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emosca11 at 23:18 PM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
The equation Δbias = Tbiased - Tunbiased = Tland (Pland - 0.29) + Tocean (Pocean - 0.71) = (Tland - Tocean) x (Pland - 0.29) appears near the end of the article. The last line of this equation is correct only if Pland + Pocean = 1. However, the sentence below states: "The land and ocean coverage exceed the fractions of the surface covered by land and ocean, and in some cases add up to more than 100%." Doesn't this mean that Pland + Pocean doesn't necessarily equal 1? -
Phil M at 22:21 PM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Hope you get the crooks. I guess the upshot is. It shows how damn desperate they are. Smear is their only defense now. It's a warning to other AGW realist blogs out there. Wounded and cornered animals fight back harder. Glad I have a dynamic ip. -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:47 PM on 29 March 2012There's no tropospheric hot spot
Like scaddenp, my response to tompinlib would be to point out that there is plenty of reason to think that the problem may lie with the radiosonde observations as well as the models ("all models are wrong, but some are useful" - GEP Box). They were designed for use in weather forecasting, not climate modelling, and so while the data may have a resolution of 0.1K, they have many potential sources of bias which means that they are unlikely to be well calibrated. A lot of computer modelling work has to be done to homogenise the data to remove these sources of bias and it is ongoing work. The fact that there is a high degree of uncertainty in the radiosonde observations is well illustrated by the differences between radiosonde products from different research groups. See the advanced tab of the article. -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:35 PM on 29 March 2012Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
primespot wrote: "To say that the levels of CO2 before the Industrial Revolution remained static is just wrong. CO2, temperatures and water levels have fluctuated quite dramatically for a long time. To have a serious debate, we must start with known facts - not a bunch of hypotheses inferred from data." I completely agree. In which case you ought to start by presenting the evidence that says there were substantial fluctuations in CO2 prior to the industrial revolution, since say the end of the last major glaciations (of course glaciations have a large effect on CO2 levels, but this doesn't explain recent changes). Another line of evidence that might support your position would be evidence that CO2 levels had been higher than present over the last 800,000 years or so. Starting with facts would be great, but it is exactly the thing you did not do. Present your evidence piece by piece and we will happily engage in a scientific dialogue with you. Note I say "piece by piece" because scientific discussion requires depth as well as breadth; so building an argument gradually assessing each pice in turn and progressing onto the next step when agreement is reach has been found to be thebest way to make progress. -
Nick Stokes at 19:41 PM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Kevin, In TempLS V2, the spherical harmonics are embedded in the spatial linear model. I've described the maths here,, starting in the section headed "Spatial Dependence". It's true that the end effect probably isn't that different to fitting the spatial functions separately afterwards. I agree that the Gistemp method is probably not much different in its outcome to fancier methods. -
Bernard J. at 19:36 PM on 29 March 2012Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To say that the levels of CO2 before the Industrial Revolution remained static is just wrong.
Straw man. No scientist is saying that. What they are saying, however, is that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is increasing in proportion to the (~10) billions of tons of carbon that humans burn annually, and that this rate of increase is significantly greater than it has been for hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of years. Given that a little less than half of annual human emissions are sequestered, what do you think that this continually-increasing extra greenhouse gas is doing to the planet's climate?CO2, temperatures and water levels have fluctuated quite dramatically for a long time.
What you mean is that "CO2, temperatures and water levels have fluctuated quite dramatically on occasions far back over geological time"... And every time that they fluctuated dramatically, there was a concurrent dramatic impact on the biosphere. And something that seems to completely escape the Denialati is that the biosphere is what keeps humanity alive. If anyone doesn't believe this I am (and I'm sure others would be) quite happy to dissect this concept in fine detail... We are absolutely and inextricably beholden to the primary productivity of solar-driven photosynthesis (and its direct products) for our survival. Hurt the biosphere, and humanity is hurt. With the passing of abundant fossil energy this dependency will only become more - and permanently - stark.To have a serious debate, we must start with known facts - not a bunch of hypotheses inferred from data.
Consensus climatology and ecology absolutely do start with "known facts". You seem to be either oblivious to, or entirely ignoring, them.We all know that data can be used to support any bias.
"[D]ata can be used to support any bias" only if one does not use the data correctly. If you adhere to your statment then it is only a reflection on how you and your associates are wont to "use data".There is simply no evidence that shows absolutely that carbon dioxide levels are the root cause of the phenomenon known as "global warming."
The only absolute in science is that there are no absolutes. If your presumption of irrefutable absoluteness is replaced with something such as "strong certainty", then your statement is completely refuted.It is a fact that there is a "greenhouse effect" taking place, but is higher carbon dioxide levels the root cause or just a symptom?
To the extent that there are no absolutes, as noted above, it is still defensibly - strongly defensibly - possible to ascribe most (if not all) contemporary global warming to human CO2 emissions.A simple look at the data could also suggest that long cycle changes in ocean currents or a cooling/shrinking planet or some other factor could just as easily be the culprit...
No....and, of course, it could also be mankind.
"Could" in the same way that falling from 2 000 metres without a parachute "could" kill you.There is no evidence that proves that shutting off all man-made sources of carbon output - even if it were possible - would alter the changes taking place.
Eh? Were's your evidence for that?There is an abundant supply of common sense that says shutting off all carbon generating activities by mankind would cause a great deal of hardship to a lot of people!
"Common sense" is not science, and is not even a reliable guide for objective correctness. This is a basic tenet of high school level scientific philosophy.Wouldn't our energy be better spent trying to find ways to live on a warmer planet?
No. If you don't understand why, try teaching a mountain pygmy possum to live without winter snow, or a penguin to live on a tropical beach, or walrus and polar bears to live without sea ice. The same issues apply to humans, if in slightly more subtle and complex (but no less important) ways.Why do we assume - with some arrogance - that mankind has all this power to affect global temperature?
Why not?Why do we assume that mankind is some non-natural force?
Simply, because human intelligence is an emergent phenomenon of a type and magnitude that has not previously had expression in the history of the planet.Isn't mankind just another part of nature?
To the extent that human intelligence distinguishes our species from the rest of the planet - the answer is an emphatic "no".Like so many dialogues in our society today - this one is taken over by biased people trying to shout over one another, rather than starting with facts and ending with a course of action.
This is the only accurate thing that you've said. Unfortunagely for you, the "biased people" are those who have the temerity, if not the objective evidence or even the intellectual capacity, to contradict parsimonious science. In other words, your crowd... -
Doug Hutcheson at 19:21 PM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb @ 17, you speak of "Archangel Russia with a change of 0.14 degC per decade" and then state "This station has experienced a rate of temperature change that is 300 percent of the average rate of change shown for HadCRUT3", yet earlier you made the point "the average for HadCRUT3N in this same table is shown as 0.47 degC per decade". I am confused, or misreading the figures, but 0.14 is not 300% of 0.47 in my book. Have I misunderstood something? Your final sentence reads "They only make the argument, and provide the evidence to support the argument, that previous solar cycle length explains from 40% to 60% of the historic change in temperatures in the stations that they investigated". I think you are mixing up correlation with causation. They have identified a weak correlation between temperature change and previous sunspot cycle length, without suggesting any mechanism by which the previous cycle is implicated in causing the temperature change. The apparent correlation is a curio, no more. As stated in the paper: "This indicates a possible existence of a physical mechanism linking solar activity to climate variations", which is really no more definite than linking hem-lines with global warming, or even hem-lines with solar cycles. They conclude "This indicates a connection between the behavior between the solar dynamo and temperatures on the Earth". Of course there is a connection! The forcing from TSI is already well explored and is taken into account when modelling future climate change, along with all the other known forcings. The observed influence of variations in TSI is slight and does not lag the solar cycle by 6 years, or 12 years, or any other arbitrarily selected time span. I would reword the final sentence of your comment @17 like this: "They make the allegation, without providing satisfactory evidence to support the allegation, that previous solar cycle length explains from 40% to 60% of the historic change in temperatures in the small sample of stations that they investigated, without proposing any credible mechanism by which this may have occurred and without showing how this mechanism has affected global mean temperatures.". If the authors had come up with a new theory that invalidated what we know already about forcings on climate, they would be in line for a Nobel Prize, instead of being relegated to publishing in a fringe journal. I believe I speak for everybody on this forum in saying we would be thrilled to discover that AGW is not real and we can all sleep easy in our beds. The Solheim, Stordahl and Humlum paper has not done anything to refute AGW, unfortunately for us. -
Tom Curtis at 17:57 PM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb @11 suggests that forcings as determined by the IPCC show a similar lack of predictive ability to solar cycle length when it comes to temperatures. That is simply not true:
To further reinforce the point, here is a direct comparison between solar cycle length as determined by Solheim et al and global temperatures lagged by approximately one solar cycle (as required by their theory):
Solheim et al (and tompinlb) want us to believe that the changes in solar cycle length are responsible for 40% of the trend in global temperatures. They think that is a better theory than that the temperature increase is explained by known forcings. I suggest that represents desperation (anything but CO2), not analysis.
(Unfortunately my longer response covering a number of additional points got eaten by the gods of the web. I may bring up some of those additional points in a later post.)
Edited: 5:41pm to show corrected image.
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Kevin C at 17:05 PM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Chris: Here is a nice overview of the family of methods of which the GISS approach is a special case: Kernel smoothers. The GISTEMP kernel function is a simple cone - the 2-d version of a triangular tent function. To contrast, the alternative approach would be to devise a parametric form for the global temperature field (say spherical harmonics), and determine the best set of parameters to fit the parametric form to the data. I don't think anyone's done that, although Nick Stokes fits spherical harmonics to his final result for presentation. I'd go further down the kernel route than GISS and advocate BEST's krigging method, because it gives uncertainty estimates as well as values at every point. Although I think in the final result they use the post-hoc bootstrap estmates for the error rather than the ab-initio krigging values. But in practice I expect that the GISTEMP method is a pretty good approximation to the BEST method. All of these methods give better coverage than the simple grid approach, because according to the data the 5 degree boxes are significantly smaller than the correlation distance of the temperatures, at least in the longitude direction. -
tompinlb at 15:36 PM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
muoncounter, your argument is specious. You first select as an example the authors’ analysis of the Tromso Norway station, which had a temperature change of 0.036 degC per decade. Of all the stations studied by the authors, this shows the least warming. Is this cherry picking on your part? The average change of the seven stations in Norway investigated by the authors was 0.068 degC per decade. The average for Norway, per the author’s Table 1, was 0.56 degC per decade; the average for HadCRUT3N in this same table is shown as 0.47 degC per decade. So the seven stations investigated by the authors had an average rate of change that was 145% of the average global temperature change shown by HadCRUT3. Thus your assertion – that the “authors have selected locations that show minimal warming. They are effectively analyzing the noise, rather than the signal.” – is not consistent with the evidence. The stations selected by the authors show rates of change well in excess of the HadCRUT average. What is the basis for your assertion that they are analyzing the noise rather than the signal? You then select station Archangel Russia with a change of 0.14 degC per decade and ask how the authors can “explain away the warming” since the 1970’s. This station has experienced a rate of temperature change that is 300 percent of the average rate of change shown for HadCRUT3. At no place in this paper do the authors purport to explain 100 percent of the temperature changes in any of the stations, let alone one where temperature has increased three times as fast as the global average. They only make the argument, and provide the evidence to support the argument, that previous solar cycle length explains from 40% to 60% of the historic change in temperatures in the stations that they investigated. -
Andy Skuce at 15:30 PM on 29 March 2012Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
primespot: -We have samples of the air going back 800,000 years in ice cores that show the concentrations of CO2. These are "known facts". -Recent carbon dioxide increases have been caused by combustion of fossil fuels, even some of the skeptics like Willis Eschenbach and Roy Spencer accept that without reservation. This isn't a disputed hypothesis, this is as close to accepted fact as we get in science. -What evidence is there that a "shrinking planet" could have contributed to the rise in CO2? Surely, you are not serious. -Skipping over some of your other assertions, why do you believe that it is "arrogance" to assume that mankind can influence the climate? Do you think, for example, that it is arrogance to think that a nuclear war would be catastrophic? I suppose that your logic would at least lead you to believe that a nuclear war would be an entirely natural phenomenon. -I agree with you that this dialogue "is taken over by biased people trying to shout over one another, rather than starting with facts and ending with a course of action". But not in the way you think. -It's perhaps arrogance on your part to think that your "common sense" arguments are sufficient to overcome the consensus opinions of experts who have spent their lives studying this problem. -
Bob Lacatena at 15:28 PM on 29 March 2012Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
218, primespot,A simple look at the data...
An overly simplistic look at anything will lead you to wrong conclusions. Your "look at the data" is so far off the mark it suggests that you haven't looked at the data at all, you've listened to others, or presumed that the data says what you'd like. An intelligent and informed look at the data will show you that your statements are false....shutting off all carbon generating activities...
No one is saying this except for fear-mongers who want to scare other people out of thinking things through. What is necessary is aggressive but moderate action now, rather than complete lethargy and inaction. Failure to act now will simply require more desperate measures later, measures that will hurt society and economies, because they'll have to be too radical and too aggressive....find ways to live on a warmer planet?
No, because it will be more expensive to do so, and the planet will not simply "be warmer." That's a gross misunderstanding of what we're facing.Why do we assume that...
It's not an assumption, it's an understanding based on knowledge and facts.Like so many dialogues in our society today - this one is taken over by biased people trying to shout over one another, rather than starting with facts and ending with a course of action.
And finally, in conclusion, you say something sensible. Now that you have all of that shouting and lathered up umbrage out of your system, welcome to Skeptical Science! This site has a wealth of information which will help to educate you on the issues so that you can understand them, rather than shout platitudes based on ignorance and a complete misunderstanding. Please use the search box in the upper left hand corner. Many articles are presented in beginner, intermediate and expert versions, whichever best suits your own personal starting point and level of understanding. When you have learned more, and are able to actually make supportable statements, then we can talk. Until then, standing up and shouting as loudly as you can that you are right and everyone else is crazy will not be nearly as effective as first learning and then starting with facts and ending with a course of action. -
primespot at 14:56 PM on 29 March 2012Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To say that the levels of CO2 before the Industrial Revolution remained static is just wrong. CO2, temperatures and water levels have fluctuated quite dramatically for a long time. To have a serious debate, we must start with known facts - not a bunch of hypotheses inferred from data. We all know that data can be used to support any bias. There is simply no evidence that shows absolutely that carbon dioxide levels are the root cause of the phenomenon known as "global warming." It is a fact that there is a "greenhouse effect" taking place, but is higher carbon dioxide levels the root cause or just a symptom? A simple look at the data could also suggest that long cycle changes in ocean currents or a cooling/shrinking planet or some other factor could just as easily be the culprit - and, of course, it could also be mankind. There is no evidence that proves that shutting off all man-made sources of carbon output - even if it were possible - would alter the changes taking place. There is an abundant supply of common sense that says shutting off all carbon generating activities by mankind would cause a great deal of hardship to a lot of people! Wouldn't our energy be better spent trying to find ways to live on a warmer planet? Why do we assume - with some arrogance - that mankind has all this power to affect global temperature? Why do we assume that mankind is some non-natural force? Isn't mankind just another part of nature? Like so many dialogues in our society today - this one is taken over by biased people trying to shout over one another, rather than starting with facts and ending with a course of action.Moderator Response: [Sph] Other mods, please do not delete this comment for being off-topic. Please leave it as a testament to how much passion, intensity and surety a person can put into a position as long as it is based on assumption and hearsay rather then investigation, education, and understanding. -
markx at 14:06 PM on 29 March 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Thanks scad. I’ll have good look at that. Yes, I have a copy of "Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly" Mann etal 2009. It worries me a bit in that it is a modelled set of data (world temperature anomalies: see Fig 2) for which there are only 6 available proxy sources in the southern hemisphere, and four of those (at least) show a warming signal, yet the SH hemisphere is largely mapped as having cooled during the MWP. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 13:22 PM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Chriskoz @4 The link to Adam Spencer's interview is interesting. Mockton identifies the professor at Rochester as David Douglas, of Douglas & Knox fame I presume, who gave Monckton a Nobel pin because he had supposedly edited a table in the report and was entitled to a prize just like all the other scientists involved. Whether those scientists are actually Nobel Laureates is dubious since they aren't on the Panel, they are advisers to it. Thats like saying that Al Gore's press secretary is a Nobel Laureate because Al is. Interesting comment further on. Monckton refers to himself as "...we on the Centre Right..." Centre. Or Far Right? -
muoncounter at 11:16 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb#11: "But you do no analysis here, and you ignore the actual analysis and results of the authors’ work." So let's look at those results, thoughtfully presented in consistent graphical form in their figures 4-19. For example, their fig 4 (Tromso, Norway):
Note the rate of temperature increase at this location: 0.36 deg C per 100 years. Most of the following figures are locations that show similar temperature increases. However, we see rates of 0.18 deg C per decade in much of the northern hemisphere. In other words, the authors have selected locations that show minimal warming. They are effectively analyzing the noise, rather than the signal.
However, figure 13 (Archangel, Russia) shows the most significant warming, at 1.4 deg C per century.
In the upper panel, the temperature is 'corrected' for this sunspot cycle length. Despite that 'correction,' the upper panel clearly shows additional warming of more than 1 degree C since the 1970s. In that time period, figure 1 (posted by Tom C above), sunspot cycle length has no discernible trend. How, then does cycle length explain away that warming?
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scaddenp at 10:13 AM on 29 March 2012There's no tropospheric hot spot
Responding to this post by tompinlb. In addition to the discussion in the Advanced tab of this article, issues over errors and biases in radiosonde data are discussed here with references to the relevant papers. -
bill4344 at 09:15 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
I think there's a good case for 'Lord Mitty', but perhaps I'm showing my age and my fondness for Thurber! Stephen M, I found a similar example, from an interview of his on the dreadful Infowars.com the other day, where he refers to himself as an economist -what is happening is that Economists the world over, from President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic to Bjorn Lomborg to me in the United Kingdom, to Nigel Lawson…
(These 'economists' all know, of course, that any attempt at pricing Carbon will bring about Calamity, Anarchy, Penury, Usury, and Tears Before Bedtime. You have to wait 'til 2 hours 16 mins for this gem, and there were many others - those curious about what His Lordship said to Prince Charles at his birthday soirée can find further material here.) Wow, Dana, if you publish at Watts that means you get to be in the in-crowd, and can even call the delightful James Delingpole 'Dellers' as the rest of them do! I believe this makes His Lordship 'Monckers', and with the change of only one letter... -
Doc Snow at 08:45 AM on 29 March 2012New research from last week 12/2012
Love those "Classics," Ari! I wrote about Angstrom 1913--and Wells, Pouillet, and Dines, and Callendar, and Elsasser in this article: http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/Fire-From-Heaven-Climate-Science-And-The-Element-Of-Life-Part-Two-The-Cloud-By-Night Angstrom does deserve to be better known. -
tompinlb at 08:43 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Dikran@13, I appreciate the suggestion that it may be more productive to consider one matter at a time. Let's start with the tropical hotspot. I have read the Skeptical Science postings on the tropical hotspot. My understanding of the theory is that the tropical hotspot, if it were to exist, would be an indicator of the amplification of surface warming by water vapor in the upper troposphere. It would be an indicator that the positive feedback mechanism of water vapor, hypothesized by mainstream AGW theory, is significant. And I agree, as you say, that according to this theory, the tropical hotspot would be the expected result of any surface warming, not just that driven by CO2. The absence of the tropospheric hotspot would imply that the hypothesized water vapor positive feedback mechanism does not work as AGW theory, as embodied in climate models, assumes. This goes to the heart of the dispute over climate sensitivity. I think you are mistaken when you draw the conclusion that because everyone agrees the surface has warmed, then there may well be a problem with the radiosondes. Is there any published evidence for the actual existence of the tropical hotspot? Radiosondes measure temperatures with resolution of 0.1 degree. Now rather than conclude that there is a problem with thousands of readings from hundreds of radiosondes, over many years, I would suggest that an alternative hypothesis is that there is, indeed, no tropical tropospheric hot spot, and that the AGW hypotheses about the mechanisms and the magnitude of water vapor amplification / positive feedback are in error. In the face of the radiosonde evidence, does that not seem to be a reasonable alternative hypothesis? Which is the more reasonable conclusion, that all of the radiosonde data is in error, or that the AGW water vapor amplification hypothesis is in error?Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Discussions at SkS are kept focussed on specific issues and off-topic posts are normally deleted. Please could you re-post your comment on the thread about the tropical hotspot and I can delete it from this one to keep things tidy. Any responses to this post should similarly be made on the thread indicated (I'll look in tomorrow - its past my bed-time already! ;o) N.B. I have now posted a response on the appropriate thread. -
John Mason at 08:42 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Geoff, Hopefully I was the "always polite" one, though in retrospect I cannot guarantee that. I was often as robust as some of the opposition, and I think you know who I mean - we have both been bashing along on those threads for years and have seen most things! However, I am always more willing to debate the science rather than rake over bits of hacked private correspondence. My article there was on the drought as it was in February and the interesting problems of perception and instinct that brought with it: droughts are normally connected in a visual manner with heat, when in fact the simple lack of average rainfall over many months is what sets them up. It was a well-received piece, but I wasn't awarded the "Blue C"! WRT your remaining BH comments about me, yes GM and I keep in touch, but only occasionally when there's something of especial interest to us both, and now that he has moved back to England I guess even that will be less frequent. What I will say having got to know him is that he is genuine in what he writes, as I hope you understand I am, too, although clearly we take a different approach. Climate science fascinates me, not just the now, or the future, but the past. Is it not something that I and others should be blogging about, and why? Why not talk and write about what the folks doing the science are finding? Cheers - John -
Chris G at 07:35 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Simpler: Think of the sheet as a piece of mylar with a positive charge, and the measured anomalies as negatively charged points - no nails or other mechanical suspension. -
Chris G at 07:32 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Glen, We have similar thoughts; though, I think you might be thinking of the sheet as having mass, and therefore an attraction to the sphere, which would give the overall surface a low bias. Think of it as only having an attraction to the measured values (anomalies). Rigidity and stretch matter a lot; if you have a low point entirely surrounded by higher points in close proximity, do you use the measurement at that point as the elevation of the sheet (nearby stations are weighted 0), or do you use some relative weighting based on proximity? Reverse the situation, suppose there is a high point surrounded by low points? They have to be treated the same or a bias is introduced. (Anybody confused about anomalies should read Glen's posts, but, loosely, an anomaly is a difference between a measurement and a mean of some set of measurements. Using anomalies clarifies between warming and cooling immediately at any locale; positive is warmer, negative is cooler. That removes all sorts of problems; including temperature differences between stations that are nearby in lat and long, but separated by altitude.) I did not have time to more than skim the Hansen and Lebedeff paper, just enough to see that the algorithms were indeed essentially the same, and that they had worked out (fleshed in) weight relationships by distance, based on correlations between stations, that were still nebulous in my mind. However, pretty sure that the result is that a value on the sheet is not necessarily identical to a value of a station at the same point. Flexibility of the sheet is logically equivalent to the decline in correlation between stations with distance, which was reported in the paper. A rapid decline in correlation would indicate physics that created a more flexible sheet metaphor. -
Dikran Marsupial at 07:16 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
@geoff I've had a look at recent threads and they don't seem that different to me. As I said on the other thread on the SkS hack the topic of PCA came up (as Eric says an important topic at BH), but important points countering the arguments against Mann were glossed over and there was too much personalisation for a sensible discussion to prosper. But if the topic of the anthropogenic component of the rise in CO2 comes up, let me know and I'll pop over an test the waters again on a topic I have researched myself (might well happen if Murray Salby's paper ever sees the light of day). -
muoncounter at 07:00 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb#11: "for a number of stations in Norway and the North Atlantic, temperatures do in fact significantly track solar cycle length. " You omit a significant detail: No significant trend is found between the length of a cycle and the average temperature in the same cycle, but a significant negative trend is found between the length of a cycle and the temperature in the next cycle. --emphasis added What is the mechanism that allows temperature to lag the sunspot cycle by 11 years? How can that be, given other research showing no evidence of such a lag? The temperature anomalies in the Northern and Southern hemispheres show similar statistical relations with the solar and geomagnetic indices. The cross-correlation analysis shows no statistically significant global temperature lag behind the sunspots as well as behind aa-indices. -
Doc Snow at 06:43 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
Yeah, this is a depressing video, for the reasons above. But--discouragement is just part of the human condition, and despair is not adaptive. Gotta keep on slugging. -
geoffchambers at 06:35 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Dikran Marsupial #123 Thanks for the reply. I’ll take you up on that. You say later at #119 that at BH you “found there was no willingness to discuss the science, just rhetoric”. The subject of the thread was not the science but the SkS leak or hack. Try a different thread. John Mason #118 I was the one that brought up your two user names. Those who have had articles published at the Graun normally have a big “C” next to their below-the-line comments, to indicate that they are contributors, and not just run-of-the-mill readers off the street. Neither of your names had that. Also, I was banned from CiF for a long time for using two user names (not concurrently) on the grounds of impersonation. It took me a long time to persuade them that changing from gmchambers to geoffchambers did not constitute astroturfing. -
scaddenp at 06:16 AM on 29 March 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Markx - see Chpter 6 of AR4, WG1 ("Paleoclimate"), for compilation of modelling that had been done at time of publication, compared to proxy reconstructions. Have you read Mann et al 2009? -
Dikran Marsupial at 06:14 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
@tompinlb It is not an insult to the authors to bein by assuming it isn't astrology. Sadly there are a number of papers on similar topics that are little more than climastrology. The assumption was that this wasn't one of them. There are several posts on SkS about galactic cosmic rays and their influence on climate. You will find that the evidence for GCRs having a large effect on climate is rather slight. It would be a good idea for you to familiarise yourself with the existing discussion. Your post also includes some incorrect ideas (e.g. the tropical hotspot) which is the expected result of any surface warming, regardless of whether it is due to CO2 or not. I rather doubt that anyone seriously questions the fact that the surface has warmed so that would suggest that the problem may well lie with the radiosondes. Arguing with good natured humour is often a good idea, and pointing out problems (in this case correlation is not causation) using a simple analogy similarly helps to get the point accross. I don't think anyone has been insulted so far, so please try not to escalate any misunderstanding. We are happy to discuss the science here. The best thing to do is to raise a single point in each post as that facilitates the discussion reaching a conclusion on that issue, rather than get lost in a broad multi-branched discussion. -
scaddenp at 06:08 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics? They also published Scafetta's climatastology paper. Did they publish Humlum's 2011 nonsense too? What's intriguing here is the idea that a very small forcing in sun can account for temperature variation, yet much larger forcings do not. However, like Scafetta's curve-fitting, it makes predictions that can be quickly refuted. However, because of the nature of curve-fitting, I am sure some new and exciting other variable will found by skeptics when these have failed. -
tompinlb at 06:04 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
The authors of the paper discuss in some detail the method they use to calculate the length of the solar cycle. If you wish to criticize their approach, it would be more helpful if you raised specific objections to their method. You state that their method yields different results than Friis-Christensen 1991, but you do not address the substance of the authors’ method. You make a comment that we must “assume the theory is not simply astrology.” The authors are respected scientists, not astrologists. Is this an ad hominem criticism? There are various theories that posit causal relationships between solar activity and changes in global temperature. One of the more interesting posits a relationship between solar magnetic flux, the incidence of cosmic rays in the earth’s atmosphere, and the formation of low level clouds especially in the tropics. The research exploring these relationships is a work in process, but there are clear theories of causality that are being investigated. This is hardly astrology. You say that “we expect temperatures to significantly track solar cycle length if the theory is true.” And then you proceed to say what you think this would mean, and how it would show up, peaking in 1930, etc. But you do no analysis here, and you ignore the actual analysis and results of the authors’ work. In this paper they demonstrate that for a number of stations in Norway and the North Atlantic, temperatures do in fact significantly track solar cycle length. Do you take issue with their methods and their statistical analysis? When skeptical scientists point out that global temperatures in the last ten to fifteen years have not risen as fast as they had been projected to rise by the IPCC models, while CO2 continues to increase steadily, advocates of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming respond that other factors affect global temperatures, that the heat is hidden in the ocean, etc. So when you say that temperatures should significantly track solar cycle length, you do not allow for other influences. So this appears to be a straw man argument. The authors postulate a mechanism that solar influences affect the absorption of heat by the tropical oceans, and that this heat in turn affects surface temperatures as it is distributed through the oceanic circulation. They also acknowledge that the lag between solar heating influences and surface temperature varies depending on how many years it takes for these influences to reach various parts of the earth. These authors make specific forecasts that can be tested, and we will see whether temperatures do in fact decline in the areas they identify. I give them credit for that. It would be more helpful to the progress of science if those who argue for the singular importance of CO2 to global temperatures would make falsifiable hypotheses that can be rigorously tested. Many of us thought that the IPCC’s prediction of a tropospheric hot spot would be a testable hypothesis for the presence of water vapor amplification/positive feedback, which is assumed in their models, but instead it seems most defenders of the consensus science now argue that it is really there but there are problems with the thousands of radiosondes that can’t find it. Your criticisms and straw man argument do not address the substance of the arguments that are being made by the authors. And when you conclude that their work has no more substance than projecting temperatures based on hemlines, one must conclude that your prefer to argue with humour and insults rather than seriously address the paper. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:56 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
@geoffchambers applogies for misinterpreting the lack of response. I'm always happy to discuss the science. The problem with discussing the socio-politico-economic issues is that it must be based on a proper understanding of the science, so there needs to be a reasonable degree of agreement on that before any progress can be made on socio-politico-econimic issues. If we start the discussion from socio-economic or political considerations, we will be approaching it from the direction least likely to result in progress. "Mother Nature" is blind to politics or economics or social issues, we need to work out how "she" will respond to our actions to know what our options are and work from there. Sadly as far as I can tell from what I have seen at BH, there is a reluctance to discuss the science in a balanced manner, so I doubt I'll be posting there any further, but I will check my email. -
geoffchambers at 05:40 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Dikran Marsupial #119 You quote my comment on the Bishop Hill thread in which I suggested a dialogue. When you responded politely offering to discuss on your private email address, I responded positively, since it seemed the decent thing to do. (I also asked if your offer to discuss science also included social science, but I don’t remember you replying. There was a lot going on on that thread so I may just have missed it). I may yet take up your offer. As I said in my numerous comments at BH, I appreciated the polite tone of your comments and those of Tom Curtis - not easy in the circumstances. You missed out the beginning of my comment though, in which I said: “I noticed the email addresses of some people I’ve had energetic (foul-mouthed even) disputes with at CiF...” . To be clear, I was thinking of two of your authors, regular commenters at CommentisFree in the Guardian, with whom I have had long and often interesting disputes in the past. With one of them, the discussion sometimes got extremely rude, though I appreciated his intelligent approach. The other author was always polite. My thinking in proposing a dialogue was this: the socio-political situation wrt global warming and the measures to prevent it has taken some surprising twists in the past few years. It may continue to do so (e.g. the weather might take a funny turn; so might electors). Reasoned discussion between the two “sides” is practically non-existant. A private no-holds-barred discussion now might prove to be interesting at some date in the future. The condition would be total confidentiality until or unless both of us agreed to make public our discussion. My promise here is my guarantee of confidentiality. I would trust him to keep his side of the bargain. If the author concerned (I’m sure he knows who I mean) wants to contact me, the administrator here has my email address. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:10 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Eric, you miss the point. It was a poster at BH that expressed a desire for a bridge building communication via email, not me. I thought that was a good idea and was willing to take part, but it turned out that the suggestion was not genuine, just rhetoric. The discussion of PCA on BH is similarly rhetorical, they even stoop to pointless spelling pedantry, while ignoring the point that centering actually doesn't make much difference and that a wide variety of other methods give similar results. There really isn't any point discussing the statistical subtleties to them if they can't even cope with the basics. Science is about truth-seeking, not winning the argument, and I am interested in science. -
Tom Curtis at 05:04 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Let's put tompinlb's new great hope into context. Below is figure 1 from the paper, showing solar cycle lengths since 1680:
The first thing you should notice is that it looks nothing like the solar cycle lengths from 1860 as shown in Friis-Christensen 1991, particularly in the early part of the 20th century. One or the other of these papers has got the solar cycle lengths wrong, and possibly both. Given the central role of solar cycle length in this theory, that does not inspire confidence.
The second thing to do is to assume that the theory is not simply astrology. By that, I mean that the theory must postulate some causal connection between solar cycle length and global temperatures. The connection may be indirect. It may be that some factor causes the changes in solar cycle length and also through an extended causal chain causes the changes in global temperature, but it must exist.
Given that, we expect temperatures to significantly track solar cycle length if the theory is true. That would mean that global temperatures peak for the 20th century in 1930 (remembering to allow for the lag). They would then have remained almost constant with only a slight downward trend until a very sharp dip in the 1980's, followed by a sharp rise, although not to temperatures experienced in 1930.
Now, we can allow that there is some general trend on top of that pattern, and some noise disrupting that pattern, but the pattern should still be discernible. So what do we get?
We get an early temperature peak a decade too late, 1980's temperatures above that early peak and a continuing sharp rise in temperatures. That pattern is almost completely dissimilar, with the only thing in common being a rising trend over the 20th century.
In other words, this paper is arguing a connection between temperature and solar cycle length on a basis which would equally well establish a connection between global temperatures and the hemlines of skirts. We better hope we have no return to Victorian mores, or else we'll have a little ice age again ;)
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Eric (skeptic) at 04:59 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Dikran, you have received zero emails out of a very small sample size on a wide variety topics while you admit your expertise is specialized in statistics. You might get a response by helping KR defend Mann's HS statistics on the new "tree hut" thread. That is more in line with Montford's reasons for creating that site. -
mohyla103 at 04:47 AM on 29 March 2012It's not bad
JMurphy, First, thank you for taking the time to continue the discussion. Unfortunately, the misunderstanding appears to be yours and I will explain it in detail below. See especially (2). 1. "…so certain of those yearly rates can easily be over 50% at times during summer." You mention yearly rates, during summer. This is a logical contradiction, please restate. If you're talking about something being over 50% in the summer, then you're not talking about a yearly rate, you're talking about a summer rate or summer amount. If you're talking about a yearly rate, then it's not just during summer and summer peaks are irrelevant as a yearly rate is, by definition, averaged over the year. I do agree that the percentage of meltwater in the river can be over 50% at times during the summer. Is this what you meant to say? That may be true, but remember that this still refers to all meltwater, and we have no specific figure about glacial water to go by. In addition, please note Barnett cites "flow" for the Chenab not "summer flow" as you're talking about. 2. "Also, that 49.1% contribution is concentrated in the four (mainly summer) months of June to October….Combine that with the 51.1% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months, not all of which, of course, is due to glacial melt…" You're comparing apples and oranges here once again. Take a closer look at what these numbers represent. 49.1% refers to an amount contributed yearly by a source without mention of seasonal breakdown, whereas 51.1% refers to a fraction of yearly flow during one season without mention of flow source composition. There simply is no way to accurately "combine" these 2 sets of data to interpolate a summer glacial melt fraction, as you have tried to do, as their domains and ranges (?) are different. The data sets are, in fact, almost entirely independent of one another. Theoretically speaking, I could "combine" these two figures and get a percentage of meltwater in the summer river flow that is anywhere from 0.4% up to 96%! (I can show you the calculations if you so desire) Of course there are constraints due to known trends in timing of precipitation, but no definite numbers are presented. With a possible range like this, how you or Barnett could reliably determine not only how much of the summer flow is specifically from meltwater but also how much of that meltwater is specifically from glaciers is totally beyond me. We don't know how the 49.1% meltwater total breaks down season by season (let alone how it breaks down to glacial melt vs. snow melt within each season), as it is a yearly average. We only know trends. The seasonal values presented in the graph and table refer to total flow, not specifically to meltwater so are not helpful here. We also don't know how the 51.1% summer flow total breaks down source by source, i.e. how much of the 51.1% is from rain and how much is from meltwater. We know even less how the meltwater portion of 51.1 breaks down into snow vs. glacial. Only if we knew all of these things could we actually put a figure on the glacial melt contribution in the summer. For Barnett to concoct a figure for glacial melt like 50-60% when it's not present in the source is not very scientific and I don't believe he did this. Your point about variability from year to year is well taken! However, there is simply no way to assign a number, or even range of numbers, for meltwater percentage in exceptionally wet summers, at least according to this paper. It's even more ridiculous to try to put a figure on glacial melt alone during these periods, when the total meltwater amount isn't even known. 3. "…but more than 50% of which could quite easily be due to glacier-melt during certain summer months of certain of the years of the study." You said "50% of which" in the above sentence. When I look back I see the referent of "which" is the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months. So what you meant is: …but more than 50% of the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months could quite easily be due to glacier-melt during certain summer months of certain of the years of the study. Doing the math, this means: …more than 25.55% of the yearly flow from the summer months could quite easily be due to glacier-melt during certain summer months of certain of the years of the study. Even if you can back up your use of 50% (?), how does 25.55% from glacier-melt support Barnett's figures? This statement of 50% of 51.1% does not support your argument at all. Perhaps this arises from a misreading of the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months as the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from summer meltwater? Once again, this paper did not present any figures about glacial melt alone, so it would take me quite a leap of faith to believe that Barnett somehow deduced them out of thin air with enough certainty to publish them. You're piling presumptions upon educated guesses here trying to explain where Barnett could come up with 50-60% but I don't see the evidence in the source anywhere for these particular figures. You've also misunderstood and/or misused the 49.1% and 51.1% figures in the source while making your educated guesses, as explained above in (2). The simplest explanation is that Barnett simply took the figure 49% for glacier and snowpack melt, rounded up to 50% and mistakenly cited glacial melt instead of glacier and snow melt. It seems he made the mistake of just dropping one word: snow. This is supported by the fact that in the abstract for his article, he actually does mention snowpack and glaciers together, and it's only in the sentence citing 50-60% that he seems to have forgotten to mention snow. 4. "and then considered that you know more than Barnett" Nope, never said that, don't claim that. I'm sure Barnett's knowledge of this field is vastly superior to mine, but when we're talking about something as simple and limited in scope as checking a source and reading a plain English explanation of the figures, I do feel I'm on equal footing with Barnett and have the right to point out mistakes. But since when does pointing out someone's mistake mean that you think you know more than them? It just means you're observant enough to have noticed a mistake. I don't believe Barnett did this intentionally. 5. I will not withdraw: "Considering the same kind of wording and figures appear in the abstracts of the other 2 papers cited by Barnett for this claim, I strongly suspect he and the reviewers committed the same error there." The reason is that this is not an "accusation" as you said, but a suspicion, and I worded it as such. A suspicion is unproven, but may be something worth looking into. It is a suggestion to others that the sources might be worth double-checking. 6. Your point about the little remaining snow cover is well taken, and it's true that the ratio of glacier melt to snow melt would increase throughout the summer. However, since no figure was given in the paper about this, further discussion of this point will be fruitless with respect to the Barnett paper. -
Tom Curtis at 04:33 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Kevin C @20, would you do the same analysis, but separately for the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere? -
tompinlb at 04:22 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
I do not understand why this page includes the following statement for "What the Science Says:" The claim that solar cycle length proves the sun is driving global warming is based on a single study published in 1991. Subsequent research, including a paper by a co-author of the original 1991 paper, finds the opposite conclusion. Solar cycle length as a proxy for solar activity tells us the sun has had very little contribution to global warming since 1975. This is neither current nor accurate. -
tompinlb at 04:09 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Doug H @6 and Tom Curtis @7: I believe the link provided by Tom Curtis is an early draft of the paper. A more extensive version and corrected proof of the paper is found online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612000417 This is in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. This version of the paper presents a more complete statistical analysis including an analysis of residuals that was not included in the earlier version of the paper cited by Tom Curtis. -
dana1981 at 04:08 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
I should also note that since WUWT posted Monckton's presentation (Watts was there in person as well), I offered him a version of this post for potential publication on WUWT (a version which wasn't so harsh towards Monckton - more WUWT friendly), since skeptics should want to get the correct information, and this is a real whopper. Watts said he would take it under consideration, but he hasn't posted it, so I assume he decided against it. -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:56 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
How anyone can take this individual seriously is beyond comprehension. He is showing some cardinal signs of mental illness, not the least of them being the claims to belong to the House of Lords and to be a Nobel laureate. Isn't there a name for that kind of condition? On top of that, the egregious distortions, misrepresentations or inventions on which he builds his talks are edgeing toward the grotesque. I can not understand how anybody who can think rationally would give even the slightest credence to this ridiculous nonsense. Ideology does weird things to people. -
BaerbelW at 03:40 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
We knew a lot about CO2 already in 1982 and yet didn't really do anything about it since then - how stupid is that? And we think of ourselves as an intelligent lifeform - some rethinking in that area might be in order. -
Kevin C at 03:15 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Here's the anomaly difference using the HadCRUT3 datasets:
And here's the anomaly difference using the NCDC datasets:
In both the recent divergence looks pretty significant.
Oh, I see the difference, you are starting in 1880.
So lets go back even further, to 1850:
Now that's interesting. It looks like we have a big cooling event covering the period 1880-1900. Given the 60 month smooth, it would have to start around 1883.
May I present an alternative hypothesis: What we are seeing is land and ocean temperatures tracking very consistently (taking into account El Nino effects and additional noise due to poor coverage of the early data), but with an exceptional cooling event triggered around 1883, and an exception warming phenomena taking hold in the 1970s.
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dana1981 at 02:00 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
chriskoz @3 - the California state legislature is predominantly Democrats, and I think even contains a fair number of moderate Republicans. Thus the percentage of AGW denialists in the state legislature is relatively low. AB 32 was passed by a combined vote of 70 to 46, but a 'no' vote doesn't necessarily signify global warming denialism. -
Steve Case at 01:45 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Chris G wrote:- Your graphs seem to show a divergence becoming more pronounced about 1980, but that is just the old eye-ometer.
My eye-ometer sees the same thing you do. The question is, will the sea suface temperatures catch up? Kevin C Wrote:
- Since the temperatures are always converted to anomalies before averaging, the difference in the absolute values disappears.
Considering how heat flows through the system, sun => surface => atmosphere => out, the difference between the surface and the atmosphere is important and ought not be ignored. As the difference between the two becomes less, there should be less net heat transfer and the ocean surface ought to warm. That difference has narrowed by about (7.75°C - 7.5°C = 0.25°C) over the last 160 years and as Chris's eyometer points out much of that is in the last 30 years. I'm thinking that the 0.25°C is probably the signal from increasing CO2. If you plot out the difference using anomalies you get this one:
I doubt that the sigmoid shape is due to randomness and it shows the 0.25°C increase very nicely. It also shows that the eye-ometer increase onward from 1980 discussed above isn't all that unusual.
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Daniel Bailey at 01:38 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
I am 50 now and well remember the coursework I took in those early 80s. And the Hansen predictions. The more things change, the more human nature stays the same. I'm raising my children into a world which will be far different to that of 30 years ago. 30 years of inaction have consigned us to a mitigation/adaptation pathway. A pathway littered with an as-yet-untold cost in human lives. I may not live long enough to witness the truly horrific worst to come, but my children might. The winters of my youth (the 60s) are now but stories and live only in the 8mm tapes my grandpa recorded back then. These mild winters of my children's youth will be a thing of the distant past for their children. It didn't have to be this way. -
Bernard J. at 01:02 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
You can't take away my hope.
This is the reason that we need to keep pushing against recalcitrant human complacency (and plain intellectual maladaptation), even when pragmatism suggests that not only have humans already been far too slow to act, but that the final magnitude of the delay is nowhere near being reached. We can't take away their hope. We can't. -
funglestrumpet at 00:47 AM on 29 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #12
A thought has just come to me. Can we have a running count as to the number of days since Peter Hadfield posted his debunking of Viscount Christopher Monckton's presentation material on the WUWT website? It would keep our concern's with Monckton's contribution to the climate debate in the eye of all those visiting this sight. More importantly, it would also be a way of informing anyone looking up Monckton prior attending one of his presentations that they are about to see a lot of questionable presentaton material. If any of them raise the debate on WUWT and Monckton's failure to respond, it should spoil the good Viscount's day and stop a lot people swallowing everything they hear hook, line and sinker.Moderator Response: [JH] Thanks for your suggestion. We will take it under advisement. -
Doc Snow at 00:25 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
The "Nobel Prize claim" of Monckton is, to say the least, a stunning irony--kind of like a (hypothetical) Charles Taylor defender claiming a share of the Nobel Peace Prize that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf shared in 2011.
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