In The Age this week, Stephen Sherwood explains how misleading skeptics have been for repeating obvious, incontestable results from millions of weather balloons. See, all along, Sherwood knew the weather balloons were wrong, and if only skeptics had his psychic powers, or connection to God, they would have too. Naughty skeptics,eh?
The article in The Age gives away a lot more than either Steven Sherwood (or Peter Hannam, the Fairfax journalist) probably meant to reveal. Sherwood’s still spruiking his latest study, which repeatedly adjusted and blended the weather balloon data and finally “found” the hot spot so effectively it even shows up in years when it’s not supposed to occur. I’m not talking about his technique, but about his slip of the tongue. Spot the conflicting messages. (As usual, the gullible Peter Hannam let him step right in it, by failing to ask the obvious questions.)
Stephen Sherwood effectively tells four points. Figure out how they can all be true at the same time:
- The hot spot is vital to the models, indeed to the current scientific understanding of our climate!
- This is the first time they have finally resolved the missing hot spot.
- Sherwood always knew the hot spot was there (some kind of “special” knowledge?)
- Skeptics were misleading, exploiting, and distorting things for saying that the hotspot was missing (despite point 2!).
If the hot spot is important and “was” missing and Sherwood has only just supposedly found it, that means he has hidden that failure from the paying public for years until now. He didn’t tell anyone it was missing, except in obscure paragraphs in papers announcing it was “found”. Isn’t that kinda deceptive and distorting in a debate where billions of dollars are at stake? Isn’t it a bit odd that a scientist could be “95% certain” that we were headed for a disaster, when the single most important feedback in climate models, a factor as large as the CO2 forcing itself, was known to be wrong?
Sherwood may argue that he has always believed the hot spot was there — but that’s my point. When the data shows otherwise, what kind of scientist “believes” — only an unskeptical one. What does that say about his scientific work? He’s been ignoring the data that doesn’t fit his preconceived belief and has never approached this research with an open mind. Homogenisation is a process that starts with assumptions, and Sherwood is effectively admitting he “knew” what the results of his research were going to turn up.
Is there any experiment Stephen Sherwood could do that would not “finally” find the hot spot?
…
The hot spot matters
Sherwood outlays what a disaster it would be if the 28 million radiosondes are correct and the hot spot is missing:
“The models predict that if, and only if, man is the cause of warming, the tropical upper air, six miles above the ground, should warm up to thrice as fast as the surface, but this tropical upper troposphere “hot spot” has not been observed in 50 years of measurement,” Christopher Monckton, a prominent British sceptic, wrote in 2010.
That the upper troposphere hadn’t warmed compared with the surface would be a major surprise for science, Professor Sherwood said.
Surface temperatures have been rising at about 0.15 degrees per decade. As air rises over the tropics, a lot of water vapour condenses, releasing latent heat, that warms up the air.
“It would have been truly astonishing if the temperatures in the upper troposphere hadn’t been going up faster than at the surface,” Professor Sherwood said.
“If it didn’t appear, it would have nothing to do with whether humans are causing climate change, but it would mean there is something about the way air mixes in the atmosphere that we didn’t know,” he said. “And the ramifications for climate change could go either way.”
Follow the reasoning. Sherwood says the hot spot must be there because if it wasn’t, it would mean they didn’t know something. The consensus is always right?
Sherwood, who knew what the result of his methods would be before he did them, thinks skeptics are the ones who “believe”?
Sceptics’ interest in “hot spots” they believed weren’t there and the fact they couldn’t account for the additional heat being trapped by the Earth from its increased greenhouse gases, pointed to a contrast in approaches, he said.
Hmm. Could it be Sherwood projecting his own flaws?
“They’re not aiming for a self-consistent and reasonably comprehensive description of the world. What they are aiming at is to discredit something,” he said.
Apart from skeptics who don’t. (Some are working to make an alternate climate model).
But then Peter Hannam is interviewing a man whose expertise on the subject of climate skeptics is summed up in the same interview:
“Professor Sherwood said he hadn’t bothered to follow how sceptics had responded to his paper”
Yes, we have different approaches to Stephen Sherwood. We follow the data, he “knows” what the data is supposed to say beforehand. He also knows what skeptics are saying without hearing them.
When scientists break all the rules,
Using dubious methods as tools,
To find as required,
The result they desired,
Then skeptics must take them for fools.
— Ruairi
15 years of hunting the hot spot
The missing hot spot was always the crucial sign of water vapor feedback— the largest feedback in the climate models — but data from 28 million weather balloons showed that it wasn’t there. They had guessed the wrong way, and humidity wasn’t rising at 10km above the equator “thickening the water blanket”. Year after year teams of researchers have scoured the data for ways to adjust it to reveal the hotspot they are certain must be there. Stephen Sherwood was so keen to find it in 2008 he published a graph changing the color scales so that “zero degrees warming” was a hot orange red color — that produced a graph that looked like he’d found the hot spot. In another paper he “found” the hot spot by throwing away all the temperature readings from weather balloons and using wind shear data instead. As if measurements of the wind would somehow be more accurate in estimating temperature than the equipment designed and individually calibrated to do exactly that.
In the latest installment Sherwood has reiteratively homogenized (meaning blurred and smoothed) data for the nth time, adding in data from years when there should be no hot spot, and miraculously finally “found it”. I explained when it was released why it made no sense. The world hasn’t warmed since the late 1990s, so there shouldn’t be a hot spot since then — especially over land where most radiosondes are released. Sherwood found the hot spot in the years when it wasn’t meant to occur. Doesn’t it bother him that he’s massaged the data to “solve” one problem, but created another one just as large?
Jo – seeing you have linked to the work of David Evans and the new Solar theory could you possibly provide an update to all of us as to how progressed David is with it.
Is it still a viable explanation and when will further info & data be released?
Appreciate all your work as does everyone (and how you don’t succumb to all of the criticism you attract from the “true believers”)
Cheers,
320
Yes, please, Jo.
100
Yes please. That would be amusing.
Your graph predicting cooling
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/evans/graphs/prediction/evans-solar-model-prediction-fig2.1.gif
Reality since then
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2014/trend
536
you need to keep up with the cold anomalies being reported currently around the globe timdufus
210
You’re welcome to the lower South Island of NZ where record low temperatures (last 40 years) of -21C have been recorded.
The latest farcical Green pus protest of solar panels on the roof of Parliament House because of “global warming” serves elegantly to highlight the abject vacuousness of the ‘warming’ meme and activists.
181
Here is that story.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/276919/south-island-wakes-to-record-freeze
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Here’s the GLOBAL picture
http://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/worldwide-many-areas-record-warm-may-2015
38
Sheep and cattle; close to being lost because of the deep freeze.
Reminds us of the Russian problem a couple of years ago when 10,000 beasts died in the cold!
GLOBULLL WARMING.
KK
70
And here we see a trend for the US, NOAA admits there is a pause. Still no global warming tipping point.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01bb0846feef970d-pi
The waves are cool.
50
Not to mention serious cold during this past winter in North America, new record lows in the Canadian Arctic, an extremely late spring in most of Canada….. I could go on but the fanatics who support the whole CAGW nonsense will refuse to admit real data exists.
40
Timboss,
Why is it that warmists always cherry-pick highly homogenized data-sets?
Here is a graph of the least adjusted data set, the RSS satellite data set:
RSS lower tropospheric global mean from 2010 to 2014.
Looks like Jo was right, the world is now cooling.
Abe
262
Can you explain why you compare the temperature 3.5 kms up in the atmosphere, to Jo’s SURFACE predictions?
Can you explain your cherry pick of year?
213
Timboss,
Sure. The hypothesis behind global warming/climate change is that increased CO2 in the atmosphere will ‘back radiate’ a portion of the heat that’s leaving the earths surface back to the surface. This ‘positive feedback’ is theoretically supposed to warm the surface of the earth.
Therefore, according to this hypothesis, the way the surface temperatures will increase is by the ‘back radiation’ of a hotter atmosphere. (Specifically the troposphere).
If the troposphere is cooling, as the RSS graph shows, then the surface will also cool. According to the hypothesis you must have one in order to get the other.
The RSS data is not only the least-adjusted data-set, it’s also evenly adjusted because it’s measurements are evenly distributed over the entire planet. This makes it the most reliable indicator of what the temperature is doing overall.
Sure. Jo’s graph predicts that the cooling will begin in 2010. So I used that as the start point. 2015 is’t complete, it’s only June now. I chose only complete years.
Abe
30
Timboss, cherrying one year’s weather? Seriously?
150
well…one year one decade…and conclude is possible after all..but no errors bars…
add errors bars please..and uncertainty on the trend…
61
Philip sheehan will be along to set Timboss straight, soon.
40
Just going by the apparent lack of any common sense whatsoever, could it be that Timboss is actually Julia’s old reject stooge Tim Matheson?
40
I imagined it was the Deltoid blogmasta.
30
Your graph showing the HUGE rise since 2014 is LAUGHABLE.
I’ve amended your graph here to reflect the past 15 years not the last 15 months.
Slightly different from your graph – is’nt it?
You expect people to take you seriously – LOL!!
Cheers,
170
Plain dopey.It amazes when units like you drop in as though activated by some kind of cyber alarm.Hardwired to unicellular motherboard.Must obey the nostrum of the collective.
70
Timboss, your attempt to mock Dr. Evans Solar Model Predictions fell flat on its face,because you didn’t read carefully about the cooling prediction, from HERE:
Instead of trying the immature “gotcha” attempt,try making rational counterpoints instead that might help.Since you have yet to make one to her presentation,I have to think you are here to bluster hoping that would sow confusion.
A one year temperature data chart you posted is a he he… refutation…,not really since the predicted cooling by Solar model is more likely in year 2017 or 2018.
Feeling dumb now?
170
Timboss,do you even notice ANOTHER failing IPCC projection happening right under your nose?
The IPCC made specific temperature projections of at least .20C warming and even to .30C warming PER DECADE:
so what is the verdict for the first two decades of the new century?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2015.4/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2015.4/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2015.4/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2015.4/trend
Not even close…….
100
The solar model: this may be of interest.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/6879/2015/acp-15-6879-2015.pdf
40
“What they are aiming at is to discredit something,” Sherwood said.
He got that right. I demand a paradigm shift and I want it now.
260
Hear, hear!
I second the motion. 🙂
Abe
160
The point of science is to identify error and weed it out.
But I wouldn’t expect Stephen Sherwood to understand that.
230
Sherwood uses the most robust climate science method. to summarise his current proposition:
1) I always knew I was right
2) I can now prove I was right
3) I wont consider data from anyone who thinks that I am wrong
Try and refute that!
100
If the ‘hot spot’ is in any way related to the ‘g spot’ then it isn’t surprising no one can find it. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
302
JB,
You’re not looking ‘hard enough’! 😮
Couldn’t resist it either. 😉
Abe
220
But seriously, and it may seem off topic, but there is another popular ‘missing hot spot‘.
As far as I can tell from searching in google, previous iPhones and iPads had the same problem.
Abe
80
It’s deflating when The Models don’t deliver. Expectation is a cruel mistress.
20
The real story here is not this sad and angry old alarmist scientist but the sad and angry reporting of him by the reptiles of the left press.
391
Just look at the journalist’s past history of Climate Change articles…
=> http://www.theage.com.au/environment/by/Peter-Hannam
…Pretty much tells you he is only interested in promoting his agenda and providing himself as a platform for activist-scientists (to promote their study “from a certain point of view”).
Side note:
After this week’s nonsense with ABC’s Q&A, I realise the political Left don’t treat news outlets as a source of informing the public. They see it as a platform for promoting their narratives. To recruit public support to their causes. (Remember the purpose of activist-journalism isn’t to follow a story and see where it leads. Its to push an agenda they support. If need be, to present a view or tone that is supportive of the narrative. In this case with Stephen Sherwood, its to not ask certain questions that could potentially unravel what they’re publishing.)
Although, the Q&A uses it to set up Conservatives (or anyone else they don’t like), in order to catch them out in “Gotcha!” moments…Of course, the tactic backfired this week with that loony they put up. (They even paid for his transport costs! …All this has been on the taxpayer!)
ABC calls this a “mis-judgement”. *rolls eyes*
310
That’s just too polite aussieguy.
The correct term is: propaganda.
240
Jonathon Green is trying to downplay it today – completely omits to mention Zaky’s criminal conviction. The ABC echo chamber is in full defensive mode right now:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-25/green-zaky-mallah-qa-and-the-media-at-its-worst/6571576
80
I guess they decided my comment was too direct, so the ABC mod squad memory holed it:
50
Oh, my lord. No: we can’t have major surprises! Not for science! Uh-uh!
140
Of course Roy Spencer and John Christy covered the missing tropical HS about a month ago.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/05/new-satellite-upper-troposphere-product-still-no-tropical-hotspot/
They’ve been trying to find the bloody thing for years using the best SAT observation data available and it just isn’t there.
320
Neville,
Jo reviewed that work in this atricle:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/05/new-satellite-analysis-fails-to-find-the-hot-spot-agrees-with-millions-of-weather-balloons/
Abe
90
here’s where we get the founding of the religion
haven’t we seen this before in history?
are modern scientific predictions that are the product of deeply held convictions that originate from one’s view about man and nature any different than the past?
at least with science if we don’t find it we usually reevaluate and move on
not with this
it’ now the Messiah Heat
it will come
it must
only a new religion will usurp it
61
And we’re going to find ourselves bombarded with this sort of faux science for a while to come as The Age continues its series on global warming (am also betting that the abc will do a timely global warming special on Q&A in the lead-up to Paris). I’m hoping that two things will become apparent to the intelligent yet undecided layman over the coming months: firstly, that it’s nearly always ‘monsters under the bed’ that were meant to be scared of and, secondly, that the lady doth protest too much. What other branch of science in the history of the world has ever had the need to parade itself in the way that AGW does? People will eventually see it for what it is – a political expedient i.e. a vehicle to achieve the UN’s centralist control ambitions.
260
Interesting language. ‘so called’ skeptics? Warmists are trying to reclaim the sceptic label as it gathers respect, originally an insult now recognized as the characteristic of a real scientist.
In all this Sherwood just blames instrumentation. Now that’s easy. Both the weather balloons which are all wrong because in the search for precision, the sun now doesn’t warm them anymore and the instrumentation errors from balloons to satellites which gave us an 18 year false hiatus. Of course he doesn’t question the data which gave him the warming in the first place, just the data which showed it stopped.
So the whole world is wrong except for a scientist from the University of NSW Climate Change Research Centre and his PhD student. They alone know the truth. Amazing.
Anyway we all knew superior Australian Climate Science would triumph, even if Sherwood is American and Nidhi Nishant is from New Delhi a year into her PhD at the same Climate Change Research Center. At least they have not made the terrible career mistake of poor misguided Prof. Murry Selby who announced that there was no correlation at all between CO2 and temperature and was promptly sacked, his airline tickets and credit cards cancelled before he could come home.
410
Here’s Ross McKitrick’s finding about the balloon observations from 1958 to 2012 in the tropical troposphere.
Bottom Line
Over the 55-years from 1958 to 2012, climate models not only significantly over-predict observed warming in the tropical troposphere, but they represent it in a fundamentally different way than is observed. Models represent the interval as a smooth upward trend with no step-change. The observations, however, assign all the warming to a single step-change in the late 1970s coinciding with a known event (the Pacific Climate Shift), and identify no significant trend before or after. In my opinion the simplest and most likely interpretation of these results is that climate models, on average, fail to replicate whatever process yielded the step-change in the late 1970s and they significantly overstate the overall atmospheric response to rising CO2 levels
And here is the full study—————http://climateaudit.org/2014/07/24/new-paper-by-mckitrick-and-vogelsang-comparing-models-and-observations-in-the-tropical-troposphere/
161
“They’re not aiming for a self-consistent and reasonably comprehensive description of the world”
If only alarmists could aim for the same thing. They’re certainly not consistent; unless you count consistently contradicting themselves, and each other.
90
These people have fallen in love with their models and theories and are assuming data because the of their model. It’s brass akward.
40
When scientists break all the rules,
Using dubious methods as tools,
To find as required,
The result they desired,
Then skeptics must take them for fools.
321
it cleary shows that they are paying attention to “good” evidences and facts.
i hope for them they are right or the awakening will be hard.
10
It is bad now, but it is going to get worse before the Paris meeting. That is the way propaganda works. A steady drum-roll of false or misleading propaganda is put out over he year or so before the Great Event. Then in the final spurt we are inundated with loud and obnoxious claims founded in the “science” of the previous year’s propaganda. This efficiently lets the press smother any truth under the blanket of previous scientific studies (i.e. propaganda) over the last year so an overwhelming number of “science” publications and press releases drown out any different opinions or different “facts.” Thus the truth is hidden, and the lust for money and power rolls on.
190
Spot on. I am getting the feeling with the continuing hiatus that Paris 2015 is the last throw of the dice for the warmist brigade to get binding global emissions reductions targets before the western voting public wakes up to the scam. Expect the MSM hype and cries of impending doom to reach a crescendo by November.
180
The thing is the western voting public won’t ever get a chance to vote on any issue that affects them that comes from the auspices of the UN,and considering that I think most of the nations of the world have signed up for Agenda 21 on the Environment of which the voting public had no or very little knowledge that our govts were even considering signing it.
40
I was listening to the BBC last night reporting that in Holland people are now taking legal action against their government for not doing enough to prevent climate change in view that 25% of the country is below sea level. Not enough windmills perhaps? What surprised me was the fervour of those discussing the issue.
120
Robert
In NZ this morning we wake up to find 4 Greenpeace have scale our Parliament building to protest against the NZ Government not doing enough about climate change. Just another pathetic protest.
BUT I’ve yet to hear any of these protestors actually spell out practical steps to achieve their “goals”. I’m still waiting to hear the Aussie AGW believers take up Tony’s challenge and demand all the coal fired power stations be closed down NOW.
100
Ross, if we would all tell them to support organic fuels then everything would work out OK as it does with their demand for organic food, etc.
30
They have been brainwashed to an exceeding degree.
40
Greens? Brainwashed? Gee, wonder how that happened?
80
Maybe the Dutch should try to bring Ghenghis Khan back from the past?
If you want to despair at the next generation, read some of the comments on this image on a picture-sharing site:
http://imgur.com/gallery/MOXFDJo
Particularly the top-rated comment and its replies.
00
Forget the hot spot, Huston we have a problem.
‘The UK MET office has published a study which suggests solar activity is currently plummeting, the fastest rate of decline in 9300 years. The study also raises the odds of Maunder Minimum style conditions by 2050 from 8% to 15 – 20%.’
WUWT
100
Interesting el gordo. This suggests a huge back down by the UK Met office or at least showing they want a “bob each way”.
I’m surprised, in some ways, they were allowed to publish it.
60
It’s remarkable and the ABC would automatically follow, but it may take an inquiry to rid aunty of the newsroom Trots.
Let the recantation begin.
50
Clearly I was thinking too far ahead with that last comment, the beeb needs to pick it up and the ABC follow, after all its the UK Met.
Also my bad, that should be Houston not Huston.
50
Here is something I watched over a year ago on the BBC.
Looks like the planet is going to go through a cooling cycle.
31
While you’re there, what is your opinion on ‘the Liberal Party’s Federal Regional and Rural Committee plans to move a motion at the weekend conference calling for a parliamentary inquiry to “examine the scientific evidence that underpins the man-made global warming theory”
Is this a plan to unseat Hunt?
What has the PM promised Dennis Jensen?
20
Apparently a Dutch court has ordered the government to reduce CO2 emissions. http://www.urgenda.nl/en/climate-case/
20
Yes, at the demand of 900 activists.
I wonder how long it took to get them all together?
40
“The end justifies the means”, has been the justification for foul deeds by tyrants for as long as any of us can remember.
In the West, we have graduated from torturing people to torturing data, which is why the mythical hot spot can be made to suddenly magically appear by anyone lacking all sense of integrity or honest intentions.
We need to view all this in terms of this year’s Paris phenomenon, where climate hysteria has led to previously unheard of levels of alarmist BS being published and regurgitated by a gullible media.
90
If you want any “sense of integrity or honest intentions”, I suggest a different site to this. One not associated with “unheard of levels of alarmist BS being published and regurgitated”!
(No one forced you to be here,yet here you are) CTS
[Yep. We note all the “examples” you list of a lack of integrity ” …….. “. Plenty of bluster though. – Jo]
113
sillyfilly, when the science does not support your ideas I change my mind it is obvious you do not. Your view of this climate change catastrophic warming thingy is obviously faith based. Thus you are a gaia worshipper and think all of mankind is evil. Get a life dear.
51
Honest intentions??? And what colour is the sky in your world, honey? If you would like to review some honest intentions might I suggest getting out into the real world. Perhaps start with a very interesting book by Alan Carlin “Environmentalism Gone Mad” – a discussion of his history as a senior EPA researcher and policy wonk at the USEPA-who was one of the original “environmentalists” (before the radicals turned it into a dirty word).
00
Peter. Well, since torturing is universally hated, perhaps we could tell the loony greens that organic data are being tortured and they must do something about it.
40
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
If the hot spot existed at any important level, even a semi-numerate like me would be able to see it in the raw temperature data. If it needs mathematical necromancy to drag it out , it isn’t there.
30
Western governments still torture people.
21
24 June: National Post: AP: Mike Corder: Dutch court orders government to cut country’s greenhouse gas emissions 25% in the next five years
Climate activists in the packed courtroom clapped and cheered as Presiding Judge Hans Hofhuis read the ruling…
The Dutch government can appeal the ruling to a higher court.
***It remains unclear exactly how the court can enforce its ruling. It has the power to impose fines for failure to carry out its orders, but never uses such powers against the government and Urgenda did not request such a move, said judge Peter Blok.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/dutch-court-orders-government-to-cut-countrys-greenhouse-gas-emissions-25-by-2020
24 June: UK Express: Nathan Rao: Britain faces FREEZING winters as slump in solar activity threatens ‘little Ice Age’
BRITAIN could face colder than average winters with a plunge in solar activity threatening a new “little ice age” in the next few decades.
They fear a repeat of the so-called ‘Maunder Minimum’ which triggered Arctic winter whiteouts and led to the River Thames freezing 300 years ago.
The Met Office-led study warns although the effect will be offset by recent global warming, Britain faces years of unusually cold winters…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/586404/Britain-freezing-winters-slump-solar-activity
fave comment:
MikeHerman: We won’t freeze because climate scientists can always adjust the data to make sure we’re warm enough.
60
In passing, the Thames freezing over was a bit uncommon even in the little ice age. It is recorded 26 times from 1400 – 1814, the longest (3 months) in 1683/84 winter. The old “medieval” bridge was demolished in 1835. The wide piers and narrow passages restricted the water flow creating a pool of still surface water which froze somewhat easier.
If it freezes again we will be in serious trouble.
60
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html
10
note “TINY” “PHILIPPINES”:
13 June: Enviro News: Emerson Urry: Six ***Tiny Island Countries To Sue Big Oil For Disrupting the Climate
If the G7 is Goliath, then the six countries offering up the declaration are definitely David. Those participating nations are: Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Fiji, Solomon Islands and the ***Philippines – and they are planning to sue large transnational carbon polluters. The international coalition of six states in its document…
http://environews.tv/world-news/six-tiny-island-countries-to-sue-big-oil-for-disrupting-the-climate/
Wikipedia: The Philippines is an archipelago that consists of 7,107 islands with a total land area of 300,000 square kilometers (115,831 sq mi).
Wikipedia: The total area of the United Kingdom is approximately 243,610 square kilometres (94,060 sq mi).
from the writer’s profile: Emerson Urry: Founder, Executive News Producer, and Editor-in-Chief at EnviroNews USA, Emerson Urry has directed, produced, written, edited, 3D animated, scored, and/or narrated approximately 300 environmental, health, and nature films, documentaries, and news segments — many of which represent established, breaking, or exclusive news.
As a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists, Urry holds journalistic ethics in the highest
regard and is known for his devotion to “old-school” investigative reporting.
40
So now we know that Donald Rumsfeld was right all along with his his well known pronouncement a few years back:
60
But what about the unknown knowns. The things we know are there because we guessed they should be, although there is no trace of them at all.
40
I don’t know if Hannam (or is it Sherwood?) has quoted Monckton accurately but in any case a ‘hot spot’ would not be a ‘human fingerprint’ but an indication of strong positive water vapour feedback in the climate system whatever the cause of warming, quoting Roy Spencer:
“One of the most vivid predictions of global warming theory is a “hotspot” in the tropical upper troposphere, where increased tropical convection responding to warming sea surface temperatures (SSTs) is supposed to cause enhanced warming in the upper troposphere”.
Without a ‘hot spot’ the IPCC temperature projection models are rubbish.
80
24 June: RTCC: Megan Darby: G7: Make ‘climate fragility’ a foreign policy priority
Syria crisis shows how climate change can lead to instability and conflict, experts say in call for cooperation
Cases like this are why “climate fragility” should be made a foreign policy priority, according to an in-depth report commissioned by the G7…
UK foreign minister ***Baroness Anelay picks on Syria as an example of the importance of global warming to her brief.
Speaking at the report’s London launch, she says: “Climate change is not only a threat to the environment but also to our global security, to poverty eradication and economic prosperity.
“That therefore makes it a top priority not only for environment ministers but foreign ministers too.”…
Drawing on scientific research, consultations in 10 countries and surveys of policymakers, the report aims to link climate change with humanitarian aid and peacebuilding…
“The G7 has the capacity to be a leading force in setting the global resilience agenda,” says lead author Dan Smith…
Lukas Ruttinger, another lead author and researcher at Adelphi, highlights regions where climate pressures threatened to spark violence.
Peru, for example, has “very high conflict potential”, with competition for resources heightening tensions between indigenous people, small farmers and big businesses…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/06/24/g7-make-climate-fragility-a-foreign-policy-priority/
***Wikipedia: Joyce Anne Anelay, Baroness Anelay of St John’s, DBE, PC, FRSA is a British Conservative Party politician, currently serving as Minister of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (since 6 August 2014).
ANOTHER WHOPPING 172 PAGES OF NONSENSE:
REPORT: NewClimateForPeace.org: A New Climate for Peace
Taking Action on Climate and Fragility
LINK PDF ***172 pages Full Report
copyright: adelphi, International Alert, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2015
http://www.newclimateforpeace.org/
p2 In early 2014, G7 members commissioned an international consortium, consisting of Adelphi (lead), International Alert, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the EU Institute for Security Studies — to conduct this study and develop the platform.
p126 Glossary: Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines climate change as ‘a change of climate which
is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods’ (United Nations 1992, 3).
—–
UNTIL THIS RIDICULOUS UNFCCC DEFINITION OF ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ IS OVERRULED, THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY OF ANY SENSE BEING MADE WHEN DISCUSSING AGW OR OF FUTURE GENERATIONS BEING ABLE TO EVEN STUDY THE HISTORY OR SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE PER SE.
40
Some funny stuff here. The first of the displayed graphs, labelled A, does not take account of all forcings such as aerosols, the sun, volcanos, ozone etc. so like apples and oranges, any comparison is illusory. Equivalently graph B can be updated to 2010, more recent data from NCDC RATPAC indicates that the middle troposphere warming more than the surface.
So while this exercise in illusion may well continue, the facts speak for themselves, viz. to the contrary.
014
sillyfilly,
The key section from your quote is this:
When you adjust the original data to fit your needs, the new data will . . . fit your needs.
It would be nice to have a link just out of curiosity.
Abe
120
sillyfilly,
No sooner had I hit the ‘post comment’ button, when it hit me that . . .
Ok. I have before me a set of temperature measurements. Why would the trend in these measurements change simply by employing a different analysis method? The measurement is the measurement. The trend is the trend.
So, please provide a link to satisfy my curiosity.
Abe
120
Because silly used sloppy language and should have written, “analysis techniques have estimated…”. A trend from estimated data can vary.
22
Silly, the only sensible thing you can do to overcome these problems are to insist that all of our power must be generated by organic fuels.
40
sillyfilly,
Just remove CO2 as a factor and then everything will correlate with observed data.
70
Sillyfilly’s cut-and-paste job is irrelevant to the existence of the elusive ‘hot spot’ which is supposed to exist 9 – 12 km above the tropical surface 20oN to 20oS and is purported to be warming 1.4 times faster than the surface.
70
Dear Sillyfilly,
Well spotted, Sillyfilly! Good horse!
The old “climatechange.gov” website seems to have been taken down (which seems premature as climate will continue to change).
Instead you can get the document from which that chart was taken from here:
• https://web.archive.org/web/20120324114050/http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-all.pdf
Go to figure 1.3 on page 25 of that document and compare the “All Forcings” picture to the radiosonde chart.
Still looks nothing like actuals. Big central hotspot in the model. No central hotspot in the measurements.
Reading off the colour scale, the model had 0.2+ degrees per decade in TLT. The radiosondes -0.1 to 0.1. Barely touching.
At great expense to management, I have uploaded the relevant charts from that document, annotated with a few colour readings that are difficult to discern visually. See here:
http://i.imgur.com/VVnr0rT.png
The follow-up paper in 2008 where Santer claimed to have repaired the differences between models and observations is here:
• http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/bds0801.pdf
Just look at figure 6 and blur your eyes a bit and you might not notice the gap, or that he’s taken the spatial global average to hide the fact the warming wasn’t hottest at the equator like the models predicted.
Chin up, they’ll “find” the hotspot one day, they just have be more brazen.
10
Maybe someone much more clever than me can answer these questions –
Would convection dissipate the heat of the “hotspot/s”?
How could the “hotspot/s” be insulated from the surrounding atmosphere?
70
In reverse or order:
They can’t and
It does.
KK
40
Somewhat surprised that no one has mentioned the 200 million dollar wind farm announced for Western Tasmania as soon as the RET revision passed through the Senate.
Maybe it was only reported on the local Tasmania news.
Another travesty. Of course the hypocritical Greens, having bucked the hydro project forty years ago, have nothing to say about thirty of these monstrosities obliterating the landscape. According to the NineMSN news, construction might start as early as the end of this year. Higher electricity prices for all of us, but a short term job for SafetyGuy66 I suppose.
80
O/T but worth taking note of. h/t Tom Heller @ Real Science
“The House of Representatives today passed H. R. 2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act, by a vote of 247 to 180. This vote strongly rebukes the Obama EPA’s power grab. It also provides strong support for the rider in the House’s Interior-EPA Appropriations bill that would also block the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. Another key point that needs to be stressed in the media is that it shows that President Obama’s commitments to reduce emissions made to the forthcoming Paris Accord are opposed by a strong majority in the House and are therefore unlikely to be implemented.”
90
Excellent, Smithers… (rubbing hands together in glee).
Sorry, couldn’t resist. BUT, it is good news that they are finally standing up to that imperial president.
00
Rod Stuart –
meanwhile:
22 June: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Ending onshore wind farm subsidies ‘will save hundreds of millions of pounds’
Amber Rudd says 250 proposed wind farms are now “unlikely to be built” following cuts to subsidies announced last week
“That equates to about 250 projects, totalling about 2,500 turbines, that are unlikely to be built,” she said. “The onshore wind projects that are unlikely to go ahead could have cost hundreds of millions of pounds.” …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/windpower/11692535/Ending-onshore-wind-farm-subsidies-will-save-hundreds-of-millions-of-pounds.html
50
Pat quotes here (my bolding)
So then, 2500 turbines at an average 2.5MW per turbine comes in at 6,250MW Nameplate.
At the current average Capacity Factor of 30%, that now equates to a Nameplate of 1,875MW, so the equivalent total power delivery of, umm ONE large scale coal fired power plant. (2,000MW)
250 Wind
FarmsPlants.TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY of them.
Man, huge loss! (/sarc)
Tony.
90
***forget the science and the numbers!
23 June: The Desert Sun: Sammy Roth: Air pollution could kill 57,000 Americans by 2100
Climate change is already wreaking havoc on human health, and worsening air quality alone could kill 57,000 Americans by the end of the century, doctors and federal officials said Tuesday at a White House summit…
Sumita Khatri, a respiratory physician and co-director of the Asthma Center at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said she’s seen firsthand that more asthma patients visit her hospital when air pollution levels are high…
***”Patients don’t want to hear about the science. Patients know what they experience every day,” Khatri said. “We know that the science is clear, and what we need to do is come up with answers for our patients.”…
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy described tackling climate change a “moral issue,” channeling the landmark encyclical released last week by Pope Francis…
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy described the report as a hopeful look at just how much the United States stands to benefit by fighting climate change.
“If the only thing your friend cares about is fishing — if they like cold water trout — tell them to read section I don’t know what in the report. They’ll find themselves there,” McCarthy said, drawing laughs…
Several speakers also discussed the importance of framing climate change as a human health issue…
That’s because health, unlike climate change, has not become a polarizing issue, said Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. While the public “knows almost nothing about the health relevance of climate change,” he said, Americans care deeply about the health of their friends and family, and of people around the world.
“We feel like we are in a unique position to advance health around the world,” Maibach said. “Americans want to see their government lead on that front.”
Americans also tend to trust health professionals, Maibach said…
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2015/06/23/air-quality-will-get-worse-climate-changes/29191799/
23 June: ThinkProgress: Natasha Geiling: How Do You Get People To Care About Climate Change? Talk About Public Health
***“Numbers numb, stories sell.”
That was the message that Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, championed before a crowd of public health experts during the White House Public Health and Climate Change Summit Tuesday.
***“We don’t deal well with numbers, it tends to suspend our sense of emotion, but we respond very, very well to stories,” Maibach continued. “Individual stories will almost always trump a litany of statistics.”…
The panel, which in addition to Maibach included Ruth Etzel of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lance Pierce of CDP North America, and Joe Romm of Climate Progress, explored various ways to strengthen the national conversation about climate change…
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/23/3673153/communicating-climate-change-public-health/
40
Interesting issue Pat;
Just what is causing the plague of asthma that is being reported?
“Sumita Khatri, a respiratory physician and co-director of the Asthma Center at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said she’s seen firsthand that more asthma patients visit her hospital when air pollution levels are high…”
Does anyone have any ideas on this? Is asthma due to the air quality or to a change in the capacity of people to resist normal levels of atmospheric “pollution’?
Lets go back to :
“when I was a little bitty baby my mother would rock me in the cradle”
Here in Newcastle, grimeyest place to be in the late 1940s and fifties.
Our steel works made sure we had lots of sulphur compounds and soot and muck in the air that we breathed. That was on top of the coal fired stove and oven we used. Very few cars, some horse drawn bread wagons.
A bit of asthma.
Jump forward to 2000 and there is apparently much more asthma and our air is cleaner apart from the cars and those emissions which may be a real issue.
I have frequently got to the outskirts of Sydney and looked at the smog trapped in that basin; man it is awasome.
Any ideas?
is the air now cleaner or are petrol fumes poisoning us?
KK
20
Kinky Keith @ #29.1
is the air now cleaner or are petrol fumes poisoning us?
Not definitive but some research is pointing to the very cleanliness many parents demand around their children, especially in the first few months when the infant’s immune system is being programmed, that is fashionable / a fetish with many parents today.
I have five siblings, all country born and reared.
None of us have asthma.
We played in the farm dirt from a very early age and got ourselves thoroughly mucked up much to our Mother’s frequent eye rolling disgust.
But it certainly doesn’t seemed to have had any health consequences that can be pointed to as coming from playing in the dirt all the time when from when we were just very small kids.
I do have COPD from working in dust for some years as a teenager on clover harvesting where at times we could not literally see our hands at arms length
A wet handkerchief was our face mask but in 35 C heat it dried out in about 5 minutes
Fortunately I have never smoked as I saw no point in it even as a teenager otherwise with the combination of dust and smoking I would be dead by now from emphysema at 77 years old as has happened to a couple of my compatriots from those days of 60 plus years ago.
————————
[ quoted & edited ]
The Hygiene Hypothesis: Does Cleanliness Cause Asthma?
Asthma-like symptoms were recorded in the earliest forms of writings going all the way back 5,000 years. With all that history, it’s hard to believe we only recently started coming up with viable “guesses” as to why some people develop asthma. My favorite guess is the hygiene hypothesis.
The ancient Romans found a link between cleanliness and disease, and created aquaducts to supply clean water and bath houses to give people a place to wash up. When bacteria were discovered in the 1800s, the Roman’s were proven correct.
Since the discovery and understanding of how germs cause disease, there has been an effort by society to stay clean. But is it possible that we have become so clean that we have opened ourselves up to suffering new kinds of diseases? Is it possible that civilization causes asthma? According to the Hygiene Hypothesis, the answer is yes.
Many scientists speculated that the same things that trigger acute asthma attacks are the same things that cause asthma. In that sense, many scientists looked at pollution as a main cause. Asthma rates increased by 75% between 1980 and 1995. Most asthma deaths (80.2% according 1989 stats) occured in highly populated urban areas as well.
However, while pollution has been proven to “trigger” asthma, other studies show that in areas where pollution levels are decreasing asthma rates are still on the rise.
This research encouraged David P. Strachan to look in a unique direction. He made an observation that in Third World nations where people lived in poverty, on farms, and were rarely innoculated from infectious disease, asthma rates were lower than in developed nations like the U.S., Europe and Australia with high concentrations of the population living in urban areas and high rates of childhood vaccination.
He also observed that the same pollution and allergens that exist where asthma rates are low also exist in places where asthma rates are high.
He then proposed the Hygiene Hypothesis in the British Medical Journal in 1989. This hypothesis, or educated guess, is that the asthma gene is not turned on because we are too dirty, but because we are too clean. He came to this conclusion after looking at studies that revealed people who live near farm animals were less likely to develop asthma. Since people in many Third World nations work in farming or are often around animals, they are exposed to bacteria and parasites common around these animals.
Likewise, studies revealed people exposed to pig and cattle parasites and bacteria in the first three months of life (when their immune system is still developing) were less likely to get asthma. According to The Medical College Of Wisconsin, these studies and observations “led several researchers to conclude that organisms in cattle dust and manure may be the stimuli that their immune systems needed to fight off asthma.”
Also, several studies (like this one) showed that children exposed to pet dander (proteins in pet saliva and skin, but not pet hair) were less likely to develop asthma. This seems counterintuitive, since it is common (and correect) advice for people and children with asthma and allergies to either get rid of their pets or to, at least, keep them out of the bedroom and off the furniture.
So why would this be? Consider this: asthma is an autoimmune disease. When we are born, our immune systems are still developing. Considering that our immune system doesn’t fully mature until we are about 3 months old, it is prior to this time that something “might” occur to turn the so-called asthma gene on — if a person has the asthma gene.
The hygiene hypothesis surmises that if we are not exposed to certain bacteria and parasites for our immune systems to battle, our immune systems get “bored” and may, instead, react to and create antibodies against normally harmless substances such as pollen and dust, i.e. allergens.
Once the asthma gene is turned on, you, more than likely, will have asthma. Many people will notice asthma symptoms in childhood as they are exposed to their asthma triggers. However, many others will have symptoms so mild during childhood they won’t even realize they have it until they are adults (adult onset asthma).
10
ROM: just a quick note on a very complex set of diseases: autoimmune disease and asthma are classified differently because the underlying mechanisms differ. Autoimmune illness involves inappropriate immune attack against ‘self’ tissues, and there’s quite a list of these – systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE, Grave’s disease and so on.
Allergic asthma is part of the atopic disease group, allergic asthma being triggered by an over-responsiveness of the airways to irritants. An antibody termed IgE (pronounced eye gee ee) is involved, as is the release of various immune system chemicals collectively termed mediators. Histamine is probably the best known of these.
10
Hi C500
Thanks for that detail; immunity and genetics and the mechanisms you point to are a fascinating new area of study.
10
ROM sorry to hear about the COPD but you still seem to be pushing along!
The “too clean” theory is interesting; we may need to challenge our immune systems a bit more to achieve optimum resistance to the average natural nasty.
I wonder what chemicals are produced in the petrol burn? I remember my grandfather talking about “benzene” and believe that is no longer in petrol. The perfect burn would leave us with a benevolent mix of water and carbon dioxide as bye products but am not sure just how clean our car and motor vehicle exhaust fumes are even with current systems.
I remember , many years ago now, the horrible smell of benzene in the air in Saigon – it definitely wasn’t going to prolong life.
We are slowly winning the war against pollution but car fumes are still an unknown and I worry about the heavy concentration of those in large cities.
KK
00
More newspeak (aka lies) from the Obama administration, Climate Change™ has nothing whatsoever to do with air quality.
40
Yet, more conflation of urban air pollution with CAGW in a gullible and scientifically illiterate public perception.
What astonishes me is the people in the MSM who push this stuff. Are they really that scientifically illiterate or are they doing this despite knowing better?
30
The Pope’s opinion looks more like a sillycal
60
O/T
Fairfax gets a scoop.
‘Prime Minister Tony Abbott is facing a push from inside the Liberal Party to prevent Australia signing up to any binding emissions reduction targets at the upcoming Paris climate talks.
‘A cabal of regional and rural Liberal members, centred in Western Australia and supported by a number of conservative MPs, will force a vote at Saturday’s federal council meeting in Melbourne on whether Parliament should “examine the evidence” around climate change before agreeing to any post-2020 emissions cuts.’
Heath Aston / SMH
90
Good on them.
70
This is from the ABC.
‘The Liberal Party’s Federal Regional and Rural Committee plans to move a motion at the weekend conference calling for a parliamentary inquiry to “examine the scientific evidence that underpins the man-made global warming theory and investigate the reasons for the failure of computer models, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and prominent individuals to predict, among other things, the pause in global warming this century”.
70
What absolute proof of the total waste of money is public education!
20
Jo
O/T but important IMO
http://realclimatescience.com/2015/06/shutting-down-the-criminals-at-the-epa/
Paris on a rougher road?
30
Bloomberg has come out with a classic on correlation with regard to climate and CO2:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
In responding to this I did some of my own correlation with regard to man made carbon emissions and temperature change for satellite records since 1978:
http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Temp_Correlate_YtoY.pdf
This shows the year to year temperature variation plotted against the annual emissions of man made carbon. If they correlated well you would expect to see an accelerating temperature change and a significant correlation coefficient given that the relatively low thermal inertia of the atmosphere and the significance of CO2 being apparently much greater than natural variation.
A couple of graphs with the raw uncorrelated data is also useful:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/images/global_co2_emissions.jpg
Note the acceleration in carbon emissions as China began to stoke their boilers.
This one gives the UAH satellite trend over the same period:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1990/to:2014/plot/rss/from:1990/to:2014/trend
So while the man made emissions are accelerating the temperature rise is slowing.
The two charts show why there is no meaningful correlation between temperature change and carbon emissions over the last 25 years.
21
Part of Jo’s headline post.
15 years of hunting the hot spot
Sorry but wrong!
It is now 20 years since Ben Santer first proposed that the fingerprint of human attribution to a warming globe would be found in his “Mirror in the Sky”.
Berniels blog articles on the 1995 Madrid Conference reveal how Santer, later to be another of the infamous Climate Gate cabal, first published his “Mirror in the Sky” [ now known as the “Hotspot” ] claims at Madrid.
It is a little unfortunate that we can’t post images on Jo’s blog as the images shown here, particularly [ Ben ] Santer’s slides of his Human fingerprint attribution, the “Mirror in the Sky” atmospheric temperature patterns, today’s non existent “Hot spot” would be cause for a lot of people to get a better understanding on how all this blather about dangerous global warming finally got under way at the 1995 Madrid Conference.
——————-
Madrid 1995 and The Quest for the Mirror in the Sky
[ Slide of Santers “Mirror in the Sky”.]
[quoted]
Could this really be it? The first faint image of man in the sky?
Ben Santer had just placed a transparency under the lens to project this colour pattern high upon the conference wall.
It is the first afternoon of the Working Group 1 Plenary in Madrid, and this great council of nations from across the entire globe is persuaded to study the significance of its strange contours before getting down to their principal task. And so they should study it, for this is a game-changer striking at the nub of what the IPCC is all about.
Although obscure, here is an image of the impact of human industry on the atmosphere above.
At least part of the recent warming has at last been attributed to industrial emissions.
If not for this, then why these near one hundred delegations flown in from all corners of the globe? There they are carefully positioned at arched rows of labelled bureaus across this cavernous auditorium. As they listen to live translations of Santer’s explanation, not a few of them must be gazing up in wonder: Could this really be what man hath wrought?
[ lots more ]
—————-
Madrid 1995 and The Quest for the Mirror in the Sky (Part II)
The Mirror in the Sky Explained…
[ images of Santers hypothesised “Mirror in the Sky” ]
The mark of man is found by comparing model predictions of warming with changes in the real data (radiosonde 1963-1988).
The resemblance of the combined CO2+SO4 image (from Tayler Penner 1994) with the observed pattern is mostly in the stratospheric cooling and the more pronounced warming in the southern hemisphere. [See SAR p428.
Colour images adapted from Santer’s original paper referred to in SAR as Santer et al 1995b, and later published in Nature, 4Jul96.]
———-
The Human Signal Emerging from the Background Noise
Asheville, North Carolina, July 1995: this was Santer’s first real opportunity to present the new attribution findings that are our Mirror in the Sky.
Not long after the deadline for reviewer comments on the chapters, this conference of 70-odd Working Group 1 chapter authors convened in Asheville to revise the Summary for Policymaker
As if a rehearsal for Madrid later in the year, the attribution question all but hijacked proceedings.
Stephen Schneider recalls how the discussion went on for hours—for a smaller group it continued late into the night—and how as a ‘result the wording of Chapter 8 was changed.’ Is this peer review? Indeed, Schneider exclaims in his own peer-reviewed analysis of the Chapter 8 controversy barely a year old: ‘Peer review at ten times the normal level of scrutiny!‘ [pdf] In the wake of the controversy, this was important to establish because concerns had been raised, even during the review process, that especially (but not only) the human attribution finding lacked due scientific scrutiny as they were hurriedly incorporated into the Second Assessment.1 Says Schneider: ‘some even had the temerity to allege (falsely) that Chapter 8’s conclusions were based upon non-peer-review articles.’
[ The pronounced warming trend above the south latitudes depicted in Santer 1995b (i.e., our ‘Mirror in the Sky’), and given as distinctive of the human signal, is in fact the result of a careful selection of the time-range of data used (1963-88) [visual explanation here].
This is according to a letter to Nature [12Dec96] by Michaels and Knappenberger in response to Santer’s paper appearing there with much fanfare on the 4th of July. ]
Such a strange claim to find in the scientific literature, this is perhaps an indication of the shrill state of the controversy at the time, for there is no doubt about three things in the published Chapter 8 of the Second Assessment.
Firstly, it is mostly upon the CO2+Sulphate fingerprint studies that positive attribution is established.
The importance of these findings is heralded in the opening paragraphs of the chapter and in the ‘discernible human influence’ section of the Summary for Policymakers.
Secondly, of the four CO2+Sulphate ‘fingerprint’ studies discussed in Chapter 8, none had been published by the Asheville conference.
And thirdly, the two studies by Santer et al (cited as 1995a & 1995b) that were still not published by Madrid are yet paraded most prominently as providing the strongest evidence for this attribution.
The protests by Schneider, Santerand others against this view are hardly credible.
To be precise, the charge is not that ‘Chapter 8 is mainly based on’ Santer’s two papers, as Santer sometimes claims [pdf]. The Chapter assesses a lot more than the CO2+Suphate pattern studies!
Rather, it is that the (weak) attribution conclusion—the suggested discernible human influence—is mainly based on them.
Indeed, other studies are cited in support of the attribution claims.
But, that the Santer et al papers provide the leading evidence, this is not just in the text (of 8.4.2), it is also in the charts (figure 8.7, 8.9 & 8.10). And so, after the papers were finally published, it is no wonder (but undoubtedly a little bit freaky) that the vultures were seen above and circling.
Those infamous Merchants of Doubt, Singer and Michaels, came scratching around asking for source data, and in the end they did pick their pound of flesh from both papers…dubious data, cherry picking, misleading presentation…the usual.
But these papers were more than about the evidence. Santer’s work provided the narrative imagery that fed the aspirations of Working Group 1. And this provides one explanation for why overwhelming ‘peer’ approval was won at Working Group 1 plenary sessions for what is now widely regarded as such flimsy evidence—the flaws of which were known to the authors and elaborated in the drafts.
Like a safe refuge appearing out of a rowdy storm, this is the story of the real human signal finally emerging from the noise of climate variability. Not that anyone would freeze to death if this were just another wilful illusion, but it did nearly ruin Santer.
Two versions of a pattern correlation chart as it appears in the cited paper Santer 1995a and below as it appears in SAR Fig 8.10 (b) p433. After publication, Fred Singer would criticise the removal of all but one trend line in the version of the chart published in SAR [Singer: revisited here, 2011]. Legates and Davis (1997) critique the statistical methodology.
————–
[ much more historical information here by Berniel on how the global warming farce finally made it’s way into mainstream science at the 1995 Madrid conference .]
—————–
And of course as Jo and many, many others have repeatedly pointed out, despite millions of stratospheric balloon flights, billions spent on satellites which incorporated instrumentation to try and find the HotSpot. ie; Santer’s mythical “Mirror in then Sky” that would supposedly, according to the climate models, firmly establish that the warming trend from 1978 on was due to mankind’s emissions of CO2 alone, no such Hot Spot above the equatorial regions or any where else on the planet has been yet found.
As was quoted by a prominent climate scientist and alarmist a few years back [ can’t find the quote or name now ] If we can’t find the Hot Spot then there is no anthropogenic CO2 induced warming.
In short without good evidence of a stratospheric Hot Spot any warming or cooling is just a natural part of the constant cycles and changes occurring in the world’s climate since the Dawn of Time on this planet.
51
JO – others have posted about this, but it needs its own thread:
25 June: SMH: Heath Aston: Tony Abbott, Greg Hunt confronted by anti-climate science push from within Liberal Party
VIDEO CAPTION: Liberals ‘need briefing from scientists’
Debating whether climate change is real or not is akin to debating if the Earth is flat or spherical says Greens Co-Deputy Leader Larissa Waters.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is facing a push from inside the Liberal Party to prevent Australia signing up to any binding emissions reduction targets at the upcoming Paris climate talks.
A cabal of regional and rural Liberal members, centred in Western Australia and supported by a number of conservative MPs, will force a vote at Saturday’s federal council meeting in Melbourne on whether Parliament should “examine the evidence” around climate change before agreeing to any post-2020 emissions cuts.
Liberal sources told Fairfax Media that Environment Minister Greg Hunt is likely to be forced to step in and fight off the motion on Saturday by asserting the Abbott government accepts climate change is real and is willing to work with other nations to combat its effects…
***A Liberal moderate who will attend the federal council meeting said the group of elected Liberals and members behind the motion should be given an audience with the Pope so they can be “brought up to speed by a new age person living in this century”…
The party’s regional and rural committee, chaired by WA farmer Brian Mayfield, has submitted the motion, which will call for a House of Representatives committee to “examine the scientific evidence that underpins the man-made global warming theory”.
It also calls for investigation into “the reasons for the failure of computer models, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and prominent individuals to predict, among other things, the pause in global warming this century”.
“In light of the uncertainty around this issue, Australia does not sign any binding agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this year,” it says.
Mr Mayfield declined to comment but Liberal Senator Chris Back and Western Australian colleague Dennis Jensen both told Fairfax Media that an examination of whether the science supported climate change was worthy of party debate.
Mr Jensen said the push was coming out of WA because the state has a “reputation for independent thinking”…
“The science is absolutely not settled. This argument that it’s all done and dusted is rubbish,” he said.
Farmers see more climate variability in their working lives than most people and the view that everything is in stasis except for the human influence on the climate was nonsense, he said.
A senior Liberal source said the motion would have to be “derailed” by Mr Hunt…
“This sort of talk takes us back to the Neanderthal age. It’s flat earth stuff.”…
Climate sceptic Tasmanian Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck said he expected the motion would “dead batted” on Saturday. “It’s not a can of worms I would want to open up,” he said.
Mr Hunt said: “We firmly and absolutely accept that climate change is real and taking action to combat it as imperative. We are already taking strong action and achieving significant reductions through the Emissions Reduction Fund.
“We will shortly announce our post-2020 target. There should be no doubt that our target will be significant and Australia will play a constructive role in global talks in Paris.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/abbott-and-hunt-confronted-by-anticlimate-science-push-from-within-liberal-party-20150624-ghwuzg.html
31
“Radiosondes and Temperature errors due to solar irradiation”
The errors which professor Stephen Sherwood is referring to are caused by Solar irradiation. sometimes heating up the radiosonde sensors in the range (0.05K – 0.3K) depending on solar angle.
However, what is curious about his statement, and Jo has pretty much nailed it again, is that these types of errors have been known to exist for a very long time.
The Vaisala RS90 (70% of radiosondes are Vaisala) was in production back in 1995 (20 years ago) and was designed to compensate for such errors.
Honestly, how can Professor Sherwood make such a statement that he has found the “hot spot” when a design that allows for Solar irradiation has been in operation for many years.
11
Yes, there is a ‘hotspot’- a very large and progressive one – called ‘volcanism’,that affects atmosphere,as well as land and ocean.The major location being the ‘shear zone’ stretching obliquely from the Antarctic peninsula to Iceland and Northern Russia.
The following extract from ‘Tomorrow’s Weather'(Alex S. Gaddes 1990) goes some way towards explaining this phenomenon.
” My initial intention was to air my theory about basic casual relationships, in this case the analogy of the spinning cone, causing reduction of pressure and a tendency to freeze up.
The fact that there has been (evidently) more than one Ice Age seems to argue that the Ice Ages (present anyhow) show evidence of a rhythmic or pulsating movement in time, suggests the specific presence of those very same basic factors, even at this specific point in time.
It would simplify matters to know what, in fact, constitutes normal global climatic conditions, in the absence of an Ice Age.
As far as I can ascertain, man has never known any other existence, nor may he ever live outside an ice Age environment.
The distribution of the major deserts of the Earth in the Northern Hemisphere, seems to me not at all coincidental in the scheme of the present Ice Age and its progenitors.
Geologists might do well to study the documents of the rocks, with an eye for the hemispherical distribution of ancient desert landscapes with relation to Ice Ages, in time.
On being advised by Dr Harrington of the correlation by scientists of the Chandler Wobble etc. with the occurrence of major earth-quakes, I was moved to seek a cause for the phenomena (see pages 166-7 of Ref. No.17,)
Considering this information in conjunction with the Law on Conservation of Angular Momentum, it seems that, if the intensity of the Jet Stream is greater in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern, it should follow that there ought to be a greater transfer of angular momentum in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern.
Assuming the above to be the case, it should follow that the rotation of the Northern Hemisphere would tend to slow down to a greater degree than that of the Southern, with a consequent resultant stress (torsion) which must ultimately find release, after elastic limit is reached, by dislocating the Earth’s crust.
This ‘brake’ being applied, unevenly, to the one Hemisphere, would tend to instigate the Chandler Wobble as well as other local irregularities of rotation, plus the enigmatic pear shape of the Earth.
From the above considerations it is tempting to conclude that major Earth dislocations and volcanicity be likely attendants with glaciation.
Geologists might do well to study the rate of incidence of major earthquakes. Should their occurrence coincide with the progressive intensity of the Jet Stream, it might give food for thought.
This idea might also be extended to explain the origin of the Tethys’ Shear, along with certain types of mountain building and rift valleys.
It might well turn out that the energy for driving at least some of the mechanism of the mobile crust of our Earth, is derived ultimately from the Sun, via the deserts, via the Jet Stream, via the conservation of angular momentum.
We once again arrive at my former conclusion, that of a convection ‘still’ being the mechanism of glaciations, with all the above inferred phenomena (and other unknown factors) incorporated as part of a stupendous cycle of nature.
To speculate further, it is interesting to go back to the evidence of the ancient corals, which argues for a much longer year – over 400 days in some cases.
When bracketed with the foregone observations, it does seem to add allure to the whole idea.
How many times have we slowed down in the past (in the long term,) as the Jet Stream asserted its growing intensity, only to speed up again as it waned? If 400 days be a maximum, then what is the number for the minimum?
Whatever the number for the minimum was in the past, I suspect very strongly that it would be directly proportionate to the area and geographical distribution of the deserts of the day.” (pp113-114)
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[Sherwood] – “the additional heat being trapped by the Earth from its increased greenhouse gases”
Big problem with this.
Theoretical CO2 “forcing” in the satellite era is now in excess 0.9 W.m-2. Berkeley Labs (2015) found by observation 0.2 W.m-2 2000 – 2010 which is a little less than theory.
Except this “forcing” has had no detectable effect on the TOA radiation budget. The imbalance is a “steady” 0.6 W.m-2 2000 – 2010 (Stephens et al 2012, loeb et al 2012).
The increasing CO2 “forcing” is now GREATER than the current constant on average trendless (IPCC agrees with the latter) imbalance.Therefore CO2 forcing cannot be the cause of the imbalance.
Sherwood needs a better theory.
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Stephen Sherwood’s reasoning regarding the ‘missing hot spot’ being just terrible for ‘the models’ is eerily reminiscent of Tim Flannery’s reasoning regarding the guilt of Lindy Chamberlain regarding the death of her baby Azaria.
Tim Flam’s reasoning went:- If Lindy Chamberlain was innocent and a dingo really did take baby Azaria then that would be, loik, rooly bad for dingoesergo she must be guilty cos’, loik, dingoes would need protection and would be hunted if a dingo had dunnit…
To his credit Tim Flam recently aplogised for his brain snap but only after Ms Chamberlain was completely and formally exonerated.
Alternatively Mr Sherwoods recalitrant adherence to the existence of the holy hot spot reminds me of Marcus Einfeld’s adherence to the existence of the witness in the US who was really driving his car at the material time but who, unfortunately, was actually deceased at said material time.
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The so-called hot spot and the search for it is rather like searching for a holy relic. And its “discovery” is about as authentic as claims of finding a piece of the true cross.
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I’ve heard this argument before, but never managed to find a source for it. Which models predict this?
Is your suggestion that warmer air does not hold more water vapour?
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Some folk enjoy ‘cherry picking’ information. Lifting a odd lines out of context here or there, e.g. “The missing hot spot was always the crucial sign of water vapor feedback” and then make foolish comments about this one line out of context. Evidence of critical thinking? Hardly!
Reading the whole in the context in which it is written
shows plainly what is meant. Though some appear to be to intellectually challenged to understand what has been said.
What is said is the theory, or the warmists’ guess, about tropical tropospheric hot spots was wrong, wrong, wrong! There is no hot spot, therefore no build-up in high altitude humidity. And yet these warmists advocates employed professionally in the field still have the temerity to call themselves scientists or researchers — an appalling disservice to those honest scientist left in the field.
The more honest Christopher Monckton paper is available online but of course some people require to be spoon fed as they are too internet incompetent to use a search engine to find that paper (hint: aps.org is a place to start)
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Hi tomo, thanks for commenting.
To say that the hot spot is a crucial sign of the feedback implies that without that sign, we have to doubt that feedback. But this feedback is well established, by 19th-century physics which predates even the notion of climate change.
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Tristan are you saying that even if a hot spot is found that it does not prove AGW?
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Hi Sliggy
The presence or not of a tropospheric hot spot doesn’t say anything about anthropogenic factors. The anthropogenic fingerprint is lower stratospheric cooling.
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Siliggy
If that is the case the UN-IPCC elitists (see AR4 and the sundry propaganda documentation from the UN-IPCC) better get told. As they have it marked up as a sure sign of AGW and is highlighted not only by Christopher Monckton but also J. M. Kauffman where he notes in his essay ‘Climate Change Reexamined’
Santer et al. (2005) emphasized that “a robust feature” of climate models is that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations will amplify warming in the middle and upper tropical troposphere (compared to the surface). It was then with some consternation that they noted that the data do not support this prediction; indeed, surface warming typically exceeds tropospheric warming. He and 16 other scientists defended their assertion in 2011 in an AGU publication, as noted by Judith Curry
And the ever green advocate Hansen has voiced that the tropical tropospheric hot-spot feature as a ‘finger-print’ of AGW on his youtube videos.
So plenty of real scientists, and mere green advocate ‘scientists’ believe in the human finger-print of mythical tropical tropospheric hot-spot, or as one UN-IPCC AR4 FAQ publication says it —
This statement is of course little more than blatant propaganda from the UN-IPCC.
I’m sure that if one is minded to many more references to ‘tropical tropospheric warming’ and ‘tropical tropospheric’ can be found.
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Hi tomo
The hot spot is predicted by climate models as a response to any warming. It isn’t specific to GHG-related warming. The GHG-specific fingerprint is the stratospheric cooling.
As Santer points out, you’d expect increased GHGs to generate that hot spot, but that’s because the increased GHGs warm the earth system. You’d also expect a sufficient increase in solar irradiance to generate the hot spot.
The IPCC says the same thing. GHGs begets warming, one consequence of this being the aforementioned hot spot.
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