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Comments 67551 to 67600:

  1. Foster and Rahmstorf Measure the Global Warming Signal
    Redirected from the UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes thread: I would have to agree with DaneelOlivaw on the point he raised in that thread: F&R 2011 isn't an attribution study, but rather a separable components study which subtracts attributable influences. And, as they clearly demonstrate, subtracting time-dependent influences directly attributable to TSI, volcanic aerosols, and ENSO fluctuations leaves a linear trend behind. This demonstrates that the linear trend is not due to TSI, volcanic forcing, or ENSO variations. Now, that linear trend is likely a combination of a few different factors - well mixed GHG's, countered somewhat by lower atmospheric aerosols, various feedback effects (albedo and the like), etc. F&R, stating that "most likely these are exclusively anthropogenic", are making a very reasonable statement. The physics of greenhouse gases and fairly basic spectroscopy support a linear trend of just about that size, and claims otherwise require both dismissing that spectroscopy and introducing some Mysterious Unknown Forcing (MUF). The conclusions of the paper are that the linear trend is not due to the various examined additional forcings, and that with those additional forcings accounted for the linear trend is both clearer and statistically valid over much shorter time frames. But, while claiming the linear trend is due to non-anthropogenic factors requires invoking leprechauns or the like, F&R 2011 isn't making attribution claims about the linear trend...
  2. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 01:28 AM on 29 December 2011
    UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    A very "extensive post", really showing particulars errors UAH - Spencer and Christy. ... but, as usual, says "too much" of their - Spencer and Christy - general conclusions. „Many papers indeed have claimed to find a human “fingerprint”, but upon close examination the evidence is simply consistent with human caused warming — while conveniently neglecting to point out that the evidence would also be consistent with naturally caused warming.” - write Spencer. “... because “real world” amplification effects on short and long time scales are controlled by different physical mechanisms, and models fail to capture such behavior ...” - write Christy. ... It is these: “ ... a number of attempts to downplay the amount of warming.” As a decisive evidence of the lack of impact - the climate - natural changes linked with the Earth and the Sun “... during the past 80 years ...”, presented in this year: Dickey and Marcus from NASA's along with de Viron, from the Universite Paris. ““Our research demonstrates that, for the past 160 years, decadal and longer-period changes in atmospheric temperature correspond to changes in Earth’s length of day if we remove the very significant effect of atmospheric warming attributed to the buildup of greenhouse gases due to mankind’s enterprise,” said Dickey. “Our study implies that human influences on climate during the past 80 years mask the natural balance that exists among Earth’s rotation, the core’s angular momentum and the temperature at Earth’s surface.” This was to confirm this figure. But when we "will correct" this figure - including figure (different data from ca 1980) that we get long-term cyclic anti-correlation (LOD- Glob. Temp.) - in "long time scales" - to this day. About this is a R. Spencer blog - comments - Earth rotation - by salvatore del prete. I recommend reading of Influence of solar variability on rotation and climate of the Earth, Kuznetsova (2010): “We suggest a possible explanation of observed unexplained increasing in the Tnh [Temperature North Hemisphere] for the interval 1905-1940 and its subsequent decrease for 1940-1976 with rate 0.75 deg.C/100yr (in spite of the fact that the release of CO2 increased rapidly; at that time we had debates about the coming of a new ice age) by variation in w with period of 72 yr.” “We present arguments of solar-lunar origin of the power cycle, which is approaching to a maximum for now.” “The Poyting flux coming to polar cap leads in the end to heating of polar ionosphere and atmosphere, temperature contrast between two caps, intensification of the inter-hemisphere heat machine in the upper atmosphere ...” And also affect the clouds cover and natural aerosols of atmosphere. Next - for this reason: - heat comes now further (and bigger number of heat) in the North (the North Atlantic is narrow - like "neck of the bottle"). Arctic temperatures, Canada and Europe growing faster, also activated equatorial zone the deep upwelling - natural sources of GHG increase ... ... “fingerprint” this process “... be consistent with naturally caused warming ...”? So, if we examine the (a comprehensive) other natural factors (not just the TSI, ENSO and volcanoes - supposedly the greatest - the most important natural factors), it ...
    Response:

    [DB] Having read this comment several times now, I must agree with KR below:  you use a lot of words to say nothing at all.  As such, your entire comment devolves to Gish Gallop, handwaving off-topicness.

    Future comments constructed as such will simply be deleted.

  3. Soares finds lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature
    desertphile: As I explain to my classes, yes, its possible that you've overturned modern physics. If you really believe that, publish your results and buy your ticket to Stockholm. However, you might want to double-check your results first. See the other Soares thread, with comments pointing out the obvious errors.
  4. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    skept.fr#15:"FR2011 is not an attribution study. " Let's not start that again. FR2011, as discussed at length here, finds that when a mere three 'natural factors' are removed from the temperature record, a strikingly consistent linear trend emerges. Here's the resulting 'attribution': Those three factors do not contribute to the underlying trend. Thus some other thing(s) must be the dominant factor(s). Suggestions? I know one ... Based on FR2011, the UAH press release, quoted under 'Out of Step with Reality' is incorrect. Worse still, coming out after FR2011's publication, it is mere opinion masquerading as 'fact.' That's clearly a deliberate attempt to mislead; a more objective statement would be something like 'Despite a recent publication indicating we are incorrect, our opinion is still that we're not.' Spencer and Co. have lost all credibility and should be ignored by anyone seriously studying this issue. Of course, that's not exactly news. Spencer is on record as saying he's biased and a lobbyist, not a scientist: “I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.” Last I looked, we elect our legislators. We'd prefer our scientists to do their job - gather accurate data and provide unbiased interpretations.
  5. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    victull, you're simply repeating the same logical error that you made in your post #6, even 'though you're misconstruing of the top article was clearly pointed out to you by Tom and dana. Perhaps that's your "legal training"! The words "false" and "misleading" are used three times and two times, respectively, in dana's top article. In each case these adjectives are used in sentences describing statements made in the UAH press release or by Christy on Spencer's blog. It is these that are "false"/"misleading" for the reasons that dana has spelled out. This could hardly be clearer. Dana's statements simply don't refer to the methodology used by Spencer and Christy in their analysis of MSU data in constructing the UAH tropospheric temperatures. CBDunkerson has answered your question about whether or not Spencer and Christy accept the corrections (especially involving orbital drift and diurnal correction). The answer is yes. re your question of whether RSS scientists incorporated these corrections. Firstly, since it was the RSS scientists (in 1998) that identified the cooling bias arising from orbital decay [*], it's obvious that they include this in their RSS analysis. The diurnal drift correction is an oddball. RSS didn't so much as incorporate this correction, as not incorporate a rather astonishing error into their analysis in the first place. So RSS didn't need to make this correction since the error was very much a UAH-specific problem [**]. [*] F. J. Wentz and M. Schabel (1998) Effects of orbital decay on satellite-derived lower-tropospheric temperature trends. Nature 394, 661-664. [**] e.g. As Wentzl (RSS) said in correspondence folowing the publication of the diurnal drift problem [***] , [see Science 310, 972-3 (2005)]: "Once we realized that the diurnal correction being used by Christy and Spencer for the lower troposphere had the opposite sign from their correction for the middle troposphere sign, we knew that something was amiss. Clearly, the lower troposphere does not warm at night and cool in the middle of the day. We question why Christy and Spencer adopted an obviously wrong diurnal correction in the first place. They first implemented it in 1998 in response to Wentz and Schabel (1), which found a previous error in their methodology: neglecting the effects of orbit decay." [***] C. A. Mears and F. J. Wentz (2005) The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature Science 1548-1551.
    Moderator Response: [muon] fixed text
  6. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    Daneel's objection in #1 seems to be founded, since FR2011 is not an attribution study. Of course, AOGCMs simulations, which are in charge of such attribution, suggest the 0,16 K/dec signal FR2011 have separated from natural noise very likely emerges from GHG forcing. And so did HK2011 with a model of intermediate complexity. The Christy's idea that we would need an ultimate "proof" for the role of GHG must be questioned. In climate studies, and particularly in detection-attribution, there is no other "proof" that the results of models implementing the "state of the art" physics of climate. Any climate scientist unsatisfied with models has to publish a critical analysis of their radiative or convective schemes in order to show they do a bad job and miss some essential mechanisms of Earth climate. Discrepancies between observations and simulations are frequent, but they are not considered as fatal flaws as long as models get the "big picture" right. It is the case, and that's why IPCC AR4 2007 concluded that most of the observed warming since the 1950s is very likely due to GHG forcing. Even if we imagine that UAH is correct on TLT, and so that models slightly overestimate the warming of LT, this would imply that the transient (not equilibrium) water vapour and lapse rate feedbacks have to be adjusted so as to better fit the observations. Such an optimization would not be a revolution, and would not create by itself a "new cause" for the observed surface warming. At least it is the way I understand these questions.
  7. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    victull wrote: "I can't see any comment about whether or not Christy or Spencer accept these 'red' adjustments as correct." You appear to be proceeding under the incorrect assumption that these adjustments were made from the outside. Think it through. These are adjustments to the UAH satellite temperature record... which is developed by people at UAH... namely Spencer and Christy. In short, if they hadn't agreed (eventually) with the errors identified by outside groups they presumably wouldn't have adjusted their results to correct those errors. Once you take their acceptance, and correction of, those errors into account it should then become clear that their statements about the trends and adjustments in their record seem not merely 'false' (which doesn't imply intent in my experience), but demonstrably contradictory of things they have previously acknowledged. I suppose we could assume that they 'forgot' or 'spoke without checking the numbers' and are thus still simply 'incorrect' rather than deliberately misleading... but then they should be acknowledging these additional, blatantly obvious, errors now that they've been pointed out. But they aren't.
  8. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    tom @ dana It must be my legal training or Queen's english but when I read the words 'false' and 'misleading' then intent is involved. Innocent mistakes made in good faith are 'errors'. All three terms are used in the article. Neither of you has addressed the issue of what Dressler said about "I don't really trust the satellite data" and my point about RSS. Orbital decay and diurnal drift adjustments noted in red in Figure 2 were made by scientists outside of UAH. Were similar adjustments made to the RSS record? Presumably yes. I can't see any comment about whether or not Christy or Spencer accept these 'red' adjustments as correct. If they don't then it is understandable for them to defend their analysis and trends and come up with 'incorrect' statements. I would not defend either Christy or Spencer throwing about accusations of fraud against other unnamed scientists for a minute. They are clearly reckless in doing so. Finally, problems with orbital decay and other adjustments affect all satellites - those measuring sea level, gravity, TSI etc. Aren't we trusting these data as the best available is finding evidence of global warming?
  9. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    owl905, actually 'albedo influence' would be a feedback effect... I suppose land use changes can create an albedo forcing, but that would be tiny on short time scales. The larger ice albedo change is a feedback on other factors forcing the temperature one way or the other. I assume that the large feedbacks like ice albedo and water vapor were factored in when F&R were filtering out the effects of natural forcings. If they adjusted for just the direct impact of the forcings then the feedback on those forcings would still be causing swings in the end result. There have been other studies which worked to separate out the different factors responsible for observed warming. F&R is just a new methodology and another step forward. Eventually we may be able to identify and chart each significant component to enough certainty that the remaining greenhouse forcing looks like a nearly straight line. At which point we'd also be able to use observations of natural forcings to better predict temperatures, and thus weather, in the immediate future.
  10. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    "I don't really think that the Foster and Rahmstorf paper is evidence of anthropogenic global warming." Their research redux's to the Albedo Influence, the Greenhouse Effect, or God. Based on the evidence, my vote goes to the Greenhouse Effect.
  11. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    @john hartz. Dr Roy Spencer's satellite derived temperature data can be found here http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
  12. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    DaneelOlivaw @10, in light of the fact that you agree that Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 "... is strong indirect evidence for AGW", and that it quantifies the linear trend, it follows logically that it is strong indirect evidence that the anthropogenically caused linear trend is approximately 0.16 degree C per decade. All that it lacks as a quantification of "... how much of the warming trend is due to humans" is an error estimate on the proportion of anthropogenic contribution to the trend. Further, discussion of F&R2011 is clearly relevant to Spencer's claim. Foster and Rahmstorf clearly are doing what Spencer claims cannot be done scientifically, ie, showing how much of the underlying trend is due to certain factors. Given that, your objection to the wording in the blog is raising a very subtle point. I am unsure what raising that point contributes to the discussion, nor how the post could be better worded to meet your objection.
  13. ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
    Cole#26: "confirmed the statistically significant influence of CR intensity decrease on the state of the atmosphere." Except Agee et al 2011 unconfirmed that: It is concluded that the observational results presented, showing several years of disconnect between GCRs and lower troposphere global cloudiness, add additional concern to the cosmic ray-cloud connection hypothesis. In fact, this has been done in the most dramatic way with the measurement of record high levels of GCRs during the deep, extended quiet period of cycle 23-24, which is accompanied by record low levels of lower troposphere global cloudiness. So I guess CR 'intensity' alters the state of the climate (whatever that means) in a statistically significant way, if you ignore the years where it doesn't. Can you say 'robust results'?
  14. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    I understand what you are telling me and I agree. There's no magical mechanism that could explain the steady linear trend but anthropogenic CO2, BUT... I think that this post is not strictly correct when it says that "The aforementioned Foster and Rahmstorf paper filtered out the effects of the three largest short-term natural influences on global temperature, and estimated the resulting man-made trend at approximately 0.16°C per decade since 1979 (Figure 3)". Strictly speaking what they found is a linear trend of about 0.16ºC per decade when you remove some natural factors. The paper, by itself, does not say anything about what is actually causing this trend. Of course, taking into account prior studies and basic physics means acknowledging that the cause is anthropogenic. I'll take this quote, cited by Albatros @3: "The resultant adjusted data show clearly, both visually and when subjected to statistical analysis, that the rate of global warming due to other factors (most likely these are exclusively anthropogenic) has been remarkably steady during the 32 years from 1979 through 2010" The data presented in RF11 alone, IMO, cannot be used to prove that statement. That the causes are "most likely anthropogenic" is a (correct) conclusion based on previous research. I may have been wrong in saying that "I don't really think that the Foster and Rahmstorf paper is evidence of anthropogenic global warming". In a second thought, I agree with dana1981 @2 in that "Foster and Rahmstorf's paper is strong indirect edvidence for AGW", but my point is that it's not a paper about attribution but about quantification. It takes the stance that the attribution problem is long settled (as it is) and then takes it from there; that's the way science works. But for fake sceptics I don't think FR11 would be compelling since they are stuck in a long forgotten (and mostly imaginary) past when we didn't know what could possibly cause a positive trend in global average temperatures.
  15. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    Tom @7 - correct, the 'misrepresentations' refer to the comments made in the press release and blog post. And it's a good point that Spencer et al. are the ones accusing others of frauds and the like.
  16. ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
    FYI, Cole has a history of carpet-bombing threads here at SkS with misunderstood, off-topic or fake-skeptic links.
  17. Philippe Chantreau at 15:06 PM on 28 December 2011
    ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
    Cole, thank you for providing once again confirmation that a certain crowd going by the motto "anything but CO2" will recycle any an all debunked arguments ad infinitum. Your interpretation of the Dragic et al paper is mistaken. This paper was first cited 3 and a half months ago ny Muoncounter, who knows about these things, as his handle indicates. I'll cite Muon's previous assessment on this, which comes straight from looking at the numbers in the Dragic paper: "The authors have a dataset running 41 years (1954-95); there are a grand total of 35 7% FDs in that period. If this is what is causing clouds to form, there isn't even 1 cosmic ray induced cloudy episode per year!" If one cloud event per year can modulate climate, what kind of effect would even a minute change in radiative forcing that operates 24/7 have? This is not even betting on the wrong horse, it's simply beating a dead one. The Dragic paper is indeed tragic news for GCRs/climate advocates. See this post, dating back to 3 and a half monts ago: http://www.skepticalscience.com/cern-cosmic-rays-basic.html#62404
  18. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    victull @6, in no part of the article are Spencer and Christy accused of bias. Rather, evidence is given that the UAH temperature record results in a bias showing a cooler trend than that which probably exists. The reason for that bias may be flaws in the instrumentation, flaws in Spencer and Christy's particular methods, or even an unknown or unaccounted for physical effect which biases the temperature measurements. In stating that record of bias, evidence has come to light that does suggest a particular bias on behalf of Spencer and Christy, although the main post draws no conclusion on that point, instead concluding that:
    "Given that the radiation reaches the satellite sensors having travelled through a warming lower atmosphere and cooling stratosphere, that bias exists between the various sensors, issues with orbital decay, and a host of other obstacles, there's a lot of careful and painstaking analysis required, and much that can go wrong."
    Despite the reticence of the main post, it is difficult to not conclude from: 1) The overall negative pattern of the corrections to the record made by Spencer and Christy (excluding errors discovered by others); 2) The repeated and confident statements that the UAH record is wrong, and that therefore the surface record is in error; and 3) The claims made by Spencer and Christy and examined in the second article in this series, that Spencer and Christy are in fact personally biased in favour of little warming, and that bias has effected their work. There is a vast difference, however, between that conclusion and the conclusion "...that they deliberately read the UAH temperature record 'low' thereby showing bad faith as scientists", ie, that Spencer and Christy have acted fraudulently, which you ascribe to the article. There is no claim of personal bias in the mainposts, let alone a claim of fraud. In contrast, Spencer has said:
    "In my opinion, the supposed “fingerprint” evidence of human-caused warming continues to be one of the great pseudo-scientific frauds of the global warming debate....Many papers indeed have claimed to find a human “fingerprint”, but upon close examination the evidence is simply consistent with human caused warming — while conveniently neglecting to point out that the evidence would also be consistent with naturally caused warming."
    That is a deliberate accusation of scientific fraud, and of pseudo-science against his colleagues for which Spencer is unable to provide evidence. Further, it is an accusation he has supported with plainly false statements. Given your stated concern that accusations of fraud be well evidenced, it is stunning that you are wasting your time here where no such accusation has been made, rather than defending the reputation of scientists at WUWT, or indeed at Spencer's (or Roger Pielke Snr's blog) where such accusations are common. Finally, as I understand it, the "misrepresentations" referred to in the title of the series refer to the many blatantly false or misleading statements that Spencer and Christy made in their press statement and subsequent commentary. It is not a claim that their scientific work is a misrepresentation. Perhaps Dana could confirm this.
  19. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    The charge made by this article is that Christy and Spencer are 'biased' - that is that they deliberately read the UAH temperature record 'low' thereby showing bad faith as scientists. There might be some truth in that claim but to make that case there needs to be some watertight evidence on the part of the accuser. For example RSS is (I believe) analysing the same raw satellite data as UAH then the trends from Table 1 for RSS are midway between UAH and the others (Fu and Zou) for the TMT trend and the same as UAH for the TLT trend. Would it be reasonable to ask if RSS is a reliable and unbiased analysis which has no Christy or Spencer influence? If we look at the RATPAC trend of 0.18 verses RSS of 0.14C/dec - is this a significant difference outside normal error bars which is even worthy of comment? And the comment quoted by Andrew Dessler: "As far as the data go, I don’t really trust the satellite data. While satellites clearly have some advantages over the surface thermometer record, such as better sampling, measuring temperature from a satellite is actually an incredibly difficult problem. That’s why, every few years, another big problem in the UAH temperature calculation is discovered. And, when these problems are fixed, the trend always goes up" Does this also apply to RSS? Surely error or bias in the UAH record does not necessarily apply to RSS as well. Or are all the satellite reconstructions now to be suspect? And what do we make of this statement: "To be fair, Dessler was incorrect to say that the trend always goes up after adjustments are made to UAH". So is Dessler showing his own bias by making an incorrect statement? On balance I think that Christy and Spencer do have a case to answer regarding honest difference of opinion, limitations of the technology and deliberate bias, but a case is not made by airing similar bias on the other side of the argument.
    Response:

    [dana1981] No, you misunderstand the article.  The term "bias" has multiple meanings.  We aren't saying Spencer and Christy are biased (in the article), we're saying the evidence points to the UAH record being biased low (meaning cooler than reality).  Yes, the same applies to RSS, to a lesser degree.  That's simply where the scientific evidence seems to point.

  20. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    jmorpuss @8, the paper you link to discusses the atmosphere as a source of noise for radio telescopes and has nothing to do with either the main article above or subsequent discussion. Nor does it discuss man made noise as you claim. My day is not improved by you wasting my time.
  21. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    Tom the only thing you missed out is man made frequency abuse (noise)Here's a link from NASA that looks at noise,microwave frequencies and temperature http://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/Monograph/series10/06_Reid_chapt+6.pdf Cheers and have a great day
    Moderator Response: As Tom replied to you, your comment is off topic not just for this thread but for this entire site.
  22. ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
    Conclusions The superposed epoch analysis confirmed the statistically significant influence of CR intensity decrease on the state of the atmosphere. http://www.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net/7/315/2011/astra-7-315-2011.pdf This is a new paper that seems to contradict what you're saying here. Is there a response?
  23. Soares finds lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature
    Yesterday I encountered this amusing lie (above) for the first time, but apparently it has been passing through the FOX "News" obeyers for several months already. Stating Paulo Soares has refuted 160 years of physics regarding greenhouse gases is equal to stating Stan Meyer's car really was fueled only by water: it would involve not only a massive world-wide munti-generational conspiracy, but also an astonishing change in the laws of physics.
  24. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    DaneelOlivaw @1, not only do Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 show that neither the sun, volcanoes or the El Nino Southern Oscillation (or any combination of them) are responsible for the current warming; they also show that what ever is responsible has had a near constantly increasing effect over the last 33 years. So which mythical natural cause of global warming has that property? Not the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation: Not the Pacific Decadal Oscillation: Not Cosmic Rays: F&R2011 not only show the effects of short term variations in ENSO, etc. By doing so they also show that the remaining long term trend is inconsistent with all the favourite fake skeptic "natural" explanations leaving anthropogenic forcing as the only currently proposed mechanism consistent with the data. It follows that R&F2011 is strong evidence that the current warming is due to anthropogenic forcings.
  25. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    Daneel, based on our understanding of atmospheric physics we expect human activities, ENSO, and volcanic eruptions to cause significant warming on short time scales. Thus, if we filter out two of these (along with solar effects, which are actually tiny on short time scales but constantly cited by 'skeptics' anyway) then logically any trend remaining should be largely due to the third. F&R thus does indeed show "evidence" of the anthropogenic trend. Yes, there could still be unknown magical forces out there which are canceling out the warming GHGs should be causing AND simultaneously causing identical warming patterns (see the 'fingerprints' section of the article) themselves... but that's empty speculation with no foundation whatsoever. Every test we are able to perform confirms humans are responsible for the warming. The chances of that being incorrect due to multiple unknowns just happening to align to give the wrong impression is vanishingly small.
  26. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    About this part: Of course, Spencer and Christy may well have meant not 'since that upward jump' but 'including that upward jump'. Of course, if you include the 'upward jump' in the part before 1998, you also get a lot of warming. The main point is the final trend in the fig. 1 gif: the whole period has a clear warming. You can play with words to get people paying attention to pieces of it, but it does not make the warming go away.
  27. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    Roy Spencer states the following in his Dec 21 blog post, “Addressing Criticisms of the UAH Temperature Dataset at 1/3 Century”. “Earlier this week we reported on the latest monthly global temperature update, as we do every month, which is distributed to dozens of news outlets.” Who exactly are the recipients of the monthly temperature updates/news release? Are they all legitimate news organizations? I pose these questions because I cannot find the monthly temperature updates/news release posted on either the website of the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) or on the website of the UAH’s Earth System Science Center. In addition, why does Roy Spencer engage in a discussion about the UA temperature updates/news release on his private blog site rather than on the public website of the Earth System Science Center? Click here to access Spencer’s private blog.
  28. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    DaneelOlivaw @1, "As I see it, that papers assumes...that global warming is mainly anthropogenic..." It is not my understanding that Foster and Rahmstorf (2011, FR11) assume that a priori in their paper; I do not think that is a fair assessment of their paper by you. They find that what emerges when one removes the short-term, transient noise is a steady long-term warming trend. That steady background warming is what is very troublesome for the fake skeptics and those who deny the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The point is that natural variation alone cannot explain the observed warming trends in the data. From RF11: "Perhaps most important, it enables us to remove an estimate of their influence, thereby isolating the global warming signal. The resultant adjusted data show clearly, both visually and when subjected to statistical analysis, that the rate of global warming due to other factors (most likely these are exclusively anthropogenic) has been remarkably steady during the 32 years from 1979 through 2010. There is no indication of any slowdown or acceleration of global warming, beyond the variability induced by these known natural factors. Because the effects of volcanic eruptions and of ENSO are very short-term and that of solar variability very small (figure 7), none of these factors can be expected to exert a significant influence on the continuation of global warming over the coming decades." "Of course, they do show that GW cannot be due to the Sun, volcanoes or ENSO. " Yes, but if one does not like RF11 then their is another excellent paper Huber and Knutti (2011) that estimates the anthropogenic global warming component. Regardless, there go the fake skeptics' favourite cycles that they like to try and attribute the warming to. That is the true significance of the FR11 paper. Now that they have been forced to accept that the warming is real, Roy Spencer and his fellow fake skeptics are forced to try and attribute the warming to all kinds of natural cycles/oscillations while at the same time trying to claim that the present warming is insignificant in magnitude (i.e., inferring that the future warming will not be bad)-- the logical fallacy is obvious. So anything to downplay the anthropogenic component and to cast doubt is their means to delay taking meaningful action on reducing GHG emissions. They are quite good at it, at least when it comes to misleading people who do not know (and sometimes even those who should know) better. The big tell in the fake skeptics' game is that they have yet to develop a cohesive, physically-based and internally consistent theory that explains all the fingerprints and the nature of the observed warming.
  29. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    Daneel - considering that the sun and volcanoes are the dominant natural external forcings, and they also filter out the main internal variation (ENSO), Foster and Rahmstorf's paper is strong indirect edvidence for AGW.
  30. Medieval project gone wrong
    Markx... You're making the same mistake that many people make with the MWP. There are hundreds of papers on the MWP. There are better than 300 listed on that CO2Science website alone. MOST of those papers are research into local records of temperature. The MWP is a very loose term applied to any warm phase occurring anywhere between 700-1300 AD. The key word to remember in any discussion on this subject is "heterogenous." Even the Ed Cook paper you quote states clearly that the MWP is NOT homogenous. It does not occur everywhere at the same time. In many places the warming is early, ~700-900 AD. Other places it occurs late, around 1000-1300 AD. AND along with that you have places that are cooling when other places are warming. This is the reason the hockey stick turns into a hockey stick when you start putting all the data together. Those offsetting events cancel each other out. But what we are left with is a clear modern global trend that is significantly positive, per Tom's second graph of NH temp reconstructions. What I always note about the CO2Science group (Idso's et al) is that, even though they've pulled together all this data for the MWP, they've never bothered to try to use it to construct a multi-proxy chart of their own. Or they have and they didn't like the result.
  31. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    Just a comment. I don't really think that the Foster and Rahmstorf paper is evidence of anthropogenic global warming. They did remove the influence of the sun, ENSO and volcanoes but if global warming is natural, then there's no expectation that that signal is going away. As I see it, that papers assumes (correctly and based on a body of scientific research) that global warming is mainly anthropogenic and then removes spurious factors that obscure that trend. Of course, they do show that GW cannot be due to the Sun, volcanoes or ENSO.
    Response:

    [dana1981] The text has been modified slightly to note that the leftover trend after the FR11 removal of those three exogeneous factors is almost entirely anthropogenic, which was the reason it was included in the discussion in question.

  32. Medieval project gone wrong
    markx @33: 1) Your claim about Lamb (1965) is false. Egregiously false. The Central England Temperature series, which continues to be maintained by the Hadley Center dates back to 1659 for monthly data, and only to 1771 for daily data. Indeed, it would have been very hard for it to extend back further, given that thermometers where not invented until the 17th century. Therefore, the high temperatures shown by Lamb prior to 1659 are subjective reconstructions based on anecdotal evidence. What is more, the anecdotal evidence is biased, being based on European sources only, and hence reflecting changes in North Atlantic (and surrounding land) temperatures only, not global temperatures. What is more, even those subjectively reconstructed temperatures do not exceed modern temperatures for the region, as can be seen below. Lamb's 1982 reconstruction is shown in red. The Central England Temperature series is shown in blue: Despite these many errors, this myth keeps on getting pulled out of the denier hat. 2) Having dealt with the claim that is rife with factual errors, we turn to the others. There I simply note that you appear not to have read the main article. Two key points that you need to learn is that Tasmania (or any other region) is not the globe; and the MWP needs to be a defined time. The later is important because many MWPs from particular proxies occur at different times in different locations. If you make a reconstruction using a range of proxies, the different time periods of peak warmth in different locations results in a lower average temperature over the entire globe over the whole period. Every such reconstruction done has shown MWP warmth equivalent to about 1980-1980 20th century temperatures, and hence below current temperatures. Allowing for error margins, it is possible that the peak global warmth in the MWP was warmer than today. It is also inconsequential. Known physics shows that current temperatures will be at the very low end of the range over the next 500 years if we continue at Business As Usual. However, although the matter is not relevant, the current evidence more strongly favours a MWP cooler than 21st century temperatures to date. Indeed, one little considered piece of evidence that that is true is the refusal of denier scientists (such as those associated with CO2 science) to perform a proper temperature reconstruction. They know that the non-synchronous warming across the MWP will result in lower temperatures in any such reconstruction. So they stay well out of that game.
  33. Medieval project gone wrong
    Are we saying there was no MWP? Comments on the papers below would be appreciated.
    “….the current warming trend over Tasmania is still a significant event when viewed in the context of multi-decadal variability covering the past 2000 years. In that period it remains the warmest event to a marginal degree, although a much longer warm period is indicated in the AD 900±1500 interval…..)
    But that is the 50 years low pass reconstructed temperature, the ‘temperature reconstruction' indicates many peaks exceeding modern warming. (fig 7) Warm-season temperatures since 1600 BC reconstructed from Tasmanian tree rings and their relationship to large-scale sea surface temperature anomalies E. R. Cook á B. M. Buckley á R. D. D'Arrigo M. J. Peterson Climate Dynamics (2000) 16:79-91 Likewise, Liu Y, et al. also see a relatively warm period from 950 to about 1100 with no extreme cool periods until about 1200 (fig 1 and fig 5). (Though not as warm as current temperatures in the region) The LIA is evident too. Amplitudes, rates, periodicities and causes of temperature variations in the past 2485 years and future trends over the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau LIU Yu, CAI QiuFang, SONG HuiMing, AN ZhiSheng & Hans W. LINDERHOLM Liu Y, et al. Chinese Sci Bull October (2011) Vol.56 No.28-29 )
    “….This record is the longest yet produced for New Zealand and shows clear evidence for persistent above-average temperatures within the interval commonly assigned to the MWP……”)
    Evidence for a ‘Medieval Warm Period’ in a 1,100 year tree-ring reconstruction of past austral summer temperatures in New Zealand Edward R. Cook Jonathan G. Palmer Rosanne D. D’Arrigo For the Northern hemisphere, Actual temperature records from UK dating back to about 900 AD, show the average temperature (in the UK) from about 1100 to 1250 AD was more than 0.5 C warmer than today. (Lamb 1965)
    Moderator Response: [AMB] Fixed tag
  34. macwithoutfries at 00:45 AM on 28 December 2011
    UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    I would not completely rule out the possibility that the extra heat is 'going down' slightly faster than most models predict - after all we find like 90% of the Earth heat anomaly inside the oceans, and as such a product like UAH/RSS that is from start only for the atmosphere (excluding actual land and ocean and maybe with a certain bias introduced by the extensive processing needed to extract the temperature from behind the higher-layers signal) could easily be the wrong global estimate of warming :)
  35. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    John Hartz@2 I think your “McIntyre and Mosher at the door, hand over the rent.” link is wrong. It leads to an article about wildfires in Canada. Is this the link you intended? http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/12/mcintyre-and-mosher-at-door-hand-over.html (I'm happy for this post to be deleted after the link is fixed)
    Moderator Response: [JH] Link fixed. Thank you.
  36. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    Adding to Ariadne's post, it appears the factors in the study underestimate the predation and disease elements. In Ontario, blights are spreading and attempts to deal with the ash-bore infestation have failed. It's not the bump in heat that's pushing the forest-fire spread - it's about the forests turning into fuel dumps.
  37. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    Chris @1, Excellent points. Christy and Spencer have repeatedly shown confirmation bias by using the excuse that their product did not have a cool bias because it compared well with the weather balloon data, even though the literature at that time showed that the global balloon data had problems. The Mears et al. (2011) paper is good, of course. Readers can find the PDF here. Mears et al. also note that there are still outstanding issues with the satellite temperature estimates: "This further confirms our finding for our data set that unambiguously resolving the diurnal drift effect correction and its impacts is likely to be a key determinant in reducing the uncertainty in long term tropospheric temperature changes from MSU/AMSU records." And, "An inescapable conclusion from this is that the methodological choices that we and others have made have lead to a substantial and significant impact upon the resulting estimates. This reinforces the importance of creating multiple independent estimates from the raw data which is known both to contain nonclimatic influences and lack met[eo]rological traceability if we are to avoid the possibility of reaching false conclusions Spencer and Christy (and their apologists) should heed their colleagues' sage advice...I doubt they will though. And yes, please free the code Drs. Spencer and Christy. Funny how "skeptic" scientists like to demand their colleagues' code, yet fail to do so themselves.
  38. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    According to Eli Rabett, Spencer and Christy have yet to make public the software they use to convert the data collected by the NASA satellites into their estimates of the temperatures of the lower troposphere (TLT) and of the mid troposphere (TMT). As Rabett suggests in “MacIntyre and Mosher at the door, hand over the rent.” posted Dec 21, 2011 on his blog, Rabett Run, someone in the US ought to file an FOIA request for the software so it could be scrutinized by experts with microwave and programming experience.
  39. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    @takver: Kudos on your well-written and well-researched article.
  40. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    @takver: All links have been fixed. I keep forgetting that the SkS system automatically changes all of the embedded links in articles when they are imported for reposting. My apologies to everyone for the inconvenience.
  41. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    Nice article. It’s helpful to continue highlighting these misrepresentations since Spencer and particular Christy seem determined to engage in attempts to cloud our understanding of tropospheric temperature measurements and how these relate to expectations from physical understanding of the climate system in a warming world. Three points come to mind: ONE: It’s worth pointing out that while Spencer and Christy engage in misrepresentation, scientists that follow the more traditional (!) pursuit of real world knowledge continue to set the record straight. Recent examples include Santer et al (2011) and Thorne et al (2011). The work of Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems has been instrumental in making Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) properly useful as a means of measuring tropospheric temperature (and encouraging Spencer and Christy to make appropriate analyses of UAH data). Mears and Wentz's papers are particularly good (recent example below). If ever anyone wishes to come to an informed opinion of the progression of the science on tropospheric temperature analysis the subject is very well documented in the scientific literature. TWO: Focussing on the science, it's also worth pointing out that the agreement between current radiosonde reanalyses and RSS (and UAH) TLT tropospheric measures may be better than indicated in your Table 1. This follows from the fact that radiosonde measurements don’t cover the entire globe. If the satellite TLT data is filtered to exclude areas of spatial coverage omitted from the radiosonde analysis then radiosonde (HadAT) and MSU TLT are quite similar [see Mears et al (2011), Figure 12): HadAT: trend = 0.188 K/decade Sampled RSS: trend = 0.185 K/decade Sampled UAH: trend = 0.174 K/decade That's not to say that there aren't more errors/adjustments to be found/made in these analyses! THREE: Returning towards somewhat snarky historical description, it’s also worth remarking on the relationship between the Spencer/Christy UAH product and radiosonde measures of tropospheric temperature. During the long years during which Spencer/Christy were making erroneous MSU analyses, their major justification for assertions of “accuracy” was an apparent agreement between UAH analyses and radiosonde measures [*]. Interestingly, the (erroneous; see below) radiosonde measures were actually used by Christy/Spencer as part of their methodology for determining MSU temperature trends (more specifically, the choice of sets of satellite data overlaps was guided partly by reference to radiosonde data), and so the MSU and radiosonde analyses weren't as "independent" as one might suppose. Once errors in the analysis of radiosonde data was highlighted [e.g. Sherwood et al (2005)], and modern reanalyses products (like RATPAC and HadAT mentioned in dana’s top article) produced trends similar to those expected from physics, Spencer and Christy were (and are) doubly negligent in insinuating a fundamental discrepancy between surface and atmospheric temperature measures. [*]e.g. Christy, Spencer and WD Braswell (1997) “How accurate are satellite “thermometers”? Nature 389, 342. “We believe that lower-tropospheric temperatures measured directly by satellites have excellent long-term accuracy, as seen by comparisons with independent atmospheric measurements from weather balloons.”
  42. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    Thanks for reposting this article. The first two links now work, but the rest need fixing, including all the source links at the bottom.
    Moderator Response: [JH] I will proceed to fix the other links. Thanks for bringing these glitches to our attention.
  43. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    HK - the graph in question is very strange, because it actually plots solar cycle length rather than solar activity. In fact, as I recall, it's inverse solar cycle length, because shorter solar cycles correlated with higher temperatures. Just playing with correlations, really (unless I'm recalling incorrectly).
  44. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Did anyone notice that the graph showing temperature vs. solar activity in the beginning of the film is doubly misleading? Not only does the curve for solar activity conveniently stop in 1980 just before the two curves start to move away from each other, but it is also wrong for another reason. Solar activity did not peak around 1940 and drop after that, but continued to climb until its highest recorded level in the late 1950’s, as you can se here. That is almost 20 years after the peak in temperature. When the temperature levelled out and dropped a bit, the solar activity was still increasing to its highest level seen for several hundred years. Solar activity lags temperature? Did they use the wrong curve for solar activity to create a better match with the temperature before 1980, or am I just overly suspicious here? I guess we know the answer to that…
  45. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Les@11 – this is not off topic because Peter Sinclair’s video contains the perennial theme of media climate science misinformation. Do not dismiss Delingpole as a fringe blogger. He writes books and does many interviews - even Prof. Paul Nurse interviewed him for his BBC documentary “Science under Attack”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SmPjVCfTgM (preview only) which helped Delingpole’s profile and credibility. Just as with climate change, there is the “accumulative effect” of misinformation.
  46. There is no consensus
    In the Crock of the Week video above, I thought the stuff about characters from Deliverance was un-called for, showed class prejudice, and was counter-productive. Snobbishness and elitism is no way to convince climate change denialists. I've known lots of dolks with Appalachian roots, and this is offensive.
  47. The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
    39, Start, Terms like "climate Armageddon" are entirely unhelpful to the discussion, and rather inaccurate. While the effects of climate change will be very bad for a lot of people, and while if really pushed to an extreme civilization may find itself being refashioned (as has happened, one should note, frequently and at an accelerating pace since the end of the dark ages), "Armageddon" is not an applicable term. We discuss "climate change," not climate "Armageddon" or "catastrophic climate change" or "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" or any other unnecessarily dramatic and overwrought superlative. Note also that this site is not about "selling" a view point. This site is about explaining the science. The truth behind the science is all that one needs to make a rational decision about any course of action (or inaction).
  48. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    DMarshall#12, Thanks for the link to the Agee et al 2011 paper, although I feel somewhat tarnished by having to go through Curry to read it. Agee is very clear: It is concluded that the observational results presented, showing several years of disconnect between GCRs and lower troposphere global cloudiness, add additional concern to the cosmic ray-cloud connection hypothesis. In fact, this has been done in the most dramatic way with the measurement of record high levels of GCRs during the deep, extended quiet period of cycle 23-24, which is accompanied by record low levels of lower troposphere global cloudiness. Their Figure 2 (comparison of GCR flux with ISCCP low cloud amount) makes it clear where the excitement generated by the early papers proclaiming 'clouds correlate with GCRs' originated. There is indeed a slight reduction in cloud amount coincident with reduced GCR flux in 1990-91 and then an uptick in cloud amount as GCR flux increased through 1994. But from 1994 on, the cloud amount has decreased, while GCRs started a strong increase in 2004. In short, the fuss over GCRs was generated by basing a conclusion on too short a dataset - and ignoring everything since. Note how often that behavior pops up among those who seek to push these fringe hypotheses.
  49. The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
    Well done friends. Thank you for your work. May I suggest that the first rule of discussing climate armageddon is to continually assess the motivations of the one with whom you speak, and secondarily of any onlookers. Deniers almost always have an agenda, obscuring the Truth by running out the clock with infinite 'arguments' whose sole criterion for them is to, well, help run out the clock. Except in the rare instance where the denier is indeed a truth-seeker, but misled, in which case sharing the facts is useful, otherwise, the kindness to humanity, and to this intended obscurer, is to disengage. The other time to violate this first rule is if there is an audience that includes truth seekers, in which case it may be best to engage the would be obscurer, but maintaining clarity of purpose in one's own mind that not the arguer, but the audience is the focus.
    Moderator Response: [Rob P] all caps edited
  50. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Peter Sinclair also has a site at Climate Crocks, where he makes frequent posts on enviro and climate-related news. Also, the site comments on this latest Climate, Sun, Cosmic Rays video has 2 useful links: 1.) An ArsTechnica article about climate and cosmic rays 2.)The actual recent paper by Purdue's Ernest Agee posted at Judith Curry's

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