…
I used to think there was a consensus among government-funded certified climate scientists, but a better study by Verheggen Strengers, Verheegen, and Vringer shows even that is not true.[1] The “97% consensus” is now 43%.
Finally there is a decent survey on the topic, and it shows that less than half of what we would call “climate scientists” who research the topic and for the most part, publish in the peer reviewed literature, would agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions. Only 43% of climate scientists agree with the IPCC “95%” certainty.
More than 1800 international scientists studying various aspects of climate change (including climate physics, climate impacts, and mitigation) responded to the questionnaire. Some 6550 people were invited to participate in this survey, which took place in March and April 2012. Respondents were picked because they had authored articles with the key words ‘global warming’ and/or ‘global climate change’, covering the 1991–2011 period, via the Web of Science, or were included the climate scientist database assembled by Jim Prall, or just by a survey of peer reviewed climate science articles. Prall’s database includes some 200 names that have criticized mainstream science and about half had only published in “gray literature”. (But hey, the IPCC quoted rather a lot of gray literature itself. Donna LaFramboise found 5,587 non peer reviewed articles in AR4.)
Fabius Maximus deserves credit for finding and analyzing the study. He notes that only 64% agreed that man-made CO2 was the main or dominant driver controlling more than half of the temperature rise. But of this group (1,222 scientists), only 797 said it was “virtually certain” or “extremely likely”. That’s just 43% of climate scientists who fully agree with the IPCC statement. This survey directly asks climate scientists, unlike the clumsy versions by John Cook, William Anderegg, or Naomi Oreskes that do keyword surveys of abstracts in papers and try to “guess”.
Fabius Maximus suggests we exclude the “I don’t knows” which brings up the number to 47%. Since these are “climate scientists” I don’t see why those responses should be excluded. An expert saying “I don’t know” on the certainty question is an emphatic disagreement with the IPCC 95% certainty.
The IPCC AR5 Statement:
“It is extremely likely {95%+ certainty} that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. ”
— Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC’s AR5 Working Group I.
…
…
The researchers acknowledge that skeptics may be slightly over-represented, “it is likely that viewpoints that run counter to the prevailing consensus are somewhat (i.e. by a few percentage points) magnified in our results.” I say, given that skeptics get sacked, rarely get grants to research, and find it harder to get published, they are underrepresented in every way in the “certified” pool of publishing climate scientists. Skeptical scientists, I daresay, would be much less likely to use the keyword phrase “global warming” in the papers they do publish. I imagine it’s easier to get papers published that don’t specifically poke the mainstream buttons.
UPDATE: Curiously this new detailed study builds on a previous study by the PBL Netherlands Climate Assessment Agency, which was issued in 2014 and includes the same authors, as well as John Cook and a few others.[2] Jose Duarte responded to that first version, pointing out that many of the people surveyed worked in mitigation and impacts of climate change, (not climate “science” per se) which artificially inflated the results.[3]
Is there an alternate skeptical theory in climate science?
Fabius Maximus asks whether there is a common skeptic view-point, or a dominant paradigm, and talks about Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Kuhn’s work shows that a paradigm cannot be disproved, only replaced (details here). Unless the skeptics form a theory, they’ll remain minor players in the debates — the climate science debate and the public policy debate about climate change (they’re distinct, although often conflated).
To that end, I would say that no one has ever done a decent survey of skeptical scientists, so we don’t know. Though the fact that so many psychologists say they want to understand skeptics and so few of them survey the scientists or leaders involved in this is rather significant, methinks.
To venture a guess I would say that among skeptics the dominant hypothesis is that some factor to do with the Sun is far more important than man-made CO2. To the end that skeptics need an alternate hypothesis, I agree, and there are many working on just that. Dr David Evans (my other half) is still hammering through climate model architecture, assumptions, and solar datasets. Readers may be impatient waiting for an update; I can only say that sometimes the art of real research and discovery is better done in silence and without the pointless “bloodsport” of blog publication, but we are thinking “August” or “September”, and there are many posts in draft. David prefers to keep a lower profile while researching, but he is working full time, and will be suggesting a paradigm shift in model design which looks like it will resolve a great many of the current model failures. The shift is only a small change in architecture, while keeping most core assumptions of IPCC models, yet it makes a profound change to the output. He has gone right back through the central assumptions of calculating climate sensitivity and the leading papers of the last fifteen years. As far as we know, he is the only skeptical scientist who comes from a professional background in model development combined with major league maths.
Independent science and independent commentary is only possible thanks to donations from readers.
We are very grateful to our team of supporters.
POST NOTE: Naturally, a study of “consensus” tells us something about socio-cultural factors but nothing specifically about the climate.
REFERENCES
[1^] Bart Strengers, Bart Verheggen and Kees Vringer (2015) Climate Science Survey, Questions and Responses, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, pp 1 – 39.
[2^] Bart Verheggen, Bart Strengers, John Cook, Rob van Dorland, Kees Vringer, Jeroen Peters, Hans Visser, and Leo Meyer. (2014) Scientists’ Views about Attribution of Global Warming. Environmental Science and Technology. DOI: 10.1021/es501998e, 2014.
[3^] Duarte, Jose (2014) Comment on “Scientists’ Views about Attribution of Global Warming”, Arizona State University, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2014, 48 (23), pp 14057–14058, DOI: 10.1021/es504574v
CORRECTION: The reference was originally incorrectly cited as the older (2014) paper (now numbered 2), though it was linked to the newer paper. This is now fixed.
Thanks for giving us a mention of the work your “other half” is doing – and he’s so right to publish nothing until it’s completely complete. You can be sure that there are snipers out there just waiting for the opportunity to shoot it down at first sight – or even before, if they can.
572
It’s never completely complete. Sigh. And it’s going to ruffle a lot of feathers, on a highly politicized topic — just what we need for a mature and considered response.
942
David,
Most people deriving sensitivity figures talk in terms of gross temperature and GHG changes. Bill Johnston got me thinking about temperature by showing strong correlations between rainfall and T at a given site, starting at Bourke. Should there be cause for the correlation, should the rainfall effect be calculated and subtracted to give a net T for sensitivity?
The example is not a good one because rainfall is probably not independent of climate. Variables might feed back.
However, in a hypothetical – let’s say that there is an as yet unquantified thing that happens on the sun that affects gross T but which we have not yet understood. Would it be correct methodology, when we do understand it, to subtract this thing effect from gross T as presently used before calculating net T for sensitivity?
Then one wonders about in-between cases where there are effects on gross T that are partly climate unrelated and partly T related. Should the unrelated part be subtracted from gross T before doing sensitivity calculations, or is this already done in one form or anther?
You will enjoy retirement, eventually. Geoff.
151
Geoff,
From my reading I would say the three main factors are:
#1. Solar
#2. Water (ocean heat storage, rain, ice albedo….)
#3 Land shape
Pop tech’s 1350 papers has plenty of information on solar effects.
Willis and The Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis looks at the solar/water response when temperatures get high. I looked at rain vs latitude up the east coast of the USA and found the number of rainy days per month in the summer drops off from ~60% to ~30% as you go from Florida to mid North Carolina. After mid North Carolina they are sporadic. (Summer temperatures above 85/90F also drop off)
For land shape, there are tons of papers on the opening of Drake Passage and the closing of the Isthmus of Panama and the changes in ocean currents that caused the current ice age.
Frank Lanser also has looked at temperatures that are ocean affected vs inland temperatures. link
What is also quite interesting is the changes in albedo that the Earthshine Project measured.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/earth_albedo_bbso.png?w=640
Note the 1998/1999 inflection point about the same time as the Super El Nino and peak of solar cycle 23. The deep solar minimum was 2008/2009.
131
gai wrote:
“For land shape, there are tons of papers on the opening of Drake Passage and the closing of the Isthmus of Panama and the changes in ocean currents that caused the current ice age.”
well-said
60
I used to cite Earthshine but there is a problem with it. It doesn’t match (artificial) satellite observations.
Check Figure 1 in this: http://webster.eas.gatech.edu/Papers/albedo2015.pdf
Suspiciously, Stephens references Palle’s old 2004 paper but not the 2008 revised one. Palle actually released a revised paper in 2008 where he improved the calibration of Earthshine data, and the positive trend they reported was reduced but was still an increasing albedo trend. CERES are showing a definite decrease over the same period.
On the one hand, measuring the light bouncing off our natural satellite seems simpler. On the other hand you only get to study the reflectance at one angle, no side view possible like with CERES, and very limited sampling due to required observer-Moon-Sun geometry.
Interesting they both report albedo variances of 1% which is also what Loeb reckons is the level of error on the satellites measurement. I don’t know what to believe about the albedo any more.
If albedo is now decreasing then we should see warming pick up. So far it has been very sluggish. The fact that the earth is still warming slightly (according to Spencer and Christy’s UAH data and the “corrected” Argo data) is compatible with a decreasing albedo and incompatible with the cosmic ray hypothesis. It seems unlikely that cosmic ray flux would correlate so well with climate changes over all history that has been examined so far, then suddenly stop in 2002.
Also note that with Earthshine there’s no chance to distinguish between high and low level clouds, whereas the prevailing wisdom is that low-level clouds should create the most cooling and are also where cosmic rays have the greatest effect. CERES apparently can distinguish between high and low level clouds based on their published images, but the overall albedo figure won’t show a cosmic effect as strongly.
As Kevin Trenberth might have said in a parallel universe, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of cooling at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The sunspot data shows there should be even more cooling: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.” 🙂
I’ll go out on a limb and speculate that cosmic rays might alter the vertical distribution of water droplets and shift cloud cover from high to low level while keeping shortwave albedo the same. If low clouds have different IR emissivity than the high ones then they may change climate via cosmic ray modulation even if total albedo is the same. Unfortunately that does not dodge the issue that albedo also affects the tropospheric temperature and it’s going the wrong way for the hypothesis.
I’d say the Svensmark effect is still the best supported alternative model for attribution of warming at this stage, but the recent satellite data is frustrating the connection at a rather crucial moment.
50
Thanks for the link. The print is a bit small so I have just skimmed it so far. (Only three mentions of ice – in a model – yet the growth of the Antarctic sea ice is a factor. I take it ‘surface’ covers snow and ice.)
A couple of comments.
#1. The American Geophysical Union is very much in the Alarmist camp and I can not say the listed institutes on that paper make me confident in their work. (I find it terribly sad that I now approach papers from the position of suspicion instead of eager interest.)
#2. The Earthshine graph I showed was from the rough draft before it was ‘revised’
#3. Temperature is a rotten measure of energy unless the absolute humidity is constant and I am not sure whether RSS (microwave sounding units) measures temp. or energy including the latent heat of vaporization.
#4. There has been growth in sea ice both in the Arctic and more importantly in the Antarctic in recent years. There has also been growth in NH snow cover. This should have added to the surface Albedo.
#5. We have had no more super El Ninos since 1998-1999 although the 2015- 2016 maybe heating up to the ‘super class’ (see Bob Tisdale
bobtisdale(DOT)wordpress.com/2015/07/14/july-2015-enso-update-tropical-pacific-at-the-threshold-of-a-strong-el-nino/)
According to Bob ENSO is an interplay of sunlight/clouds/wind and the oceans. You need clear skys near the equator to “charge” the El Nino cycle if I understand him correctly and therefore a lack of a strong El Nino would indicate more cloudiness. (2014 was a wimp)
#6. As Bob says “NOAA and GISS Have Switched to NOAA’s Unjustifiably Overcooked “Pause-Busting” Sea Surface Temperature Data for Their Global Temperature Products” so who knows what that does to the El Nino data but it certainly doesn’t increase faith in anything coming out of the USA.
#7. Shifting of the jet stream especially from zonal to meridonal could leave the absolute temperature the same while having a major effect on the climate.
Along with the Svensmark effect I think an understanding of the Quasi-Biennial-Oscillation (QBO,) Ozone and its effects and The Brewer-Dobson Circulation in the Tropics (see url) is critical.
https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/Stratospheric-circulation/2-Cordero-etal-chapter-6.3.pdf
Just a couple of papers:
Before the start of Solar Cycle 24 you can see the effect of the Grand Solar Maximun on the Antarctic.
Decadal Scale Temperature Trends in the Southern Hemisphere Ocean Journal of Climate, 2008.
By MAR 2014 when this paper was published there had been a shift but it is attributed to recover from ‘ozone depletion’ and not the formation and destruction of ozone and the variablity in the sun’s UV.
Climate System Response to Stratospheric Ozone Depletion and Recovery
30
One of the best papers I have read for some time is here;
http://www.seipub.org/DES/paperInfo.aspx?ID=17162
Its on CO2 potency as a GHG and its likely ECS. enjoy!
50
Macha, I wonder if this paper provides Andrew with more input for his model?
Andrew, back at you from the previous thread.
10
Sunspot data and the solar cycle contribute 1% to climate.
18
Your unattributed opinion has been noted before.
70
How does data contribute to climate?
What a strange concept, for Maxine to have. Odd.
50
Rereke:
Please explain.
Is it a strange concept and Maxine is odd?
Or is it a strange concept and Maxine is strange?
Or is it odd that Maxine a strange concept?
10
Yes Graeme, I am well aware that what I wrote made no sense at all. But it wasn’t my fault. Maxine started it!
20
The answer is: Yes
10
From where I sit, surface temperature is most correlated with humidity and cloud cover. Cloudy nights have been at least 8 degrees warmer than clear nights this winter, cloudy days are some 8 degrees cooler than clear days. (Winter temps). In summer a clear day can be almost 15 degrees cooler than a clear day. Humid but clear days are probably 5 degrees cooler than dry days in summer though it doesn’t feel that way at 35 degrees and 80% humidity)
It seems obvious to me that regionally cloud cover and humidity plays the major role , and global is the average of the regional climates.
Funnily enough cloud cover and RH are the least understood of the drivers / feedbacks
171
That’s true enough but I would add that cloud cover and its possible mediating effect is the least accepted by alarmists.
102
Surface temperature is largely affected by Wind direction combined with humidity, cloudiness, rain (and vegetation or lack of in the past few months). Wind from a hot dry barren area means high T and low humidity. Wind from dry cool area means low T and low humidity. Wind from the ocean means cooler summer, warmer winter due to humidity. Sea breezes cool. Wind from the Equator brings very high humidity. Wind from south of Tasmania brings very cold weather and snow to Vic and NSW and occasionally S Qld. That’s a gross over simplification of course.
But surface temperature is weather. Weather integrated over a large area and a very long time is climate. I wouldn’t trust our short surface T records very far at all, and satellite records are even shorter.
20
“Would it be correct methodology, when we do understand it, to subtract this thing effect from gross T as presently used before calculating net T for sensitivity?”
Emphatically NO!
Temperature != enthalpy
Related? Sure. Same? No.
00
.
1. http://s15.postimg.org/g8wfenpgb/Sun_Climate_101_ERSST_Thermal_Equator_SCD_RI.png
2. http://s13.postimg.org/rfca8pipz/Sun_Climate_BDO_ERSST_Thermal_Equator_SCD_RI.png
It’s criminal to suggest it isn’t the sun.
.
81
When is the sun expected to cool off?
30
The deep solar minimum between cycle 23 and 24 was in 2008 and 2009 so ~11 years from then is 2020 or so if Dr Evans Notch Delay theory is correct.
Of course
* with 40% of the lambs dying from the cold atthe Cowra Research Station, New South Wales, Australia,
* more than 250,000 alpacas and 42 people dying from the cold in Peru,
* cattle dying due to the constant snowfall in Chile,
* Montana, Wyoming and Idaho get a July snowfall,
* the Indonesian Province of Papua suffering a severe cold wave that has left some villages with no water because it is frozen,
you do have to wonder— And that was just this week
You can also add the dismal summer in Scotland and Finland and Ice refusing to melt in east Hudson Bay and Frobisher Bay.
Farmers in Scotland are selling off livestock because of high levels of rainfall and a cold climate affecting the growth of grass and crops. The farmers are even worried about harvesting the barley, a crop the Greenland Vikings grew. Finland is poised to have the coldest summer on record in the more than half a century tracked by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
………….
But don’t worry, I am sure NOAA will still announce it is THE WARMEST YEAR EVAH!
101
Sounds like all that meltwater from Greenland is affecting the Gulfstream aka Atlantic Conveyer?
111
Nonsense!
61
???
Greenland’s ice is up by about 250 million tons from last year. greenland icebudget
Are you just posting whatever thought comes into your head?
71
Yes, yes, Maxine. I understand you are worried about all that meltwater raising the Gulfstream by several inches. We will look into it. Now, isn’t it time for your nap, dear?
20
Paul, it is “criminal” to post graphs with no explanation of what they represent.
What is you “solar integral” supposed to be ? Please explain how the “integral” can go down !! Was there a NEGATIVE sunspot count from 1880 to 1935 ?
What is RI supposed to be ? Correlation looks pretty crap to me. About as convincing at the “correlation” with rising CO2.
What the hell is your “bidecadal (86%)” .
Write this up in a meaningful way or don’t bother.
Sorry this is garbage.
11
You may be interested in Duncan Steel’s calculations on orbital precession. (duncansteel.com
00
Thanks Karly!
Steel points out that the day of perihelion during the year (currently Jan 4) changes by one day every 59 years, or about 6 days since the depth of the little ice age (LIA) in 1680 (when it was around Dec 30). Thus the intensity of sunlight in the northern spring has been increasingly slightly each year for centuries (on the way into the LIA, as well as on the way out), presumably leading to slightly earlier northern ice melt and affecting ice albedo.
Southern ice melt is not much of a factor because most southern land tends to either be in Antarctica and always icy, or not in Antarctica and rarely icy.
However the northern autumn would be getting slightly cooler over the centuries, so ice would tend to be formed earlier. Wouldn’t that cancel out the effect of the slightly warmer springs?
The total amount of energy reaching the Earth is unchanged, the climate system moves heat around the planet to even things out, and warmer springs and earlier ice melt are surely matched by cooler autumns and earlier ice formation.
Without checking his calculations or delving in more deeply, I’m not too excited.
00
o/t but newsworthy!
Christine Milne retires to spend time with her family, we were told; unsurprisingly, she will be jet-setting all over the globe:
30 July: Yahoo7: Andrew Drummond: New global role for retiring Milne
“I’ve just been appointed as the first ambassador for the Global Greens,” she told reporters.
“I can imagine I will be spending a fair bit of time helping the development of Green politics around the world and addressing global warming.”
The group brings together Greens members from Africa, Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific and holds periodic conferences to formulate joint action…
The 62-year-old soon-to-be grandmother, who is retiring to spend more time with her family, made it a wrap on Thursday…
https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/29128658/milne-soon-to-sign-off-as-greens-senator/
30 July: SMH: Andrew Darby: Christine Milne’s Greens Senate seat goes to Nick McKim
After stepping down from the federal leadership in May, Ms Milne is set to formally resign from the Senate, and disclosed a busy international agenda ahead.
“I’ve just been appointed as the first Ambassador for the Global Greens,” she said. “I can imagine that I’ll be spending a fair bit of time helping Greens around the world.
“I’ll be going to the Paris [climate] COP at the end of the year to talk about how I might fit in with some global role on climate change in particular,” she said. “Certainly on World Heritage issues, you’ll find me at World Heritage meetings when required.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/christine-milnes-greens-senate-seat-goes-to-nick-mckim-20150730-ginhsr.html
171
Actually Al Gore is the best Ambassador for Global Warming. Wherever he goes the place cools. Maybe we can clone him.
The Al Gore Effect
130
“I can imagine I will be spending a fair bit of time helping the development of Green politics around the world and assisting global warming.”
There ,fixed that for her.
110
“Christine Milne” what a hypocrite !
What about all that so called “pollution”.
I do hope all her flights are only powered by the wind and the sun !!
183
Of course, and she carries extra batteries in her luggage just in case.
41
Sure, but not for the plane…
70
I wonder whether “Global Greens” are akin to “Village Greens”.
I suspect that “Village [snip]” are a strong factor in this kinship.
[Please avoid words such as what I snipped and you won’t end up in moderation. Thanks.] AZ
41
First ambassador for the global greens. The Australian newspaper reported some time ago on an interview with our former treasurer, Peter Costello, after he returned from an overseas trip. While in Germany he met with a former minister for foreign affairs and Green Party member and during their conversation they discussed the Australians Greens. Costello was reluctant to repeat the exact words used but said that the German had referred to Australian greenism as being way out to the far left of international greenism.
Many of us here refer to them as Watermelons, green on the outside but pink to red inside. Apparently our thoughts are shared elsewhere. I wonder how long Christine Milne’s brand of greenism will be tolerated?
11
Joschka Fischer?
00
Watermelons? Boy, have you got that wrong!
The main base of the Greens is inner city professionals, making the Greens a conservative (rather than conservationist) Party.
Look at their voting record: opposed Rudd’s CPRS, made Labor accept a fixed price ETS abbott could easily rescind. They helped hokey remove the debt ceiling so he could spend and borrow like a drunken sailor. They also helped the Libs cut pensions for those with some assets besides their home, plunging many retired women into poverty—weird actions for the Watermelons!
Your political knowledge is as faulty as your AGW knowledge.
28
Other may not agree with what you say but that’s what mere opinion is worth.
😉
30
So was the German Sturmabteilung (the SA) in the early 1920’s.
Your knowledge of history is as faulty as your knowledge of science.
30
Based on question 1a, just over 17% of the respondents cannot do simple mathematics …
283
You had that “Huh?” moment, as well then…
110
It is theoretically possible for greenhouse gases to account for more than 100% of recent warming. In AR4 the IPCC’s argument was that aerosols – old fashioned pollution – offset the warming. In AR5 the missing heat is alleged to be in the oceans. In that respect, 83% of respondents in the survey disagree with the consensus IPCC position.
Some time ago I looked at the forcing components in AR4, and found that the IPCC used aerosols as a fudge factor. The numbers fell out too well for them to have been anything but manufactured. In particular.
1. Negative forcings almost exactly offset all the positive forcings with the exception of CO2.
2. The range of the sum of negative forcings are exactly equal to 200% of the sum of the mid-points.
3. The range of the sum of positive forcings are (at the level of rounding used) exactly equal to 40% of the sum of the mid-points.
131
MBC,
Can forensic accounting techniques be used to check if their numbers have been invented as opposed to measured?
You know, like Benford’s Law and all that?
Just a thought.
60
I think that Kevin has just demonstrated that.
When the numbers look “too” neat they are probably fudged. People find it hard to do “random” very well.
On the other side of that, I am banned from touching our accounting system, because I am too random in terms of which bowl, I happen to put the beans in, today. Accountants tend to notice things like that, I have found. No creativity …
40
Rereke,
You are right when you say.
It does not prove the numbers are fudged. However there is another element that suggests manipulation to arrive at an answer – getting the figures wrong. The difference of between the net forcings displayed (1.60) and the actual net sum (1.72) 0.12 is the same as the figure for solar irradiance. Further the CO2 forcing figure of 1.66 is midway between between 1.60 and 1.72. No matter how good you are at figures, manipulation is very difficult without leaving patterns – and in my experience the climate community are not very good at figures.
But Rereke – what is this about accountants not being creative? Have you not heard of Creative Accounting. 🙂
40
http://www.geoffstuff.com/DOUGLASS%20MODEL%20JOC1651.pdf
Please refer to Table II and these comments . Your attention is drawn to the performance of the CSIRO Mark 3 model, coded 15, against the ensemble means at various altitudes. Trends are in millidegrees C per decade.
Surface 1000 925 850 700 600 500 400 300 250 200 150 100
163 213 174 181 199 204 226 271 307 299 255 166 53
156 198 166 177 191 203 227 272 314 320 307 268 78
The outcomes highlighted in bold are very close. The CSIRO model is so good that a person not used to working with numbers might be misled to believe that this type of performance is to be expected.
00
Actually it is a statistical method.
I used a couple simple techniques to tell me if my technicians were cheating.
The first is plot the data over time. If you get a nice bell curve with a little hump just inside the spec limits you have ‘flinching’
The second is to plot the last digit in the data. Most people who cheat shun zero and five and often shun even numbers. A plot of say 100 data points by that person will tell you if the data looks flaky (no zeroes or fives and a lot more odd than even numbers) That means someone maybe cheating and you need to investigate further.
Forensic Accountants are going to have a lot more sophisticated statistical tricks in their arsenal then I do.
30
Thank you Dr Evans for all your work. It is nice that a grown-up is going to play in the IPCC play ground for once.
141
I would also add gai, that David and Jo look like they are going to play the other side at their own game –publicising David’s work in September is just the right time in relation to the Paris talkfest. Gives plenty of time to generate the right sort of media coverage but not enough time for it to “die out” of the politician / public attention.
Great planning !!
40
Solar insolation reached a peak in 1960 and has been steadily decreasing since 1975. Given that the global temperature should have decreased, the effect of CO2 is greater than the measured increase in temperature (i.e., CO2 had to make up the decrease attributable to decreased solar insolation).
[ Ed, I thought that the climate experts had determined that Old Sol had no effect on climate?..?..?..!] ED
01
[ Ed, I thought that the climate experts had determined that Old Sol had no effect on climate?..?..?..!] ED
You thought wrong. The sun plays a small role.
From the Stanford Solar Center:
During the initial discovery period of global climate change, the magnitude of the influence of the Sun on Earth’s climate was not well understood. Since the early 1990s, however, extensive research was put into determining what role, if any, the Sun has in global warming or climate change.
A recent review paper, put together by both solar and climate scientists, details these studies: Solar Influences on Climate. Their bottom line: though the Sun may play some small role, “it is nevertheless much smaller than the estimated radiative forcing due to anthropogenic changes.” That is, human activities are the primary factor in global climate change.
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/2009RG000282.pdf
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar minimum
Sarah Ineson, Amanda C. Maycock, Lesley J. Gray, Adam A. Scaife, Nick J. Dunstone, Jerald W. Harder, Jeff R. Knight, Mike Lockwood, James C. Manners & Richard A. Wood
Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7535 doi:10.1038/ncomms8535
Received 23 May 2014 Accepted 14 May 2015 Published 23 June 2015
Any reduction in global mean near-surface temperature due to a future decline in solar activity is likely to be a small fraction of projected anthropogenic warming. However, variability in ultraviolet solar irradiance is linked to modulation of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations, suggesting the potential for larger regional surface climate effects. Here, we explore possible impacts through two experiments designed to bracket uncertainty in ultraviolet irradiance in a scenario in which future solar activity decreases to Maunder Minimum-like conditions by 2050. Both experiments show regional structure in the wintertime response, resembling the North Atlantic Oscillation, with enhanced relative cooling over northern Eurasia and the eastern United States. For a high-end decline in solar ultraviolet irradiance, the impact on winter northern European surface temperatures over the late twenty-first century could be a significant fraction of the difference in climate change between plausible AR5 scenarios of greenhouse gas concentrations.
12
Jack Dale,
The results of both of these articles are contingent on the
modelledsimulated projections of claimed anthropogenic climate forcings. IOW: Only If the effects of man made co2 production on the climate are accurate will the effects of the sun be small in comparison. But . . .1. If the effect of man made co2 production on the climate turns out to be small, then the effects of the sun will then increase relative to them.
2. If the effect of man made co2 production on the climate turns out to be negligible, then the effects of the sun will then be the dominant factor affecting the climate.
3. The effects of man made co2 production have never been empirically proven to have any significant effect whatsoever on the climate. All of the claimed effects of co2 in general and man made co2 specifically, are only estimates based on conjectures, not facts.
Furthermore:
The second paper states:
They only included the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations. Where’s the North Pacific, ENSO in the southern hemisphere, and The Antartic? IOW, they conclude that: “… ultraviolet solar irradiance is linked to modulation of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations, suggesting the potential for larger regional surface climate effects.”
1. They report regional affects because they only checked the effects of UV solar irradiance regionally.
2. If UV solar irradiance has an effect on the ocean currents in the northern hemisphere, it must also have a similar effect on the ocean currents in the southern hemisphere and the Antarctic. After all, oceans are oceans regardless of what hemisphere they’re in.
Finally, the repeated use of weasel words such as, ‘may’, ‘likely’, and ‘could’, invalidate the whole exercise.
Science is not based on conjectures, estimates, and weasel worlds. It’s based on empirical evidence that can be falsified and methods that can be independantly replicated. Anything else is just non-sense. The phrase ‘clap-trap’ comes to mind.
Abe
11
O.K. Maybe I need to read the whole thing a couple more times, but right now I’m trying to work out how so many respondents were prepared to attribute more than 100% of recent warming to man-made greenhouse gases. That seems a pretty extreme commitment to the AGW hypothesis.
Also, since when were we all required to accept Kuhn’s theories?
193
RoHa,
It is worse than that. The question asks “What fraction …” and they chose the option of “More than 100%”.
Simple proof that they think emotionally rather than rationally …
286
They explain the pause as warming due to CO2, counteracted by cooling due to aerosols (see e.g. Table, p. 54 of the Technical Summary to AR5) and mysterious unknown forces (“natural variability”).
The warming they expect due to CO2 is greater than the warming that actually occurred.
361
Nonetheless, the term “more than 100%” is nonsense.
253
You are right, Phillip,
n% is literally n items per centum in latin, or n items per hundred, in English. You cannot have more items per hundred than a hundred.
11
David,
have you sewn this?
http://www.seipub.org/DES/paperInfo.aspx?ID=17162
10
RoHa,
The IPCC attribution due to greenhouse gas global warming is indeed greater than 100%. That can happen if there is also some cooling to offset the warming. It is covered in the IPCC AR5 attributions.
432
Thanks for the explanations. Very confusing to see.
130
Harry,
We all learned about percent (per 100) in grammar school as I remember. By it’s definition, more than 100% cannot exist. Sometimes we use more than 100% to show the increase in something for comparison (this month’s bank balance is 110% of last month’s). But in the current context, it makes no sense. You cannot have more than 100% of the whole of something, not even heat flow. It confuses the issue as RoHa points out. And it leaves me doubting your judgment as well as the IPCC’s.
194
There is no doubt regarding twotter’s (lack of) judgement.
83
Roy Hogue.
As far as I can tell the net warming in the IPCC AR5 report is considered 100%. Greenhouse gases then work out at more than 100% because of offsets from cooling.
If they were just to add up the warming contributions, then the sum would come to be 100%. But you would also have to provide a separate sum for the cooling contributions.
113
I am supporting Harry’s opinion, in this conversation.
Climate Science is distinctly different from Atmospheric Physics. We have been told that, again, and again. So it makes sense, does it not, that Climate Mathematics should also be distinctly different from Formal Mathematics.
If you are going to create a whole new field of study, then it stands to reason, that existing fields will need to move a bit, to make room.
171
RW
Isn’t this usually called jargon?
60
@#4.3
Priceless & meaningless. An example of the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics perhaps, or yet another example of the Grand Unifying Theory of GGH?
One of the key features of any scientific publication is that it provides a means by which others may replicate the published method of investigation and then potentially, the same results. This is predicated on the notion that upon reading the published scientific text they not only understand it, but it makes sense. Then I reminded myself. The IPCC is a UN constituted political body. Scientific publications are not their remit. Hence, one may see why both understanding and sense are absent here.
101
Manfred.
The IPCC AR5 report is a scientific review.
118
“The IPCC AR5 report is a
scientificreview that is altered to adhere to the Summary for Policy Makers. The Summary for Policy Makers is agreed to line by line by selected politicians. This make The IPCC AR5 report propaganda to be fed to the Great Unwashed.”There now the statement reflect actual fact.
11
Are those 320 people (17.1%) balanced out by the 4 (0.2%) who reckon it’s more ineffective than nothing. A small fraction of a black hole is still a fairly large black hole.
131
If you are talking black holes, you only have two numbers, zero, and infinity.
50
More on Kuhn here.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/s-change/#SH3a
20
What really struck me was this video: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/28/a-co-founder-of-greenpeace-tells-the-truth-on-co2/, and what really hit home was the realisation that the Earth is effectively a closed system. All the CO2 that’s emitted by the burning of fossil fuels etc has already been in the atmosphere at some point in time. We are not creating anything new and hardly affecting anything to come in the future.
332
Bemused,
Yes – it is a “closed loop system”!
The same goes for water that goes for CO2.
EVERY drop of water that comes down as rain and is in the ocean and elsewhere has been here since “day dot”. EVERY drop of water that we drink has “probably” been p’eed out by a woolly mammoth or dinosaur or some such thing.
It can never escape to outer space – if it did the earth and all of us would be DOOMED!!
I’ve mentioned this a few times previously here & on other blogs but bears mentioning again.
Cheers,
141
Popeye,
You have to be very careful with that thought because the Earth is constantly losing atmosphere as it is stripped off by the solar wind. SEE Origin of the Earth’s Atmosphere
Think about it. Several people like Steven Wilde and Tony Heller point at the lapse rate as a major setter of the Earth’s temperature.
Then look at the 65 million years of temperature that Jo posted a while back.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/65_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev.jpg
Over all the earth is slowly cooling. Changes in earth’s heat from the interior plus a slow loss of atmosphere could explain this over all slow cooling.
As a bit of validation you have the size of dinosaurs (A thicker atmosphere = more oxygen partial pressure to support a larger body) and the size of Dragonflys. Meganeuridae permiana,had a wingspan that could exceed two feet (60cm), and its body grew to nearly 17 inches (40 cm). The way oxygen diffuses through an insect’s body via its tracheal breathing system puts an upper limit on body size so again more oxygen partial pressure is needed to support a larger body.
I have seen statements that prehistoric atmospheres contained more oxygen which does not make sense to me. The earth started out with a completely different atmospheric composition of mainly H2 and He. Since H2 and He are light they were stripped out of the atmosphere. Volcanic out gassing added H2O, CO2, SO2, CO, S2, Cl2, N2, H2, NH3 (ammonia) and CH4 with no highly reactive O2 laying about until plants (cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae) converted the high CO2 to oxygen. During the era of the Dinosaurs CO2 was 5 times that of today.
The Origin of Oxygen in Earth’s Atmosphere
(wwwDOT)livescience.com/44330-jurassic-dinosaur-carbon-dioxide.html
80
Very good point, and one which I was going to make myself. There is some atmospheric replenishment from volcanic eruption and Ocean vent out gassing. The hypothesis that considers the magnetosphere provides protection of the atmosphere is not it seems, so certain. The heat in the core is subject to convective transport and thermal conduction, the former associated with the generation of the magnetosphere. There are in addition, an array of decaying radioactive elements that generate heat. Fortunately this may take awhile:
Apparently the sun will become a red giant before the core cools. Mars on the other hand has cooled. It has a residual magnetosphere. It is also smaller and with less gravity, not as capable of retaining its atmosphere, which it also no longer replenishes in any substantive manner.
Atmospheric gases are being stripped away from the atmosphere of Venus and Mars at the same rate as Earth.
40
But Earth is running out of water, I read about it recently, NASA said so.
10
Don’t believe everything you read.
Especially don’t believe what the US government puts out for mass consumption.
From the BMJ-British Medical Journal – US scientists significantly more likely to publish fake research, study finds
What a sad sad state of affairs for our US research especially in Medicine.
Here is a more recent paper that is even sadder.
The FDA Underreports Scientific Misconduct In Peer-Reviewed Articles
20
That’s why I’m always ‘bemused’ when some challenges a contrarian view on climate change by requesting peer reviewed evidence. As if the current peer review process means anything today.
50
But Gai, NASA scientists know these things. [wink]
30
There’s a group of scientists that have been engaged in palaeoclimatology for a couple of centuries now. I’m talking about geologists. Global warming, global cooling, glacial advances, glacial retreats, warm tropical seas, glacial deposits, etc, etc. Guess what! An overwhelming majority of geologists are sceptical as to whether carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have much of an impact on climate change. There have been past glacial epochs when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been much higher than today.
As a science student I was taught to read into the literature and get a grounding on information that had already been gleaned from the work of previous investigators. So-called “climate scientists” haven’t bothered to do this over the last two or three decades. In my opinion they have ignored good scientific practice and therefore do not deserve to be called scientists. Perhaps “climate technicians” is a better description.
431
Climate Scientologists perhaps?
371
+1 🙂
50
The word “technician” falsely implies that they do something useful.
Let’s call a spade a spade. “Political Climate Activists” or PCA’s for short.
Allowing the word “science” anywhere near these morons risks defaming those who genuinely practice science and the scientific method.
262
As a geologist I can tell you that none of us believe in CAGW, but most of us believe there is a bit of AGW, but nothing to even be the slightest bit worried about. Of course, government or NGO employed geologists are not included here for obvious employment considerations.
If CAGW theory was correct, you would see something similar in the geological record and it simply is not there. What you see in the geological record is our planet has a constantly varying climate – in recent times during the Pleistocene Era (the last 2.65 million years), we have long ice ages interspersed with relatively short (10-20,000 years) interglacial periods. During both, the global temperature is not static, it is constantly changing, sometimes dramatically both up and down.
When you meet someone who believes you can ‘fix’ climate and believes this is a desirable goal, then you will find yourself talking to a blissfully ignorant idiot – there will be a huge number of these people meeting in Paris later this year.
Climate is too chaotic and complex to model correctly we only have a rough idea of the magnitude of some of the factors which can cause change and obviously there are also many impacting factors which we are not yet even aware of.
The ‘proof’ for CAGW can only be found in dodgy computer models, which have been mostly pre-programmed to provide the desired result of imminent Thermageddon. These models have persuaded the always gullible greenies and the more stupid types of politicians that we must ‘save the planet’ by an over-reliance on expensive and unreliable energy sources, which will crater both our economies and our lifestyles.
Maybe I mix in the wrong circles, but I have yet to meet a scientist who believes in CAGW, while I have unfortunately met far too many easily gullible greenies.
492
Well said Peter and right on the money. The only Geos I know who believe in CAGW either work in Academia where to show your skeptic hand would be detrimental to your career prospects, or a Geo’s spouse who is a diehard Greenie, again the Geo exercising his/her survival skills – I in fact know an example of the latter – poor sod.
30
I am a chemist but I took a lot of Geo courses for fun in college because I am a spelunker and rock hound. Those courses acted as a Vaccine for the CAGW illness and I never did catch it.
60
John
I fear for your hopes re reading the literature and the work of previous investigators.
The new graduates that I interacted with at the last of my previous career were (with a couple of notable exceptions) of the “if it isn’t on cd then it doesn’t exist” fraternity
141
Given the damage they have done to science, I call them ClimAstrologists.
111
John,
When the ClimAstrologists can explain the abrupt 8C to 10C swings of Dansgaard-Oeschger Events they can get back to me about AGW.
From NOAA
If they can not explain D-O events they have zero basis to discount natural warming today.
130
Really?
The survey conducted of APEGA members, who primarily work in the oil patch of Alberta, showed that the majority of them attributed human activities to climate change.
No climate scientist attributes all climate change to human activities.
17
Jack Dale,
“The survey conducted of APEGA members, who primarily work in the oil patch of Alberta, showed that the majority of them attributed human activities to climate change.”
Means APEGA members have opinions, nothing more, nothing less.
So what?
21
These are geologists and geophysicists who work in the Alberta oil patch.
13
And they have voice an opinion.
Opinion is NOT science!
31
“the majority of them attributed human activities to climate change”
============================================
This, like ALL consensus surveys is meaningless.
Without the C in CAGW there is no basis for policy. Land use changes affect climate. CO2 additions likely have a minor affect on climate. So what? Is that affect beneficial. (Likely yes)
01
You only need an absolute alternative theory if you are arrogant or need to respond to political dogma- a thing that people still moronically expect from politician like wanting Trump to have a solution plan like all the other Presidential candidates- the cause of the mess that politician create. A plan to form plan and certain values if you like but pre-deciding before exploring with the power and resources of the Federal government and the greater American people. Why not accept that climate science is too primitive for the purpose and more research is needed?
111
At this point there really is no all encompassing ‘Climate Science’ only Lysenkoism.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was ratified by the USA in March of 1994. Their official definition:
The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988. Their mandate is:
So it never was about understanding the climate. It was really about ‘options for mitigation and adaptation. ‘
The IPCC’s ROLE
Humans were tried and found guilty BEFORE the IPCC ever looked at a scientific fact. The IPCC mandate is not to figure out what factors effect the climate but to dig up the facts needed to hang the human race. The IPCC assumes the role of prosecution and and the skeptics that of the defense but the judge (aka the media) refuses to allow the defense council into the court room.
Academia is providing the manufactured evidence to ‘frame’ the human race and they are KNOWINGLY doing so. In other words Academics who prides themselves on being ‘lofty socialists’ untainted by plebeian capitalism are KNOWINGLY selling the rest of the human race into serfdom using scary stories.
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” ~ Daniel Botkin emeritus professor Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara.
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination…
So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” ~ Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.” ~ Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.” ~ Dr David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University
As Rereke Whakaaro said on December 5, 2014 at 12:46 pm
CAGW is just a new twist on the age old game of making the masses subservient and controlled. The goal of course is a world wide Totalitarian government. French Socialist Pascal Lamy, former WTO Director-General has come right out and said that is the goal and the EU is the template.
Also see: (wwwDOT)theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=9174
Lamy admits in that essay the decision to form a world government (remove national sovereignty) was made back in the 1930s but they haven’t been able to sell the idea.
151
Did I really say that? … Wow!
50
Yes, you really said that and I thought it was profound enough to keep a copy.
Isn’t it nice to know you are read and appreciated?
90
It’s not really about mitigating climate change either. That’s just a weasel excuse for continuing the highly inflationary economic cycles under the IMF and World Bank recommended/endorsed highly inflationary tax regimes of income and consumption taxes to enable the continued capture of the world’s wealth. The IMF has been quite blunt about confiscation of a country’s private wealth in the future.
An Emission Trading Scheme is `value added taxation’ for even more.
40
“Why not accept that climate science is too primitive for the purpose and more research is needed?”
Because research costs money.
00
Fabius Maximus – a gent with a gladiatorial name fighting for the truth.
So the “97% consensus” is now 43%”.
Well isn’t that great – there is now “uncertainty” if CO2 really is the main the driver of GW on planet Earth. So Govt’s have spent US$trillions on reducing CO2 emissions when it maybe (we sceptics know that CO2 has been needlessly demonised) not a main player in causing GW on planet Earth. I and many of the public at large should be feeling sick in the stomach of this gross waste of hard earned tax payers $’s, euros, yen, pound sterling ………..The IPCC hang your head in shame for misleading the citizens of Earth.
223
Can the citizens of Earth sue them for damages? I hate to think about the trillions of dollars squandered on the big lie. The socialists grab for control and power.
40
Actually, the answer to your question, is “No”.
The likes of you or I, have no course for redress, at all, because the UN is a supranational body.
30
But as voters in our respective countries we can vote for parties that reject the “Warmist Doctrine”. It will reach a point in the future, hopefully not too distant, that leftie/greenie pollies will abandon this as a policy for the sake of political survival, thanks largely to the impeding GM/LIA makes its statement – brrrhhhh!!!!
30
What individual Governments do will make no difference to the UN.
The UN is not run by the Ambassadors, or their respective staffs. It is actually run by bureaucrats who are “invited’ to take positions, in one of the Commissions in the UN Secretariat, by other bureaucrats. Once they are there, they theoretically have an extremely well paid job for life.
10
Just so we know what we are talking about.
‘Kuhn describes communities of scientists as each having a paradigm: a complex of theories, methods, and key questions which facilitates communication and focuses their effort. The IPCC’s reports show today’s climate science paradigm, with a clarity and detail seldom seen in science.’
Fabius Maximus
100
I find the comment “skeptics get sacked, rarely get grants and find it harder to get published” both true and telling; it explains some of the bias against them by the establishment and the media.
230
“43% climate scientists agree we are 95% sure that man-made CO2 is the dominant driver of climate change”
One of the underlying and annoying assumptions of the question of CO2 drive Global Warming is that the 50% increase in CO2 since 1900 is man made. Is it?
Consider that is it not. The question is then pointless. If say only 4% of the CO2 is man made, surely the forces which produce the balance are natural and far more significant?
It has been years since I set out to answer the simple question, can you tell if the extra CO2 is man made/released or not? The answer is yes. Without question, most is natural. So whether CO2 produces Global Warming or not, it is not within our ability to change CO2 levels. So there is no need for a single windmill to prevent CO2 emission. Whether windmills are useful is a separate question but we already have 220,000 of them.
282
More importantly, what is the catalyst to bring about this scientific revolution?
http://heaven-now.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/paradigm-shift.jpg
81
Nice graphic, but not sure if my point is being made.
The survey question is loaded with the presumption that man made CO2 is the bulk of the CO2 increase. That is not true.
Apart from my various rants about C14, I have read very little on this crucial logical step. Without this logical necessity, none of AGW is valid. There is no point in surveying what climate scientists think about the connection between CO2 and warming if there is no connection between man and CO2. It is not a question of opinion.
223
‘…there is no connection between man and CO2. It is not a question of opinion.’
Yeah, but its academic, better to explain to the masses that we are pumping it out but nothing unusual is happening.
133
You have a point. It seems too complex an idea. So try this question for climate scientists or even the general public.
Do you believe the 50% increase in CO2 is man made?
No scientist believes man can permanently affect CO2 levels. If they do, they should ask a physical chemist. CO2 levels are set by natural forces and 98% of all CO2 gas is in the ocean ready to bubble up.
It goes against the basic rules of chemical equilibrium, rules which I admit are not intuitive. Henry’s Law in particular. That is why I am aghast that chemists like our own Climate Commissioner Dr. Will Steffen says nothing.
All physical scientists know that CO2 levels are set naturally. Extra CO2 is absorbed by the oceans. The only difference is how long this takes and the evidence is 14 years for half to vanish while the IPCC claim 80. They also claim the CO2 in the deep oceans does not come up for 1,000 years. They have no evidence of either of these two ideas and it is obvious they are wrong.
I wrote to Will Steffen and he just said to refer to the IPCC reports. There is no point writing to Tim Flannery or Al Gore or the other former Climate Commissioners. They do not know any chemistry or physics or mathematics. The other bureaucrats, engineers and economists do not know about equilibrium. It is, as you say, academic, a concept too far.
So the question is fully loaded. If there is CO2 warming, we can do nothing about CO2 levels, so why build windmills? Man cannot be responsible for any warming or cooling or even CO2 levels. We are of no consequence. The most we can affect is local rainfall through changes in vegetation.
91
The average person doesn’t realize CO2 is a miniscule trace gas and that human contribution is negligible in the larger scheme of atmospheric science.
Few understand that water vapor is the largest greenhouse gas.
31
All true, but what the common man does not realise is that the oceans are stuffed full of CO2 like Coca Cola. No one is telling them this and plays to ignorance. Men in white coats tell them it is a crisis, even dead wombat specialists like Professor Flannery.
No one instinctively realises the concept of mixing between the air and the oceans but they should know that the oceans cover the planet fish breathe and fart. The oceans are full of gas. Maybe you have to have a fish tank? The little bit we put out makes no difference at all. It is a panic based on no science at all.
Academic? No. The whole thing is a lie, more obvious by the day as the world refuses to get hotter. I hope Paris is freezing in December. Last Tango in Paris.
21
TdeF
Anyone who looks at the piles and piles of information the Realists cite can see that the CAGW scare is built on sand. That is why the ClimAstrologists refused to debate, refuse to allow equal time in the media, censor comments and are trying to stuff CAGW into the heads of little children at the government schools.
The wholesale censorship and ad hom. attacks alone should ring the b.s. buzzer in any thinking person and I think it does. For the last five or more years I have ‘sampled’ opinion on CAGW in my business customers and other strangers and I have found only two people in those years that didn’t snort in disgust when I mention Global Warming.
31
O3 is also a trace gas, 3-10 ppm; but it protects you from UVB.
Using carbon isotope analysis the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 2.5 centuries can be linked directly to the burning of fossil fuels.
BTW – over 500 pages of debate.
http://www*aps*org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript*pdf
33
Jack,
“Using carbon isotope analysis the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 2.5 centuries can be linked directly to the burning of fossil fuels.”
Reference please. (I hope it is not the very debatable C13 biological uptake stuff. C13 is 1% of CO2. C14 is one in a trillion and a perfect radioactive tracer, detectable in incredibly small quantities. C14 is not natural, not part of the biosystem and created only by cosmic rays in the high atmosphere. This is not chemistry.)
I can prove simply this is not true, using carbon isotope C14 alone. Fossil fuels have no C14. All the rest of the CO2 on the planet from the deepest ocean to the highest atmosphere has the current level of C14. That’s how Radio Carbon dating works. It decays with a half life of 5400 years, once fixed in a plant or animal or bone. PS We doubled aerial C14 in 1965 and it is nearly all gone only 50 years, so you can forget the 2 1/2 century stuff.
Increasing CO2 40% by fossil fuel would lead to a dramatic reduction to 1/1.4 or 29%. This is not true. QED.
51
I had a lot of other information on the C12/C13 stuff but this is what I can dig up straight off
The Trouble With C12 C13 Ratios
When you include the ‘greening’ of the planet especially in the tropics where you have C4 grasses and CAM succulents and the different absorption rate of C3 vs C4 and CAM pathways it is not nearly as cut and dried. After all corn, the biofuel that the USA is planting extensively from road edge to road edge is also a C4 plant. I really doubt if anyone knows what the changes in the C13 vs C12 ratio the plants have made.
From the table that follows this is C13 values.
Scientists have also found bacteria living thousands of feet deep in coal seams this completely throws off the C12/C13 ratios of coal. (Lost the link)
From an article on radiocarbon analysis
40
Get it right,Flannery is a macropod specialist,dead roo if you like.
00
Gai,
“The two naturally occurring isotopes of carbon, C13 and C14, are found in slightly different proportions. These proportions are stable”
This is not true. The stable isotopes of C12 which is 99% and C13 which is rare, 1%. These are not ‘slightly different proportions’. The other one, C14, is unstable with a half life of 5400 years and incredibly rare. It is created by cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere.
This article seems to be about C12 and C13.
The argument is that C13 is slightly heavier than C12 as CO2 and has therefore a slightly different absorption rate. This tiny difference is then used to draw conclusions, but they are suspect with such a poor differentiator.
C14 though is not in the biosphere except through capture of aerial C14. You cannot get it from old matter, fossil fuels, volanoes or any other way. So it is very special Personally I am very skeptical of biologists looking for tiny differences.
Thanks for the input, but there is so much wrong with C12 vs C13 while the very special C14 results are absolute and conclusive.
10
Griffo,
He studied long dead marsupials, megafauna, as I understand it. This includes
Diprotodon optatum was the largest species of diprotodontid. Approximately three metres long, two metres high at the shoulder and weighing up to two tonnes, it resembled a giant wombat. It is the largest marsupial currently known.
Obviously killed by climate change. (or aborigines lighting fires and having BBQs)
10
The huge, deep oceans have absorbed most of the tiny bomb blast C14O2. This was a perturbation on a long term stable C14 system, a perfect test of CO2 absorption, akin to a radioactive tracer as used in medicine to trace blood or digestion. We know where the C14O2 went. So goes all CO2.
00
http://www.jamespowell.org/Stuff/Ourfault/Ourfault.html
02
I am puzzled at what may be a dodgy Wikipedia entry on the Suess effect. C13 has been worked into what was only C14. C13 may be depleted but C14 is completely gone. This is a very dodgy analysis and other works by Dr. Suess do not mention C13. It is not part of the famous Suess effect where he concluded that under 2% of CO2 in the 1950s was from fossil fuel. Other biologists, not physicists argue for differential takeup of C13/C14 and then argue against the C14 proof. Possibly this is because the Suess effect instantly disproves the business of man made CO2 increase. It is just not true.
10
Jack,
“The only conclusion from these two slides is that if we take away the C14 produced by atomic explosions, some process has been diluting the carbon in the atmosphere with C14-free carbon. That means ancient carbon, and the only known source of ancient carbon in the amounts required to explain the data is fossil fuel combustion.”
This is nonsense. Study the bomb graph. C14 was a normal levels and was suddenly doubled. It is decaying exponentially disappearing, straight on a log graph with a half life of 14 years back to the ancient levels. This is not a graph steady dilution as claimed, as straight line, nothing like it.
Further, to dilute nearly to half as argued would require doubling of CO2 with fossil fuel CO2 since 1965 (and not before). No one is claiming mankind doubled aerial CO2 since 1965. Even you do not claim this.
The real explanation, as given by Dr Suess in 1955 was that the huge oceans where 98% of all CO2 lives is in rapid exchange. This produces the required exponential decay perfectly. You cannot put gas on one side of the ocean and expect it to stay there. Ask the fish.
10
Yes and it showed CO2 is short lived in the atmosphere. Somewhere I have Dr Segalstad’s analysis of the short vs long lived debate but I am too tired to dig it out tonight.
It is somewhere on CO2web I think.
40
It doesn’t matter whether it’s 95% or 43%. “Scientific consensus” is an oxymoron. Why play the pseudo-scientists’ game by debating the figures?
182
Because this is a moral/political/ideological fight, not a scientific one. The general population is far less likely to approve of carbon taxes when the underlying science has only 43% support among relevant scientists. So the tax proposers are far more likely to remain opposition members where scientific support unanimity is lower.
Debunking the consensus and telling the truth about the moral positions ( exactly how immoral is it to burn food for fuel, freeze grannies in winter and keep the entire third world in crippling energy poverty) is critically important to killing off this crippling tax grab.
People, this ideological battle will not be won by attacking the science, it will be won by showing that the cure is worse than the disease. It will be won because the greens can be shown to not care about PEOPLE. Look at assylum seeker policies, the ideological position that borders should be open to low information leftist voters even though the means has killed some 1200 people, it’s the same thing, ideology is held to be more important than individual people.
201
I get 66% agree with the IPCC AR5 report’s conclusions. 66% is a majority.
17.1 + 32.2 + 16.6 = 65.9.
423
It appears this survey was done in 2012 and is based on the IPCC AR4 reports.
So comparing it to the IPCC AR5 report is not valid.
Considering the definition of “climate scientist” is quite broad in the survey, I am not surprised by the 66% result.
222
Harry Twinotter,
Please see my response below. I accidentally posted it in the wrong place.
Abe
00
And my dad will beat up your dad ,so there .
Not really an argument is it? The majority have been wrong so often that it makes sense to be in the minority.
245
Rogue
Let him sprout on!
It’s been GOLD lately
I print off his replies & rants and put them on the smoko room wall
Most just laugh, and say he’s got money in the scam
More & more are turning off the garbage sprouted by the likes of Harry
Truckies, Unionists, Workers, Business people & friends
They all get a print out of Harry’s rants
The best were in this thread
Up the creek kinda of “IT”
Hi Harry!
224
Dave.
Name calling. Kind of flattering I have some fans; I am saying nothing original it is all out of the scientific literature, anyone can read it.
112
Surveys that leave the C out of CAGW are meaningless.
I think land use by humans contributes to climate change I think human CO2 emissions contribute to climate change. I think CO2 emissions are clearly net beneficial now and in the future, Observational evidence fully supports this view.
00
Harry Twinotter,
You’d better get in touch with the authors of the 2012 survey then and lodge your complaint with them. Because . . .
They did not publish their results until 2014, after the AR5 was released. In their 2012 survey, which was published in 2014, they make numerous references to IPCC, Inc.’s AR5 and they do so in order to make comparisons between the ‘attribution statement’ as it appears in both, AR4 and AR5.
All Jo and Fabius are doing here is pointing out some inconsistencies in the way this survey is being ‘promoted’. It’s being touted as showing a majority adhering to the attribution statement as portrayed in AR5 when in reality, when you examine the numbers, no such majority exists.
Abe
00
What mostly jumps out in this survey is how it highlights the divisive rift CAGW has caused in science, the results read as “Skeptics” and Climate Scientists”, if all scientists are supposed to be skeptical what are other “Climate Scientists” contributing to research?
221
Story-lines for James Cameron movies.
(I still can’t get over the inane stupidity of a tidal wave washing over the Himalayas, that appeared in one of his efforts)
110
Yes we can produce more water, it’s probably made in China.
MBC mentioned “creative accounting” above, we may have seen the start of “creative modeling”, unless it produces a great tax return it has no reason to exist in our world.
50
On the ground Jennifer Marohasy explains what is happening.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2014/07/the-need-for-a-new-paradigm-including-for-rainfall-forecasting/
71
The hypothesis that the overwhelming current climate forcing factor is human GHG emissions has already been falsified, if not by the temperature trend 1945 — 1975 (such as it is), then by that of the past 18 years.
Although there appears to be a correlation between human emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentration, the exact relationship is unknown as shown by the CO2 increase c.1850 — c.1945 i.e. before human emissions were in any way significant.
The only rational view at this stage remains the null hypothesis until enough empirical evidence has been collected to support an alternative.
111
I suggest a poll of those with intricate knowledge of the sun, other extra-terrestrial influences, orbits, the deep hydrosphere and all of earth beneath its crust. Participants would need to have definitive explanations for the Younger Dryas, the 2200 BC cooling/drought, the great monsoon failures of eg 1770s, 1790s, 1870s, the great pluvials of eg Genghis Khan period, Peru AD 1100…and all other major climate shifts within the last few thousand years.
Could be a very quiet poll, of course.
150
“All that is necessary for stupidity to triumph is for wise men to do nothing” to borrow a phrase.
Glad to see them being heard at last.
110
Could blindly following consensus be a form of stupidity ?
40
Intellectual laziness
40
The IPCC 95% certainty is a Bayesian statistic based upon degrees of belief. For this to have any scientific validity it needs to be updated in the light of new data. That is over a period of time the element of belief is reduced, being replaced by real data. Now consider the statement from page 5 the 2001 Third Synthesis Report
Which is a less certain form of the 2014 AR5 statement quoted above. What has changed since 2001 is
– The evidence of the hockey stick graph that the late twentieth century warming was unprecedented in the last 1000 years has been shown to be false.
– Human emissions have accelerated, whilst temperature rise has stalled.
– The climate community has moved from looking at direct observational evidence to arguments from unearned authority and name-calling of critics.
– The climate models have become more sophisticated, but the range of warming predictions is as wide as in 1990. The increase in empirical content has failed to increase precision of forecasts.
Rather than being true Bayesians, the climate community are increasingly a group of believers in a failed research program using vague statistics as a defence against reality.
201
Fabius Maximus, could he be a descendant of the famed privat Roman Eye Flavius Maximus?
Sorry couldn’t help myself, or is someone having a lend of us?
70
posted on WUWT Tips & Notes by Jim Sawhill on 29 July:
Pierre Gosselin at NoTricksZone (http://notrickszone.com/) is in peril of quitting due to WordPress issues.
“Right now it’s all garbage and I’m getting ready to quit. If anyone knows a good WordPress repairman, let me know.”
Anybody help?
Most of his links are down. I don’t have contact info and that link is dead too.
He and his site are an important source of material out of Europe – Climate news from Germany in English – by Pierre L. Gosselin
181
When I read the headline I was going to comment “and the rest say they are 97% certain!” – but clearly not.
Personally I think they are deluded if they even said there’s a 50% certainty. It was certainly fraudulent to have increased certainty when all the models failed to correctly predict the pause.
But frankly, its not an edifying spectacle watching these academics being dragged kicking and screaming from the global warming bandwagon and being forced by everyone else to reduce their certainly from the spectacular corrupt down to just corrupt.
111
if there weren’t so many vested interests in CAGW, these protesters would have been removed hours ago:
PHOTOS: 29 July: SeattlePI Blog: Protesters rappel from Portland bridge seeking to keep Shell icebreaker from departing
The “Shell No” campaign moved to Portland on Wednesday, as demonstrators rappelling off a bridge and “kayakctivists” in the water sought to block departure of a Shell-leased icebreaker that has a vital role to play in the oil giant’s Arctic drilling plans.
The 380-foot Fennica remained, for the moment, at the Vigor Industries dry dock in North Portland, where it arrived Saturday for repair of a 39-inch gash in its hull. The gash was acquired when the icebreaker hit an uncharted shoal, as it began the 1,000 mile journey from Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians to Shell’s oil drilling site in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea…
“Climbers are on the St. Johns Bridge and we are not going anywhere,” Daniel Hendricks, a demonstrator, tweeted to SeattlePI.com A moment later, echoing famous words (“On ne passe pas”) of France’s Gen. Robert Nivelle at the World War I Battle of Verdun, Hendricks declared: “The Fennica shall not pass.”…
They were replicating the protests, sponsored by Greenpeace, that greeted the arrival — and tried to block the departure — of the Shell-leased drilling rig “Polar Pioneer” during its spring stay at Terminal 5 in the Port of Seattle. Even ex-Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn took to the water: One McGinn friend labeled pictures: “The old man and the sea.”…
COMMENT by whatevah: Someone should go cut the ropes.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2015/07/29/protesters-rappel-from-portland-bridge-seeking-to-keep-shell-icebreaker-from-departing/#34622101=0
29 July: KATU: 13 demonstrators hang from Portland bridge to block Shell ship
“They are creating a human barricade so that the Shell icebreaker cannot get through,” said Annie Leonard, the executive director of Greenpeace U.S. “They are prepared to stay up there for days because that’s what it is going to take to save the arctic.”…
It’s unknown whether law enforcement agencies in the area plan on pressing charges against the protesters…
“It’s a complex and difficult situation,” Oregon Department of Transportation’s Don Hamilton said. “We are looking for the best way to resolve this. That may or may not end up involving criminal charges.”…
“Drilling in the Arctic is probably the most crazy thing I’ve ever heard of in my life. I am a big fan of our president, and I am absolutely appalled he let this go through,” Chris Fountain, a kayaktivist, told KATU News on Tuesday.
TWEETS
http://www.katu.com/news/local/Protesters-suspended-from-St-Johns-Bridge-to-block-Shell-oil-icebreaker-Fennica-rig-Portland-Oregon-319353711.html
51
Good thing I am not the captain.
I had to put up with that crap decades ago when every day a bunch of teens spread across the rural road I took and slowed me to 2 miles per hour for a half hour. I finally put an end to it and scared the pants off them.
60
Please try captaining now.
00
Wrong seashore, I am on the Atlantic.
30
Just saw the 17% who said “more than 100%”. These guys are in cloud cuckoo land. Their delusion is worse than ever I imagined.
162
Mike Haseler (Scottish Sceptic) @ # 21
This IS climate science.
Where records are set by adjusting the data,
Where temperatures reach new record levels when the stations are placed against a major jet airports sealed and concrete hardstanding where jet exhausts can sweep over the station.
Where homogenising of stations is done by using stations 1200 kms away.
Where ocean temperatures are warming dangerously but the error bars a few times larger than the claimed warming
Where ocean acidification which can’t be measured it as it is invisible is highly dangerous to fish species which happily swim around in the acidic waters inside the crater of an sub surface volcano.
Where millions of points of a century or more of real time observed data are adjusted to fit modeled data and then the modelled data is promoted as the reality.
Where admitted very poor and very dodgy data from ships buckets and engine inlets is used to adjust reliable ocean buoy data upwards and then the adjusted data is promoted as the new global temperature data.
Where the carefully kept and carefully adjusted long term data from from entire developed countries are further adjusted towards warming using unknown and untested and unverified algorithms by the supposed centre for global temperature data, all unbeknowns to the official met organisation of that country [Iceland ]
Where billions have been spent of public money on;
Dangerous warming as delineated in a Hockey schtick that used upside down data, where the rings from just one tree accounted for 25% or 30% of the claimed warming, where observed data was grafted onto tree ring and varve and other paleo data to give the impression of rapid warming but which grafting was carefully hidden behind other lines in the Hockey stick graph.
Where hundreds of billions have been spent on so called renewable energy that is not renewable, does not in any way replace fossil fueled generators but just displaces them, is completely unreliable, is totally unpredictable, is vastly more expensive for consumers,.
Where renewable energy has yet been proven at all to reduce CO2 after the entire production system, the construction, the access roads and the power cabling, the high maintenance and the final disposal of the turbines is added up.
Nor does the misnamed renewable energy produce more than a couple of tens of percent of what its promoters claim it will and after 30 years of massive publicly funded subsidies still claims it cannot stand on its own feet commercially without further massive publicly funded subsidies.
Where the highly beneficial and essential to all life, minor atmospheric gas , Carbon Dioxide, has been classified as a toxic gas by America’s EPA.
Where the believers in dangerous global warming are so ignorant of the very basics of life and of science at any level they cannot even give the atmospheric component they want banned its correct name but use the name of the element which is the basis of ALL life on this planet that of “Carbon” as the item that is to be eliminated from the planet.
.
Now thats about 1% or less of what could be listed so to repeat your quite accurate assessment of the actual climate scientists and it was climate scientists who were being surveyed remember, who apparently believe that an impossible MORE THAN 100% of global warming is due to human induced releases of atmospheric green house gas[ GHG ] concentrations
201
ROM
Well said.
And I just dobbed you on the thermal post over at the latest Willis at WUWT.
And what about a non-nautical RN?
20
ROM
Check your maths – are you out by one decimal?
Impressive number still – no wonder it lifts a glider on a good day
50
Ah well ! Glider pilots are a bit like fishermen when it comes to thermal strength.
That said I never could get the rates of climb and thermal strengths that most other pilots got so it seemed even when I beat them home by a reasonable couple of minutes.
There are very, very few people even in the gliding game who have any idea let alone think about the colossal amounts and tonnages of air that are moving around, sometimes at a considerable velocity both horizontally as well as vertically on this planet.
100
This is perhaps the most impressive story about the forces (energy) in the atmosphere.
50
Gai @ # 24.1.1.1.1
In Argentina in the very late 1960’s or early 1970’s an airline pilot who was also a glider pilot believed he could get one of World Gliding’s then most prestigious Diamond badges [ there are three of these badges each for a different accomplishment, ie 300 km triangle, 500 km distance and a Gain of Height of 5000 metres [ 16404 feet ] to make up the Three Diamond badge. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s with the then performance of the gliders it was a very considerable accomplishment to achieve the 3 Diamond Badge. My own 3 Diamond Badge completed in 1968 is numbered as International FAI No 994 ] by climbing inside of a developing Cumulo nimbus thunder storm overhead of his gliding field.
He was flying an all metal two seat Czech built Blanik glider but carried no oxygen.
He was Argentinian after all and why would any Argentinian macho male need oxygen to climb to 25,000 feet?
He was seen to enter the base of the thunderstorm at 3000 feet and then some time later seen to come out of the side of the cloud at a very high altitude.
Some short time later he was found very badly injured and still strapped in the crashed glider in a near bye field.
The all metal Blanik aircraft’s fuselage had been twisted through about 45 degrees.
Both wings were broken off just inboard of the ailerons
One side of the rear elevator was broken and gone and the other side severely damaged.
The pilot was alive but badly injured but he eventually recovered.
He remembered doing about 6 turns on instruments [ He was a trained airline pilot ] after entering the cloud base and inside of the thunderstorm’s developing lift cell before blacking out from lack of oxygen as he remembered passing through 26,000 feet.
His barograph recording instrument which in those days [ done electronically today ] recorded the time and the heights reached on a smoked trace said that he had reached 46,000 feet inside of that thunderstorm, a then world record height .
However, above 40,000 feet the trace was so badly distorted from some extreme turbulence nearer the top of the thunderstorm which airline pilots flying with in a couple of hundred kilometres around later estimated that its top had reached in excess of 65,000 feet, a King thunderstorm, that the FAI in Paris, the keeper of the World’s Aviation record, only gave him a 40,000 foot climb.
BUT, his barograph trace showed quite conclusively that the rate of climb inside of that cell of lift of that King thunderstorm and this an uncontrolled glider with an unconscious pilot, reached 8,000 feet per minute rate of climb.
And thats over 146 KPH [ One hundred and forty six ] straight up inside of the lift cell of that thunderstorm.
80
Thanks for that story ROM
And the warmists want us to believe our puny CO2 emissions can compete with the energy transported in storms like that?
60
A bit more quick research found the largest hailstone recorded in America.
Hailstones are created so it is believed, by a more or less continuous loop of being caught in violent updrafts as found in thunderstorms, ie; above glider example, and then falling out of the updraught cell back down to lower levels where they might be caught up again in another or the same updraft cell and so accumulate water and ice on the core of the frozen hailstone over a period of anywhere from just one passage in the updraft to a number of passages which can be ascertained and recognised by the number of rings when a hailstone is dissected across its diameter.
The largest hailstone recorded in the USA [ naturally ! ] was acording to the NOAA , one of whose employees actually measured the hailstone as;
NOAA; Volleyball’ From the Sky
I’ll leave it to your imagination to try and comprehend the power and speed and forces involved in the thunderstorm updraughts that were needed to keep that monster going up and down in that storm allowing it to accumulate that much frozen ice and the creation of such an enormous hailstone.
40
Another Ian;
Thanks 🙂
I know it will make complete sense but for now to show how dumb this old uneducated farmer really is, please translate;
“And what about a non-nautical RN?”
30
ROM
Put a “G” before it
30
Nice round up ROM, Thanks
40
“Kuhn’s work shows that a paradigm cannot be disproved, only replaced (details here). Unless the skeptics form a theory, they’ll remain minor players in the debates — the climate science debate and the public policy debate about climate change (they’re distinct, although often conflated).
To that end, I would say that no one has ever done a decent survey of skeptical scientists,”
JO.
… first a sceptic is just a good scientist – in other words its an insistence on a standard of evidence not a viewpoint. We are sceptics not because we have a different theory, but because we want high standards to be applied, particularly when this “work” is being used to create public policy.
Second, I’ve increasingly noticed that much of the debate about climate is happening outwith academic circles. For example, there’s been a lot of debate about how the greenhouse process works. At first, I assumed it was that we online were just “catching up” with what good academics already knew. But then it began to twig that not even academics understood the greenhouse effect as well as the combined people online (some of whom are academics).
So, in a real sense, academia is lagging in developing ideas and it may well be that the real thrust of ideas that eventually overturn the global warming &^%$ will come from outside academia (or at least in discussions outwith the usual journals of academia).
121
You might be onto something, the sceptics on the blogosphere (for the most part non scientists) bring about a paradigm shift.
41
Actually el gordo the sceptic blogosphere contains hundreds of degreed scientists and engineers. (Years ago I stopped counting at over three hundred.)
The sceptic blogosphere has two critical points going for it.
#1. A cross fertilization of ideas from many separate disiplines.
For example in the 1970’s I made an advance in the theory of limestone cave formation because I am a chemist. The dissolving rate is based on the surface area exposed to the water and clastics like sand reduce the exposed surface area. I then proved my theory by collecting limestone samples, shaping them into 1 inch cubes and disolving them in acid. I measured the time to completely dissolve the cube and the amount of undissolved clastic remaining.
#2. Open exploration of many different ideas.
In general sceptics in the blogosphere will listen to a new idea and make useful additions and criticisms. For example: Dr Evans Notch Delay solar theory, Willis’s Thunderstorm Thermostat, and Anthony’s surface station survey.
If the Colleges and Universities don’t get off their pedestals, the mavericks are going to be leaving them in the dust.
Actually they already have. “Small patenting firms produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.” from the US government’s Top Ten Reasons to Love U.S. Small Business
Too bad the US government is intent on strangling small business with red tape.
70
Methane and water vapour may be bigger contributors to Global Warming than CO2 but how do you tax them?
80
Hell! That’s easy. Imagine a number (bigger will be better) and go
90
These survey results are closer to the American Meteorological Society’s professional members’ survey from last year. They found that 52% thought “mostly man-made”. See page 1034 for the summary.
METEOROLOGISTS’ VIEWS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
70
Define, “Mostly man made”.
The term is ambiguous. It can mean that “changes to the physical properties of the atmosphere are solely attributable to mankind”, which is the political attribution.
Or it can mean, “The overall physical properties of the atmosphere are just fine, and are going along as they always have, but some scientists have cherry-picked facts in order to make up scary stories, and so create a transfer of wealth from the general population, to themselves, and to their political sponsors”, which is the sceptical position.
Which of those seems more reasonable to you?
I see climate change as being much like a rock band. Sure you get the performers, out front, strutting their stuff. But behind them are an army of Managers, Agents, Transport Companies, Booking Agents, Venue owners … and so on, who all get to clip the ticket, each time the band gets a gig.
51
At least these are meteorologists. Good. However I find the question about whether they think warming is mainly human made is odd. There are two essential questions. Firstly whether CO2 causes substantial warming, on which they could have a professional opinion. My reading of what has been written is that without assistance from additional water as evidenced by a hot spot over the equator, the answer is no.
The second on whether CO2 levels are man made is not meteorology. This should not be a matter of opinion but of fact and measurement.
The other questions which are critical are, can we observe that temperature is directly related to CO2 levels and after hundreds of billions have been spent over the last 30 years, the answer is no. Then, is the planet warming at all and the answer is also no.
So why does the professional opinion of meteorologists matter anyway? There is no warming. There is no correlation with CO2. There is little ‘old’ CO2 in the air. The argument is broken at so many points, why would anyone believe it, let alone a climate professional? So the real question is why anything like half of career meteorologists go along with what is now a preposterous concept.
41
The education system.
Remember ‘Global Warming’ has been running since Maurice Strong warned of it at the First Earth Summit in 1972. Greenpeace and WWF were very active on campus back then. (Heck I was a member of Greenpeace, Sierra Club and WWF back then,)
People who graduated college in 1972 are now retiring. It amazes me that nearly have have resisted.
20
Check Table 1 of the AMS study
Upper left hand cell 78% mostly human
3rd row last column – 5% ascribe global warming to mostly natural causes.
13
Jack Dale,
Oh wow, many people have opinions that agree with a consensus — so what?
30
Th upper left corner is informed opinion.
14
So you agree it just an opinion. Informed or otherwise it is just an opinion.
Opinions are NOT science.
30
I don’t understand the chart about question 1a. The question was “What fraction of global warming since the mid-20th century can be attributed to human induced increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations?”
And 17.1% said over 100%? More than 100% of the warming was caused by GHGs? I don’t get it.
Can someone explain that to me?
61
Eric L. Hanson,
It’s because of the way the question and answers were phrased.
The result of this phrasing is that aerosol cooling only kicks in after 100% warming due to human activities. Ludicrous.
Abe
00
I might be anticipating a future post on the full survey, but the responses to question 2a are revealing.
Skeptical Science might be total junk, but it does have a temperature trend calculator to determine the answers that are clearly wrong.
There is no data set that shows that temperature trends were slightly higher in the past decade, nor that they were the same as previous decades. So the 36.5% and 9.4% of respondents who gave these answers are wrong on the basic statistical measure for global warming.
111
Nice catch.
It would seem that 36.5% and 9.4% (= 45.9%) of the respondents answering the survey did not have their brains engaged or were unfamiliar with climate science.
Neither gives you warm fussy feelings about the people whose work is being used to set far reaching political policy.
81
An alternative explanation is that climate scientists believe in the a priori truths of the climate models. These tell us that the temperature rise in the last decade had to be greater than in the previous decades. The measured data has therefore wrong. But do not worry, the data is being tortured, and eventually it will confess the truth.
91
That is even worse.
Deny the observational data in favor of a model. That type of thinking puts us back to the times of Galileo.
41
On of the premier temperature data torturers is Dr Kevin Cowtan. The latest attempt was highlighted yesterday by Bishop Hill.
30
The survey question made specific mention of the impact of CO2. Would climate scientists, whatever that means, have enough knowledge about the behaviour of CO2 in the atmosphere to be able to offer a meaningful answer? Surely scientists with a background in thermodynamics and the physics of gases would be a more appropriate group of respondents? Where are these scientists when we need them?
101
Unfortunately who controls the debate? Actually what debate? Warmist scientists don’t want to argue any points. How can you have debate when those opposite refuse? The media like their ABC refuse to have so called skeptics on their media to argue any points. When their ABC have discussions on global warming, it’s 100% consensus. Contrary arguments are not entertained, no balance in the discussion. But it’s generally through out the MSM. What we need is skeptics who are regulars on media to throw in a few points on global warming, even if the subject is vastly different. This is what the leftards do, throw in insults or comments on something else just to throw people off their argument. We don’t need to insult like the leftards do just to crack a laugh, just throw in a line, like how many low lying countries have drowned so far? The arctic still has ice. New York is not under water. They won’t debate, we need media personalities to undermine that.
141
Paul @ #31
If Paris is a bust and there is no chance of that being admitted for a week or more after Paris but then the post mortems will begin in ernest.
If the much ballyhooed agreement gets up that is in the works and it seems to be the only way now that the Paris gigolos will get their custom, it allows everybody to set their own amount of emissions, their own time to meet that target, their own time when they will begin to reduce emissions and their own way of meeting their own target etc , India, China, probably Russia as its all a western plot to ring fence Russia, possibly SE Asian nations like Indonesia and maybe like Kyoto even the Americans won’t sign if Congress and the Senate aren’t happy, unless all of them can get that freedom to act as they wish and when they wish and how they wish and ultimately IF they wish.
If that happens then even most of the MSM will see in time that it was all just a big conn job and they are flogging the proverbial dead horse and it is time to move on to the next bit of yellow journalism.
The public appear to getting fairly sick of the whole thing as they have mostly switched off when it comes to pushing the global warming barrow and that is starting to show in the surveys.
There comes a time when even the MSM gives up flogging a dead horse and that time is drawing near at a fairly fast gallop with only lots of Paris produced climate strychnine and climate cocaine being injected into that increasingly decrepit old climate nag is keeping it going.
But it no longer makes that 25 year old nag get up and gallop the way it did when it first came to the notice of the climate punters.
And the new class of younger punters arriving on the scene just shake their heads and move on. “Dat sure ain’t our horse” will be their casual dismissal. “Its yours!”
“We’ve got other horses to get excited over and to burn our surplus cash on.”
And the media will wonder off to new pastures and new disasters and new yellow journalism capers and the world will continue to turn on its axis and daylight and dark shall not cease and mankind will find yet another fable of highly dubious origin to frighten the c**p out himself with all over again.
100
Over 500 pages of debate: 3 skeptics, 3 warmists.
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf
15
The old 97 per cent,
Though false, its purpose was meant,
As a powerful sign,
To get countries in line,
To fulfil U.N.’s global intent.
221
I’m not sure I agree.
IMHO sceptics don’t need an alternative hypothesis to be relevant. The sceptics role is to test and provide critical analysis of AGW . . the alternative hypothesis. That’s the whole point.
Warmists at least partially justify their AGW hypothesis on the basis that sceptics haven’t come up with something better.
What they don’t want to concede is that the null hypothesis prevails. If sceptics were to offer an alternative hypothesis, that would legitimise their notion that there is somehow a competition of ideas.
However, if/when, say David’s solar hypothesis offers a better explanation than the worn out CO2 bogyman, then that is surely a more coherent explanation of the null hypothesis, no?
Anyway . . perhaps it’s a fine point but you know how these guys like to control the language.
131
Kuhn of course has it wrong. The null Hypothesis is that all Climate Change is natural. It is up to the ClimAstrologists to PROVE their conjecture that humans influence climate and to what degree.
Since IPCC ClimAstrology ONLY looks at human influence and doesn’t even bother with the knowns much less the unknown unknowns, they haven’t even advanced to first base yet which is gathering as much data as possible before advancing a theory to be tested with comparison to reality.
ClimAstrology flunked that one too with their failed models in the recent report. Then there is their statements on how long the temperature has to fail to increase before their conjecture is falsified.
1. Prof. Phil Jones saying in the Climategate emails – “Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.” Also see: interview with Judith Curry and Phil Jones
2. Ben Santer in a 2011 paper “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.” link
3. The NOAA falsification criterion is on page S23 of its 2008 report titled The State Of The Climate
4. “we are looking at no changes in temperature over a period longer than the 10 years” that is what James Hansen once said would show the models wrong.
So the falsification criteria is 15 years to 17 years. That is why we start at the present and count backwards. Once we hit 17 years The Goose is Cooked. Unfortunately the Goose seems to be a zombie and keeps rising from the dead.
Anyone have silver bullets, garlic and a wooden stake?
101
I have an honest, non-satirical question.
What defines a “climate scientist” to enable them to be included in surveys such as this?
50
The sample was well-selected. From the report:
“Respondents were selected on the basis o f a few criteria. The first criterion was having authored articles with the key words ‘global warming’ and/or ‘global climate change’, covering the 1991 – 2011 periods, via the Web of Science (~6000 names). Another criterion was the inclusion in the climate scientist database assembled by Jim Pall (~2000 names). Names were also derived from surveying the recent climate science literature (~500 names). Prall’s data base includes signatories to public statements disapproving of mainstream climate science (~200 names). They were included in our survey to ensure that the main criticisms of climate science would be included. This last group amounted to almost 5% of the total number of respondents, about half of whom only published in the gray literature on climate change.”
[Thanks for finding it and for your work analyzing the paper. – Jo]
161
“…What defines a “climate scientist” to enable them to be included in surveys such as this?”
………….
A “Climate Scientist” is someone who writes a work with the word ‘Global warming’ or equivalent in it and that work makes in through the CAGW peer-review gate keepers.
In other words a “Climate Scientist” is pre-selected for belief in CAGW. That means this survey is a real eye opener.
101
“Only 43% of climate scientists agree with the IPCC “95%” certainty..”
But 100% of government-funded scientists do. Maybe, I don’t know for sure, I just made that stat up on the spot, like the people who have told us for decades that ten percent of the population is “gay” (we know now it’s maybe 1%) or that 97% of all “climate scientists” lie that’s been circulating. Seems like my numbers are as good as anyones.
What’s that old expression? Five out of four people don’t really understand statistics?
111
Well, 10 out of 4 people are dyslexic anyway.
If there is no distinction of the term “Climate Scientist, between those who study the purported affects of global warming based on the wrong IPCC model mean (I.E. in this drought these birds suffered, therefore birds will suffer, frogs will get smaller, or frogs will get bigger, etc) and those atmospheric specialists who study the “causes” of global warming, then the survey is useless, and meaningless for policy.
Likewise if the “C” is left out of any question regarding CAGW, then it is meaningless for policy. I think humans contribute to climate change. I think CO2 is, via massive observational evidence, net beneficial.
I have yet to see any consensus test meet the above criteria necessary to be relevant to CAGW policy.
00
Thanks for the note about my post. Your graphic is brilliant. I wish I had thought of that.
For those who don’t recall, it contrasts with the many graphs showing other versions of the consensus among climate scientists. My favorite is from The Consensus Project:
100
The UN political cabal understands that the science charade can keep going a little longer, but it is putting in place insurances to mitigating against lasting damage, hence the scramble to ensure all governments are signed-up to pledges. No matter what the polls say about the beliefs of the scientists, the real matter is building a UN controled political consensus.
Hence, so often, reluctant politicians are publically flattered by the UN when they do what the UN requires, or are loudly and publically rebuked when they do not. Lots of publicity is generated for political commitments and understandings made, ensuring that everyone knows that there is ‘no turning back’ from these pledges. The pledges offer no chance for later renegotiations, regardless of what any nations’ populous would want. They are a one-way ticket events only.
Political consensus is a powerful tool, even if its foundations are rotten, the strength is maintaining the structure no matter the cost. And the strength is fed by keeping the charade going, whisking the propaganda, beating the drum, laying more levies and taxes on Western Nations.
Slowly the UN elists will move the ‘Climate Change’ stance, pulling away from wanting to know absolute scientific fact, and towards ensuring the policts and the politicians are not embarrassed or left wiping egg from their faces. Emphasizing the feelgood factors of building new monetary authority for redistribution from rich nations to poor nations, publicizing the gains made for very expensive schemes that Western Industrialized Nations have to fund. Ensuring commitments to Adgenda 21 are kept.
Slowly, slowly the UN’s goal of ‘One World Order’ shall be complete.
141
I hope that you climate change deniers have a Plan B or at least live on high ground in the north west.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
(Insult, innuendo, post a link without explanation, and no reply to the post itself) CTS
09
Yes, why DOES John Cook of ‘SkepticalScience’ and the 97% have to use identity theft in his ‘research’?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/23/yes-why-does-john-cook-of-skepticalscience-and-the-97-have-to-use-identity-theft-in-his-research/
“JimGord” quoting the global warming ALARMIST website “SkepticalScience” does absolutely nothing for your credibility !!
40
Anyone who argues by referring to the laughable skepticalscience [sic] has no argument. Look at the first “rebuttal”:
The linked article insists that the slow (and entirely beneficial) increase of 0.8°C that we have had over more than 100 years means that the “…temperature jumped abruptly…” The article provides no real explanation or evidence to support the “rebuttal”. There is really not a shred of scientific evidence to back almost any of what is said on SkS.
31
. .. Nothing like using a 2012 cherry picked survey to attempt to refute the 2013 Cooke study…
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
debunking climate change deniers is like catching fish in a barrel.
(Insults is your best argument) CTS
08
…..
If debunking is so easy then:
#1. Why are you slinging Ad homs instead of actual experimentally based facts?
#2. Why did Climate Scientist Gavin Schmidt runs in fear from a debate with Dr. Roy Spencer?
#3. Why is there now a unified refusal to debate along with censorship of articles and comments in the MSM
#4. Why did the BBC not only ban Realist articles but went to court to hide the infamous ‘scientific panel’ of 28 that recommended the banning and included such ‘scientists’ as:
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, British Petroleum International
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Claire Foster, Church of England
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
That is a panel of vested interest and advocates, ‘a Bootlegger and Baptist coalition’ and that is what is directing the MSM ‘message’
You do not have to know anything about climate science to smell the rotted dead fish when open debate is stifled and ad. hom. attack is substituted.
50
What’s up JimGord no reply. Just another silly little warmist doing a hit and run.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The child presses the shiny doorbell button then runs away laughing … why? Who understands a juvenile mind?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
60
JimGord,
You mean the review of abstracts, don’t you?
So fully two thirds of the abstracts reviewed by Cooke held no position one way or the other.
No position means not for and not against. By definition then, these two thirds do not endorse the AGW ™ position. So what did Cooke do with these?
He just threw them out.
And you talk about cherry-picking.
Abe
20
All the IPCC needs is one scientist to believe that there is a 97% consensus. The IPCC will simply label all the other scientists ‘deniers’.
141
I recall a lecture when I was undergraduate about a paradigm shift of accepted science. According the professor, and as I recall, it’s a multi stage process. First there is an accepted paradigm, but there’s always something that can’t quite be explained. Like a small crack that grows into a large fracture the things that don’t quite fit become more and more an issue as new data comes in and old data is better understood. Finally, the paradigm must be changed, but there will be great resistance. Those who make alternative proposals or even point out the inconsistencies will be vilified by the scientific community at large. Finally after much contention and debate, then will come the required shift of the paradigm.
The entire notion that the “science is settled” is silly.
111
https://i0.wp.com/3.bp.blogspot.com/-7BTnRqeqVxo/Usw2ugazZ8I/AAAAAAAA2Vw/Up68eQgj6Aw/s320/mother_nature_denies_global_warming.jpg
The 18 years of no warming should have hammered a crack although I am not sure a glacier sitting on Chicago will change some minds.
This March a new World Record Snowfall was set in Capracotta, Italy, there was 10 feet of snow on Passolanciano, and Popoli was buried under six feet of fresh snow. Abruzzo in Valle Castellana had the snowiest winter ever and it was still snowing in Italy (and Spain) in late May. Did this phase the Pope? Did he take it as a sign from the heavens? Did he even listen to the skeptic side – NOPE.
111
Not surprising as only AGW is useful to those with some kind of agendas.
50
I meant to only bold the A of AGW. Will know how to next time.
40
In climate science the hiatus is a crack that keeps getting bigger, yet they clutch at straws and say its because of aerosols.
Ultimately global cooling will bring the edifice down, possibly within a couple of years from now.
100
I sure hope so el gordo. Unfortunately it looks like we are headed for a strong El Nino and so far the summer here on the Mid-Atlantic near DC has been warmer than the last few years.
I am really hoping for a nice cold snowy winter in the EU especially in December in Paris.
50
Dave the way I see it panning out, the 2015-16 El Nino will spike the temperatures like before, but in the aftermath of this one the temperatures will fall much further.
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ScreenHunter_10030-Jul.-30-09.22.gif
All we need for a paradigm shift is a drop of 0.5 C and no recovery from there.
50
From a scientific standpoint that might be a reasonable expectation, but this issue is so politicized.
60
The political situation in the States and Europe is unfortunate, while in Oz we have a sceptical government under restraint, so the coming paradigm shift should have widespread political ramifications.
60
Greetings Dave I. T. S. and el gordo:
Mark from Wyoming here. I’ve been watching the WUWT ENSO meter closely, and while I do not ” D * N Y ” that there is an El Nino (and likely will be one for the rest of this year), that pool of cool water (about 200 m depth) in the eastern Pacific has led me to make this forecast for the state of ENSO, and its effect upon the western US where I live:
viz., the ENSO will shift suddenly, which will cause the Missouri basin to be unseasonably cold this winter, and snowfall will be well below normal (colder air can hold less precipitable moisture). I do not/can not say this will be in time for Paris, but sixty years of watching Western US weather has given me a basis to see patterns and signs. This is the third summer in a row that my location has NOT exceeded 37 degrees C, which is unusual. Fall may very well start warm and wet, but sometime this winter, Leroux’s ‘mobile polar highs’ will come quickly and often.
And do I fear being wrong? Hell NO!! I would love to be wrong! But, on the off chance that this proves to have some validity, remember you saw it here first, the end of July for me, the beginning of August for Jo and company.
Regards,
Mark H.
50
Thanks Mark, good projection.
A La Nina can be expected to follow this El Nino and world temperatures should begin to fall after that.
50
Every one seems to forget that an El Nino is when the ocean discharges bucket loads of the heat it has been accumulating.
40
It looks like Solar Cycle 24 is now on the downhill slide:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression
My notes show around here in 2004, a couple years after cycle 23 peaked, it was very hot (temps 95F – 100F and above or 35C -38C) Since then we have barely seen 90 to 95 for a few days except for this summer which has still been ~ 5F or 2C cooler than 2004.
(With all the temperature adjusting I have been keeping track of the original local temps.)
That drop of 0.5 C is about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way back down to Little Ice Age temperatures depending on the reference.
Here is Tony Brown’s graph hosted at Judith Curry’s website:
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/slide1.png?w=500&h=375
Full article:
judithcurry(dot)com/2015/02/19/the-intermittent-little-ice-age/
I think that even if the temperature does not drop, we in the North Hemisphere are going to see a lot more snow and a lot more storms dumping huge amounts within a short time period. As the jets go meridional the edge where the cold Arctic air collides with moist warm tropical air is going to see a lot of snow. All you have to do is look at the glaciation pattern during the Wisconsin ice age and you have a good idea of where the snow will be. The Mid-West to East-Coast of the USA, Scotland, Scandinavea and north-western Siberia are the areas that were buried. Much of the rest was steppe-tundra and polar desert.
(wwwDOT)esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html#maps
iceagenow does a good job of complying the cold weather stories from around the world that the lame stream media buries. It would be interesting to track them on a map and compare to the glacial reconstruction maps at the above URL
71
Since I do not expect the MSM to report this, here is some sad Australian news.
Australia – Cold kills abnormally high number of lambs
Alternate source: http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-23/lamb-mortality-after-the-snow/6640748
70
What solar scientists is predicting the next minimum will result in cooling?
The scientist who make the presentation to the NAS made no such claim.
“In the press release, we didn’t say anything about climate change,” Valentina Zharkova told USA TODAY. “My guess is when they heard about Maunder minimum, they used Wikipedia or something to find out more about it.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar minimum
Sarah Ineson, Amanda C. Maycock, Lesley J. Gray, Adam A. Scaife, Nick J. Dunstone, Jerald W. Harder, Jeff R. Knight, Mike Lockwood, James C. Manners & Richard A. Wood
Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7535 doi:10.1038/ncomms8535
Received 23 May 2014 Accepted 14 May 2015 Published 23 June 2015
Abstract•
Any reduction in global mean near-surface temperature due to a future decline in solar activity is likely to be a small fraction of projected anthropogenic warming. However, variability in ultraviolet solar irradiance is linked to modulation of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations, suggesting the potential for larger regional surface climate effects. Here, we explore possible impacts through two experiments designed to bracket uncertainty in ultraviolet irradiance in a scenario in which future solar activity decreases to Maunder Minimum-like conditions by 2050. Both experiments show regional structure in the wintertime response, resembling the North Atlantic Oscillation, with enhanced relative cooling over northern Eurasia and the eastern United States. For a high-end decline in solar ultraviolet irradiance, the impact on winter northern European surface temperatures over the late twenty-first century could be a significant fraction of the difference in climate change between plausible AR5 scenarios of greenhouse gas concentrations.
24
RUSSIAN scientists. But then the Russians have a vested interest in getting the climate predictions RIGHT or they starve to death.
70
And let’s not forget David Archibald, his prediction is holding up.
40
Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University
Russian name, British scientist
04
The point is Jack, solar minimums do produce a drop in temperature. Zharkova may not have spelled it out, the sun is the main driver of our earthly climate.
40
In early 2012, Abdussamatov, the head of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, predicted the onset of a new “mini-ice age”
David DuByne created a short video listing the scientists predicting a fall in temperature.
The listing of the references in the video:
Scientist List 1-8 http://spaceandscience.net/id4.html
Scientist List 9-15 http://spaceandscience.net/id66.html
30
‘…a scenario in which future solar activity decreases to Maunder Minimum-like conditions by 2050.’
Most of the punters have their money on 2030 for the next Minimum, it may take a couple of centuries to reach Maunder conditions.
50
el gordo
You might wish to check some of your assertions with solar scientists.
A meta analysis of the role of solar activity from the Stanford Solar Center.
A recent review paper, put together by both solar and climate scientists, details these studies: Solar Influences on Climate. Their bottom line: though the Sun may play some small role, “it is nevertheless much smaller than the estimated radiative forcing due to anthropogenic changes.” That is, human activities are the primary factor in global climate change.
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/2009RG000282.pdf
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cosmic rays, solar activity and the climate
OPEN ACCESS FOCUS ON HIGH ENERGY PARTICLES AND ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES
T Sloan and A W Wolfendale 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 045022
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/045022
Abstract
Although it is generally believed that the increase in the mean global surface temperature since industrialization is caused by the increase in green house gases in the atmosphere, some people cite solar activity, either directly or through its effect on cosmic rays, as an underestimated contributor to such global warming. In this letter a simplified version of the standard picture of the role of greenhouse gases in causing the global warming since industrialization is described. The conditions necessary for this picture to be wholly or partially wrong are then introduced. Evidence is presented from which the contributions of either cosmic rays or solar activity to this warming is deduced. The contribution is shown to be less than 10% of the warming seen in the twentieth century.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Small influence of solar variability on climate over the past millennium
Andrew P. Schurer, Simon F. B. Tett & Gabriele C. Hegerl
Nature Geoscience (2013) doi:10.1038/ngeo2040
Received 02 August 2013 Accepted 14 November 2013 Published online 22 December 2013
The climate of the past millennium was marked by substantial decadal and centennial scale variability in the Northern Hemisphere. Low solar activity has been linked to cooling during the Little Ice Age (AD 1450–1850; ref. 1) and there may have been solar forcing of regional warmth during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (AD 950–1250; ref. 1). The amplitude of the associated changes is, however, poorly constrained with estimates of solar forcing spanning almost an order of magnitude. Numerical simulations tentatively indicate that a small amplitude best agrees with available temperature reconstructions. Here we compare the climatic fingerprints of high and low solar forcing derived from model simulations with an ensemble of surface air temperature reconstructions for the past millennium. Our methodology also accounts for internal climate variability and other external drivers such as volcanic eruptions, as well as uncertainties in the proxy reconstructions and model output. We find that neither a high magnitude of solar forcing nor a strong climate effect of that forcing agree with the temperature reconstructions. We instead conclude that solar forcing probably had a minor effect on Northern Hemisphere climate over the past 1,000 years, while, volcanic eruptions and changes in greenhouse gas concentrations seem to be the most important influence over this period.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The sun’s activity is in free fall, according to a leading space physicist. But don’t expect a little ice age. “Solar activity is declining very fast at the moment,” Mike Lockwood, professor of space environmental physics at Reading University, UK, told New Scientist. “We estimate faster than at any time in the last 9300 years.”
Lockwood and his colleagues are reassessing the chances of this decline continuing over decades to become the first “grand solar minimum” for four centuries. During a grand minimum the normal 11-year solar cycle is suppressed and the sun has virtually no sunspots for several decades. This summer should have seen a peak in the number of sunspots, but it didn’t happen.
But Lockwood says we should not expect a new grand minimum to bring on a new little ice age.Human-induced global warming, he says, is already a more important force in global temperatures than even major solar cycles. “
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
More recently
Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar minimum
Sarah Ineson, Amanda C. Maycock, Lesley J. Gray, Adam A. Scaife, Nick J. Dunstone, Jerald W. Harder, Jeff R. Knight, Mike Lockwood, James C. Manners & Richard A. Wood
Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7535 doi:10.1038/ncomms8535
Received 23 May 2014 Accepted 14 May 2015 Published 23 June 2015
Any reduction in global mean near-surface temperature due to a future decline in solar activity is likely to be a small fraction of projected anthropogenic warming. However, variability in ultraviolet solar irradiance is linked to modulation of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations, suggesting the potential for larger regional surface climate effects. Here, we explore possible impacts through two experiments designed to bracket uncertainty in ultraviolet irradiance in a scenario in which future solar activity decreases to Maunder Minimum-like conditions by 2050. Both experiments show regional structure in the wintertime response, resembling the North Atlantic Oscillation, with enhanced relative cooling over northern Eurasia and the eastern United States. For a high-end decline in solar ultraviolet irradiance, the impact on winter northern European surface temperatures over the late twenty-first century could be a significant fraction of the difference in climate change between plausible AR5 scenarios of greenhouse gas concentrations.
15
“We estimate faster than at any time in the last 9300 years,” said Lockwood.
The 8.2 kiloyear event is still 1000 years away, so I’ll follow this up.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
30
This is what Lockwood is referring to.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/image6.png
40
Well thank-you for reminding me of this fine Stanford paper. Thankfully these researchers do highlight some of the holes and shortfalls in knowledge of solar effects on earth’s climate, and solar science and research in general.
Here are *some* of the reported shortfalls I feel are important —
and
and that problems you seem to have with the ozone level is hightlighted here when they say —
So even you see a definite conclusions others may well see that there are (acknowledged) controversies and missing data to make a water-tight case. Indeed at ‘6.5.Further Research’ such things are stated, including …
Thanks for the reminder.
40
And so Max Planck’s view:
Science advances one funeral at a time
Einstein did never agree with Planck’s quantum theory, although said theory explained observed anomalies in Einstein’s general relativity theory (and this Einstein did acknowledge)
To my (uncertain) knowledge, quantum theory and general relativity theory are still not as yet unified (the Theory of Everything is delayed). The CAGW conceit is to push forward an hypothesis that effectively takes centuries to manifest, then demand instant, irreversible and damaging changes to counteract this unevidenced conjecture for a century or two hence
Not even the Einstein/Planck fracas had that element of puffery to it
70
That comment seemed to locate itself in the wrong place = meant as a comment to #40
10
Doesn’t matter. Nope, Not at all, Them thar 57%-ers are nuttin’ but pure, unadulterated, unabashed, Dee-Nyers, an’ ya know what that means, don’t cha? 😉
50
Yes Sirrah Bob!
It means another lover of Jazz. (Did you know Clam Chowder out of Silver Springs or the Jazz Harp Trio out of Boston MA?)
10
This article is a step in right direction but the results are far from satisfactory.
The main reason is that it includes not climate scientists who research how to deal with “man made global warming” assuming that it is a fact, exactly like the IPCC does.
A real survey should include only climatologists who study the reasons for climate change, and not environmentalists who want to propagate it.
30
Ok! … here we go! please don’t kill me! 😉
I’m 100% certain that human are responsible for global warming now called climate change. Here’s why:
1) A majority of ground temperature measurements are “polluted” by urban heat island effect or bad placement
2) We are adjusting the other good measurements to fit better with the “polluted” ones
3) We tend to ignore satellite measurements
4) We create new trend of sea surface temperature on bad data from boats, not designed to measure climate data
5) We create new data that was not measure from bad data of far away stations, even mixing ground and see surface ones
6) We created models based on the assumption that CO2 is driving the climate.
7) We defined “climate change” as human caused climate change
8) We are making extrapolated scary scenarios based on all the above.
So, you see, all those are human “caused”, we created the framework, the beliefs, the data, the models and the meanings.
So people not admitting that “climate change” is human cause… don’t understand any of the points above.
Does all this means ANYTHING for nature and the real world… NO!
So green extremist saying that nature does not need humans but humans need nature… In a way, it’s true!
Cheers from a fellow french Canadian skeptic!
291
Nicely put and a nice twist on Mann Made Global Warming. The type I believe in!
70
Merci Simon, bien fait.
60
Nice, Simon.
And then there’s the obvious clanger that, present company here excepted, most and typically the MSM seem unaware of.
‘Climate change’, the term de jour adopted by the UN in early 2000 to replace the inconveniently growing risk of being ambushed by a trendless interval in global warming. The term was pre-defined on the basis of indirect and direct anthropogenic influence. Unfortunately, the link I have used many times to demonstrate this intellectual skulduggery now results in the following message:
By deliberately conflating the term with a politically defined term, they stealthily introduced and reinforced putative anthropogenic causation.
However, a quick trip to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine reveals the following:
40
Thanks for confirming and documenting my point #7… will save this for reference!
The general population does not understand or know that “climate change” had been defined this way.
When people ask my questions about climate change, I asked them in return… tell me what climate and change mean to you…. then we can talk.
80
You can thank the GOP for the political use of “climate change.”
Frank Luntz Memorandum to Bush White House, 2002
“A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth.”
“As with those other issues, the first (and most important) step to neutralizing the problem and eventually bringing people around to your point of view on environmental issues is to convince them of your sincerity and concern.” Once you can fake sincerity, you have it in the bag.
“Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”
“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.”
” It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming
1. “Climate change” is less frightening than “global warming.” As one focus group participant noted, climate change “sounds like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.” While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge. ”
“Straight Talk” Memorandum written by GOP consultant Frank Luntz [ he who invented The Contract With America in 1994]. The Memo’s ideas have apparently been utilized by Republican congressional and executive leaders since approximately the end of 2002. These pages 131-146 constitute the wide-ranging memorandum’s section on environment.”
15
You are under the impression that the USA has two parties. WE DON’T! We have a puppet show.
80
Haven’t read all of the comments yet but want to point out, if it hasn’t already been done, that there is indeed another “skeptical scientist who comes from a professional background in model development combined with major league maths.”
Do a youtube search for: freeman dyson global warming.
If he doesn’t have math credentials, nobody does. He did Richard Feynman’s heavy lifting in the math area. He was also involved in Oakridge Lab’s climate model.
80
Did anyone actually bother to read the study? It is consistent with Oreskes et al, Zimmerman and Doran, Andergg et al, Cook et al. It mirrors the AMS study by Stenhouse as well.
14
OH so it was a fudged study too?
I mean really do you think we haven’t looked at those studies and found the fudging?
For example:
The Cook paper was even worse, if that is possible and got completely shredded.
Cooking stove use, housing associations, white males, and the 97%
Jo of course has done her own shredding of these bird cage liers.
60
The analysis by Joanne Nova makes claims not supported by the abstract. Is that the fudging to which you refer?
26
The analysis was NOT by Joanne Nova proving yet again that you can not read and comprehend.
40
So she used someone else’s analysis without bothered to check the original source.
06
Is there an alternate skeptical theory in climate science?
Do we need one?
I see the immediate problem is to show that the alarmists are wrong and so get rid of these vandals who want to destroy the fundamental source of our affluence namely cheap abundant reliable electrical power.
To me (and I am indebted to a certain Dr Evans for his work) the urgent need is to empirically show that the CLIMATE SENSITIVITY values (both transient and steady state)used by the IPCC are too high.
Work to date is showing this is just so and even the IPCC have reduced their guesstimate values of this parameter.
Indeed values being determined empirically today show modal values of 2 or less.
Confirming these would bring the whole CAGW Edifice tumbling into irrelevance and we can get on with the job of adapting to Climate Change.
40
ReaOZ,
Have you looked at Dr. Happer’s new work?
I was fortunate enough to see a graduate level physics lecture on the subject of CO2 climate sensitivity by Dr Happer that was very well presented and was a presentation of actual real world data.
audio and slides of the physics lecture
http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/
SLIDES:
http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/UNC-9-8-2014.pptx
Slides 16, 22, 42, 43 and 44 are the critical slides.
A less-technical lecture for the lay person:
http://jlf.streamhammer.com/speakers/williamhapper090814.mp4
Dr Robert Brown, a physicist at Duke University also commented on the subject:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/26/quote-of-the-week-howler-from-the-world-meteorological-organization-what-warming/#comment-1648000
The take away from this lecture (9/2014) is CO2 ‘modeling’ is a mish-mash of theoretical equations and experimentally derived data. Where the Climate modelers missed the boat is in using equations for ‘line broadening’ aka the ‘wings’ where the current CO2 absorption ( at 400 ppm) is supposedly taking place. These equations produce results that do not match up to the experimental data. The lines are not as broad as theory would have it.
SEE Slide 22: Lorentzian line shape nor Voigt line shapes are correct in the far wings!
This was the point of the lecture.
Since the experimental data shows less broadening this flattens the logarithmic curve and essentially lowers the ‘Climate Sensitivity’ of CO2 for a doubling from 400 ppm to 800 ppm to less than 1C===> 0C
http://www.randombio.com/temperatures6.png
The other point is very slow partial radiative decay rates of CO2 molecules were determined by experiment. At the surface the time it takes for an excited CO2 model to radiate is ten times longer than the time between collisions so at the surface the energy is handed off via collision. At the surface the CO2 is also saturated which is why the line broading is so important and why the logarithmic curve is so flattened after 250 ppm. What was found is the curve is even flatter than the theoretical curve.
Dr. Brown also makes the same point.
What does this mean?
This means the energy CO2 absorbs from the earth is handed off to non green house gases increasing their temperature and adding to convection. Also answered in the lecture was my question about where CO2 energy is radiated instead of being handed off via collision. Experimental data shows barely any radiation at 11 KM and that CO2 is radiating in the stratosphere ~ 47 KM above the surface.
you can see that in this graph
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/images/stratospheric_cooling.jpg
The fact that CO2 is radiating above the troposphere makes the next point critical too.
The overlap with the pure-rotational band of water vapor eliminates most of the response from the lower band edge, and IR from clouds further reduces the response to more CO2. The true response is likely less than half the ideal limit or a doubling is less than 3.7Wm^2″
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You can get useful background for understanding the physics from WIKI .
SUBJECTS:
Mössbauer effect (recoil energy lost during absorption <===CRITICAL)
The Pound–Rebka experiment (VERY IMPORTANT because gases are moving randomly and in random directions)
Motional narrowing
Voigt effect
30
What’s happened to the “positive feedbacks” meme ? I haven’t actually seen that directly promulgated for some considerable time now
I mean, surely increased water vapour from even 1.3C temp rise (400ppm CO2) will cause a continuous positive feedback loop to fry us …
Or is it that a re-affirmation of the water vapour feedback is awaiting the next El Nino ?
[Gai, you know you are not the target of the mockery here. But I am curious to know if your reading has thrown up the “+ve feedback” scarey bear recently]
30
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the H2O positive feed back claim in a while. Probably because it is so easy to stomp on since Climate4you has lovely graphs like this one:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/TotalColumnWaterVapourDifferentAltitudesObservationsSince1983.gif
20
Some good new research highlighted by Dr Roy Spencer showing that climate sensitivity is much lower than claimed by the IPCC alarmists. Big response from the commenters to his blog.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/07/15-years-of-ceres-versus-surface-temperature-climate-sensitivity-1-3-deg-c/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/07/new-pause-busting-temperature-dataset-implies-only-1-5-c-climate-sensitivity/
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and this….
http://www.seipub.org/DES/paperInfo.aspx?ID=17162
20
‘Cloudiness changes could explain the recent stagnation in global warming.’
That would be a negative feedback as opposed to the positive feedback of aerosols.
It might be a little tricky convincing the brainwashed masses that a quiet sun allows more cosmic rays to bombard earth, increasing low level cloud.
Its the equivalent of watching paint dry, but a lot slower.
40
There is a paucity of experimental and empirical evidence to support Svensmark’s hypothesis.
A review of the relevance of the ‘CLOUD’ results and other recent observations to the possible effect of cosmic rays on the terrestrial climate
Anatoly Erlykin, Terry Sloan, Arnold Wolfendale
(Submitted on 23 Aug 2013)
The problem of the contribution of cosmic rays to climate change is a continuing one and one of importance. In principle, at least, the recent results from the CLOUD project at CERN provide information about the role of ionizing particles in ‘sensitizing’ atmospheric aerosols which might, later, give rise to cloud droplets. Our analysis shows that, although important in cloud physics the results do not lead to the conclusion that cosmic rays affect atmospheric clouds significantly, at least if H2SO4 is the dominant source of aerosols in the atmosphere. An analysis of the very recent studies of stratospheric aerosol changes following a giant solar energetic particles event shows a similar negligible effect. Recent measurements of the cosmic ray intensity show that a former decrease with time has been reversed. Thus, even if cosmic rays enhanced cloud production, there will be a small global cooling, not warming.
14
They will debate Svensmark for years to come, which is a healthy sign.
There is a new post up at WUWT (by Mike Jonas) from which I took this graph, it appears CO2 has a negligible effect on temperatures.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/clip_image0042.png
40
I have fourteen pages of titles and URLs for papers dealing with Cosmic Rays and climate.
Here is a recent couple from Russia. First one from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Stratospheric polar vortex as a possible reason for temporal variations of solar activity and galactic cosmic ray effects on the lower atmosphere circulation
(Advances in Space Research, 2014)
– S. Veretenenko, M. Ogurtsov
The second from St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia/
Atmospheric pressure variations at extratropical latitudes associated with Forbush decreases of galactic cosmic rays
(Advances in Space Research, 2014)
– I. Artamonova, S. Veretenenko
Here is one from Brazil
Evidence for cosmic ray modulation in temperature records from the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly region
(Annales Geophysicae, Volume 31, Issue 10, pp. 1833-1841, October 2013)
– E. Frigo et al.
And how about one from National Institute of Geophysics, Bulgaria?
Climate sensitivity to the lower stratospheric ozone variations
(Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volumes 90-91, pp. 9-14, December 2012)
– N. A. Kilifarska
Highlights
► An increased climate sensitivity to ozone variations is analysed. ► O3 driven model of surface T explains the greatest part of its variability. ► Impact of different factors on lower stratospheric O3 variability is estimated. ► Galactic cosmic rays have a greatest influence on O3. ► Mechanism for ozone influence on climate is described.
This is independent validation of the Qing-Bin Lu paper I linked below.
It looks like the horse (Is it American Pharoah?) is truly out of the barn and running flat out.
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” it appears CO2 has a negligible effect on temperatures.
Really – what keeps the earth from being a ball of ice?
16
The Sun plus an atmosphere plus water.
Solar energy plus amount of atmosphere determines the basic temperature. The oceans/clouds/water vapor/ice/snow modify that temperature along with the geography of the land.
From the University of Texas:
There is a lot more to it than that because the atmosphere has different molecules and atoms in it and O2, NOx and other species react with sunlight in different ways. As the full spectrum of sunlight penetrates the atmospher,e selected wavelengths react and the surface spectrum has not only lost energy, it has lost specific wavelengths of energy. These wavelengths translated into chemical energy or heat so that the temperature profile of the stratosphere and above reflects the interaction of sunlight and the various gases molecules.
50
Jack Dale,
Carefully type “Chaotic climate” in to a search engine of your choosing, take it from there.
70
I’ve been the author of four scientific papers on climate issues but I wasn’t surveyed, perhaps because I wasn’t brazen enough to provide the keywords ‘global warming’ and/or ‘global climate change’.
I’m not disappointed. The survey was far too subjective. The data I’ve analyzed indicates that human activity has negligible impact on climate, which means I’d be in the “0 to 25%” range, but there’s a big difference between 0.5% and 25% !
Also what is meant by “more than 100%” and “less than 0%”?
You might be impressed but I’m writing this one off as yet another junk survey.
100
consensus?
30 July: ABC Big Ideas: What Australians really think about the world
An expert panel considers and interprets the results and discusses some of the other findings that shed light on Australians attitudes towards the economy, climate, border protection, our political parties, leaders and neighbours.
Highlights of What Australians really think about the world, The 2015 Lowy Poll, National Gallery of Victoria, 23rd July 2015.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/what-australians-think-about-the-world/6651228
Lowy Poll director, Alex Oliver, first gives an overview – at which point the audience & some of the panel should have walked out, because the poll could have been of ABC staff only!
16 June: Lowy Institute: Alex Oliver: Lowy Institute Poll 2015
World leaders
From a list of ten world leaders, US President Barack Obama is admired by the most Australians (86% saying they admire him). US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ranks second (77% admire her), with the Pope ranking third (73% admire)…
Report card on the Coalition Government
Asked to give the Coalition Government a mark out of ten for its handling of eight foreign policy issues (where ten means the government has done an ‘excellent job’, five an ‘average job’ and one ‘a very poor job’), Australian adults awarded the government a barely average mark for ‘handling the arrival of asylum seekers by boat’ (with a mean score of 4.9/10)…
Climate change again features among our most striking findings this year. The Poll has now recorded three consecutive rises in the number of Australians who see global warming as a ‘serious and pressing problem’, confirming a decisive reversal of the downward trend in concern which we recorded between 2006 and 2012. In the lead-up to the United Nations climate change conference in Paris, most Australians expect their government to take a leadership role internationally on emissions reductions.
The 2015 Lowy Institute Poll, like the decade of our polling before it, is compulsory reading for those who are interested in Australia’s place in the world. I hope you find it illuminating…
Presented with seven possible sources of energy and asked which one ‘will be our primary source of electricity 10 years from now’, ‘solar energy’ is by far the highest-ranked option, 43% expecting this to be ‘our primary source of electricity 10 years from now’. Coal is selected by only 17%…
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/lowy-institute-poll-2015
LinkedIn: Alex Oliver,
Alex Oliver, Director, Polling, Lowy Institute for International Policy
Previous includes: Leo Burnett, UNILEVER
Education: University of New South Wales
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“…US President Barack Obama is admired by the most Australians (86% saying they admire him). US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ranks second (77% admire her)…”
…..
If you Aussies love Obama and Hillary so much we would be happy to give them to you permanently.
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Given the utterly corrupt history of the Chicago Democrats any outfit that is stupid enough to elect a Chicago Democrat to the most powerful position in the nation and does it TWICE needs a brainal transplant on a mass scale.
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Corrupt is the operative word.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA636.html
It is interesting that the owner of the website True The Vote, Catherine Engelbrecht, was targeted by the US government. At one point she had a very good listing of all the news on voter fraud by state.
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My reply is in moderation because I am talking about Chicago style politics.
Checkout what happen to Catherine Engelbrecht (True the vote) when she tried for clean politics.
[Our apologies, gai. I have no idea why this comment got stuck in the auto-moderator.] Fly
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Thank you Gai but no thank you! 🙁
20
Annie couldn’t you just convince them to go swimming/diving on the far north New South Wales coast? Maybe drop a very rare hamburger in the water by mistake too?
We tried this:
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1356/8225/original.jpg?w=600&h
10
The HAD 4 data is the choice of reference for the IPCC. But this data set only shows about 0.8c of warming since 1850.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/trend
Yet the Lloyd study found that over the past 8,000 the ice core record showed about 1C warming or cooling per hundred years.
So what is unusual about 0.8C warming after the end of a minor ice and covering the last of 165 years? DUH.
60
You can add the climate shifted abruptly from the Little Ice Age to the modern warm period in a decade around 1845 A.D.
50
unbelievable!
29 July: Economist: Climate Change: On the economics of the end of the world as we know it
In December talks in Paris involving more than 200 countries may result in a new agreement aimed at reducing carbon emissions. In the months leading up to the conference, The Economist will be publishing guest columns by experts on the economic issues involved. Here, Christoph Rheinberger (pictured right) and Nicolas Treich (at left) of the Toulouse School of Economics explain why quantifying the cost of global climate change is so difficult.
CLIMATE change puts humanity at risk. The Pope’s celebrated encyclical letter on the subject released last month emphasised this risk “for our common home”, arguing that “doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain”. But apocalyptic predictions are often made by religious groups. So, how serious is this claim?
Perhaps for the first time in history, there seems to be a broad consensus among scientists. They claim that our planet might face a frightening future if we cannot agree to take decisive actions here and now. Changes to how seawater circulates in the Atlantic, the melting of glaciers on Greenland and in the Antarctic, and rising sea levels might all result from inaction…
So, what should we do in the face of existential risks? …
Martin Weitzman, an economist at Harvard University, argues that the expected loss to society because of catastrophic climate change is so large that it cannot be reliably estimated. A cost-benefit analysis—economists’ standard tool for assessing policies—cannot be applied here as reducing an infinite loss is infinitely profitable. Other economists, including Kenneth Arrow of Stanford University and William Nordhaus of Yale University, have examined the technical limits of Mr Weitzman’s argument. As the interpretation of infinity in economic climate models is essentially a debate about how to deal with the threat of extinction, Mr Weitzman’s argument depends heavily on a judgement about the value of life…
A lack of reliable data exacerbates the profound methodological and philosophical difficulties faced by climate change economists…
The United Nations conference in Paris this December offers a chance to take appropriate steps to protect future generations from this risk…
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/07/climate-change
(MOST COMMENTING ARE NOT AT ALL IMPRESSED)
50
turned on the TV to watch the cricket last nite, but watched a bit of Keiser Report firt. Stacy was reading quotes from an unintelligible article by a Paul Mason in The Guardian – “The End of Capitalism has Begun” – which was about Mason’s new book – “Postcapitalism”.
unusually, Max was a bit lost for words, seemingly unnable to grasp the writer’s meaning but instinctively wary of Mason’s critique. (as with The Economist piece i just posted, Mason brings up Kenneth Arrow, whose bits Stacy quoted.)
i was shouting at Stacey (dear me), “read out the climate change bits”, because i just knew they would be in there.
she didn’t. here they are (warning! it’s novel length):
17 July: Guardian: Paul Mason: The end of capitalism has begun
Paul Mason is economics editor at Channel 4 News (NOT BBC4)
Without us noticing, we are entering the postcapitalist era. At the heart of further change to come is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy. The old ways will take a long while to disappear, but it’s time to be utopian
This will be more than just an economic transition. There are, of course, the parallel and urgent tasks of decarbonising the world and dealing with demographic and fiscal timebombs…
The modern day external shocks are clear: energy depletion, climate change, ageing populations and migration. They are altering the dynamics of capitalism and making it unworkable in the long term. They have not yet had the same impact as the Black Death – but as we saw in New Orleans in 2005, it does not take the bubonic plague to destroy social order and functional infrastructure in a financially complex and impoverished society…
Once you understand the transition in this way, the need is not for a supercomputed Five Year Plan – but a project, the aim of which should be to expand those technologies, business models and behaviours that dissolve market forces, socialise knowledge, eradicate the need for work and push the economy towards abundance. I call it Project Zero – because its aims are a zero-carbon-energy system; the production of machines, products and services with zero marginal costs; and the reduction of necessary work time as close as possible to zero…
If I am right, the logical focus for supporters of postcapitalism is to build alternatives within the system; to use governmental power in a radical and disruptive way; and to direct all actions towards the transition – not the defence of random elements of the old system. We have to learn what’s urgent, and what’s important, and that sometimes they do not coincide…
We need more than just a bunch of utopian dreams and small-scale horizontal projects. We need a project based on reason, evidence and testable designs, that cuts with the grain of history and is sustainable by the planet. And we need to get on with it…
(Postcapitalism is published by Allen Lane on 30 July. Paul Mason will be asking whether capitalism has had its day at a sold-out Guardian Live event on 22 July. Let us know your thoughts beforehand at theguardian.com/membership.
Postcapitalism by Paul Mason (Allen Lane, £16.99). To order a copy for £12.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.)
comments (3310)
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun
COMMENT: by jrbarnfield
For sure.
Turgid nonsense in fact.
The rambling of a typical middle class lefty who mistakenly believes himself to be a great intellectual who has discovered some profound new knowledge, but in fact has no more insight than your average taxi driver or pub bore.
of course, Mason himself is not short of work:
Wikipedia: Paul Mason (journalist)
Paul Mason is an English journalist and broadcaster. He was Culture and Digital Editor of Channel 4 News, becoming the programme’s Economics Editor on 1 June 2014, a post he formerly held on BBC2’s Newsnight programme. He is the author of several books, and a visiting professor at the University of Wolverhampton…
From 1995 to 2001 he worked for Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, on titles including Contract Journal, Community Care and Computer Weekly, of which he was deputy editor…
In August 2001, Mason joined the BBC Two television programme Newsnight as Business Editor. His first live appearance on Newsnight was on the day of the September 11 attacks in 2001…
In June 2007, Mason presented Spinning Yarns, a four-part series on the history of the cotton industry for BBC Radio Four. Mason appeared as the key talent in a new five-part BBC series Credit Crash Britain, first broadcast on BBC Two on 30 October 2008…
In August 2013 it was announced that Mason would join Channel 4 News as its culture and digital editor…
Mason won the Wincott Prize for Business Journalism in 2003, the Workworld Broadcaster of the Year in 2004, and the Diageo African Business Reporting Award in 2007. His report on the social movements behind Bolivian president Evo Morales was cited when Newsnight was awarded the Orwell Prize (2007)…
Mason was “father of the chapel” for the National Union of Journalists on Newsnight…
Politics
A former member of the Trotskyist Workers’ Power group, he responded to an interviewer from the London Evening Standard in 2011: “It’s on Wikipedia that I was, so it must be true. It’s fair to say I was a Leftie activist. What my politics are now are very complicated.”…
In a speech in 2015 marking the publication of Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything, he declared that “capitalism is dying”…
In the run up to the 2005 G8 Gleneagles conference, Mason was one of the first journalists at the BBC to be permitted to write a blog. His blog “Idle Scrawl” was later incorporated into Newsnight ’s “Talk About Newsnight” blog, which has now also been closed. Thereafter, he became the first person on British television to broadcast from within the online virtual world Second Life, where he has an avatar also named Paul Mason…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mason_(journalist)
i thought Mason is perfect material for Phillip Adams’ ABC Late Night Live program and, sure enough, he made two appearances in 10 days during April.
50
Too bad that 43% of these scientists believe that 1 molecule of CO2 out of every 2500 molecules of air is causing some sort of upset of the climate. Physics class must have been sleep inducing for them.
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They are probably the same folks who think that O3 at 3-10 ppm has an impact on protecting us from UVB.
Trace does not mean important. Selenium is essential in the human diet, but at 400 ppm it starts to become toxic.
25
O3 may be at 3-10 ppm but Oxygen (O2) is at 20.95% almost a quarter of the atmospheres and the chemical reaction is
O2 + UV light → 2 O
O + O2 → O3
And the reverse happens
O3 + UV, visible light → O + O2
which can go back to
O + O2 → O3
or
O + O → O2
So sorry, you struck out on that example.
Of course Ozone has more of an affect on the climate then CO2 does but I will let you go chasing the Brewer-Dobson Circulation, the QBO (Quasi-Biennial-Oscillation) Standing Planetary Waves, Polar Night Jet Deceleration, Radiative Imbalance and the West Wind Drift.
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Nice formulas. O3 is still only 3-10 ppm.
06
ozone is still not what is capturing most of the UV. It is the Oxygen (O2) at 20.95% that is split in to O by UV and then forms O3.
Of course weasel worded chicanery is what I have come to expect from CAGW Propagandists.
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Duh – The ozone (O3)layer is what blocks UVB. The hole in the ozone layer permits UVB to get through. If O2 captured UVB, there would be no problem with ozone depletion.
07
You do not know what the heck you are talking about.
STRAIGHT FROM NASA:
Read the first sentence carefully and pay special attention to the word forms It is the formation of ozone FROM oxygen (O2) that absorbs the UV.
60
Well done gai, that round goes to you.
Jack seems nice, hope he hangs around.
60
In what layer of the stratosphere is the UVB captured?
04
Same place as CO2 emits infrared.
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/images/stratospheric_cooling.jpg
60
If Google is your friend, then Google Scholar should be your best mate. I strongly suggest you get acquainted.
50
Remember we are only talking about a trace of a trace here. 1 molecule out of 2500 molecules of air is co2, as Anymoose points out, but only about 4% of these are contributed by man and it this tiny addition which supposedly tips the see-saw and causes thermal runaway of the planet.
PS. Evil Australians contribute about 1% of the 4% of the 400ppm.
60
Both Good comments above Pat.
Regards
Geoffrey Williams
40
Geoffrey Williams – thanx.
how about this one?
***USD$200 billion to USD$300 billion will be needed annually by 2050…and from ***public sources! hydro bad?
interview with Mary Robinson of the “Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice”:
29 July: Road to Paris: Germana Canzi: Q&A with Mary Robinson: What is climate justice?
MR: …Often the people on the front lines of climate change have contributed least to the causes of the climate crisis. This is an injustice which can only be rectified by swift and ambitious climate action, including reducing emissions to zero as rapidly as possible…
We must ensure that the transition to a zero carbon economy is just and that it enables all people to realise their right to development. This requires that the global community acts in solidarity and ensures that the necessary resources are available to allow all countries and people to make the transition to clean, renewable energy on the same timescale…
MR: We must all be alert to the very real possibility that the most vulnerable people could be left behind as we transition to a low carbon economy. A transition to zero carbon has multiple opportunities for people in developed and developing countries in terms of energy security, job creation and greater resilience but these opportunities will only be realised if that transition is fair, respecting human rights obligations…
There have already been well documented cases of human rights violations in the name of climate action. One very clear example is the forced displacement of people and communities for the construction of hydro-electric reservoirs. Food prices have also increased dramatically when food crops are used for ethanol, causing hardship in poor communities. Another potential issue could be the damage inflicted on communities currently dependent on carbon intensive sectors like mining. Without a plan for the future of these communities – a plan for a just transition – they will be exposed to poverty traps similar to those experienced by mining communities in the UK during the coal closures of the 1980s…
Q: What is the role of gender in climate change?
MR: Climate change exacerbates existing inequalities, including gender inequalities. As women and men are affected differently by the impacts of climate change, with women likely to bear the greater burden in situations of poverty, climate actions have to be gender sensitive…
MR: Those people in the most vulnerable situations typically live beyond the reach of conventional markets, and so require their needs to be met through other channels that can provide sustained social gains in the long term. For example, much of the necessary adaptation financing required to protect the most vulnerable communities will need to come from ***public sources.
Q: Some argue that we can’t solve climate change and poverty if we do nothing to stop population growth. What are your thoughts on this?
MR: I think this is too simplistic a take on all three issues. Poverty contributes to population growth because of lack of education, healthcare and family planning and population growth aggravates poverty. The challenge is to end this cycle. By enabling sustainable development, including better education and the empowerment of women – both central to ending poverty – we will reduce population growth…
Q: Could the current refugee crises in the Mediterranean and elsewhere – which of course have a variety of causes – be looked at as a first test of how governments, particularly in rich countries, will react to future climate related displacement?
MR: …The first thing developed country governments should do is ***provide resources for adaptation so that people do not have to leave the homes of their ancestors due to human induced climate change. This will require urgent and ***unprecedented levels of support – the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report indicates that the global cost of adaptation could be as much as *** $200 or $300 billion per year by 2050 – but it is right that the rich countries responsible for the problem help to protect the culture, heritage and identity of the most vulnerable communities and countries…
Q: What should EU governments be doing about it?
MR: EU countries, in particular, should recognise that climate change is already a “push factor” driving people out of some parts of Africa. This problem will get worse, so European leaders need to prepare a structured and humane response which both enables climate displaced people to resettle in European countries and helps their countries of origin to become more resilient to climate change
http://roadtoparis.info/2015/07/29/qa-with-mary-robinson-what-is-climate-justice/
posted on jo’s previous thread: Four in 10 adults throughout the world have never heard of climate change, according to a new Yale-led study in “Nature.” (those least aware included most African countries, India, Bangladesh)…
Egypt is in Africa:
26 July: EgyptianStreets: For most Egyptians, global warming and climate change are seemingly foreign concepts -ones that are confined in occurrence and consequences to faraway lands…
Because they are virtually non-existent concepts in the public consciousness, most Egyptians are unaware of the immense harm that can befall their country as a result of climate change and its potentially devastating impacts on Egypt…
http://egyptianstreets.com/2015/07/26/egypt-to-witness-grave-consequences-within-10-years-if-global-warming-endures/
About Mary Robinson’s interviewer from RoadToParis website: Germana Canzi
Germana is a writer, analyst and consultant with extensive expertise in sustainable development. She started her career as a financial and energy reporter, including for Dow Jones Newswires where she also published on The Wall Street Journal Europe. She then spent three years working on energy issues for the WWF European Policy Office. As head of energy policy at Friends of the Earth in London, she later managed a comprehensive research project with major universities to support the establishment of the UK Climate Change Act. She has also worked in international development, including for REEEP – Investing in Clean Energy Markets, and is currently at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, a London-based think tank.
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GACK,
I doubt that woman, Mary Robinson, has any idea of what goes into making the clothes on her back, the shoes on her feet or the car she drives.
A year living in a third world village without any electricity would be a very quick cure for her blindness.
80
Even living in a rural village in a “developed”, or even an “industrial”, Asian country, would do it.
10
29 July: American Geophysical Union: Robust comparison of climate models with observations using blended land air and ocean sea surface temperatures
Authors:
Kevin Cowtan, Department of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington, York, United Kingdom
Zeke Hausfather, Energy and Resources Group, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Ed Hawkins, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
Peter Jacobs, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Michael E. Mann, Department of Meteorology and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
Sonya K. Miller, Department of Meteorology and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
Byron A. Steinman, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Large Lakes Observatory, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, Minnesota, USA
Martin B. Stolpe, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitaetstrasse 16, Zurich, Switzerland
Robert G. Way
Department of Geography, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Abstract
The level of agreement between climate model simulations and observed surface temperature change is a topic of scientific and policy concern. While the Earth system continues to accumulate energy due to anthropogenic and other radiative forcings, estimates of recent surface temperature evolution fall at the lower end of climate model projections. Global mean temperatures from climate model simulations are typically calculated using surface air temperatures, while the corresponding observations are based on a blend of air and sea surface temperatures. This work quantifies a systematic bias in model-observation comparisons arising from differential warming rates between sea surface temperatures and surface air temperatures over oceans. A further bias arises from the treatment of temperatures in regions where the sea ice boundary has changed. Applying the methodology of the HadCRUT4 record to climate model temperature fields accounts for 38% of the discrepancy in trend between models and observations over the period 1975-2014.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064888/full
50
Consensus conflicted?
The Australian Antarctic Division has cemented the role of science in its work, choosing internationally recognised Chief Scientist Nick Gales as its new director.
Dr Gales’ experience ranges from tagging whales at the bow of a zodiac dinghy, to giving evidence in Australia’s winning International Court of Justice case against Japan over whaling.
Among his challenges, Dr Gales will be responsible for managing the $1 billion acquisition of a new polar icebreaker, after only one tender was presented in the bidding process, by Serco’s DMS Maritime.
He said he hoped to take a role in communicating to Australians the vital importance of Antarctica, particularly as a driver of the climate system.
. . .
So, here we have a committed greenie “responsible for of managing the $1 billion acquisition of a new polar icebreaker.”
Ship of Fools revisited?
Watch this ‘space’.
70
I must be missing something.
“It is extremely likely {95%+ certainty} that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. ”
The “95% confidence” appears to refer to the confidence interval around a measurement: measurement of half of the observed increase in global surface temperature.
In English we could say “We are 95 confident that the true value of half of the observed increase in global surface temperature is in the range …” The range is the mean of that measurement plus or minus twice the standard error of the measurement. That’s what a 95% confidence interval of a measurement is.
The questionnaire results concern the proportions of responses to a survey. It’s results would be reported like “We are 95 % confident that the true proportion of climate scientists who believe that 76% – 100% of global warming in the mid-twentieth century can be attributed to human … is 32.2% +- range”. Here the range is twice the standard error of the proportion.
The mean and standard error of the measurement (and hence its confidence interval) have noting whatsoever to do with the mean and standard error of the proportion of climate scientists holding an opinion.
From a scientific standpoint, confidence, in the sense of having an opinion, is completely irrelevant.
I’ve always objected to the intentional, I believe, use of “95 % confidence” to confuse the confidence interval of a measurement with the subjective confidence some group of people (“climate scientists”, whatever they are) feels about something.
50
Pat,
Welcome to Climate Science and the fine art of mangling the meaning of words.
Manfred and I use the classic example he has HERE.
50
Pat,
The conflation of 95% certainty is a reflection of consensual handwringing in political agreement, one reflective of political consensus and NOTHING whatsoever to do with the statistical CI of 95%……range unknown, associated significance value unknown. A CI is usually cited as a range and quoted with a p value (statistical significance) or perhaps in association with odds ratio.
It’s an easy trap to fall into, one deliberately created by the IPCC to enhance the appearance of their political authority. It has nothing do to with science.
40
CORRECTION posted to the references. In the refs I had the right link, but older version of a study on the same data. I’ve corrected that. This latest correct reference is “[1]”. The older one is now [2] (includes John Cook as an author. Hmm?) Plus I’ve found a helpful comment on the older study by Jose Duarte.
71
Here is the abstract of the paper:
“Results are presented from a survey held among 1868 scientists studying various aspects of climate change, including physical climate, climate impacts, and mitigation. The survey was unique in its size, broadness and level of detail. Consistent with other research, we found that, as the level of expertise in climate science grew, so too did the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation. 90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming. The respondents’ quantitative estimate of the GHG contribution appeared to strongly depend on their judgment or knowledge of the cooling effect of aerosols. The phrasing of the IPCC attribution statement in its fourth assessment report (AR4)—providing a lower limit for the isolated GHG contribution—may have led to an underestimation of the GHG influence on recent warming. The phrasing was improved in AR5. We also report on the respondents’ views on other factors contributing to global warming; of these Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) was considered the most important. Respondents who characterized human influence on climate as insignificant, reported having had the most frequent media coverage regarding their views on climate change.”
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es501998e
The consensus stands.
[The Abstract comes from the older Verheggen paper [2] not the newer Strengers paper [1] above in my corrected references list. – Jo]
13
There is no “new” paper. The report you cited is just a list of the questions and responses. The analysis of the data is in the peer reviewed paper from 2014. It’s conclusions stand.
13
Engineering science proves CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
The proof and identification of the two factors that do cause reported climate change (sunspot number is the only independent variable) are at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com (now with 5-year running-average smoothing of measured average global temperature (AGT), the near-perfect explanation of AGT since before 1900; R^2 = 0.97+).
The ongoing average global temperature trend is down. Monthly reported temperatures are being temporarily propped up by el Nino and changes to reported data.
40
Jack Dale says:
I think I will let Qing-Bin Lu of University of Waterloo, Canada answer that.
First he has a recent paper:
Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change
(International Journal of Modern Physics B, Volume 27, Issue 17, July 2013)
The paper ruffled the feathers of the Climate Claque and they sent a comment to the International Journal of Modern Physics.
Reply to “Comment on ‘Cosmic-ray-driven reaction and greenhouse effect of halogenated molecules: Culprits for atmospheric ozone depletion and global climate change’ by Dana Nuccitelli et al.”
Q.-B. Lu
Department of Physics and Astronomy and Departments of Biology and Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Received: 4 October 2013
Revised: 15 November 2013
Accepted: 19 February 2014
Published: 9 April 2014
OUCH!!! And it goes downhill from there.
80
Qing-Bin Lu seems completely unaware that both CFCs and HFCs are GHGs.
Do you have the same problem?
04
If you remove the “‘Unknown, ‘I Don’t Know’ and ‘Other'” responses from Question 1a – “What fraction of global warming can be attributed to human induced increases in GHGs?”, this is what you get:
More than 100% — 22%
76 – 100% — 41%
51 – 75% — 21%
26 – 50% — 7%
0 – 25% — 8%
Less than 0% — Less than 1%
No warming — Less than 1%
Therefore, the vast majority (84%) of the respondents said that more than 50% of the warming is attributed to human induced increases in GHGs.
That paints a slightly different picture, doesn’t it?
[And then you look at who the respondents are, nearly all, if not all of them are dedicated to finding human induced global warming and you realize that what you’re looking at is a biased opinion. Just a question to consider — how does one determine that 76% vs. 75% or 50% vs. 51% of something is caused by human activity in a case like this? Let’s see what readers think of it.] AZ
31
I agree – the survey shows a majority of the respondents agreed with question 1A. Not “less than half” as implied by the headline.
Trying to compare the survey results with the 95% confidence level in a later IPCC report does not make any sense.
06
I see that you still have your comprehension affliction, Harry. You should try meditation. That might help your mental focus.
The statement in Jo’s article said: “… only 64% agreed that man-made CO2 was the main or dominant driver controlling more than half of the temperature rise. But of this group (1,222 scientists), only 797 said it was “virtually certain” or “extremely likely”. That’s just 43% of climate scientists who fully agree with the IPCC statement. [My bolding].
41
Rereke Whakaaro.
I see you still like your ad hominems.
Explain to me why Jo Nova has tried to apply a 2012 survey based on the IPCC AR4 report to a statement made in the IPCC AR5 report several years later. Do people actually read the references?
And then explain to me how 66% who agreed with the IPCC AR4 statement then somehow became 43% – some magical mathematics going on here, I think.
A majority of climate scientists agree with the AGW scientific theory, get over it and move on.
04
But it is not valid to “remove” people from a closed survey, because they claim a) to have no opinion, or b) don’t understand the question, or have c) have extrinsic reasons for not answering. This is especially so, when they are supposedly people with some professional knowledge in the field.
The survey was restricted to the domain of people who had pre-selected themselves, by identifying as being a Climate Scientist (Presumably, a person who studies, or works with, some aspects of atmospheric physics).
The figures in the infographic tell the story. Forty three percent of people who identify as being a Climate Scientist (as above) unequivocally accept the “proposition”, as stated.
Fifty seven percent do not accept the “proposition”, as stated, but do so for a whole range of reasons that are unknown, because their reasons for non-acceptance were not probed by the survey.
22
Rereke Whakaaro,
We must have been typing at the same time.
Sorries!
Abe
21
Daria Kurkjy,
There’s no justification for removing valid responses. You don’t get a ‘slightly different picture’. You get a ‘distorted picture’.
All you’ve done is the same as Cooke did in his ‘cherry picked’ review of abstracts.
Abe
01
Daria Kurkjy,
Also, the numbers in your comment don’t match the numbers in the survey:
More than 100% – 17.1% not 22%
76 – 100% — 32.2% not 41%
51 – 75% — 16.6% not 21%
. . .
Are your percentages ‘homogenized’?
Abe
01
And so what if there was a consensus. Does 51% of the people actually think that a majority automatically indicates truth?
That is the scariest part of this whole “poll” business.
21
You are right. The appeal to a “consensus”, is no more than and appeal to popularity, and/or, the Bandwagon fallacy.
What Jo is doing though, is showing that the degree of agreement seems to be shifting, as reality starts to impinge on the desires of alarmists.
21
Thanks for the reply. Someone knowledgeable in debate and fallacy. Good to know they actually do exist. I have nothing against the article or “Jo” and was limiting my commentary to the subject of polling and using this opportunity to infer that the fallacy that is democracy when defending truth is just that; a fallacy. Polling is merely a tool that democracy uses to give the illusion of choice. There is no choice when they tell you what you already think. The collective is what drives democracy so why would it even matter what an individual thinks?
I think democracy sucks. Can you tell?
See you around, Rereke Whakaaro. I hope.
10
Jo does not claim that a poll determines truth — that is an argument that alarmists use because they are short on actual, verifiable facts which support their beliefs. This article simply shows that the usual alarmist claim of a “97% consensus” is untrue.
This statement needs some justification — on its face it appears to be meaningless. Most of us would say that honest polling simply tries to measure the opinions of large groups of people by sampling a subset of them. Are you talking about dishonest (advocacy) polling? It’s not clear what you mean.
Of course, we all want to know who they are, but more to the point: Why are you constrained to believe them? Why not review the facts and make up your own mind?
I think that a great many refugees from the various Collectivist regimes around the world might disagree with you here.
41
Bob Cormack,
The comment you’re replying to by Useless Eater was disturbing to me on so many levels. Occasionally, I get stuck not knowing where to begin and how to approach an appropriate response. That was the case here.
What you wrote does the job really well, and helped me to arrange my thoughts on the matter on clearer terms than they were.
It appears that Useless Eater has become disillusioned, like so many others, myself included, by the current state of democracy in general and American democracy specifically. It’s not how I was taught it should be when I was in school 40 years ago.
Abe
31
I’ll believe it when you emigrate to Cuba or N. Korea.
20
The Great Pause lengthens again: Global temperature update: The Pause is now 18 years 3 months (219 months)
‘The RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) satellite dataset shows no global warming at all for 219 months from October 1996 to December 2014 – more than half the 432-month satellite record.’ ‘The global warming that the IPCC had so confidently but misguidedly predicted 25 years ago has stopped altogether.’ ‘The Great Pause is a growing embarrassment to those who had told us with ‘substantial confidence’ that the science was settled and the debate over. Nature had other ideas.’
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/rss-data-rubbishes-hottest-year-claims/
November 19, 2014 Updated list of 66 excuses for the 18-26 year ‘pause’ in global warming
“If you can’t explain the ‘pause’, you can’t explain the cause!”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/11/updated-list-of-64-excuses-for-18-26.html
30
First lets do some math:
This is August 02, 2015. (2015.6 – to the end of July))
18 years and 3 months is 18.25 years
2015.6 – 18.25 = 1997.35 i.e. March 1997
You are aware that March 1997 is cherry picked because there was a huge temperature spike that month.
Yes, I know you used an old blog post; I am going by the first sentence, which I assume you entered.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As well Carl Mears at RSS is rather unhappy with denialists (his term) who misrepresent his data.
05
Last sentence should read “Above average temperatures are called warmer.”
03
“You are aware that March 1997 is cherry picked because there was a huge temperature spike that month.”
No it is NOT cherry picked..
It is derived from a back calculation.
Sorry if you aren’t competent enough to understand the difference.
60
Pure unadulterated sophistry.
You wear your denialist cloak well.
06
Jack, quit the ad hominem, it just make you look even more of foolish as you lose the argument.
Nobody here denies anything truly verifiably scientific. The general agreement is that climate always changes – or are you saying that doesn’t happen? Attribution for those changes is all this is about, and many here disagree with the idea that you, or IPCC, or anyone has shown that they can definitively differentiate natural variations from anything other cause.
21
No climate scientist will say that there is no natural variability; they are the ones who identified it. The IPCC has had discussions of the topic in each of its reports.
All was well and natural cycles did their part of keeping CO2 levels between 180 and 300 ppm for over 800,000 years. During that time human beings evolved and domesticated plants suitable to that environment. During that time natural cycles like the Milankovitch cycles, would trigger warming releasing CO2 resulting in a positive feedback.
Then in the mid 18th century we increased anthropogenic carbon emissions from 3 million tonnes per annum to almost 10 billion tonnes per annum today. We were the trigger that added CO2. That increased CO2 levels by about 40% to over 400 ppm, a level not seen for for 3 – 5 million years. Carbon isotope analysis links that increase to the burning of fossil fuels. Human emit 135 times more CO2 than all volcanic activity. Forest fires are part of the natural carbon cycle, burning sequestered carbon is not.
Some history for you.
The last time atmospheric CO2 was at 400 parts per million was during the ancient Pliocene Era, three to five million years ago, and humans didn’t exist.
– Global average temperatures were 3 to 4 degrees C warmer than today (5.4 to 7.2 degrees F).
– Polar temperatures were as much as 10 degrees C warmer than today (18 degrees F).
– The Arctic was ice free.
– Sea level was between five and 40 meters higher (16 to 130 feet) than today.
– Coral reefs suffered mass die-offs.
“The extreme speed at which carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing is unprecedented. An increase of 10 parts per million might have needed 1,000 years or more to come to pass during ancient climate change events. Now the planet is poised to reach the 1,000 ppm level in only 100 years if emissions trajectories remain at their present level.”
13
This is (perhaps unintentionally) hilarious.
No one denies that the climate is a deterministic system (to my knowledge) — that means that every response of the system has a physical cause.
Hence, if the system does something not reflected in the models, that means that the models are wrong. They might be in error, or merely incomplete (most probably both), but they are wrong and cannot be trusted to predict future climate.
To admit that the climate system has “natural variability” not present in the models is simply an oblique way of saying that the models are wrong.
But your presentation here is a little confusing — you wouldn’t be trying to say, perhaps, that because the IPCC itself has said (obliquely) that their models are wrong, that we should therefore believe in their models?
Well, of course your wouldn’t be saying that! So, tell us: How much faith should we put in the IPCC’s models?
****************
There is a strong possibility that even perfect climate models would be useless at predicting future climate — if the climate system were chaotic.
The first scientist who identified the climate as a chaotic system (still deterministic, but not predictable) was Edward Lorentz — also one of the first people to try modeling it with computers. (Lorentz was instrumental in starting the field of chaotic dynamics, as well.)
No one has yet proven him wrong.
20
Determining the significant trend goes back to the statements originally made by the warmists as to what temperature trend will falsify CAGW.
…………
1. Prof. Phil Jones saying in the Climategate emails – “Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.” Also see: interview with Judith Curry and Phil Jones
2. Ben Santer in a 2011 paper “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.” link
3. The NOAA falsification criterion is on page S23 of its 2008 report titled The State Of The Climate
4. We are looking at no changes in temperature over a period longer than the 10 years that James Hansen once said would show the models wrong;
So the falsification criteria is 15 years to 17 years. That is why we start at the present and count backwards. Once we hit 17 years The Goose is Cooked. We are now over 18 years.
By the Warmist OWN CRITERIA CAGW has been PROVED false!!!!
62
The standard time frame for climate is 30 years.
24
Jack Dale,
The discussion here is about temperature trends, not climate normals. In this case I’ll let Harry Twinotter answer you.
The discussion we had, Harry and I, was back in June. I intentionally posted quotes and links to the WMO Guidelines to guage his level of comprehension on the subject. It begins here for anyone who’s interested.
And again, Jack, please provide a link to your source material.
Abe
31
Source
https://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/climate/climate_data_and_products.php
Temperature trends are based on the anomalies from the 30 year mean (norm).
For example UAH data is based on the anomalies from the 1981-2010 (30 year inclusive) mean.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_July_2015_v6.png
13
Jack Dale,
Thank you for the link.
You didn’t respond to the central point of my comment, though.
The discussion here is about trends and you have quoted details about climate normals.
Abe
01
The temperatures and trends are established as anomalies from the norm. You cannot discuss one without understanding the other.
The current anomaly at UAH is +0.18C. That means the global temperature is 0.18C above the 1981- 2010 norm.
Read the discussion here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/category/blogarticle/
11
Jack Dale,
The fact that you felt the need to make this statement shows you didn’t go back and read the discussion I linked to. It’s also a diversionary tactic to avoid fessing up to the fact that a trend can be calculated over any length of time as long as it fits the purpose.
For example:
The temperature trend from August to February is a cooling trend.
The temperatusr trend from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM is a warming trend.
A non-warming trend lasting more than 15 or 17 years has been described by CAGW ™ proponents as sufficient to disprove the man-made, co2 induced, Global Warming ® hypothesis, because a trend lasting this long is, as NOAA puts it, “The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more,”.
Your attempt to obfuscate these facts by first claiming that ’30 year climate normals’ are the same thing as temperature trends is unacceptable. And then trying to weasel out of your ‘rookie mistake’, as Harry put it, by saying you need to understand one to discuss the other is also unacceptable.
But even beyond all of that. Let’s say I’m right and you do understand the difference between normals and trends.
Let’s take the entire RSS satellite record and compute a 15 year average global temperature (that’s a valid temperature ‘normal’), once a month, every single month, and plot them all (that’s a ‘trend’) on one graph.
Clearly the 20 or so year warming trend has now changed into a cooling trend.
The data comes directly from RSS. The starting and ending points are not ‘cherry picked’ because I’ve plotted all of the 15 year ‘normals'(mean temp).
Where’s the warming?
Abe
11
From 1994 to the present, no RSS data point is below the mean for the entire RSS TLT data base.
http://images.remss.com/figures/blogs/2014/rss_model_ts_globe_tlt_mears.png
Quick quiz.
From 1994 to the present, global temperatures are
A) Warmer than the norm.
B) Cooler than the norm.
This can be an open book quiz.
12
Jack Dale,
An arbitrary mean that could just as well have been been put anywhere else.
So what?
Abe
10
Do you not know what a mean (average) is? It is anything but arbitrary.
02
Just-A-Guy.
You were wrong about the climate normals, and I pointed that out to you. Be a good sport and get over it! 🙂
11
Carl Mears of RSS does explain the “pause”.
16
Jack Dale,
Carl Meres offers an opinion — not science, just an opinion. But in his opinion he does offer —
“I’ll conclude by reiterating that I do not expect that the hiatus and model/observation discrepancies are due to a single cause.”
I think that means, in his opinion he thinks the temperature ‘hiatus’ is real, and is in conflict with the modeled outcomes.
I wonder why he believe that the models should be correct?
60
Carl Mears offers an informed opinion, about his data. Did you bother to read the rest of his post?
http://www.remss.com/blog/recent-slowing-rise-global-temperatures
17
Yeah, I bothered to read it — but I’m not sure that Mears did. His arguments actually track closely with Jo’s and the rest of the skeptic community. Here is a summary:
The models are currently wrong, in that they overpredict temperature rise. (We can all agree with this.)
Mears thinks that there are a number of reasons that they might be wrong:
1) There are “errors” in the measured data. (Again, we can all agree on this.)
2) There are errors in the assumed forcings, such as:
a) AR5 let stratospheric aerosol concentration go to zero after 2000 (a sure way to prod the models into higher predictions), but it actually increased for the next 10 years “probably due to a large number of small volcanic eruptions”. Hence AR5 runs their models on an alternate world.
b) The models all assume that stratospheric water vapor would increase with increasing CO2 (the famous “positive feedback”), but it has actually decreased, providing negative feedback instead. (i.e., the models all get the actual sign of this feedback wrong.)
c) The Sun isn’t behaving the way they thought it would.
3) There is “random variability” in the actual climate not tracked by the models. (This one is my favorites: Presumably everyone thinks the climate is a deterministic system — that is, things happen because of causes. If the actual climate shows variability not included in the models, then that is evidence that the models are not modeling the climate correctly. An honest statement of this ‘argument’ would be: “The models are right, except when they are wrong — and we never know which is going to apply.” Note that this is also true of rolling dice, reading chicken entrails, etc; and any other possible way of guessing what the climate is going to do. It cannot possibly be a reason to believe that the current climate models are somehow “really” correct, as Meres appears to argue.)
**************
Since I (and most skeptics on the whole CAGW hypothesis) agree with Mears that the climate models are certainly wrong on many levels, Meres is left with only a very narrow definition for those he calls “deniers” (apparently a mandatory insertion for publishing mainstream climate fantasies):
This describes such a miniscule fraction of CAGW skeptics that it is effectively non-existent.
(Perhaps some, but certainly not all, of the “Slaying the Sky Dragon” types might fit this definition — most, however, would also credit other causes for the model’s failures besides getting the 2nd law of Thermo wrong.)
As far as the vast majority of skeptics is concerned, we are in agreement with Meres:
The models are wrong on many levels and cannot predict future climate.
It is Meres’ considered opinion, however, that we should consider the models to be “essentially correct” anyway (apparently in direct contradiction to 400 years of scientific practice).
His reasoning, if one can call it that, appears to be that future improvements to the models will allow them to have predictive skill.
I think we can all agree that when models demonstrate predictive skill, they should be taken seriously. The claim that this means that models which don’t demonstrate such skill should also be taken seriously is wishful thinking at best and possibly delusional.
51
Mears is not the only examining discrepancies
Reconciling warming trends
Gavin A. Schmidt, Drew T. Shindell & Kostas Tsigaridis
Nature Geoscience 7, 158–160 (2014) doi:10.1038/ngeo2105
Published online 27 February 2014
Climate models projected stronger warming over the past 15 years than has been seen in observations. Conspiring factors of errors in volcanic and solar inputs, representations of aerosols, and El Niño evolution, may explain most of the discrepancy.
++++++++++++++++++
Forecasting models are meant to be heuristic, not predictive.
This is an odd statement. How could Mears write it, but not read it.
++++++++++++++++++++++
14
He couldn’t — it was a weak attempt at irony. Here is the explanation for you:
Mears (as I point out and you don’t try to counter) actually makes the skeptics’ points for us — the models are non-predictive and wrong on many levels. Then, despite obliquely referencing skeptic blogs (he calls them “denialist”), he defines skeptics (“denialists”) in a way that might apply to a couple of dozen individuals (and essentially no scientists) who have written on the subject.
Maybe I should have said that it is obvious that Mears has never read any skeptical arguments, else he wouldn’t define them so strangely. Perhaps this is just more evidence that “Climate Scientists” live in their own universe and never even try to engage their critics in an ordinary scientific debate (which they always lose), but prefer simply making baseless smears.
***************
And now you also make a major Skeptical point:
Completely correct. And, what have we learned from these ‘heuristic’ models? Well, according to Mears, it is:
1) We can’t anticipate (and don’t even know) all of the inputs to the climate system. (Hence, “Random Variations”.)
2) An important feedback (water vapor) that was always assumed to be positive (amplifying warming from CO2), actually is negative — reducing warming from CO2.
If you consider the physics of the models (which Mears is certain is correct), then point #2 allows us to conclude that CO2 concentrations can not ever be the cause of dangerous warming — since the physics of the models shows that CO2 by itself is insufficient for such warming, but must be amplified by some strong positive feedback. This has been assumed to be water vapor increasing with increasing CO2, but the observation (according to Mears) is that water vapor decreases.
******************
Let me sum up the Skeptical argument for you:
A) CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) is solely a predicted crisis. It is not currently happening.
B) The models which are used to predict this crisis have shown no predictive skill, as admitted by some of their proponents (e.g.: Mears). You admit that this has never been their purpose.
C) Therefore, there is neither a crisis, nor a predicted crisis that demands an effective reaction. While climate research is important (as long as it is not captured by politics, a la Lysenkoism), it has produced no reason to act any differently than we have, very successfully, for the last 50 years: Continue to grow the global economy and use some of the produced surplus to improve the environment.
However, the Alarmist’s “argument” is:
D) Despite A and B, the Alarmists insist that we must spend huge amounts of money and modify the global economy in ways that are sure to have extremely dangerous consequences — even though the models (if they are believed) show such changes would have no significant effect.
If you know how one can logically get from A and B (which you and Mears agree with) to D, I would dearly like to know.
41
Bob,
With reference to your point A), I think you will find that the POTUS would not agree with you, and that is why he is calling for action NOW, before the meeting in Paris.
Observation: An uptick in urgency and forcefulness would indicate that there is a wheel loose on the wagon. The attitude of the POTUS would support your position, rather than that of Jack Dale.
30
Rereke:
As far as anything to do with science (or economics, for that matter), the POTUS is a complete ignoramus (a condition he shares with the Pope, apparently).
He is simply doing what his left-wing handlers tell him — trying to magnify government power over as many people as possible in the time he has left.
I expect it to backfire rather spectacularly sometime in the next two years.
20
Bob,
Yes, I am aware that the real power in America, lies with the person who types in the tele-prompter scripts.
The strange thing about the left-wing of politics, in all nations, is that they actually start to believe their own propaganda; and do so, in the time it takes to circumnavigate the thought bubble.
30
CHAOTIC CLIMATE
The present continent configuration, with the closing of the Isthmus of Panama and the opening of Drake Passage had a major impact on the Earth’s climate causing the present Ice Age. Yes, Jack the earth is now in an ice age, just in the brief periodic warm spike. You can see in this graph of the last five million years the switches from one ‘Strange Attractor’ to another.
If you look at the Wisconsin glaciation, between the last interglacial and this one you can also see these “abrupt swings” called Dansgaard–Oeschger events in this graph
Both of these graphs support the idea of the climate as a “Complex nonlinear multivariate systems… exhibit[ing] “strange attractors”
50
Sorry Dale but as far as I understand it saying —
“My view is that the subduction…” is to state an opinion. That’s all!
To say “What the measured data tells us is…” is just an interpretation of the observation.
And “By redoing the experiment with these parameters adjusted by the indicated amounts, shows that …” indicates that science has been performed but so far nothing may be proved.
All else is just opinion as shown by the very start of the Carl Mears of RSS quote you have above, it maybe informed by some degree but without validation and verification of science done, it is only an unsubstantiated opinion — PERIOD.
As I have said before opinion is NOT science. I have no argument with the people you quote, I have every argument with you stating some academics’ opinion as a kind of gospel writ. That from you is pure BS.
50
Bob Cormack,
Actually the IPCC tells us why the models will never be predictive beyond a very short time span.
The IPCC actually said in the Science Report in TAR:
Note the word PROJECTION. The IPCC switch from ‘prediction’ to ‘projection’ because they KNEW they can not predict climate. Therefore ‘95% certain’ especially in light of the failure of the model ensemble is a real laugh.
So we are going to change our entire civilization based not on science but upon someone’s estimate of future possibilities!
Mathematician and philosopher A.N. Whitehead about the use, or misuse, of statistics in climate science.
Models are not experiments, they are hypotheses.
Models do not produce data, they regurgitate assertions.
60
The deception by the IPCC is based on their knowledge that the climate is a “complex non linear chaotic system” yet the IPCC persists in leading the general public into thinking they can actually predict (not project) the future climate and on the basis of their ‘predictions’, we need to radically alter our lives and beggar ourselves.
It is useful to look at the mathematical definition (or lack of definition) for the word chaos
Dr. Robert Brown, a physicist at Duke University made this comment on climate, chaos theory and “strange attractors”
Here is a July, 2014 paper finding the climate is ‘highly nonlinear’
Synchronization of North Pacific and Greenland climates preceded abrupt deglacial warming
This is a good summation of the actual state of the science from Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography, University of London who also edits the Journal of Biogeography.
40
Yeah, I bothered to read it, and I judge that this florid opinion piece of semantic sophistry is attempting to cover over the embarrassing lack of coherence of the modeled world and the reality of the measurements made of this planet’s parameters.
20
Last sentence should read “Above average temperatures are called warmer.”
03
The Sun, sort of, but it’s much more than that: it’s galactic (at least) phenomena that also affect the Sun, which affects us.
60
And which galactic force would that be?
Cosmic rays, solar activity and the climate
OPEN ACCESS FOCUS ON HIGH ENERGY PARTICLES AND ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES
T Sloan and A W Wolfendale 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 045022
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/045022
Abstract
Although it is generally believed that the increase in the mean global surface temperature since industrialization is caused by the increase in green house gases in the atmosphere, some people cite solar activity, either directly or through its effect on cosmic rays, as an underestimated contributor to such global warming. In this letter a simplified version of the standard picture of the role of greenhouse gases in causing the global warming since industrialization is described. The conditions necessary for this picture to be wholly or partially wrong are then introduced. Evidence is presented from which the contributions of either cosmic rays or solar activity to this warming is deduced. The contribution is shown to be less than 10% of the warming seen in the twentieth century.
07
“…And which galactic force would that be?
Cosmic rays
……………
Climate sensitivity to the lower stratospheric ozone variations
(Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volumes 90-91, pp. 9-14, December 2012)
– N. A. Kilifarska
50
Climate sensitivity to the lower stratospheric ozone variations is not the area Dr. Henrik Svensmark is working in. He is looking at cloud nucleation not ozone.
This is his research:
Aerosol nucleation in an ultra-low ion density environment
(Journal of Aerosol Science, Volume 50, pp. 75-85, August 2012)
– Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, Martin B. Enghoff, Sean M. Paling, Henrik Svensmark
Response of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (> 50 nm) to changes in ion-nucleation
(Physics Letters A, Volume 377, Issue 37, pp. 2343-2347, November 2013)
– Henrik Svensmark, Martin B. Enghoff, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen
PDF of whole paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.5156v1
Which deals with the growth of areosols to the size (>50 nm>50 nm) where they facilitate cloud condensation
Highlights for the two studies:
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On October 2011, Jasper Kirkby reported that the largest particle they could produce at CERN was 2 nm; much too small for water droplet formation.
CERN has not replicated Svensmark’s studies.
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Do you have a reference for that, that you could share with us?
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http://indico.cern.ch/event/158340/material-old/slides/0
Page 27.
Further research at CERN was produced by Sloan and Wolfendale. (see below)
and
DOI: 10.1007/s00703-013-0260-x
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Henrik Svensmark, is not the only one looking at Cosmic Rays.
This one must really bite the IPCC ClimAstrologists. I am sure it was never included in the IPCC report.
Changes in cosmic ray fluxes improve correlation to global warming
(International Journal of Physical Sciences, Volume 7, Number 5, pp. 822-826, January 2012)
– A. Ollila
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Something a little more current
Are there persistent physical atmospheric responses to galactic cosmic rays?
OPEN ACCESS FOCUS ON HIGH ENERGY PARTICLES AND ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES
Rasmus E Benestad
Rasmus E Benestad 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 035049
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/035049
© 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd
Received 27 June 2013, accepted for publication 29 August 2013
Published 23 September 2013
Abstract
Variations in the annual mean of the galactic cosmic ray flux (GCR) are compared with annual variations in the most common meteorological variables: temperature, mean sea-level barometric pressure, and precipitation statistics. A multiple regression analysis was used to explore the potential for a GCR response on timescales longer than a year and to identify ‘fingerprint’ patterns in time and space associated with GCR as well as greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The response pattern associated with GCR consisted of a negative temperature anomaly that was limited to parts of eastern Europe, and a weak anomaly in the sea-level pressure (SLP), but coincided with higher pressure over the Norwegian Sea. It had a similarity to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in the northern hemisphere and a wave train in the southern hemisphere. A set of Monte Carlo simulations nevertheless indicated that the weak amplitude of the global mean temperature response associated with GCR could easily be due to chance (p-value = 0.6), and there has been no trend in the GCR. Hence, there is little empirical evidence that links GCR to the recent global warming.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/035049/article
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Also more current
Cosmic rays, solar activity and the climate
OPEN ACCESS FOCUS ON HIGH ENERGY PARTICLES AND ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES
T Sloan and A W Wolfendale 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 045022
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/045022
Abstract
Although it is generally believed that the increase in the mean global surface temperature since industrialization is caused by the increase in green house gases in the atmosphere, some people cite solar activity, either directly or through its effect on cosmic rays, as an underestimated contributor to such global warming. In this letter a simplified version of the standard picture of the role of greenhouse gases in causing the global warming since industrialization is described. The conditions necessary for this picture to be wholly or partially wrong are then introduced. Evidence is presented from which the contributions of either cosmic rays or solar activity to this warming is deduced. The contribution is shown to be less than 10% of the warming seen in the twentieth century.
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Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 1885-1898, 2010
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/1885/2010/
doi:10.5194/acp-10-1885-2010
18 Feb 2010
Atmospheric data over a solar cycle: no connection between galactic cosmic rays and new particle formation
M. Kulmala1, I. Riipinen1,2, T. Nieminen1, M. Hulkkonen1, L. Sogacheva1,3, H. E. Manninen1, P. Paasonen1, T. Petäjä1, M. Dal Maso1, P. P. Aalto1, A. Viljanen3, I. Usoskin4, R. Vainio1, S. Mirme5, A. Mirme5, A. Minikin6, A. Petzold6, U. Hõrrak5, C. Plaß-Dülmer7, W. Birmili8, and V.-M. Kerminen3
Received: 21 Sep 2009 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 13 Oct 2009
Revised: 01 Feb 2010 – Accepted: 09 Feb 2010 – Published: 18 Feb 2010
Abstract. Aerosol particles affect the Earth’s radiative balance by directly scattering and absorbing solar radiation and, indirectly, through their activation into cloud droplets. Both effects are known with considerable uncertainty only, and translate into even bigger uncertainties in future climate predictions. More than a decade ago, variations in galactic cosmic rays were suggested to closely correlate with variations in atmospheric cloud cover and therefore constitute a driving force behind aerosol-cloud-climate interactions. Later, the enhancement of atmospheric aerosol particle formation by ions generated from cosmic rays was proposed as a physical mechanism explaining this correlation. Here, we report unique observations on atmospheric aerosol formation based on measurements at the SMEAR II station, Finland, over a solar cycle (years 1996–2008) that shed new light on these presumed relationships. Our analysis shows that none of the quantities related to aerosol formation correlates with the cosmic ray-induced ionisation intensity (CRII). We also examined the contribution of ions to new particle formation on the basis of novel ground-based and airborne observations. A consistent result is that ion-induced formation contributes typically significantly less than 10% to the number of new particles, which would explain the missing correlation between CRII and aerosol formation. Our main conclusion is that galactic cosmic rays appear to play a minor role for atmospheric aerosol formation events, and so for the connected aerosol-climate effects as well.
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A review of the relevance of the ‘CLOUD’ results and other recent observations to the possible effect of cosmic rays on the terrestrial climate
Anatoly Erlykin, Terry Sloan, Arnold Wolfendale
(Submitted on 23 Aug 2013)
The problem of the contribution of cosmic rays to climate change is a continuing one and one of importance. In principle, at least, the recent results from the CLOUD project at CERN provide information about the role of ionizing particles in ‘sensitizing’ atmospheric aerosols which might, later, give rise to cloud droplets. Our analysis shows that, although important in cloud physics the results do not lead to the conclusion that cosmic rays affect atmospheric clouds significantly, at least if H2SO4 is the dominant source of aerosols in the atmosphere. An analysis of the very recent studies of stratospheric aerosol changes following a giant solar energetic particles event shows a similar negligible effect. Recent measurements of the cosmic ray intensity show that a former decrease with time has been reversed. Thus, even if cosmic rays enhanced cloud production, there will be a small global cooling, not warming.
Comments: 6 pages, 1 figure
Subjects: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph)
Journal reference: Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, 2013, 121, 137-142
DOI: 10.1007/s00703-013-0260-x
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Jack,
You are so busy hauling references off the web, that you are unable to answer a simple question. We were discussing the effect of cosmic rays (or particles, depending on the brand of English you prefer) in the condensation of water molecules into water vapour, in the atmosphere. I suggest you go back and read 69.1.3, digest it, and take a few deep breaths, before rushing off to find a whole lot of papers that agree about something, although they are not sure what.
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Everything I posted is relevant to cosmic rays.
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I have to get to bed but a quick look at #1: Are there persistent physical atmospheric responses to galactic cosmic rays?
The first question I would have is are they using raw data for their analysis or ‘adjusted’ If the adjustments are wrong (A large can of worms) then any correlation studies will be invalid.
An alternate correlation study:
Stratospheric polar vortex as a possible reason for temporal variations of solar activity and galactic cosmic ray effects on the lower atmosphere circulation
(Advances in Space Research, 2014)
– S. Veretenenko, M. Ogurtsov
(Russian Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg, Russia)
If I read that correctly the study you cite may not have taken into account the switch in sign,
#2. These are both correlation studies using someone else’s data while Svenmark’s is direct experimentation.
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Just to finish out the thought.
#1. If you look at the North American Ice Sheet-Wisconsin Ice Age and the similar one in Euraisa
#2. You can see the ‘polar vortex’ that has hit the N. Hemisphere the last couple of winters has a similar ‘shape’ Scotland and Scandinavia also got hit hard. This is due to the changes in the jets (more ‘loopy’) and the last study I linked plus Qing-Bin Lu’s paper on Cosmic Rays and ozone both show effects on the polar jets/pressure.
There are a lot of other papers that give bits and pieces of the picture but I am not about to dump twenty or thirty pages of my not very tidy notes on Jo’s site.
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gai
You may also enjoy this OPEN ACCESS report —
Evidence for solar wind modulation of lightning
by C J Scott, R G Harrison, M J Owens, M Lockwood and L Barnard
Now like all good scientific study this report lays out that it is not the last word on the subject, and there is still plenty to learn. It does indeed show that GCR affect the atmosphere but that is not its main topic of the research (which is searching for solar effects).
So solar winds may have very discernable effects on the atmosphere but very excited itsy-bitsy cosmic particle couldn’t, eh?
Of course they couldn’t because the climate modelers’ computer simulations say so (e.g. Cosmic rays, solar activity and the climate by T Sloan1and A W Wolfendale, cited above by Ms Dale.)
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You might give tomosmason a lesson “If you are going to play the game you had better know eho the players are.
From Mike Lockwood, one of the authors.
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Jack, I think you fail to understand, in science there are no sides to the truth.
You seem to think there is only one view that can be correct. Apparently you are one of those for whom the universe can only be in black and white, clinging desperately to the notion that you support the winning team. One day you may learn otherwise, I sincerely hope so.
You haven’t realized science is NOT about absolutes, it is about trying to gaining truth from nature. Humans will never know any absolute truths about nature we can only have our best approximations to build-up our fractured and faulty catalog of knowledge.
Rest assured I do not have a list of good scientists and bad ones. If you look back over some of my comments, on other threads and blogs, you will see I use all I can find. That even includes the like of Hansen and Mann, for both of them have put out some worthy science in their time. I find no problem quoting from Mr Lockwood’s research as it appears worthy. If he feels I misrepresent him here, I’m happy for him to reply, stating his reasons.
So from that perspective, I look at science reports from anyone. Yes, even so called warmist. And if any of them are upset with me quoting them sorry, but I will continue to, that includes Mr Lockwood.
Also note, even if the reports are written by the worst political advocate known, assessing their work is a useful learning process.
From this angle understand that you (aka Jack Dale) continue to teach; with your cherry-picked factoids, appeals to authority, ad hominems, with your diversions and digressions from the topic, etc, I learn. And I shall probably quote your banal words on other posts and blogs. Feel free to use mine, if you can stand the poor writtting (with all the grammer and spealing mashtakes).
So keep it up I’m enjoying learning from your mistakes.
Also I notice that you have not been here often, or if you have failed to note — I DO NOT WATCH VIDEO, OK.
Keep-up the comments you’re a laugh!
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The CLOUD experiment, noy anyone else, has not replicated Svensmark.
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this may or may not be an ad hom but that journal is truly discredited.
here is one review http://eprints.rclis.org/14576/1/predatory.pdf
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Gee Aye: “Author pays” journals are simply the free market responding to the capture and monopolization of the “Standard” journals by cliques of “Pal review” researchers — often those whose money is from govenment grants and who see this monopolization as necessary to defend their revenue stream (see numerous examples in the “Climategate” papers.
The main attraction of these (author pays) journals is that they maintain the fiction that “peer review” means anything. Fortunately, the scientific conversation is now moving onto the Internet (it has been for a while, but is picking up steam), where research can be published and criticized without intermediary ‘gatekeepers’ who get to decide what gets seen and what doesn’t.
Scientific inquiry and discussion is moving back to what it was 100 – 150 years ago, when “peer-review” only happened after publication, when others could read and comment on the paper. (Einstein’s papers were all published without review, for example. His 1905 paper on Relativity, ironically, wouldn’t have passed review, as it didn’t include any specific references to the previous work it built on. Today’s self-appointed (maybe) “True Science” gatekeepers would have considered it “junk science” since Einstein’s fellow physicists didn’t approve it before publication.
*****************
While the review process was initially justified by journal editors as a response to increasing specialization and volume of papers, the presence of a gatekeeping process has naturally also attracted those whose interests lie in controlling and limiting the conversation (re: Climategate again for specific examples).
While journals were expensive to produce, the gatekeeping function was unavoidable — but now that publication on the web is nearly free, we are thankfully getting back to a free conversation. Of course, the politically motivated would-be gatekeepers are running a rear-guard action (like, probably, Jack Dale on this comment stream), trying to maintain that the only science that you should consider is what groups of other scientists approve of (and please don’t look at any biases or vested interests they might have).
Ultimately, however, the claim that you can predict the future will be judged by your demonstrated ability (or failure) to do so. This is the precipice that the CAGW hypotheses is rapidly approaching. This is making the job of would-be gatekeepers (like Dale) much harder, as their argument is rapidly becoming: “You should believe the ‘experts’ rather than your lying eyes.”
If, as seems likely, we are heading into another low point in the Ice Age the consequences of making energy harder to get and more expensive will be evident to nearly everyone and the corrupt and self-serving gatekeepers are likely to be run out of town on a rail.
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thanks Bob, I’m aware of the system in which I operate, just as you are that this publisher will publish any old thing.
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This paper is just modelers playing on their computer. No mearsurements, no evidence — just assertion after assertion.
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True science is done by a democratic vote.
If there is a consensus, then the science is “settled”.
If the science is settled, then all the climate scientists can be fired, since there is nothing else for them to do, and the money saved can be used by governments to subsidize gondola taxies in all major cities that will soon be under water.
I missed out on a gondola ride when I was in Venice — it was too cold.
So I look forward to a gondola ride in much closer Manhattan — I’m plan to be on Wall Street in a gondola.
The subways will have to be replaced with submarines.
I’m not making this up.
Al Gore predicted this, based on climate models, and he already has an option to open a Wall Street gondola concession.
Someday there will be power boat races down Broadway in New York City.
The computers say so — REALLY BIG COMPUTERS with PhD’s sitting in front of them — how could they be wrong about the future climate?
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For your edification
The role of consensus in scientific paradigms.
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922–1996), a physicist, is one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, perhaps the most influential. His 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited academic books of all time. Kuhn’s contribution to the philosophy of science marked not only a break with several key positivist doctrines, but also inaugurated a new style of philosophy of science that brought it closer to the history of science.
In the postscript to the second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn says of paradigms in this sense that they are “the most novel and least understood aspect of this book” (1962/1970a, 187). The claim that the consensus of a disciplinary matrix is primarily agreement on paradigms-as-exemplars is intended to explain the nature of normal science and the process of crisis, revolution, and renewal of normal science. It also explains the birth of a mature science. Kuhn describes an immature science, in what he sometimes calls its ‘pre-paradigm’ period, as lacking consensus. Competing schools of thought possess differing procedures, theories, even metaphysical presuppositions. Consequently there is little opportunity for collective progress. Even localized progress by a particular school is made difficult, since much intellectual energy is put into arguing over the fundamentals with other schools instead of developing a research tradition. However, progress is not impossible, and one school may make a breakthrough whereby the shared problems of the competing schools are solved in a particularly impressive fashion. This success draws away adherents from the other schools, and a widespread consensus is formed around the new puzzle-solutions.
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Jack Dale,
All Kuhn is doing in that work is attempting to legitimize ‘consensus’ science. Science is not done by consensus. I read the book back when I was in college and even then, I was amazed at how he could be so naive as to think that just because there is a consensus in some ‘paradigm’, we should all agree to abide by the ‘constraints’ of that paradigm.
Just because ‘historically’ something has occured, doesn’t mean that ‘that something’ is correct and proper.
Bullocks, I say.
Abe
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Jack,
I read Thomas Samuel Kuhn’s ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ sometime around 1972. It was debated greatly and what I took from it — the man’s a fool.
The very base level of his idea is —
Great works become paradigms because they were “sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity,” [to quote Kuhn] and “sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve.” [to quote Kuhn](p.10)
This is complete clap-trap, and smacks of elitism. Great works in science, and great men of science are such because they see further and clearer through the gloom of human ignorance, to a better approximation of truth. A truth that is not of man’s manufacture but of nature’s way.
Ultimately T.S. Kuhn is wrong, as science is NOT about human scale absolutes, it is about trying to gaining truth from nature. Our discoveries may be new to us but they have always naturally been there (this is ultimately against T.S. Kuhn and his accolytes view, they seem to believe humans define science). It is not about what we can do, or what we can discover, it is whether or not we can appreciate how such discoveries fit into the universe. As humans will never know any absolute truths about nature, we can only have our best approximations to build our fractured and faulty catalog of knowledge upon.
Regardless of political affiliation, social standing, personal ego, personal connections or wealth, the truth in science is all that matters. If people manage to pervert science away from that goal then it is no longer science. Anyone who pretends to be scientific and pushes an unscientific theory, driven from an unscientific agenda, will ultimately fail, as the inadequacies of the theory will fail it. In the short term (of a generation or two) it may be revered, all the while corrupting those that learn it, but eventually it will fail, as it is not science. People will then rediscover the real natural truth, and a path to science.
So to the Jack Dales of this world, nature’s truth will always prove you wrong, as in ‘climate science’ the truth is —
1. Our climate’s governing factors are poorly recognized, and poorly understood, however
2. The climate is observed to act chaotically.
Unfortunately this means —
No modeling, no scientific-sounding semantic sophestry can move it. No human agency can dictate to it, foresee, or understand the totality of it’s patterns.
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Richard and others
You might be interested in this new paper from Hansen et al
Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.html
It is open for public discussion. Hansen is participating. This a great opportunity.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015-discussion.html
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Jack Dale,
As soon as they included these models, they invalidated the whole paper because the models are broken. They never worked, nor can they ever work, as attested to by the IPCC, Inc.
Abe
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Not particularly unusual for Hansen, his abstract starts out with a contra-factual statement:
This claim underlies all the rest of the alarmist predictions/warnings that the paper was apparently written to promote. The claim rests on a number of premises which can all be challenged as either unproven or based on faulty reasoning, but there is one vital assumption which has actually been falsified — and which you provided the link to earlier:
From the paper by Carl Mears in Remote Sensing Systems:
In other words, water vapor concentrations are acting as a negative feedback effect, actually reducing the (already small) effect of increasing CO2 warming.
“Human-made climate forcing” due to CO2 emissions is, by itself, insignificant. It only becomes significant in the models by assuming that water vapor concentration increases in response to the slight warming produced by CO2 increases and therefore constitutes a powerful positive feedback effect which triples the effect of CO2 by itself. This connection is not an emergent property of the model’s physics, since we don’t really know enough about the H2O cycle to model it — instead this feedback connection is one of the many “Parameters” in the model that are adjusted to attempt to match the prior data.
Without a strong positive feedback from water vapor (as assumed in the models), Human-made climate forcing becomes insignificant. Given the observed negative feedback from water vapor, “Human-made climate forcing” becomes indetectable.
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Bob, the other much negleted fact is that in burning fuels of all kinds in the air releases quantities of water vapor to the atmosphere also. So if CO2 has an effect, logically so must this release of stored moisture.
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A new critique of Cook et al (2013) is in the works.
http://www.jamespowell.org/index.html
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Jack Dale,
Jo has already ripped this so called ‘consensus paper’ to shreads:
The 99.99% pure climate consensus – how to ignore thousands of skeptical scientists.
What was left of the shreads was pulverized in the comments. Please keep up. 😉
Abe
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I have not read through all the comments here, so I don’t know if anyone commented on the fact that the study got published in “Environmental Science and Technology” and our good buddy, John Cook, got to put his name on the paper. Note that in the abstract, the authors have completely avoided saying how many scientists are against the so-called consensus position. The abstract focuses on those respondents with more than 10 climate change publications.
“90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming.”
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es501998e
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Eric L. Hanson,
Now let’s think about that for a moment and do some simple arithmetic. About half of all respondents had more than 10 climate-related publications. So that’s about 50% of all respondents. Let’snot quibble and say 50%, kay?
Now. Out of those 50%, fully 90% explicitly agreed with anthro-ghgs being the dominant driver of global warming ™.
So. How much is 90% of 50%? Why it’s 45%!
We can now conclude, based on the abstract for this paper, three very important things:
1. Only about 45% of the total respondents to this survey agree with the IPCC, Inc. position that man-made ghgs are the primary cause of so called global warming ™.
2. The way in which the results of this survey have been presented to and promoted by the media is extremely misleading.
3. It was the independent analysis of this survey, by Jo, Jose Duarte, and Fabius Maximus that led to the startling 43% non-consensus.
Jo,
Just-A-Bit of positive reinforcement.
Peer-review is no longer confined to those select few that are chosen by the publishers of any given publishing house. Peer-review has now moved on into the public sphere via the internet. By publishing this article, you have been instrumental in promoting critical thinking and applying it to a survey whose flaws of omission and flaws in selectively reporting only those statistics that ‘comply’ with the ‘consensus position’, would have otherwise gone un-noticed and un-reported.
Thanks for that.
Abe
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Great work Jo! I believe that the answers to the questions, “Where does CO2 from fossil fuels go?”, and “Where does limestone come from?” are the same.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an essential component of the mineral carbonate CaCO3). Carbonates are formed in seawater and soils through biological and chemical processes. An acre of oysters or coral (or phytoplankton, barnacles, termites or ants) can create 100 tons of carbonate in a single growing season. Limestone and marble (metamorphosed limestone) are just aged carbonate rocks compressed by sedimentation processes.
You can see the bivalves and other sea creatures in many pieces of limestone if you look at them closely. Most of these formed when CO2 levels were much higher than at present. The formula is CO2 +CaO => CaCO3. You can do it in your kitchen, but little creatures are much more efficient. They use solar energy to convert CO2 to carbonate.
Seawater is highly basic (pH of 8.2), and highly buffered (lots of alkali metals such as Ca, Mg, Na, K, P etc., available to enter solution). CO2 from all the known fossil fuel reserves is insufficient to render seawater acidic. It will always be basic. (Other acids, such as sulfuric or nitric acid are a different story, but that’s another matter.)
Nature efficiently recycles CO2 from human fossil fuels use into carbonate. The equilibrium level of CO2 in the atmosphere will rise or fall depending on the temperature, because the vast majority of CO2 comes from rotting vegetation. Vegetation rots faster when it is warmer. And it it is supposed to be getting warmer, because we are merging from an ice age. If it starts to get colder, atmospheric CO2 will begin to decline, and we’ll be at risk of another ice age.
[A good description. Thanks! Jo]
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Nicely said. I may steal it since it is easier to understand than Dr Segalstad’s more technical explanation (with a H/T of course.)
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JoAnne
You state re the AGW hypothesis: “To venture a guess I would say that among skeptics the dominant hypothesis is that some factor to do with the Sun is far more important than man-made CO2. To the end that skeptics need an alternate hypothesis, I agree, and there are many working on just that. Dr David Evans (my other half) is still hammering through climate model architecture, assumptions, and solar data sets.”
In this respect you may find the following video presentation by David Talbot covering studies on the Electric Sun of interest since, if correct, this affects all work linked to Sunspot activity, including that of your partner.
The Electric Universe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aLCWwLdelo&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs
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