn. In fact all the planets play a role but obviously some more than others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Landscheidt
This guy predicted SC23 would last 13 years, SC24/25 would be low and long (13 years) well before NASA put on their pants in the morning and it was all based on the position of the planets mainly Jupiter and saturn.
The solar cycles are not chaotic they are regular over approx 179 years or so, however 179 years is way too long for the IPCC to look at they are only concerened with what happened yesterday.
92
Exactly my point Crakar. The IPCC trying to predict the climate well within any known Solar periodicity is a farce because between such periodicities are chaos that influence the climate on a decadal, even multi-decadal level. Thumbs up to you 🙂
102
Oh right yeah i got you now, yes the sun does behave in a chaotic way from cycle to cycle.
Cheers
52
Olaf… and yet the IPCC gets lampooned when such a non-predictable chaotic solar cycle causes a drop in temperature that the models did not predict! When in fact they were not predicting because they are chaotic (although known).
313
MattB,
So its the sun now that has caused the non warming? I seem to recall the IPCC stating numerous times that the only affect the sun has on climate is TSI and as TSI hardly changes (which it does appear not to) then the sun cannot be the cause of this current non warming. This fact has lead to Travesty coming up with a convoluted, physically impossible theory that all the heat is hiding at the bottom of the Mariana trench.
So now we are back to the chaotic sun, its so hard to keep up with the changes made to the settled science these days.
142
So you are saying its the chaotic solar cycles? Whatever happened to the heat going way down into the deep deep oceans?
This is the thing Mattb, they (and you) can never get their story (as in “story”) straight.
90
“I seem to recall the IPCC stating numerous times that the only affect the sun has on climate is TSI and as TSI hardly changes (which it does appear not to) then the sun cannot be the cause of this current non warming.”
It’s funny I don;t remember the IPCC saying such things. They appear to be much less specific: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-3.html
213
MattB,
Yes they do not state anything specific that could be used at a later date during a Nuremberg type trial i agree, however they do state:
Do the IPCC now acknowledge the presence of large unknown or possibly now know feedbacks?
If so then this is a monumental shift in the world of climate science.
112
A new logical fallacy to conjure with- “Argumentum ad amnesiam”
30
I don’t get why you try so hard, so desperately, to find any piece of data that might show that humans activity couldn’t be responsible for climate change. It can’t be us, it mustn’t be us. It’s the sun. It’s a “natural” cycle. It’s not happening at all. La la la.
—————–
Au contraire. There are about 800 more papers that I have not even discussed yet. I can’t keep up. Can you provide any paper showing the model assumptions about relative humidity at 200hPa are right in the long run? – Jo
320
So your argument is that there is a multitude of scholarly work demonstrating that the changing climate, if it is changing, is a “natural” phenomenon, i.e. one that requires no examination of the human economic, political and social systems that operate over the globe. And those multitudes of papers that support the idea of AGW are just “group think”. Or a fraud of fabricated data and theory?
320
indigo, so you can’t provide any evidence and you haven’t read the “New Here” page either. See also “the Evidence”. Try reading the site.
183
I am not trying to argue the evidence, I am trying you understand your position. Really, I am. Are you saying that the scientific research that supports human-induced climate change is actually refuted by these 800 papers? So that research is actually wrong. Which means that the scientists who continue to argue for human-induced climate change are bad scientists or suffering some collective delusion or committing fraud?
And again, why is it so human-induced climate change so impossible? Why must it be something else?
[Why don’t you follow the links Jo has provided and read them?] ED
016
@ indigo
Do not give up to link human activities to climate change, but consider the oceans and seas as source! An excellent case to study are the three severe war winters in Europe 1939/40, 1940/41 and 1941/42 and the global cooling starting in winter 1939/40 and lasting until mid 1970s. Concerning cold winters in Europe M. Rodewald (1948) mentioned in a paper 1948 (Fn.1) that about 4 severe winters occurred in every decade from 1780 to 1859, thereafter from 1860 until 1939 only two, 1881 and 1929, giving as further explanation:
___”Beginning in the previous century, a ‘secular heat wave’ made itself felt over most of the Earth, we noticed this especially in the increasing mildness of the winters, which became more and more striking between 1900 and 1939. So it is all the more surprising that there was a series of three severe winters in succession in 1939/40, 1940/41 and 1941/42, appearing to indicate a sudden reversal of the previous development rather than a slow deceleration, contrary to the sustainment tendency of circulation and temperature deviation.”
Excerpt from: : http://www.seaclimate.com/a/a2.html
The sudden ‘break-down’ of winter weather during three years in succession can certainly not be linked to CO2, the sun, and natural cycle. But was there not naval war from the English Channel to the Gulf of Finland since September 1939?
FN: Rodewald, Martin, 1948, “Das Zustandekommen der strengen europäischen Winter”(The realisation of severe European winters) , Annalen der Meteorologie, pp. 97-99
40
ED,
Why study when you can just complain? It’s so much easier. 😉
30
@ indigo
Agreed.
No, you are (transparently) not. Disingenuous.
Even less convincing the second time around.
Strawman. Define “climate change”- such a nebulous term- so open to interpretation and lacking in quantitative precision. Convenient for arm waving and sweeping generalisations.
Was that a statement or a question, since the lack of punctuation makes that unclear? Since you haven’t specified which papers are “wrong” -which could mean anything from erroneous conclusions drawn, faulty scientific protocols employed- (eg cherrypicking, data manipulation,etc ),weak arguments used, poor replicability of data, misapplication of inappropriate statistical methods, etc.- how is anyone meant to answer that question? Climate science is a relatively new endeavour, relying on physics not well understood, using temperature data sets which are brief, non-contiguous, contaminated by alterations in land use (urban and rural), utilise differing methodologies, usually poorly sited, non-transparently adjusted or hypothecated or inferred, cherry-picked in selection and deselection, lacking in spatial uniformity………….It would actually be miraculous if any papers within this field of science were “right”.
I believe that failing to address legitimate skeptic concerns about transparency of data, about methodology mistakes, about unwarranted adjustments and about alarmist predictions without properly reasoned foundation is “bad science”, some of it may well be fraudulent, and much of the conclusions drawn borders on delusional.
Inverting the argument- the onus of proof is on the proponents, the cost of mitigation is a certain human catastrophe to avoid a possibility, a fleeting chance, a supposition? Now that is delusional- See Ex Warmist’s comment below re the reasoning behind your illogical desire to believe in your faith based doctrine.
70
Indigo you need to look up the scientific method,
Modern science is supposed to be a methodology and a scientist is a person who employs the method.
The problem is post modern scientists have completely forgotten this and instead think that supporting evidence proves your theories, It doesn’t!
Proof is a maths concept and has no place in science!
The scientific method clearly states that no theory can be proven, only disproven!
Scientist must remain sceptical of all theories otherwise they become closed off to new evidence.
When someone thinks something is proven, they automatically dismiss the views of those who disagree and tend to surround themselves with like minded individuals, aka groupthink!
The scientific method on the other hand states the “Thesis and antithesis must be given equal consideration”
Remember, it only takes one piece of evidence to falsify a theory even if you have a million other pieces that support it.
No go out and find a way to test the CAGW theory.
You might be interested to know that the earth is loosing more energy (OLR) as it warms up, the opposite to what GHGs would do!
00
Indigo says …
And bingo – the motivation for belief in CAGW – it provides justification for the examination of the human economic, political and social systems that operate over the globe.
And after examination – replacement.
(I agree with you that they require examination – but do it honestly, transparently, and get a popular mandate – don’t wrap it in a scare campaign first so that you can ram through changes).
60
As Fourier Gump’s momma used to say.
‘Fourier is as Fourier does’
Sorry Jo, I only said that to make a totally O/T comment appear relevant 🙂
Here’s a post I put on BishopHill’s site earlier:
Bad news rising, I’m afraid.
Anthony has just revealed that we’re about to break through the 400 ppm barrier for atmospheric Carbon – a malevolent by-product of fossil-fuelled capitalism and unbridled technology; the full evil of which is documented here:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm.
For those who want a link to Mr Watt’s article, here it is:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/30/usa-todays-breathless-co2-announcement-not-quite-there-yet/#more-85335
It’s not as if it’s difficult to recognise – a quick pictorial google of the BBC site will reward all researchers with any number of cooling-tower and car-exhaust images spewing out this poisonous pollutant – but mankind, assisted by a shadowy, yet, compliant planet, is still belching out 100% of this deadly chemical – 24×7!
Honestly folks; I’m worried.
Yes, I’m really concerned about the future of life on earth, but that’s months and months away according to the experts; it’s the fate of the eco-dischordata phylum class and, for this appeal, I’ve chosen the 350 (CCCL) dot organism species as meriting your support.
In a nutshell, we need to apply the brakes and lose 50 ppm of kemicals to avoid a hollywood hell.
How do we draw away from the Frach One cliff of 400 ppm that’s about to suck us down into Hell and get back to to the state of grace where the rich man was in his castle with the poor man at his gate?
Easy; we ask and answer simple questions on our eco-site e.g.
Q:What is the correct form of address to politely request our Indian and Chinese friends to desist from building a new coal-powered station every week?
A: Comrade, please stop…
Q: 97% of Western scientists tell us that we’re 100% of the reason why computer models prove that we’re bad dudes. Do you agree?
A: Sadly yes, my friend. Give us your money.
Q: When should we start converting coal-based power plants to fracked gas or nuclear to zap emissions?
A: ASAP – once planning permisssion has been given.
Without stealing any of CCCL dot org’s thunder (for when they start asking, and answering, these questions) can any of the Bishop’s congregation come up with suggestions to help them in their quest to save our wee Gaia?
PS – The answer ‘Only £3 a month’ will be RC’ed into the whoreball (did I spell that correctly?)
Apolgies all.
22
The cycles are there for the viewing.
See here: http://landscheidt.wordpress.com/
The solar angular momentum modulation and the climate record fit like a glove. The gas giant outer planets modulate the solar center of mass causing the Sun to move around the solar bary-center (SBC) causes variation in the sunspot cycle. This should have been picked up years ago but it right under the nose of NASA and such entities they cant or dont want to know. Took Theodor Landscheidt to show it.
See Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 81–82, 27–40.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612001034
See this great graph: http://landscheidt.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/homeric.png
AMP vers C14 in earth records.
So it hardly surprising that there has been ‘cycles’ found by Fourier analysis as there are cycles to be had! As its oscillatory in nature and not ‘random fluctuations in the void’ (SARC).
70
Great site Universe.. thanks for that!
40
Jo,
As an amateur mathematician I really do wonder why it has taken so long for the Fourier transform to surface on this topic?
What chance is there of having a real maths guru like a certain Doctor David Evans comment on this paper?
[Do you have a question? – Mod]
20
I have a question. Can the good doctor interpret the Lüdecke, Hempelmann, and Weiss’s gobbledygook and tell me if they detrended either of their two main data sets prior to the frequency analysis?
I posed the question earlier without really expecting anyone could answer.
I’m interested to know how much the 250 year component was boosted, or entirely created, by the linear trend.
00
Sorry in hindsight I realised I already knew the answer. They didn’t detrend it prior to frequency analysis because they said a linear component detected by others can still exist in their analysis.
00
Ive just had to confront reams of cryptic equations apropos FOURIER FECKIN ANALYSIS in regards brain imaging data…now it pops up in my arena of “light relief”. Geee, thanks!
I dont even know what Furry Hay analysis is!
30
I don’t even know what Furry Hay is. Has someone discovered a mutation of alfalfa the grows hair? 😉
00
Furry Hay… In the USA we call it Foxtail Grass photo
Even the sheep and goats don’t want to eat it and I just got a load of the blasted stuff in some hay last winter.
10
Yep! I’ve walked through a lot of it. Pretty stuff from a distance though.
00
Jo,
Point taken about the weather system being heavily cyclic, however, word of caution needs to be made.
If the length of time series is L years long then spectral (Fourier) analysis can only validly be used to search for periodic signals with length less than ~ L/5. So in the case of the plot shown at the top left of this article, only those peaks with periods shorter than 61 year can be taken seriously. The strong 250 year signal is just the long-term curvature of the time series which is immediately evident from the accompanying plot below and towards the centre. There is no way of 250 year long six central European time series can be used to infer a period of 250 years.
As for the remaining periods of 61, 47 and 32 years – what you are probably seeing in the 31,62,93, 186 Lunar perigee-syzygy Lunar tidal cycle.
Lunar Cycle___________Observation
31 yrs____________=_____32 yrs
93/2 = 46.5 yrs___=_____47 yrs
62 yrs____________=_____61 yrs
Remember, cycle periods longer than ~ 60-70 years are no reliable.
30
Ian, thanks for the lunar connection (I’ll say more about that soon!). Obviously understanding the causes makes all the difference. I agree that finding one dominant cycle the same length as the data is a problem – that’s why they used the 2000 year stalagmite record which is L/8. I looked at Ljundqvist where I was satisfied that there might be a 250 year (ish) cycle present in some types of proxy data over longer periods (see my reply in #7.4).
93
I dont understand why this is a problem if we are using FA, FA works by looking at the rate of change. A couple of examples would be that if you had a clock that counted up consistently by 1 (linear line) the FA would return a graph with the measurement at zero.
If you have a 1 Hz and 2Hz signal superimposed on top of each other with one a greater magnitude than the other the two signals would add and subtract from each other (due to phase differences) so you would end up with a squiggly line. The FA would look at the rate of change and deduce that there is a 1 Hz and 2 Hz signal and represent that on the graph as two individual spikes one with a greater magnitude than the other.
Therefore i do not believe the period of time makes a difference, obviously the longer the record the better, the only stipulation with FA is that the samples are a factor of two ie 2,4,8,16……..256…..1024 etc. Samples rather than time are important.
Cheers
42
Crakar,
I think you have hit on one possible point of confusion.
When I learnt this stuff, a loooong time ago, it was impressed on us that the accuracy was dependent on the number of samples, and that if you needed to calculate frequency, then you needed to accurately clock the sample rate. Having said that, you can vary the sample rate during the period under observation, to get more or less accuracy, as long as you know what the rate was relative to any point in time. This means that you cannot draw any conclusions regarding the total time period covered by an analysis, because parts of it may have been expanded or compressed. Does that make sense?
21
An important point, Rereke. And an important weakness in using this stuff — the math will assume your samples are equally spaced in time (or some other domain), whether they are or not. But again, this isn’t enough to invalidate the result out of hand.
I’m still going to wait for the detailed examination of the work before I point any fingers.
20
Yes Rereke you are right i can make up another scenario on this one.
Lets say you are sampling data at a rate of 6.711 Khz (note the accuracy of my made up scenario) this means the samples are exactly 149 Microp seconds apart and you do a FA on that data you will get a nice big signal/spike at 6.711 Khz kind of like the 250 year spike.
But lets say your samples drift at times from 140 to 160 micro seconds and you do a FA on that then you will still get a big signal at 6.711Khz but you will also get smaller signals above and below this.
10
Kool – Ta muchly.
30
Fast Fourier Transforms have been a part of mathematics for a very long time. It is a very useful analysis tool, particularly for making people who are still wet behind the ears to as questions.
50
Violins of 1790 suggest that old thermometers were the best ones:
http://www.instablogsimages.com/1/2011/06/21/lady_blunt_stradivarius_violin_aem3l.jpg
50
Regardless, we cannot accept the findings of these guys because they are not a member of the 97%
80
Strange, the “Report this” link on the comments appears new but it also appears to have broken the numbering as now all the comments just have a pound sign. Anyone else seeing the same?
20
I have not had numbers for a very long time i just have # symbols and nothing has changed.
11
All those pound keys, makes me want to press repeatedly.
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The “report this” does not work at all.
I see a new template, but its awful and we have lost post numbers altogether.
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Mines showing it, the numbering, as just a Hash sign ‘#’.
I don’t think (?) the ‘Report This’ ever worked, it just doesn’t let you go so far now.
00
Yes. I’ve the same thing this morning.
10
Oops… looks like somebody is playing with templates…
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I just got on and noticed a few changes too, the font is actually easier to read, for me anyway.
Just a novice question, where does this information stand in the scientific process?
I take it that the hypotheses is now tested so what now?
00
That’s it, the “Report this” seems to be in a larger font. I couldn’t recall if I’d seen the link previously but something about it looked different so I assumed it was new.
00
P.S. Jo your new logo is surprisingly similar to BP’s
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Spooky hey Matt, bit like the number 666. Green Revelations 4:11 “By the beast’s logo so shall ye know her”.
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Hi Jo,
What’s the new motif ?
The initial impression was that, that Big Oil funding stream must have come in at last.
🙂
But only for a moment. It’s much nicer than the British Petroleum logo.
but what else could explain their opening a sharp 2% up on NewYork yesterday, if not a major sponsorship deal with the light that’s outshining the Green madness.
BR,
Eddie
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Aren’t Hyperlinks supposed to come up light Blue, underlined ?
The Bold slate grey, seems just too subtle not to be missed half the time, unless it’s because you’re going Monochrome.
20
Ahh . The Report this buttons are working after all. It was that subtle grey text that again, that I missed as being a link to something another routine.
I don’t think the Report Comment button is working though (from Safari browser on my IPhone at least ). But that’s no different to how it always was.
10
Hmmm. The BP-like logo was just the default for blogs without their own. It is a minor technical issue with style templates – I expect we can reset the things in the next day or two from the backups.
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Awe Jo, Loved the logo. It soon grows on you. Much better than BP’s. Just ribbing. Don’t remove it on my account please. Missing the new look already..
BR,
Eddie.
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The green leafy icon was very nice. There’s nothing wrong with Jo accentuating her Green credentials. Environmentalism has great emotional appeal, attracting many innocents whose good will & motivation is all too readily exploited by the unscrupulous. Greenpeace has become a byword for barmy, a lair of covert crypto-Communism. We need a rational environmentalism, to supplant these loony lefties who have high jacked it to their cause.
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Conservationist = Good
Preservationist = Greenies = Bad
Seems to sum up this article, things always change, but greenies don’t get it!
00
Yes Rob, perhaps we should abandon Enviro to the mentalists and keep with the conversation. The language is littered with casualties of political correctness, word that cannot be used any more, for danger of being misunderstood. Have you noticed the micro-pause & slight rise at the end when followers use words like Environmental, Sustainability, & going Forward as if seeking Group affirmation for their adherence (yes it’s same like with business speak) ? The cryptos. bring a bad name to whatever’s words they use. There should be a law against such abuse of the language.
00
Off Topic, but related to…
30 April, 2013
Nigel Farage On “Wholesale, Violent Revolution” In Europe (1.56 seconds long) via zerohedge.com
.
This earlier video (21.36 min long ) Nigel Farage at the 2013 Manning Networking Conference in Canada and expands above video:
March 15, 2013
British Eurosceptic Nigel Farage at the 2013 Manning Networking Conference.
.
My vote is with Nigel. He speaks the truth (17.05 mins) about the global warming fraud.
20
Boris says
May 1, 2013 at 3:37 am · Reply
‘This is a pretty unconvincing paper. Why do this analysis with local temps and a single proxy? It looks like the proxy was cherry-picked here–why did they go running to Austrian stalagmites of all things?’
Climate is not global, it is zonal – as reflected in the Köppen-Geiger climate zone maps that reflect zonal temperatures and precipitation. It therefore makes more sense to evaluate climate change by examining temperature data reflecting zonal boundaries with proxy data taken from within those boundaries, as well as noting boundary changes, Examples of the latter are the moving tree line in the northern hemisphere, areas where wine can be produced (Roman Britain), grains grown (Viking Greeland) etc.
An examination of the Köppen-Geiger climate zone maps shows that the CRU, GISS and NCDC temperature data is heavily biased towards the climate zone covering SW USA and C Europe, such that it largely reflects land use change and UHI effects. This paper reflects the dating of climate change cycles in this climate zonal but may not reflect the same dating in other areas, especially the southern hemisphere, even though one expects the cycles to be repeated elsewhere.
The concept in the paper is however valid and reflects the impacts of solar activity as mediated by lunar (Saros) – planetary (Jupiter/Venus) effects on the Earth and Sun as is widely discussed at the blog site of Tallbloke in the UK..
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Entirely agree .
as there is no such thing as a Global Climate.
Global Mean Temperature is a pretty poor proxy for anything in particular. It just gives a single, simple indicator that everyone can not disagree on, while smoothing out the worst excesses.
Not unlike democracy.
50
I guess I always was a bit of a purist, but I would have liked to have seen civilization spelt with an s.
As to the logo, I can see those
friends of the dirtgreenies having their apoplectic head explosions right now, as they point and hum om om om big oil big oil big oil.Tony.
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I do agree. Much more civilised.
10
Dont you mean “swivelisation”.
Thats what we are in…spinning like atop.
10
I have pretty much given up on that sort of thing Tony. I gave up spelling ‘skeptic’ as ‘sceptic’ about three years ago!
00
Yes, it’s curious, the American fascination with ‘zee’. See they cann’t even spell it 😉
00
They cannot say “Notre Dame” or “laboratory” either.
Cracks me up listening to them trying to speak their own language.
(Sorry Roy, nothing personal).
Oh the best…some of them think “hoax” is the plural of “a hoke”.
00
If I may split hairs I don’t think you are being a “purist” there Tony, you’re being a traditionalist. Slight difference.
A language purist surely would leap at any opportunity to improve the intermodal consistency of the language, to reduce ambiguity, and to make the language easier to learn. Replacing Ss that are pronounced like Zs with actual Zs, and replacing CHs that sound like Ks with actual Ks certainly accomplishes all these laudable goals.
It is trendy amongst the Commonwealth portion of the anglosphere to deride americans as not knowing how to spell English “properly” whenever these little substitutions are made. Of course in my younger days I emulated British traditions too. But this is rigidly shortsighted. Perhaps unwittingly, what the americans are doing is simplifying spelling. I can’t see anything wrong with that as long as regional accents don’t start dictating new spellings. We can’t let New York USA and New Hampshire UK turn the language into a comedy act.
Of course I have my limits. I’m fine with disk, civilization, and skeptic, and colour can stay as it is, but I cannot conceive of radical spellings such as skool, skedule, and kulur because they either break compatibility with latin roots, or break proper pronunciation, or add no value, or all of the above.
I think we can afford a substitution of cheaper parts in some places but would not go as far as a rebuild.
00
I suspect that the end to global warming was the result of younger people saying “cool”
30
What no feedbacks, no hot spots, no fudge factors…………
10
Russian Academy of Sciences: “Early signs of cooling are already there and the trend may pick up in coming years.”
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/11203-russian-scientists-we-could-face-cooling-period-for-200-250-years.html
31
[…] are failing to find their global warming worlds, as 15 year temperatures nosedive into cooler times. The just-in-casers and do-gooders are doubting. Even school boards & their tests are falling […]
00
This has been an interesting discussion – I will have to agree with many of the posters that the paper discussed simply does not support its conclusions.
Fourier analysis is descriptive. Any signal can be decomposed, and closely replicated with a subset of high energy frequencies. But that is just a description of that examined portion of the signal – not of the physics that produced it. And as such, as a ‘curve-fitting’ exercise, it has little applicability outside that analyzed signal. In particular, it doesn’t tell you what the signal will do next.
I could perform a Fourier analysis of the path of a car over time, and closely replicate that path with a few primary frequencies. And, like the authors of this paper, I could use those frequencies to make predictions of the future path of the car. But without some knowledge of the physics and underlying reasons for that path, such predictions are really useless – the driver might, for example, decide to divert to a good restaurant, or the car might run out of gas, or reach a hill requiring a turn.
None of that information, none of the physics, is contained within the Fourier analysis of the previous car path, much as none of the analysis these authors perform contains the physics or causality behind temperatures. The entire paper is one of description and correlation within the bounds of the observations, not causation, and as such the Fourier analysis has little or no predictive power whatsoever outside those bounds.
[Side note – using a very limited set of data, which says very little about global temperatures, does not argue for useful results either.]
55
Funny thing, KR — that’s what we’ve been arguing against the climate change industry for years, yet you buy it from them but not here. We live in strange time indeed. 🙁
71
Roy Hogue – The Lüdecke et al paper and their conclusions are complete nonsense, as a description of observations lacking and in fact ignoring the physics behind the phenomena is not going to be useful as a prediction. Let alone as an attempt to invalidate said physics.
Any comments on that?
—
WRT limited data – you can always find a subset of data in a large set that will support your desired conclusions; that is the essence of cherry-picking. Which is why using all of the data is preferable, such as all available temperature readings, multiple proxies such as speleothems, boreholes, corals, alkenones, foraminifera, etc, will give a far more accurate picture than, say, just the CET record or (as in this case) a single stalagmite and a half dozen nearby Central European records. Lüdecke et al simply are not using global data.
Cherry-picking data is, in fact, one of the classic tactics and logical fallacies I most often see in climate ‘skeptic’ arguments.
210
“Cherry picking” is a universal technique. The alarmists are good at it as well. For example:
Let’s use only these trees in Yamal but not these.
Let’s start all the temperature charts from or near the coldest point in the last 5000 years.
Let’s include this proxy, its shape is just what we are looking for.
I know we have replies from over 3,000 scientists but let’s major on this 75 because they have the answer we want.
Let’s cherry pick just the possible CO2 effects and ignore any others.
Let’s include only these peer-reviewed reports and not these with different conclusions. Oh, and while we are at it, let’s cherry pick some non-peer-reviewed stuff that has the right answer as well.
110
Listen to the pot calling the kettle black.
I think you’ve contributed nothing but nonsense to this blog since you first appeared. And you’re still at it. You and a long list of others are doing nothing but abusing the hospitality and patience of your hostess. In your shoes I would go home until I could make a good sound argument for my case. Finger pointing contributes nothing useful. 🙁
You have a legitimate comment about Fourier’s limitations. But whether it’s legitimate or not to make some assumptions beyond strict interpretation of the math, is a question you should ask of all your computer models. Then we’ll have a basis for discussing this paper.
02
For once I agree with you KR. This is clearly your best comment on this blog.
(There is hope for you after all)
01
No, there isn’t.
30
One thing I would like to point out is that “climate scientists” quite often confuse correlation with causation and many believers in CAGW don’t seem to have a big problem with that.
Secondly, your car analogy is ridiculously flawed. Sure, you COULD do a Fourier analysis on the path of a car and try to use it to predict its future path. Then you totally ignore the fact that you yourself are throwing in the element of human decision making, thereby using it to claim that there is some sort of flaw with the Fourier Analysis itself.
Fourier Analysis OBVIOUSLY won’t work if the human driving the car decides to pop in for a coffee somewhere… that isn’t what Fourier Analysis was designed to do; however, arguing that Fourier Analysis is horrible for predicting the future path of the car has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not Fourier Analysis can or cannot predict future CLIMATE.
The CLIMATE is not going to randomly decide to pop in for a coffee someplace. It is far more likely that it is going to continue behaving in a somewhat predictable cyclic manner, at least between now and the onset of the next major glacial period.
As such, using Fourier Analysis to attempt to predict the future path of a car would be rather silly, since the driver of the car might well pop in for a coffee someplace, but using Fourier Analysis to predict the future behavior of the climate MIGHT NOT be silly, because the climate can reasonably be expected to behave in the same cyclic manner which it has been behaving in for the past 250 years or so.
The BIG CAVEAT here, is that it should be seen as very important to characterize WHAT ARE THE SIX MAJOR CYCLES that seem to be the major drivers of the climate, how do they all interact, and how predictable are they really?
If it turns out that the six major cycles can be well characterized, their interactions can be well described, and they can be reasonably predicted, then this analysis MIGHT be very useful in projecting future climate.
On the other hand, if they cannot be well characterized and their interactions cannot be well described, then this MIGHT be a load of hogwash.
As such, I don’t see this study as completely useless at all, but I certainly see it as a STARTING POINT for a lot of further study. If it turns out to be a fairly accurate predictive tool, then we should certainly want to use it as a jumping-off point for a LOT of further study!
50
PeterB – Nothing wrong with using Fourier spectral analysis. At least, as long as you are aware of the limitations thereof, as long as you don’t make unwarranted conclusions.
1) Fourier analysis is descriptive – what did the signal do over a particular period. It doesn’t tell you why the signal did that, whether it was changing climate forcings, internal cycles, or mischievous leprechauns. Spectral analysis contains nothing about causation.
2) Suggesting cycles the same length or longer than your observation period is nonsense. By the Nyquist criterion alone, you can’t make any descriptive points about anything greater than half your period, or in this case ~125 years. As was pointed out above by Ian H, that long cycle could be in fact a mis-identification of a trend, not a cycle.
3) Erratic (non-linear) behavior is easy to mis-identify as cycles. Again, to understand the behavior of your signal you need to know why it changes.
—
The point I made about the car is quite valid – it includes the possibilities of limits (size of the cars gas tank), forcing changes (hill diverting the road), and even anthropogenic influences (the restaurant decision). None of these are even remotely included in a Fourier analysis; it only describes what you have seen, it doesn’t predict what you haven’t.
Assuming that the signal will repeat (which is an underlying assumption of Fourier analysis, from the use of the infinitely repeating sinusoidal decomposition) is completely invalid _if something changes_, or if the underlying physics (again, totally ignored by this paper) has non-cyclic behavior. Such changes could be from the sun (Maunder Minimum), aerosols (Pinatubo), or even human influences (added greenhouse gases).
* Predictions based on naive curve fitting and no physics are unlikely to be anywhere near reality, even if absolutely nothing changes.
* Predictions based on the underlying physics, on the other hand, have a good change of being correct due to cause-effect relationships. Physics, I’ll note, that Lüdecke et al have entirely avoided.
17
Ok, we are somewhat closer to agreement on this than what I originally thought; however, I still don’t think that the car analogy NECESSARILY holds.
They had to use a total of 6 cyclic phenomena to accurately do a Fourier Analysis on the proxy data here…
They don’t identify/analyze what the six cycles actually ARE though, which is precisely why there is a big need for further study here.
Is solar activity cyclic including the fact that there are various maxima (Roman Optimum, Medieval Warm Period, Modern Optimum), and various minima (Sporrer, Maunder, Dalton)? Is that ONE of the six cycles? We need to figure that out.
Is volcanic activity cyclic, with periods of low activity followed by periods of relatively high activity? We need to figure that out too.
Certainly, the SuperVolcano under Yellowstone might suddenly decide to explode, and that would not be accounted for in this particular analysis, but my “feeling” (and I hate using that word as a scientist) is that generally global volcanic activity is at least somewhat cyclic in nature. Yellowstone exploding WOULD be the climate equivalent of the system popping off someplace for coffee unexpectedly.
Obviously one would argue (most likely correctly) that human influences are non-cyclic; however, the analysis shows that the non-cyclic components appear to be fairly trivial.
So, my point is, we need to identify what the 6 cyclic components ARE, then analyze how they behave individually and how they interact with each other, and if we can do so, we MIGHT get a much better understanding of climate. So, in my opinion, this paper has SOME merit as a good starting point.
As to whether it has any predictive power whatsoever, only time will tell, but if the six variables continue to behave in a cyclic manner, are not overwhelmed by some other unexpected or non-cyclic variable, and the six variables continue to interact with each other in a reasonably well-behaved manner, then this analysis MIGHT have some predictive power.
All in all, it is very interesting, but it is only a crude beginning point, certainly not a well-finished end point by any means.
30
No, its not. See above.
00
I agree partially with this. Certainly, Fourier Analysis is just one more example of curve fitting. You are just fitting a set of sine waves rather than a straight line or a parabola, for instance.
Being able to replicate any signal with just a small number of frequencies is not always the case, though. The sharper an impulse the harder that is, for example.
I take your point in another post that more data is generally better.
However, as has been mentioned previously in this thread, we live in a cyclic universe: moon, sun, planets, tilt, wobble precession etc. Fourier Analysis might be able to indicate where we should look for some answers.
Day and night are well understood as are the seasons. I would be surprised if they were the only cyclic events to affect the weather and climate. Why not find the rest so that they can be eliminated from the enquiry.
10
Apologies. The above post was intended to be in reply to:
KR May 2, 2013 at 2:16 am
00
This is a very very poor analogy. We are looking at cycles, not the random path a car may take.
00
Backslider – Therein lies the problem.
I guarantee that if I were to analyze the path of a car I could closely describe it – and replicate it – with a subset of frequencies from a Fourier analysis of that path. The same holds true for any 1-D (or 2-D, or N-D, for that matter) signal.
That subset is a description of the path, not a causal analysis. Much as the Fourier analysis of temperatures in the opening post is a description of temperatures. And not even global temperatures, mind you – those have a different pattern than Eastern European (BEST land temperatures, 15 year running mean as per the Lüdecke data).
As with the car (as you quite correctly noted), if you don’t know, or even look at, what caused the path you have analyzed, you can’t make predictions about its future behavior.
The Lüdecke paper is the worst kind of circular argument – they find some strong frequencies in their description of the observed data, and without even looking at the physics behind that data they assume that those descriptive frequencies are the causes, the physics, not (as one might argue) physical effects of energy balance in the climate. They are assuming their conclusions.
And their conclusions are therefore unsupported.
00
I do not get that from it at all. My interpretation is that they have identified distinct cycles (which other studies show to be there). I do not see any attempt to elaborate on the cause of those cycles.
Their conclusion is that there are cycles and it appears that AGW is…..?
10
Backslider – “I do not see any attempt to elaborate on the cause of those cycles.”
Exactly. Which is why this is ‘curve-fitting’, not physics. And why their speculations as to causation (in particular that of CO2) are unsupported. They simply haven’t analyzed causes, and are in no position to draw conclusions about them.
There’s a new and extremely relevant paper that just came out, Benestad et al 2013, Agnotology: learning from mistakes. I would in particular point you to section 3.2, case 2, discussing Scafetta 2012 and his curve-fitting papers. His curve-fits match the data within the fitting period – and they diverge outside of that because they are not based on the physical processes involved. Lüdecke et al make the same mistakes.
A clear graphical example of Scafetta’s errors outside the training period is shown here, discussing Loehle and Scafetta 2011. I expect Lüdecke et al’s naive approach to do no better.
01
They are simply saying that the cycles do not show anything remarkable for the period that CO2 has supposedly been that bad buddy…… that the warming we have seen is not remarkable (since when was 0.8 degrees remarkable anyway??).
That is not ‘causation’, its observation of their results…. nor is it speculation, its what they see.
11
I don’t think that making comparisons to somebody else’s modelling (this is not modelling) is particularly useful or relevant.
00
The earth could be compared to a lime squeezed into a gin and tonic, there is only so much juice. After the CAGW battle has been won in the minds of the “common” man, humanity still needs to get a hand on energy. I believe that nuclear/thorium power is the mid-term solution and needs to be put-on the fast track, now.
10
I particularly like nuclear from thorium myself because of the the availability, safety and waste benefits. But when the CAGW battle is finally won, it is likely oil, gas and especially methane hydrate will be in the mix as a long term bridge to the technology and cost efficient goal of renewable energy?
There is an excellent well researched article here on methane hydrates if you are interested:http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-of-oil/309294/?single_page=true
The article is quite long and goes through a lot of the history of research and development of oil and gas and methane hydrates. But I can summarise the paper in the following way. Many people argue that we should move to inefficient, costly renewable energy now ‘anyway’ regardless of whether CO2 is causing dangerous climate change because we are quickly running out of alternative fuel sources. But the fact is improved technology is not only finding more oil and increasing the ability to extract it, but is also creating a huge shift to natural gas. Fracking, which has been used since the 1940’s in hydrocarbon extraction, but is now able to be used in horizontal drilling has further increased access to fossil fuels. Gas fracking is predicted to make the US and other countries energy self sufficient by 2035. At the same time allowing a transition from less energy and less pollution efficient coal and oil.
But possibly just around the corner is an even cleaner source of energy which doesn’t take millions of years to accumulate and which has been under research and exploration for many years now. Discovered in the 1970’s crystalline natural gas, or methane hydrate, exists in immense quantities. The Japanese research program which started back in 1995 is expected to be in commercial production in a decade and is part of their attempt to become less reliant on overseas energy.
Estimates of the global supply of methane hydrate range from the equivalent of 100 times more than America’s current annual energy consumption to 3 million times more.
That is enough to send a shiver down the back of every pro renewable energy campaigner. Energy from methane hydrate is ‘cleaner’ than any fossil fuel, so it has a bright future if it can be commercialised.
Even if greenhouse gases were proven to cause potentially dangerous climate change, to proceed with renewable energy in preference to methane hydrate you’d have to be able to show that renewable energies are cost competitive and reliable. In addition, green house gas abatement would have to be greater than the emissions from the use of methane hydrates, fully accounting for all manufacturing, start up and maintenance emissions. Given the very high cost of CO2 emission abatement of Solar and Wind at present, methane hydrates, if commercial could be attractive, especially given the world’s nervousness about nuclear power.
60
Jaymez,
thank you so much for this link.
Because the article is so long, I can’t see many warmists having the time or the inclination to read it all, but honestly, this is one of the best reads I’ve had in ages. I just loved the following few lines of text:
Coming to a power grid near you, and sooner than you think.
Tony.
40
Tony:
from an article in Der Spiegel (previously a supporter of the AGW scare)
“The total amount of curtailed energy from wind and CHP is probably modest, but the observations seem to indicate that German grids are frequently loaded to the capacity limits”. (In further detail they mention that one of the german grid authorities was curtailing conventional power 23% of the time (winter); but they are compensated because they have to be available when renewables aren’t working).
Some of the capacity problems are caused by the PV coming on line around midday. This has prevented pumped storage operators selling into the high price time. Since they depend on the difference between cheap night time power (for storage) and high daytime prices, they are shutting down. Thus even less flexibility in the system. I like the intro for one old coal fired station still going “there was a Kaiser ruling when this was commissioned”. It was slated to be shut down, but it had to stay available to prevent blackouts.
The Poles and the Czechs have “isolated” their grids from the german wind areas, as they were destabilising their grids. Apostrophes because they are quite happy to sell coal fired (Poland) or nuclear (Czech) to Germany when they need it (for a suitable price).
But there are signs that the move to wind has stalled. Replacing old turbines with new is the cheapest way to increase wind capacity, but out of some 13,750 old wind turbines in Germany “In the first six months of this year, all of 15 were replaced with 10 new ones”. The money supply has dried up. No one wants to be stuck with a turbine if it isn’t subsidised.
10
This post is remarkably unimpressive. That you can model some data with 6 terms in a Fourier series is hardly surprising. As John von Neumann is supposed to have said:
Its just an exercise in curve fitting, and not only doesn’t prove anything, it doesn’t even suggest that anything needs proving.
If anyone is interested, why not leave out the last 30 years of data? Given that we started with 240 years worth, leaving out 30 shouldn’t matter that much. Now redo the Fourier analysis. Use the results to predict the last 30 years of the 240 year temperature record.
I bet it doesn’t look very impressive.
59
I wonder if you’d get a major cycle of about 215 years with a suggestion that 1980 – 2010 would have seen a sever drop in temps?
210
This is not good. I’m agreeing with KR, JB and MattB. I need a nightcap.
10
Good gosh. Whats next ? A consensus ?
20
Mattb,
Rather than wondering if it would produce a cycle of about 215 years and predict that 1980-2010 should have had cooling, since you claim to have a broad education in physics, why don’t you DO THE Fourier Transform Analysis on the data set and present to us what your results are?
That way, rather than idle speculation and “wondering”, you can show us the actual results of the analysis and we can evaluate them.
50
Fair call – I was waiting for that one TBH. Look my greenie pursuits over the years have taken me far from being anything that resembles a physicist, or the type of person who could quickly whip this sort of thing up. Where’s the data set for a start? There are many here who could do it much faster than I. You’d be talking the best part of 20 years since I last actually did the maths.
Note at no stage am I claiming that the actual application of fourier analysis in the study is in any way flawed.
05
Mattb,
I understand, and I would also be interested in seeing what happened if you did the analysis in different segments. If the analysis has any validity, it should work for the whole range of the data, regardless of how you slice it up…
Of course, that is, if the data set is big enough. If you try to do the analysis on too small of a subset of the data, I would have no expectation whatsoever that it would look anything like the analysis of the complete data set, but as long as you used a statistically valid subset of the data, I would expect the analysis to be significantly similar assuming it was a valid analysis.
I understand perfectly that there are others who would be more suited to performing such an analysis – my point; however, is that your post was essentially completely idle speculation with no mathematical backing, so although it was perhaps an interesting question, it did nothing whatsoever to call into question the results of this study, since it was merely idle speculation.
10
no actually it was based on Ian H’s earlier post regarding this study delivering exactly what you’d expect of a system under the influence of a number of cycles as well as a clear linear trend.
03
No, actually what is unsurprising is that you NEED a minimum of 6 terms to accurately describe natural climate change.
You are perfectly right about one thing you said though, “it doesn’t even suggest that anything needs proving”
You were correct there, climate is apparently a non-linear coupled chaotic system which is highly influenced by 6 major variables, none of which appear to be “human produced CO2”, which pretty much everyone already knew a long time ago, before the “climate scientists” attempted to “prove” otherwise.
This does indeed should that nothing in particular needs proving.
30
Decomposing a signal into its equivalent sine and cosine functions is a straightforward process. This is an excercise which shows that the record we have is subject to such an analysis.
Of course our analysis of the signal improves (generallyl speaking) as the record length improves (that’s the basis of inferential statistics), but the time to process such a record also increases. Each individual researcher will have to decide if the increased time and cost is worth a small increase in accuracy.
Also, if this “signal” is part of something with a periodicity of say, 500 years, or 1,000 years, or even 1,500 years (as was posited by the book, “Unstoppable Global Warming [Every 1,500 years]”) then this analysis will not pick up that information. The record is too short to do that. It makes sense to increase the length of the record to find longer periodicites, if they exist.
On more than one occasion I have asked you, Dr. Brookes, to provide me with your cross-correlation coefficient for the Veizier paleotemperature record and the Berner & Kothavala GEOCARB III record. I have yet to see it. While you’re at it, feel free to do a Fourier on each, and determine their periodicities; let’s see (first) how well the two cross-correlate (simple process, just convolve each curve) and (second) what frequencies are in each curve. Post your results here, and we’ll compare notes, OK?
Regards,
Mark H.
20
There speaks a man who has never tried.
30
I really must find out how the Reply system works!
Clicking Reply is clearly insufficient.
00
@ Brookes. You must have missed this bit in the text.
40
For the love of God……
FA is not modelling
Bears no relevance to this topic
Not it is not curve fitting (dont you work at a Uni? Are you the janitor?)
Let me try and explain how this works i will try and keep it simple for you.
Lets say we have some data, now dont get hung up on where the data comes from its just data and lets say we have 1024 samples of data and the data is consistent over time eg sample 1 is 10, sample 2 is 10 and so on.
If we do a FA on this data (and you can do this in Excel) and then create a X-Y plot we will have magnitude on the left and frequency (not time) running across the bottom (with me so far?)
On the frequency scale we will have a big spike at zero and a flatline after that, this is because the rate of change in our sampled data is zero or the frequency change in our data is zero (still with me?)
Ok now lets do something tricky and modulate the sampled data with a 1Khz sine wave (dont know what modulation means?) Ok we are going to change our data values to this. Sample 1 = 0, sample 2 = 1, S3 = 2, S4 = 3 and so on until we get to 10. The next sample will be 9 like this:
0,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
…..
10,
9,
8,
7,
….
0,
-1,
-2,
-3,
…..
-10,
-9,
-8,
…..
0,
Understand? If not just ask for an explanation
so in the end we have 1024 samples of data modulated at 1Khz and when we do a FA on the data we will get on the frequency line running across the bottom of our graph a flatline until we reach 1Khz and then we will get a big spike and then after that we will get another flatline this is because our data is cyclical in nature.
Now lets apply this new found knowledge to the temp records, the study shows that teh FA has produced various peaks (representing cycles over years) and one of the most prominent cycles is 250 years therefore we could say the temp data is being modulated (just like our 1Khz) over a 250 year period.
In other words something is influencing the temperature data and it is not of a linear nature, this is not curve fitting JB this is mathematics.
Obviously the greater the sample rate 1024, 2048, 4096 etc the greater the trust we have in the results.
I bet it doesn’t look very impressive.
I bet you would be wrong
——————————————————————————–
61
Craks, you understand the basics of Fourier analysis. So do I. But it is, in this case, just curve fitting.
I’m not going to do this (although I’m tempted), but why not construct a random time series of data with the same autocorrelation characteristics as the temperature data used in this paper. Then run the same Fourier analysis, and I’ll bet that a lot of times when you do this you end up with a pretty good match between the original data and the Fourier reconstruction.
Its pretty straightforward. If the authors of this paper were interested in getting at the truth rather than pushing their particular barrow, they would have tried what I suggested above, and also what I suggested in my earlier comment. I know that if I had taken the trouble to do the analysis that they did I would be itching to do the other stuff, because I’d want to see if what I thought I’d discovered was real, or just an artefact of the technique I was using. It goes under the general heading of not kidding yourself.
36
John,
Its a shame you did not cast such a critical eye over the hockey stick.
Whilst i appluad you for attempting to critique the paper in question the scenarios persented (acceptable as they are) do not lessen the value of the paper. FA is FA if i change the characteristics of the data then i will get a different result yes that is correct, the variation in the data is what gives us the 250 year cycle, there now other ways to do the FA, the result is the result.
If you want you could question the data, as i have said previously the data sampled must be a factor of two so the minimum sample number would have to be 256, basically 1 sample per year however this could man made induce errors through measurement etc possibly so 512 samples would give us a 6 month resolution 1024 3 month etc so the greater the sample the better of course.
I am not sure how many samples they have used in either case (250 or 2000 year) regardless if the FA produces a dominant cycle of 250 years then that is the cycle the higher number of samples would give us more confidence i suppose.
Thanks for your input John.
60
“Now lets apply this new found knowledge to the temp records, the study shows that teh FA has produced various peaks (representing cycles over years) and one of the most prominent cycles is 250 years therefore we could say the temp data is being modulated (just like our 1Khz) over a 250 year period.
In other words something is influencing the temperature data and it is not of a linear nature, this is not curve fitting JB this is mathematics.”
So you are still ignoring Ian’s comments then?
06
No i responded to Ian perhaps i should start ignoring yours?
50
...cognitive dissonance is the discomfort experienced when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel “disequilibrium”: frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc.[1] The phrase was coined by Leon Festinger in his 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, which chronicled the followers of a UFO cult as reality clashed with their fervent belief in an impending apocalypse.[2][3] Festinger subsequently (1957) published a book called A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance in which he outlines the theory. Cognitive dissonance is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
It seems to me, it explains much of history.
Robert Felix may be on to something,
40
A Fourier analysis finds the cyclic tendency in a data set. It does not find trend lines because the frequency of a trend line of any slope is zero. The interesting result is that simply by using the major cycles found in the data, the data can be rather closely reproduced. This means there is NO significant trend in the data. I suggest this gives a strong clue that the surface temperature has no significant trend and that man’s contribution to the slight trend there might be is even more insignificant.
The primary drivers appear to be cyclical and natural. Perhaps the so called climate science could advance to actual science by studying the connection between the natural cycles in the earth-sun-universe system and the “climate” – whatever that is. This is the only null hypothesis that is worth considering.
Starting, as the current crop of “climate scientists” has, with the null hypothesis that climate does not change except for man’s influence has lead to a very costly dead end. If continued, it will end in all or most of us being dead due to the prohibition of any and all industrial quantity and quality of energy necessary for technological civilization. The continued existence of almost all of us is dependent upon that civilization continuing AND advancing.
91
Yes but as many of us have realized the last thing a progressive wants is progress.
81
In fact, by their actions and consequences, their goal is to stop and reverse progress at all costs. When you repeatedly and consistently achieve the opposite of your stated goals, you words are meaningless and the consequences of your actions tell all.
60
Progressives completely, utterly, and totally fail to understand the simple fact that PROGRESS is what enabled us to form civilization as we know it, and have the cheap, abundant energy necessary to support 6 Billion (plus) people on this planet.
Without cheap, abundant energy, when the next cooling cycle hits (and it is starting to hit now), it won’t be possible to feed everyone, keep everyone from freezing to death, and keep everyone from getting nasty diseases.
Of course, the “progressives”, rather than blaming their own misguided policies, will blame the “evil 1%” (Never mind that a fair majority of progressives are MEMBERS of the so-called evil 1%….)
51
Lionell brings up a perfectly wonderful point – the ONLY suitable Null Hypothesis regarding climate change is as follows:
“Climate changes constantly due to many natural variables. In order to prove any human influence on climate, you must prove that current climate change exceeds or is significantly different from any climate change which would naturally be happening anyway.
What the Fourier analysis does, in my opinion, is show that it is highly likely that recent climate changes have been perfectly natural, and that any unexplained residual is pretty darn insignificant.
91
PeterB – “…you must prove that current climate change exceeds or is significantly different from any climate change which would naturally be happening anyway…”
That’s been shown. See Can the Warming of the 20th Century be Explained by Natural Variability (regional estimates), also global estimates here.
Best estimates are that without anthropogenic influences the climate would be about 0.8C colder than present conditions. Based on, well, physics – not curve-fitting.
211
Your “best estimates” do not match mine, and the link certainly doesn’t actually prove that current climate change exceeds or is significantly different from what would be naturally happening anyway.
From studies I have seen, the Roman Optimum was quite a bit warmer than the present, and the Medieval Optimum was as warm, or perhaps slightly warmer than the present. As such, since present temperatures are equal to or lower than previous historical maxima, nothing out of the ordinary has happened at present, despite efforts to prove otherwise.
71
Please tell me how physics explains that the Roman Optimum was warmer than the present, and how the current climate Optimum, though colder than the Roman Optimum, significantly differs from it in such a way that it proves human influence.
40
The papers I’ve seen indicate that in fact the Roman Optimum was not as warm as today – rather, it was ~0.3-0.4 C cooler. But whether or not it was warmer is not really relevant to the current discussion, unless you have detailed forcing measures for that period and could show temperature changes unrelated to those forcings, changes contrary to our understanding of the physics.
Would the climate be significantly different now without our influence? Given all measures and observations of the natural and anthropogenic forcings, and the physics, yes it would be – the climate would be considerably cooler.
Insolation is on a downward trend over the last 40 years, volcanic activity is fairly normal unlike in the beginning of the 20th century (very few volcanoes over that period), and given those natural forcings alone it should be ~0.1-0.2 C cooler than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
It’s not cooler. It’s ~0.7 C warmer. I would consider that “significantly different”.
39
KR,
Given that Solar Cycles 22 and 23 were pretty much Grand Maxima and solar cycle 21 was pretty darn strong as well, warming is exactly what should have been expected, and warming is exactly what we got. So, as far as I am concerned, solar activity explains about 95% to 98% of the warming we got from 1970-2000.
Solar activity has ramped down significantly since 2000, and temperatures have plateaued and even started to fall, which is exactly what should be expected, so again, nothing unusual is happening here… move along.
50
We all know that the climate varies quite naturally. I would consider that to be “nothing to be alarmed about”.
00
Less than a degree? I do not believe that figure is statistically significant. What you are essentially telling us is that there is no AGW.
00
By the way, folks, I am toying with KR above… you see, the link he provided was to an IPCC document, which he is claiming represents “physics rather than curve fitting”.
This is, of course, patently ridiculous on its face. You see, back in 1990, even the IPCC admitted and showed in its temperature graphs that the Roman Optimum was warmer than the present, and the Medieval Optimum was as warm or slightly warmer than the present.
See here: http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/09/where-did-ipcc-1990-figure-7c-come-from-httpwwwclimateauditorgp3072previewtrue/
Then, after 1990, that temperature graph was “disappeared” and suddenly replaced with a hockey stick, which we all know has since been widely discredited in any and all of its forms.
So, I fully expect KR to argue that there was no Roman Optimum or Medieval Optimum, and that current temperatures are “unprecedented” at which point we can all laugh uproariously, since we all know that 1990 was the last time the IPCC came even vaguely close to having any credibility at all, and the 1990 temperature graph was by far their most accurate ever published (by them anyway).
112
My apologies, that should be more properly figure 7.1c. Which in the relevant text is described as illustrating that:
Note the qualifications.
As I said, very early and incomplete data, very rough. Compare, for example, Figure 7.1a to the 800 kY temperature data from ice core analysis shown here; far from identical. More data over time, more accuracy – the 1990 estimates do not invalidate current information. Playing “gotcha” with such outdated figures is rhetorical nonsense.
Adieu.
28
KR,
A figure isn’t “outdated” merely because you claim it is.
That figure from 1990 is far more representative of what actually happened (check the historical records) than the figure which replaced it later.
So, what you are basically claiming is that a later figure, though thoroughly discredited and having an obvious disconnect from the actual historical records is somehow BETTER simply because it is more recent.
Sorry, but that is just laughable.
Adieu
70
PeterB – Just to clarify this:
* You feel that a schematic figure from 23 years ago (schematic – a rough outline, not a realistic picture) outweighs all the work since then? Despite being offered as nothing more than an outline, with multiple caveats? Based on very limited data?
* You claim that all work since then, including for example the 40+ works listed here looking at global and hemispheric temperatures (using many different methods, statistics, and indicators), and more recent Holocene reconstructions such as this, are all ‘discredited’ in some fashion?
—
Why? How?
If you claim a giant multi-decade conspiracy, I’m just going to laugh and and offer you some tin-foil for a hat (see “Conspiracy Theorist here). If you some kind of ‘insidious creeping group-think’, I’ll laugh harder – every hungry grad student in the world would _leap_ at a chance to make a name by showing up commonly accepted work. The same for claims of deception in order to follow grants: these results are the work of scientists in every country around the world, from every political agenda – and they agree. Because that’s what the evidence shows.
Whether you like it or not (and from your mass discounting of the last several decades of work, I would guess not), the current work by thousands of researchers is indeed a good representation of the data.
And (sorry to be harsh, but…) clinging to outdated rough graphs as the “Absolute and Unchanging Truth hidden by the cabal” is nothing more than another example of cherry-picking, of confirmation bias.
All of these are, at their core, accusations of deception and malfeasance, by thousands of researchers, over tens of years – claims that their work, in agreement with the science of the last 150-200 years (see Arrhenius 1986, for example) is all somehow deliberately falsified. I don’t consider that viewpoint even remotely supportable.
—
I am curious as to your answer. I may not bother to reply if it fits the categories above.
05
KR,
I’m not going to get into the hours long debate about the validity of the ‘settled’ science or the ‘scientific consensus’, I’m sure you know all the talking points. But I would like to address your belief that: “every hungry grad student in the world would _leap_ at a chance to make a name by showing up commonly accepted work.”
You are right, they would of course like the idea of doing so, but it doesn’t mean they will try. It’s like climbing Mount Everest, or discovering a cure for cancer. Everyone would love the glory, but few are prepared to put in the effort, or to take the risk to go against the mainstream. And unless the person who has the dreams and the intellect and the courage to overcome the fears, is also independently wealthy, how do you suppose they get funded? Remember they will be seeking funding to go about disproving their mentors, and their mentor’s buddies. They can’t just pretend to be doing some other research, all research has to be spelled out and pre-approved.
This is why the most vocal opponents of this essentially post modern climate science, where the scientific method seems to be sidestepped, have been older, well established scientists, whose reputations and funding is secure, or who are at or nearing retirement.
20
Jaymez – “…older, well established scientists, whose reputations and funding is secure, or who are at or nearing retirement.”
Well established scientists, often (I will note) commenting outside their own fields? Best case scenario I see is here. Worst case is here.
Mind you: there will always be a spread of opinions, with some extreme views on the outskirts. But personally – I’m not going to take extreme opinions seriously unless they can put together sufficient evidence to convince others in the field. That’s what happened with plate tectonics, with evolution – the opinions on the edge mustered sufficient and convincing evidence, and those positions are now the standards.
On this topic? As far as I can see (personal opinion, mind you), the more evidence is gathered, the further climate skeptics are from convincing the rest of the people in the field… time will tell.
04
I take it then that you reject CAGW? Good!
00
KR,
The work of the last 23 years has been based upon an incorrect hypothesis, uses data from poorly sited temperature stations, makes highly dubious “adjustments” to the data, and outright fabricates data when necessary.
The short answer to your question is, I think that the majority of the work in “climate science” in the past 23 years is complete and utter drivel and should be thrown out so we can start over doing REAL science as opposed to the snake-oil BS that they have been doing.
I am not saying that I necessarily categorically reject global warming in THEORY, I am merely saying I categorically reject all of the work that has been done to try to prop up an hypothesis that has already been refuted countless times.
There is plenty of good work going on out there – some scientists, especially in Scandinavia and Russia actually seem to be following the scientific method at least. This trend is just starting to spread to some scientists in “the West”.
20
PeterB
So – you suspect a multi-decadal conspiracy, involving tens if not hundreds of thousands of scientists around the world not to mention 34 national science academies – all fabricating/tweaking data for some (probably nefarious) reason(s), you reject all present data, and instead of current information prefer outdated schematics that just happen to support your opinions.
That’s… about what I thought. I do not believe a rational discussion is possible with you given such conspiracy theories as a starting point. But I thank you for clarifying the situation.
01
I do not believe that PeterB’s comment suggests a “conspiracy” but rather that there has been a great deal of alarmism abounding which has influenced the “outcomes” and “interpretations” of people’s research.
When we are talking about CAGW and the push to pour billions of OUR money into silly schemes, then most certainly it all needs to be examined a lot more closely than it has.
The way I see it is this: A lot of scientists are looking for a particular result and this expectation influences their interpretation and selection of data. Statistics are relied upon without any physics to support the conclusions, something that when reading your own posts you must support.
There is very little attempt by scientists to disprove their own conclusions, but to do so is fundamental to true science.
10
Arrhenius did some great work…
If the Earth were a black body which didn’t spin, his work would apply to it very well.
It doesn’t apply nearly as well in the case of our real planet. Yes, the earth is a fairly decent approximation of a black body, but it spins and is tilted on its axis, which causes conduction, convection, and diffusion, none of which are accounted for by Arrhenius’ theories.
I am not one of those “Slayers” who claims that CO2 does nothing whatsoever. Of course CO2 has absorbtion bands, and it readily absorbs and re-emits energy in the right frequencies. I am well aware of that. I just don’t think that there is any credible evidence whatsoever to show that the perfectly natural behavior of CO2 is the primary driver of climate on Earth.
20
Ah, the vaunted figure 7c. Described in the original as a “schematic diagram of global temperature variations”, not an exact reconstruction, and in fact 7c doesn’t include the Roman period at all (that would be 7b). A graph “retroactively elevated (by a few people) and promoted as Absolute and Unchanging Truth being hidden by a cabal of climate scientists, just as the way NASA is hiding the absolute truths known by the Flat Earth Society”?
Do you honestly feel that we have made no advances in the science, and have no additional data, than a schematic drawn 23 years ago? Prior to the seminal multiproxy reconstructions that led to these plots? Or, as you state in your post, are you just trying to play “gotcha” with outdated figures? I have no patience for that kind of nonsense…
26
When the “outdated” figure has yet to be discredited, and every figure put out by the “vaunted” IPCC since then HAS been discredited, it is pretty obvious which figure (the one you CALL “outdated”) is a better representation of climate history.
I have no further patience for your nonsense.
00
I re-wrote the article in swedish and borrowed your graphs including references to your blog and to the original article. Hope this is ok. The result is found at http://larsil2009.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/mera-kyla-de-narmaste-artiondena/
Br.
Lasse
[Trevligt att rakas Lars, I’m holding this in moderation to be sure Jo sees it.]ED
[Jo says thank you! What a good idea. : – ) ]
30
So this perhaps presages a phase change, and a switch into a colder temperature regime.
I’ve only ever seen one paper that looked at climate in terms of phase changes, unfortunately I didn’t bookmark it. Trouble with Milankovitch is that it doesn’t explain the suddenness of the change into and out of glaciations.
Stuff that focuses in on potential phase change may prove to be the key to understanding the onset of glaciations.
30
It occurs to me that a great number of people are getting the cart before the horse on this thread.
Like knights riding off to the crusades, at the behest of the King, to solve an imaginary problem in the Middle East, the ‘experts’ to which the trolls make reference are in search of a culprit for a situation which is completely normal. Tribal warfare in the Mediterranean was no variation from the norm, and was a result of completely natural events.
There is no evidence that “excursions” in temperature and climate have now, or have ever been, beyond the bounds of natural variations. The problem is imaginary. The null hypothesis that explains these deviations is that it is the planet behaving in its natural form.
Therefore, this paper simply underscores the fact that natural variations in temperature are normal and represent the cyclical nature of the universe. It does not need to PROVE anything. Long ago people had to accept the fact that the sun rose in the morning and set in the evening. Until Copernicus and others discovered the reason for that, the rising and setting was a natural fact. Copernicus didn’t have to explain the physics in minute detail as to HOW the Earth revolved; only that it did, explaining the rising and setting of the sun. Astrophysics came later, and there is still a great deal for homo sapiens to learn about it. At the very least, people could revisit the idea that “Science” is seeking for Truth, and not inventing rationale for non-existent problems.
50
Yes but there’s no grant money if there’s no problem…
30
Yep, whilst I am sceptical generally, this doesn’t convince me in the slightest.
I immediately thought of the quote: “With four parameters I can fit an elephant; with five I can make him wiggle his trunk”.
What WOULD be more convincing is if nearly all the 6 cycles had a KNOWN physical mechanism attached to them.
e.g. the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, etc.
Then you would be justified to conclude “5 of the 6 have known causes; we need to look for the 6th physical cause”.
Otherwise it seems like just a mathemtical exercise with no real value in the “real world”.
20
Bravo… you are actually being sceptical with the rest of your comment. Why is it that people here think that scepticism equals rejecting AGW but accepting everything else?
44
You call yourselves sceptics??????????????
Look i understand that most people dont understand what FA is but by comparing it to wiggling trunks because you dont understand is not being sceptical.
This paper has found that the data has a cyclical nature to it predominately over a 250 year period with smaller/weaker cycles (cycles within cycles) you dont have to reject the paper simply to remain sceptical.
You dont know what you are talking about and by rejecting the paper you are not being sceptical you are just being ignorant and stupid, this is not sceptism this is denial.
62
where did I say I rejected it?
04
And so the word games begin…………………again…….sigh.
Rather than play your stupid game lets try another approach by asking a series of simple questions.
1, Do you accept this paper in its entirety?
If the answer to question one is no then:
2, What aspects of the paper cause you concern?
51
As usual when you have no where left to turn you scurry away
50
The “junk science” isn’t “from Nova”, she is putting out for comment a peer reviewed paper. If you don’t like the science then write to the journal concerned and ask them to withdraw it. Should you do that you would need to explain why it’s junk science. Could you? I note John Brookes is in there also bagging the paper perhaps he should contact the journal as well. Are all the papers from the proponents of AGW models of scientific validity with unimpeachable results and impeccable conclusions? I wonder if John Brookes and Mattb remember the Gergis paper. That said many of the comments here are fairly infantile notably those in the exchanges yesterday between Mattb and Crakar24. But at least posters who disagree with the philosophy of this blog here aren’t binned/snipped/banned as they are in Skeptical Science and the ludicrously inappropriately named Open Mind run by the egregious Grant Foster (aka Tamino). Incidentally Mattb what’s happened to “the science is settled” mantra, that seems to be remarkably absent these days. I wonder why
141
Better yet, submit your criticism of the paper for publication as a comment.
That way you will accept responsibility for the validity your criticism.
60
You know the sad thing Ian, I am banned from WTFUWT.
I really do like Jo’s policy of not banning dissenting voices.
71
John, you were not banned there for dissent, you were banned for being an obnoxious PIA. There are many at WUWT that post dissenting opinions without being banned. FWIW, SS and other warmista blog sites strictly censor dissent with the warmista dogma.
JoNova and WUWT, amongst many sceptic blogs, have a strong history upholding free speech and publishing contrary opinion … warmista blogs well not so much. I’d guess that if you were so enamoured with SS and its ilk you’d not be bothered to post here.
50
“John, you were not banned there for dissent, you were banned for being an obnoxious PIA”
That’s why most are banned from warmist blogs too.
111
yap yap yap !
60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Y7brwz6fA says it all really 😉
10
There is a difference.
Acting like an ass, as so many supporters of the AGW meme do, and being shown the door because you just can’t learn is our definition of obnoxious.
The warmist definition of obnoxious however is anyone bringing up facts they can’t counter and don’t want to hear because it makes them look bad.
So in that sense one could make the statement you made and expect rational people not to fall off their chair laughing at you. I mean really, you honestly believe your own bull?
120
Over at wattsuowiththat its reported that they are now burning books they dont agree with.
30
We have ways of forcing you to believe, first burn the books, next control the media …… we will never be beaten, global warming and climate change will take place as we predict …. as we predict ….. as we predict …
20
That’s why we need a Government controlled national broadband network (NBN) – this is in the Communist Manifesto.
Once you have control over the network then you have complete control over what people are able to see and read, whether they know the censorship is there or not.
And don’t BS to me that the Laborites “are not communist” – I have been among them and puked as they greet each other as “comrade”.
30
Don’t be ridiculous. Communism was laid to rest by Ronnie & Maggie. Communitarian, Sustainable, Social Democraticism isn’t the same thing at all, is it ?
10
Yes, everything has a new name these days, but the underlying principles are the same.
I have listened to these people within their private circles, it is truly sickening and many of them are absolute fanatics. I am not talking about fringe dwellers either, these are leaders within the party.
When you get to the core however, its not so much belief but rather intellectual guff. Its elitism and they all want to be rulers of the proletariat.
10
The intellectual/psychological slight of hand used is the indoctrination that a thing is what it is named. Hence, change the name and the thing is changed even though no actual attribute residing in the thing has changed at all.
This slight of hand is further buttressed by the wide spread notion that reality as such cannot be known except by collective opinion. They fail to notice that if true, they cannot even know what collective opinion actually is.
No one notices this contradiction so they willingly buy into the notion that their opinion on anything is all that matters. Knowledge, experiment, and proof become both unnecessary and obsolete ideas. Education becomes learning what the collective believes as dictated by the state. No one notices or cares about the foundation of those beliefs.
The roots of this evil was first codified by Plato in is “shadows on a cave wall” metaphor. It was sanctified by Kant in his statement that “pure reason cannot know a thing in itself.” In other words, since acquiring knowledge is a willfully chosen process that starts at birth and continues throughout life, knowledge is impossible. “True” knowledge must be automatic, without process, and with out actually sensing anything in one’s environment. All religions uphold this notion to the degree they demand faith in their dogmas. Once this malignant notion is sold, it follows as a geometric proof that all are to become slaves of all and civilization collapses as a consequence.
We are not fighting against Communist ideas, we are fighting against ideas that have been held up as true since the dawn of civilization and likely before. Communism is simply a recent symptom and not even close to being a cause of anything but death and destruction. It is the malignant ideas we must fight.
10
I think that “collective opinion” is for the masses, not the ruling class.
10
Note my statement: “Education becomes learning what the collective believes as dictated by the state.” This applies to all who are to be educated – including the so called ruling class.
When the guiding principle is “reality cannot be known”, “Big Brother” is as much captive of the state as the worshipers of “Big Brother”. That is the reason all totalitarian systems ultimately fail.
The key principle is ALL rule based systems will eventually fail in their attempt to survive internal and external variations because of lack of requisite variety. See Ross Ashby for much more detail.
11
S(k)S regularly bans people, not for being obnoxious, but simply for being skeptical.
40
Agreed.
WUWT gave John warnings that he ignored so he has no call for complaint. I have seen WUWT ban ‘Deniers’ for obnoxious behavior or posting on topics that are banned but warnings are always given.
30
Don’t be stupid Streetcred. I was banned for being insulting. But no more insulting than many commentators on the “skeptic” side. I was banned for having the gall to think that I could behave like the “good guys” on WTFUWT.
06
Your syntax leaves a bit to be desired. Are you “banned” from VISITING Anthony’s website, or are you banned from making comments on articles?
If you are forbidden from commenting, then you have plenty of time to work on that correlation coefficient for Veizer vs. Berner & Kothavala (is this the fifth or sixth request for that?) and your Fourier of each curve.
Or maybe your buddy, Mattb would like to chime in.
Or maybe, just maybe, you already know the correlation coefficient, and don’t like it. If that is the case, then just do what “mainstream climatologists” do, and ‘make one up’. Why should you be any different?
Regards,
Mark H.
50
Dissent is OK JB.
FWIW. It’s language and attitude that may need some refining.
But you are right, there are some pretty hysterical alarmist Blogs out there.
20
Tolerance is all very well, until it’s taken for granted. Behaving like the hysterical alarmists do on their own blogs is reserved for their attack dogs and serves to remind us, tolerance is in the gift of the giver and may be freely given or exhausted.
10
Here, here to that Ian. We could do without the type of exchange you referred to yesterday. It is often obvious when someone writes something childish and inflammatory. We can all see it. It is best not to respond and give the person oxygen.
You are right about Nova’s policy being different. I have had many comment’s simply deleted from ‘alarmist’ sites without so much of an explanation. Or worse, I have had half my comment printed, with supporting material deliberately left out. Then the host has responded to the bit they have chosen to print, and my follow-up asking for the rest of my comment to be published just never appears.
30
A little O/T but important nonetheless.
Tampering With Alice
Well, BoM, do you go along with this or will you issue a statement as did the Icelandic meteorological authority condemning the tampering ?
30
Streetcred,
Even to a complete novice like myself that link explains clearly how any data can be manipulated purely by presentation, this was a highlight for anyone who attended a Lord Monckton address where he shows how easily this can be done.
This tampering also makes it difficult for the average person to have any confidence in what is presented to them, and rightly so.
I believe manipulating data has been the greatest weapon for CAGW proponents for years as originally they learnt the actual raw data was not in their favor, all they had to do was get some paid for science hack to present it as real.
It’s good the skeptics here are debating the merits of these Fourier graphs as doing so will maintain or lift the quality of climate science in general and uphold the principals of the scientific method, which has been sorely lacking in this area.
Maybe a better title than “Tampering With Alice” would be better too. 🙂
41
I’d like to think that everyone (BOM included) would use the BEST methodology for combining temperature records.
112
Attempting to combine various temperature records (using any method whatsoever) and then attempting to use those combined records to compute some sort of global mean temperature is a farcical exercise in the first place.
30
Unfortunately John, if you care to look you will find that the BOM regularly rounds temperature upward in regard to what they tell the public, eg. 34.6 degrees regularly becomes 35 degrees and then often is spruiked as a “record”. That being the case, I am not at all surprised with what they do with data like this.
Take a look at Canberra records for the past summer for example, then look at what they actually said the temperatures were.
00
I will never understand why more people don’t get this. Temperature from a weather station should never, ever have to be adjusted upwards.
If the sensor being used is properly calibrated the adjustments would always be downward to address solar radiation, convection, or external influence issues.
A properly calibrated sensor will show the temperature where it is located, it should never be adjusted upwards because a station a few miles away shows a higher reading. Temperatures can and do vary considerably between two stations separated by only a few miles. It is normal, it isn’t a question of which one is right it is a question of are they both properly calibrated. If so they are both correct.
Direct sun, lack of airflow around the sensor, reflected heat from nearby objects, these are things that alter readings where an adjustment might be deemed necessary. But the adjustment would be downwards to bring the reading in line with actual ambient temperatures, not upwards.
The only people who feel the need to adjust temperature records/readings upwards are trying to prove the record/reading shows something it does not. That is not science. Without accurate data it’s just sloppy numbers.
80
I have always been critical of Stevenson screens, since these boxes on a warm sunny day will always be hotter inside than the actual temperature. They are not “in the shade”, which is how temperature was measured long ago.
I have been in temperatures where you could put a frying pan out in the sun and happily fry your eggs. In the same I could bake bread inside one of these boxes.
10
“I have always been critical of Stevenson screens”
lol you idiot.
02
You troll!
Perhaps at some point in time you will consider just why I am critical of them.
10
does a chapter in Leviticus forbid them?
02
As I said, you are a pathetic troll.
00
The rig I have uses a fan aspirated radiation shield which keeps air moving past the sensor but I understand what you’re saying. I’ve built a few Stevenson screens over the years and have had to deal with the siting problems, airflow concerns, etc. I have a regular old style thermometer that sits out on the deck and receives direct sunlight for a good part of the day. The reading I get from it vs. my weather station is anywhere from 10-40 degrees F higher during the day. Likewise mounting a sensor/enclosure next to a wall or fence that will warm up and radiate during the day causes problems. Sticking the sensor/enclosure where there is no air movement where a temperature pocket can be created, over asphalt, on the roof over the shingles catching that heat, etc. can all throw the reading off. But the readings are never cooler than they should be where I would need to adjust them upwards. If that were the case then the sensor is crap and it’s time for a new one. And if the sensor is crap it certainly shouldn’t be relied upon for data gathering.
As I said, anyone who needs to adjust the temperature readings from a weather station upwards is doing so in order to make it show something it shouldn’t be showing. Or they don’t know a damn thing about weather tracking. Either way their data is crap.
20
The BOM has started doing this on a regular basis for reported temperatures, rounding up to the nearest degree, then screaming “record temperature!!”.
10
For a start, on any hot day the ground underneath the box will be a furnace. If the box is not shaded, its useless. Ever heard the expression “in the shade”? It comes from a time way back when temperatures were measured using common sense. Were we to go back to the 1800’s and measure using a Stevenson screen you would be bowled over by just how incredibly hot it was back then.
00
Well the idea of a Stevenson screen is to create shade, and a properly designed screen works pretty well. It is also the reason a properly designed screen is friggin’ huge in comparison to the instruments it is housing. The louvers are to prevent any stray solar influence by keeping the inside dark while providing maximum airflow around the sensor to prevent stagnant air from creating a heat pocket. One of the issues with “in the shade” is that of airflow. Whatever is creating that shade is blocking airflow to a certain extent and since hygrometers are often located with the thermometer, if they aren’t integrated, that location can impact humidity readings.
Now I could also get into the issue of heat indexes and what the defined parameters are for it to be valid and how many sites such as weather underground, NOAA, etc. often display a heat index when it is not valid for the current conditions. Part of the problems with internet weather data is simply lazy programmers. Rather than display data to a tenth or hundredth position they display whole numbers and the software rounds up or down, etc.
It is why I started running my own weather station many years back as I got fed up with the inaccurate data and other flaws I was seeing in the “professional” sites.
10
Clearly this is the idea, however if you have ever lived where there is extreme heat you will know that the notion is nothing short of riduculous. I could bake bread in one of these hot boxes.
00
i you could bake bread inside a stevenson screen when it is extremely hot, then the temperatures recorded within said screen would be as hot as an oven. Which does not happen. well ok as hot as an oven that is not turned on maybe.
in fact hippy shops would sell stevenson screens as “solar ovens”.
so yeah “if you have ever lived where there is extreme heat” which I do “will know that the notion is nothing short of riduculous” which i isn’t, and “I could bake bread in one of these hot boxes” no you couldn’t.
01
A you really that feckin’ stupid that I need to use /sarc?
I guarantee however that some of the places I’ve been that’s sure gonna be a hot little box and will never give you an accurate reading.
00
sorry – you said it twice. your deadpan delivery needs some work.
01
“The reading I get from it vs. my weather station is anywhere from 10-40 degrees F higher during the day.”
So yeah just to make it easy for you slider… if you could bake bread inside the screen, then you’d burn it just leaving it out in the sun. lol.
02
Like I said, you are just plain stupid.
10
2 May: Newcastle Herald: from Maitland Mercury: Hospital carbon bill of $466,000
Dr Laming (federal opposition spokesman for regional health Andrew Laming) said NSW government figures showed Maitland Hospital was forced to pay $379,000 a year and Singleton Hospital at least $86,000.
The carbon tax should not be applied to hospitals and healthcare,” he said.
“This is a significant amount of money that only two of the Hunter’s hospitals are having to pay and its not acceptable.”…
A Hunter New England Health spokeswoman could not verify Dr Laming’s figures last night.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1472819/hospital-carbon-bill-of-466000/?cs=2452
20
Quote JFC
May 2, 2013 at 8:46 am
This might be hard for a member of the collective to comprehend, but individuality allows and encourages people to think and question.
A good, fun, ‘sciencey type’ analogy would be Star Trek: Voyager where Borg Collective member, Seven of Nine, is taken aboard Voyager and encouraged to be an individual. To question and search for answers.
Is JFC ready to take the next step psychologically, or will JFC run back to the collective consensus thinking?
No need to thank Ms. Jo for providing a forum for you to grow mentally, JFC. The tip jar is top right hand corner.
[Note, the post by JFC was removed to moderation] ED
40
2 May: Business Spectator: $3bn carbon hole in budget: report
Treasury has knocked an additional $3 billion hole in the federal budget after it halved the projected price of carbon when Australia joins the European trading scheme, The Australian Financial Review reports.
According to the newspaper the government plans revise down the projected price of carbon in 2015-16 from $29 a tonne to around $15, after the European price collapsed to around $4.20.
The sharply lower price will erase around half of the $6.7 billion of revenue previously forecast from the sale of carbon permits in 2015-16, according to the AFR. Those funds were intended to cover $3 billion worth of tax cuts and welfare for low income earners that year…
The government is expected to seek additional savings to plug the hole left by the lower carbon price.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/5/2/federal-budget/3bn-carbon-hole-budget-report
10
The hole keeps getting deeper and they still can’t be honest. The are expecting a 275% leap in the European carbon price in just two years. If they believed that they would use the Future Funds $70bn to cover a carbon futures contract for delivery in 2015/16 and they would have $263bn in a couple of years time. (I know you couldn’t buy that much, but since we are in make believe land, I’m just running with it.) That would be enough to clear their accumulated deficits in one hit with money left over. They are dreaming of course. So instead of having a $3bn hole each year in the forward estimates, it is actually more like $5bn, or $20bn over the entire forward estimates. And they will leave that to the Coalition to deal with because they have already spent the money they were planning to collect in ‘carbon compensation’.
00
1 May: ABC Rural: Jane Ryan: Carbon funding for Fonterra dairy processor
The Prime Minister Julia Gillard is visiting the Fonterra dairy factory in the North West today, talking dairy industry funding.
She’s announcing a $660,000 grant for Fonterra Australia as part of the billion dollar Clean Technology Food and Foundries program.
Fonterra will use the grant to install 8 new cheese vats that are more carbon efficient at their Wynyard plant in North West Tasmania.
The government’s aim is to help boost production in the region, but key industry figures are concerned there is not enough support for farmers.
Chair of the Board of Dairy Tas Paul Bennett says the funding announcement is great for Fonterra, but said it would be good to see support for the farmers who underpin the whole industry.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/tas/content/2013/05/s3749322.htm
10
JohnM, May 1, 1.04 PM
It is true that one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but the close representation of the reality is certainly very convincing. In the late 1900s, when the IPCC were saying “We believe that most of the warming during the second half …” you know the rest, their ONLY correlation which they took as seminal proof of the connection between T and CO2 was for the period from 1979 to 1995 when both T and CO2 were rising – a single function correlation – no cyclical pattern to establish that both positive and negative going variations correlated. Yet their conviction was complete!
Here we have a combination of six cycles, with confirmation from somewhat different data sets, and a very close relationship in variations. The IPCC of course ignored the anti correlation from 1965 to 1979 when the temperature was falling but CO2 rising – this was no use for their claims of AGW.
So yes, let’s be a little bit cautious, but not too despondent. After all, Solar physicists have been predicting this fall in temperatures for many years based on solar cycles, so this strengthens that area of research also, I believe.
60
EU carbon breaks below 3 euros on energy, auctions
LONDON, May 1 (Reuters Point Carbon) – European carbon permits dropped below 3 euros for the first time this week as energy prices fell and speculators sold CO2 allowances ahead of the resumption of near-daily government auctions, traders said
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2331566?&ref=searchlist
Investors urge rule change to save $215 bln UN offset scheme
LONDON, May 1 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Investors in emission reduction projects have urged the United Nations to change the rules governing the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to allow them to donate carbon credits to developing nations as a way of driving future demand for offsets
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2331342?&ref=searchlist
four pages, excerpts from page 1 only!
25 April: Rolling Stone: Matt Taibbi: Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There’s no price the big banks can’t fix
This story is from the May 9th, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game…
You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that’s trillion, with a “t”) worth of financial instruments…
Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world’s largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world’s largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps…
It’s about a $379 trillion market, meaning that any manipulation would affect a pile of assets about 100 times the size of the United States federal budget…
It should surprise no one that among the players implicated in this scheme to fix the prices of interest-rate swaps are the same megabanks – including Barclays, UBS, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland – that serve on the Libor panel that sets global interest rates…
The Scam Wall Street learned from the Mafia
“It’s a double conspiracy,” says an amazed Michael Greenberger, a former director of the trading and markets division at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and now a professor at the University of Maryland. “It’s the height of criminality.”…
These banks, which already possess enormous power just by virtue of their financial holdings – in the United States, the top six banks, many of them the same names you see on the Libor and ISDAfix panels, own assets equivalent to 60 percent of the nation’s GDP – are beginning to realize the awesome possibilities for increased profit and political might that would come with colluding instead of competing. Moreover, it’s increasingly clear that both the criminal justice system and the civil courts may be impotent to stop them, even when they do get caught working together to game the system.
If true, that would leave us living in an era of undisguised, real-world conspiracy, in which the prices of currencies, commodities like gold and silver, even interest rates and the value of money itself, can be and may already have been dictated from above. And those who are doing it can get away with it. Forget the Illuminati – this is the real thing, and it’s no secret. You can stare right at it, anytime you want….
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425
20
John Brookes,
Certainly leaving out some of the data in a Fourier analysis will often change the result, but in such long records as 2,000 years of proxy from the other side of the world to find a suspected cycle from the shorter period of temperature data, is pretty convincing. I do not know how familiar you are with Fourier Analysis, but to obtain significant amplitudes in each of six cycles, some of which can be ascribed to know global oscillations is pretty impressive. Try doing a Fourier analysis of a continuing function which represents the increase in carbon dioxide, a function which is supposed to correlate with Global Warming!! Nothing doing!
John Nicol
30
Congratulations to Lüdecke, Hempelmann, and Weiss for showing that:
a.) Global temperature variation can be explained by natural cycles, and
b.) There is little “non-cyclical” signal left for anthropogenic CO2 to explain.
There is good reason to believe the Sun’s pulsar core – the Creator, Destroyer & Sustainer of atoms, lives and worlds in the solar system – is the “missing piece of the solar jigsaw puzzle” [1]
[1] David Tsiklauri, “Missing pieces of the solar jigsaw puzzle,” Astronomy & Geophysics 50, pp. 5.32-5.38 (2009)
http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/5/5.32.full#xref-ref-1-1
31
By the way (and totally OT), did anyone notice that Perth had its hottest April ever?
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/wa/perth.shtml#perth_metro_details
19
By the way (and totally OT), did anyone notice that Alaska had its coolest April ever?
Posted on Anthony’s site.
Correlation coefficient and Fourier Series, Dr. Brookes?
80
no it hasn’t: http://blogs.woodtv.com/2013/05/01/may-in-alaska/
06
No.
Did YOU notice that Winnipeg had its COLDEST April ever?
20
No it hasn’t. Coldest for 100 years.
07
Do you think Winnipeg is in Alaska?
20
Nope. Both are incorrect. That’s why I corrected them both. sorry did I miss a link?
http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/winnipeggers-shiver-through-the-coldest-april-in-more-than-a-century-1.1262790
12
Thanks for that link Matt, I shall use that on various blogs whenever a warmist screams “arctic melting”….You know it’s really hot up here wit all the broken NH cold temperatures.
00
John, did you notice that the BOM moved where they measure Perth’s temperature from in 1994 and that it’s new location in East Perth, not far from the road and elevated consistently records a monthly average maximum temperature of 1.0C – 1.5C greater than the previous and other current Perth metropolitan locations?
20
John, for example I looked at the March figures last month:
Mean Maximum Temperature for March at the Perth Metro Station they now use for all reporting is 29.7C since 1994. Note the station was installed at the end of 1993 but officially used from 1994. At other Perth metropolitan stations the mean maximum for March is as follows:
Swanbourne 1993 – current 29.0C,
Perth Regional 1897-1992 28.0C,
Nedlands UWA 1940 – 1974 27.6C,
Perth Gardens 1876-1930 28.4C.
Remarkably though, Perth Metro does match very well with Perth Airport (1994 – current) also at 29.7C; it consistently correlates. You’d think a station further from the coast, surrounded by all that tarmac and constant air traffic (and we know Perth is very busy now with all the FIFO workers), would be showing an elevated reading over Perth Metro, if the Metro was well positioned. But it doesn’t. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_009021.shtml Perth Metro also correlates well with Jandakot Airport which is equally as ‘warm’ compared to what I would suggest is the more accurate metropolitan readings including Swanbourne and say Kalamunda. You can look at them all at the BOM site.
Mostly when I have rang the BOM to ask what ‘record’ is being referred to in the bulletins, they say unless it states a specific date, then it is only referring to the start of the specific temperature station. If they say since 1876 or since records began, Then they are starting with the Perth Gardens station, but since it read consistently cooler than the current Perth Metro station, even though it includes the diabolically hot periods of the 1890’s and early 1900’s, it is not surprising at all that the poorly positioned Perth Metro station provides ever increasingly warm records as the UHI effect continues to have an impact.
The new Perth Metro site is in East Perth near the new ABC building, which is surrounded by all the brick, concrete, and car-parks that makes up the new East Perth redevelopment area, it is 25m above sea level, 1.5m elevated and just 5m away from a 4 lane busy road. Am I expected to believe that the meteorologist didn’t think the hot air from bitumen and car exhausts and the buildings with air-conditioning and heat absorption and reflection, would not have an impact on the readings? No wonder it matches so well the Perth Airport readings, http://www.bom.gov.au/clim_data/cdio/metadata/pdf/siteinfo/IDCJMD0040.009225.SiteInfo.pdf
30
Here in the midwestern USA we have just had our coolest April ever.
30
The climate in Perth improved when Lew left.
00
You actually mean exactly “the hottest April ever since 1993”.
00
um no he means hottest ever: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/perths-hottest-but-least-sunny-april-ever/story-fn3dxiwe-1226633161104
13
No, he means since 1993. They do not have the data for “ever”, only since 1993.
10
How dull of you. seriously.
02
1 May: Yahoo Finance: Electric car maker Coda files for bankruptcy
Green car startup Coda Holdings Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after selling just 100 of its all-electric sedans, another example of battery-powered vehicles’ failure to break into the mass market…
Just three years ago Coda was one of an emerging crop of California startups including Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O) seeking to build emission-free electric cars to appeal to mass-market consumers.
Investors poured money into the sector, and Coda raised $300 million in equity from backers including Aeris Capital, Limited Brands Chief Executive Les Wexner, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The company, however, in 2012 withdrew its request for $334 million in federal loans like the ones Fisker and Tesla received.
As the allure of EVs faded, Coda struggled to secure new private funding. Last year, Coda sought to raise $150 million but clinched just $22 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission…
Tesla has put thousands of cars on the road, but Fisker is considering a bankruptcy filing. Fisker’s lithium-ion battery maker, A123 Systems Inc, filed for bankruptcy late last year.
General Motors (GM.N) and Nissan Motor Co also invested heavily in electric vehicles, but sales have lagged hopes.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/electric-car-maker-coda-files-071841713.html
20
A little O/T but similar vein:
Warmism’s bellowing dinosaurs
30
If you’re up late (early) you may not have seen this yet.
http://grumpydenier.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/help-launch-climate-skeptic-film-project-50-to-1/
or direct at WUWT
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/02/help-launch-climate-skeptic-film-project-50-to-1/#comment-1294451
40
Fourier Transformations, and Fourier Analysis are far from my strong points… as a chemist, I know enough about them to be dangerous, but that is about it.
What I do know; however, is that the results of this analysis are not a “model”, they are simply an analysis of the behavior of a system based upon the cyclic behavior of six inputs into the system.
What this ACTUALLY MEANS is that based upon this (very limited) study, it LOOKS LIKE climate can be described fairly accurately by the interactive behavior of six (most likely natural) cyclical components, and the analysis shows that any non-cyclic residual is insignificant.
That means, if this analysis is VALID, and if it can be applied to other data from REASONABLY ACCURATE proxies, then it would show that the natural cyclical components of the climate explain by far and away the vast majority of climate behavior.
60
Topher doing another movie. Needs Cash. Please assist. This guy is brilliant.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/02/help-launch-climate-skeptic-film-project-50-to-1/
40
I’ve said it before: Topher is the Dude!
10
I noticed nobody else has mentioned the wavelet analysis, everyone is so focussed on the Fourier analysis. Well I think wavelets are cool.
I found a web site that has a BYO data wavelet analysis application and so I have been experimenting. I don’t understand the math of wavelets, but I am getting a basic black box functional level understanding of how they work just by playing with the parameters and the input signal.
I’ve investigated how a linear trend appears in a wavelet analysis periodogram (like the coloured fig3 diagram).
I used my favourite instrumental data set, HadSST2 Global, leached from WoodForTrees after having a 4 year smoothing filter applied and using only every 3rd point so the end result is effectively oversampled at 4 times per year. [Data link].
Here is the output: [Image1].
Notice that the broad red component at the bottom is a false signal, but this should be ignored anyway because it is mostly within the “cone of influence” of the zero padding process indicated by the cross-hatched area, and so it lacks the required number of complete cycles to be recognised by the Morlet wavelet during analysis. It is expected that the frequencies in this area are inaccurate or false.
Here is the same data but first detrended by 0.66 degrees. The 0.66 was judged by eye, but you can see there is almost no linearity left and it is enough to prove the point. The wavelet analysis shows some obvious differences: [Image2]
You can compare them more easily by switching between 1st and 2nd image with [this link].
Notice that after detrending:
* The longest period at the bottom (the false one) has weakened and shrunk horizontally.
* A new strong component slightly shorter than 64 years has appeared, probably the AMO cycle of 60 years.
* A weaker component of 22 years has appeared in the middle, which is almost certainly the solar magnetic cycle.
* Overall power has been shifted from the false components into the real ones.
This illustrates how important it is to detrend the data before doing a frequency analysis. It is just as true for wavelet analysis as for Fourier analysis.
What is also usually done prior to Fourier analysis is applying a windowing function to improve accuracy of recovered frequencies and reduce edge effects of the series ends. I searched the Lüdecke et al paper for signs of windowing but could not find any. I don’t understand their preprocessing technique so maybe they have done something similar to ensure the frequencies recovered are real ones. I would also like to know if they also detrended the 2000 year and 250 year series before frequency analysis.
Anyhow, wavelets are cool.
I also did some Hockey Stick hunting with wavelet analysis which I can post if anyone is interested. (Hint, it’s a very short story.)
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Just found an older wavelet analysis of N.A. temps which basically shows there is a sunspot cycle in temperatures probably due to solar coronal flux.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.0078
Annoyingly, they did not estimate how much of the temperature variance was accounted for by the sunspots.
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Sydney Morning Herald: UN concerned about record sea ice melt!!!
http://www.smh.com.au/world/un-sounds-alarm-on-record-arctic-ice-melt-20130502-2iw07.html
The alarmist’s are not giving up.
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Which “alarmists” are those? The little alarmist elves that are sitting under the arctic ice with blowtorches?
It’s melting. Fact.
http://haveland.com/share/arctic-death-spiral-1979-201301.png
Do you have contrary evidence to this?
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Maggot,
why isn’t the Death Spiral starting at say date 1900AD?
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I almost forgot the “R” once its easy to do.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsh you will spoil their story.
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It was a slip of the finger. Honest it was.
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I don’t know.
What do you expect it would show, if that were the case? Who was measuring Arctic ice volume in 1900, do you suppose?
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Yes its the Elves Ma(r)got, problem is there is not enough of them so whilst they have been busy melting Santas home the Antarctic fresh water melted by warming sea water (warmed by the Elves) has been allowed to insulate the ice causing it to expand to record levels.
This process you describe has been going on for over a century and we have proof how else could there have been an ice berg floating in front of the Titanic if not for the elves melting the ice?
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There is a great article over at “Haunting the Library”.
Scary scary movie.
RETURN OF THE DEATH SPIRAL.
Propaganda over the ages.
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Arctic sea ice has always melted.
Your graph only goes back to 1979, so is a cherry pick at best.
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Continuing my slightly O/Ts re the dishonest representation of Ozzie temperature data by BoM and others:
More heat than light in the official record
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Jo, what’s going on with the order of posts … things look on my browser to be quite random ?
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If they had a longer record, I also believe there is something close to an 800 year cycle, too. Vukcevic did fourier analysis of the CET record a couple of years ago and posted it on Mr. Watts’ WUWT web site some time back. Came up with something quite similar as this study.
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And the really inconvenient factor for the AGW believers is that some of us have lived long enough to experience these cycles. Talk to an old-timer who has lived and farmed ina district for 40+ years and he will tell you about “back in ’76” we had a drought…..
And there are some who have faithfully recorded maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall in an old notebook for all those years (without the means to analyse them). But they can go back and show that it isn’t just an aberration of their memory.
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Here is a basic example of FA
http://people.whitman.edu/~hundledr/courses/M367/FFTHW3.pdf
The first graph gives you the sunspot data in the time domain, now buried in here there is a cycle or maybe many cycles so we want to know what they are.
The second shows the data in the frequency domain and now we can see that 11 year cycles are predominate with some cycles above and below (8-9 and 12-13 year cycles, SC23 was 13 years long). So from this data we know the cycles of the sun.
Now imagine doing this on temp data…………….
Here are a few more links and for those too lazy to read them please supply your mailing address so i can send you a spoon.
http://www.dataq.com/applicat/articles/an11.htm
http://www.physics2000.com/PDF/Text/Ch_16_FOURIER_ANALYSIS,%20_NORMAL_MODES_AND_SOUND.pdf
http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/14637/InTech-Earth_scientist_s_guide_to_discrete_time_power_spectrum_analysis.pdf
Regards
Crakar24
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Come on guys. Have you not learned yet? The authority Brookes has spoken. The debate is over!
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Here’s a paper you don’t have to pay to read:-
Raeside, J. D., 1948 Some Post-Glacial Climatic Changes in Canterbury and Their Effect on Soil Formation Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Vol. 77, No. 1, 153-171.
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I am very skeptical of AGW, so, while I have no idea who you are I’d like to pass his around. But, please – “Celcius”? From a self-described “science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host”? Getting details right is critical to science; don’t you have a spellchecker?
[Sometimes the odd mistake gets through, even with a spell checker, and proof reading. This is especially so with captions for pictures, for some reason. Thank you for pointing it out] Fly
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Late comment I know.
I’ve been watching this puppetry for the last week while reading the paper.
I note a few gentle voices trying to point out that the methods are essentially invalid.
But I do think people could consider the very restrained criticism of the methods (especially of the total abuse of frequency analysis) in the journal’s discussion at http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/4493/2012/cpd-8-4493-2012-discussion.html
Note especially the editor’s concession that the paper needs extensive revision.
The fundamental issue (‘scuse pun) is that extraction of a signal with a period of 250 years from a segment of 250 years is essentially meaningless. It is exactly and only an artifact caused by the assumption that the 250 years are a complete description of the signal backward and forward in time. On the basis of that assumption, any prediction is question begging, no more.
It looks like the authors realise this in para 2 of section 4, but then they go on to explain they extended the series with white noise and the 250 year cycle persisted – which it would do since there is a 250 year chunk of data in the middle of it. this proves nothing except the authors are out of their depths.
I see that the reviewers got no further on the issue of wavelet analysis. Not my area, but I will point out that the reviewers claim out that whilst the 250 year cycle was present – is also had no statistical significance. It’s no coincidence that 250 years is a harmonic of 2000. Note again. No matter how long a random series is, if you have a segment in it like the last cooling centred on 1850 – a frequency analysis using any tool will produce a spike.
I also wondered if those pointing gleefully to a predicted temperature downturn at the 21st century end of Fig 6, would care to comment on the high temperatures at the 1750 end?
Also – check Fig 4 which explains how a sinusoid is fitted to the data, and note especially the careful truncation of said sinusoid. It really rather gives the game away I’m afraid.
That said, frequency based methods are essential for finding frequency based causes – of which there are many. They have nothing at all to say about one off, asymmetric changes (e.g. recent temperature rises) instead subsuming them into spurious frequencies, or, in the case of a windowed FFT, (a fundamental omission in this paper was the failure to appreciate the need for or perform windowing) it’s total erasure.
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Fig. 2 has a grave problem. It shows a very warm period in 1750 when we were still in the LIttle Ice Age and 1938-1944 was, in the real world, warmer than around 2000. This is really quite far from reality and does not make any sense if you look at the real climate history.
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Charles, sorry this is such a late reply to you. I had exactly the same thought. So I studied the graphs in Ljundqvist and if you look closely, there is the appearance of a 250 year cycle and there is a peak in 1750, so I decided I could not rule out the existence of the 250 year cycle. I think the quick and dirty form of fourier here exaggerates the rise and fall at each end of the graph tho. – Jo
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I stumbled across this page when looking for something else. Going by the summary of the published that is given above, the paper is very poor, to put it diplomatically.
Repeatedly the authors betray their lack of understanding of transform methods, especially the properties of the DFT. The finite length DFT only gives meaningful results for periodic functions whose period is within that length, since the DFT effectively assumes the value of any function it’s applied to to be defined by periodic extension outside the DFT’s length.
In other words, the the authors defined the temperature records to be periodic, and then deduced that they’re periodic.
The “prediction” of cooling in Figure 2 is nothing but the mathematically forced periodic extension of the start of the plot to smoothly reappear after the end of the plot. This was forced by using the DFT.
The authors “spectral lines” in Figure 1(left) are really just the discrete points in frequency space where the frequency representation of the temperature data are defined. They are the harmonics of the fundamental frequency, 1/(248 years). The authors might’ve been misled by the surprisingly smooth plot, which evidently involves a great deal of interpolation which isn’t explained.
And the “remarkable” match in Figure 2 between the original data and
IDFT[ DFT[original data] - (all but 6 most powerful frequencies) ]is a lot like MP3 audio compression. Inferring periodicity of the data from this match, though, is like saying that MP3 can encode techno but not freejazz. The similarity between the two plots is nothing more than the definition of the IDFT as the inverse of the DFT; a very similar kind of plot is included in any textbook on transforms methods, probably on the first page of the chapter on Fourier Series or (invariably later) on the DFT.
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Filius, yes, quite. Yes it is a big flaw that the DFT assumes the cycles fit exactly with the endpoints. I knew the DFT left a lot to be desired, but only later found out the DFT actually assumes the end-points are the magical points where all the cycles end and start (it seems such an extreme assumption). Even so, at the time I was aware that the results are speculative, and posted them for discussion.
Reading this again, I could have written a few more caveats. See my comment in #7.4 I had done quite a bit of cross checking and had many questions for the authors. But I found their approach interesting, especially the depth of European historical data, which I’d been unaware of.
Note that in the intervening months I haven’t referred back to this paper as demonstrating anything in particular. It was a post put out there to seed ideas for other approaches. But I’ll add a caveat “for the record”.
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