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Comments 75101 to 75150:

  1. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    jpat (re 42) one of us isn't getting it and I don't think it's me! Something has caused the earth to warm rather dramatically especially since the 1970's. The warming (which can be described as a secular warming trend), is associated with a massive increase in thermal energy in the climate system that can be directly measured in the oceans. On top of that trend there is variability that has cyclical (solar), stochastic (ENSO) and contingent (e.g. volcanoes) contributions. If we take out the non-solar contributions from this set as S-F claim to have down ('though with zero insight into methodology!), we're left with what might just be the solar cycle contribution. That does indeed correlate weakly with the solar cycle. No problem there I think we'd agree (as would Frolich and Lockwood no doubt). But as far as global warming we're not interested in the contributors to variability around the secular trend. We're interested in what causes the trend. S-F is consistent with lots of work that the solar, ENSO and volcanic contributions to the large warming trend are near zero over this period (e.g. see Lean and Rind 2008, I linked to above). They cause variabilty ("noise" on the warming trend, but (as S-F) indicate make little contribution to the trend. Working the other way, we know that all else being equal, increased [CO2] must cause warming and we have a reasonble handle on how much. The warming trend is consistent with this contribution (i.e. enhanced greenhouse forcing). Our confidence that this is the case is further establshed by observations that greenhouse-specific correlates of warming (stratospheric cooling, raised height of tropopause, specific effects on diurnal temperature range and so on) are observed as expected. As S-F says the contribution to the secular warming trend is due to greenhouse gases. Their odd inference that these could be "natural" greenhouse gases makes no sense at all. And since they give us no insight into the origin of their odd thoughts on this we're none the wiser, other than to say that there is zero evidence that "natural" greenhouse gas contributions have been of any significance whatsoever...
  2. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    dana1981 - "...but that heat will come from the oceans..." I'm going to have to disagree; that heat will go into the oceans, not come from them, until they reach rough thermal equilibrium. Current temperatures (including ocean heat values) measure what is now in the climate system. The 'delayed warming', or as I prefer to describe it the 'unrealized warming', is the warming remaining to fully cancel out forcing imbalances. There is considerable thermal lag as joules of energy accumulate (primarily in the oceans), and imbalances are not redressed immediately. This is true as long as we have a TOA forcing imbalance and thermal lag. This was discussed at some length in Has Earth warmed as much as expected thread.
  3. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    " we know that the cycles involved are too short to explain the observed trends." Though there is an obvious 11 year cycle there are also several cycles of much longer duration which have been found to correlate with cool and hot cycles of the earth. As the planets revolve around the sun their gravity affects the sun in complex, long cycles which can be mathematically analyzed and predicted. Theodor Landscheidt made some amazingly accurate long term projections of el nino cycles based on the dynamics of the sun. Those methods predict decades of global cooling which will be obvious in a few years if correct. Here is a link to an elementary summary written after several long term predictions came true: http://www.john-daly.com/sun-enso/revisit.htm We certainly shouldent ignore this line of study as it will be impossible to ignore if the predictions come true.
  4. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    Chris, You wrote "The data in S-F Fig. 2 is a straightforward confirmation that solar variation can have had little contribution to the secular warming trend that is especially apparent since the 1970's." I do not see how this follows. If we take out known forcings and the trend (which we both agree is in all likelihood a system response) and establish that the residual is well correlated to another hypothesized forcing, than you've accounted for the vast majority of systemic inputs. How then do you justify your statement that the observed trend is "due to the massive enhancement of greenhouse gas concentrations." The reasoning seems circular to me. That attribution is what you have to prove. It can't appear in your presumptions.
  5. Crux of a Core, Part 3... Dr. Ole Humlum
    Thanks Rob. Then there should be more posts relating to his website ;) It is clever, but misleading. To the diagram/chart: Humlum may have adjusted the chart, but his a priori belief is that CO2 has nothing to do with global warming. The chart, adjusted or not, reflects this belief. So my main point was the general one that he is still using the diagram with this particular combination of temperature and CO2 to prove that "The past temperature changes show little (if any) relation to the past atmospheric CO2 content" And "It can, however, from figures [2,] 3 [and 4] be concluded that the temperature increase 1975-2000 is not unique when compared with past records, and that the net effect on temperature by atmospheric CO2 has been small or even absent"(From Humlums site Besides this very doubtful (a priori) conclusion and use of data, if I understand you correctly there are also these issues: 1. He knows of this post, but still uses the lowest estimation in Box et al 2009 (which he refers to as Brox et al 2009) 2. He is still using a local record, your main point of misrepresentation of GISP2 3. Box et.al. 2009 end their data in 2007, but Box has an additional three years of data that Humlum is not using. 4. He is still using a CO2 record that ends in 1777 To me that makes his diagram/chart five times misleading, but I may be wrong.
  6. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    Argh, the last sentence should read "that the sensitivity to various forcing functions are not constant with time or that the operating point would exhibit near step changes in response to small input perturbations."
  7. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    Chris, Sorry, I don't have access to the scientific literature. But from what I have been able to find, the justifications for the adjustments to PMOD data seem implausible and the effects of those adjustments over the time period in dispute a bit convenient for those trying to disprove the GCR hypothesis. It wasn't my suggestion re natural greenhouse gases. The entire 2nd paragraph was a quote from the paper. But in any case, I don't see your point. If it can be established that a forcing function (be it ITS, GFR or a combination of the two) accounts for significantly more of the variance than is currently modeled, one should not expect the model to track reality nor rely on them for attribution studies. Superposition does not apply. You can just assume small input errors will lead to small output errors that will average out. I've spent 35 years in the design and modeling of non-linear, coupled feedback systems. In all but the lowest of order, these systems can be identified by the fact that they do not exhibit equilibrium in the LTE sense of the word. In the presence of noise, such systems can change regimes at the drop of a hat, exhibiting a whole new dynamic where feedback paths previous insignificant suddenly dominate. A quasi-equilibrium may be reached for a time then suddenly and without apparent cause the output trends off in a new direction. This of course makes attribution challenging, to say the least. Now one would expect a priori that a system as complex and non-linear as the climate would exhibit similar characteristics, so it doesn't seem surprising to me in the least that the sensitivity to various forcing functions are not constant with the operating point.
    Response:

    [DB] "Sorry, I don't have access to the scientific literature."

    Chris' link to Lean and Rind 2008 was directly to an openly-available copy.  Lockwood 2010 similarly was/is freely available (via link from Chris' link), here.

  8. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
    'and a major defect in the CO2 models is that they assume it is constant" Sorry, perhaps you would like to explain this further (with references). "It is also different in concentration [and behavior with light] at different altitudes in addition to varying between humid and desert areas near the surface." Not exactly news to climate modellers. What is your point here?
  9. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    KR @25 - I belive Pielke is basically right on this point. The surface will continue to warm until equilibrium is reached, but that heat will come from the oceans. As long as you account for all the heat in the Earth system, you don't have to worry about the thermal lag. Of course if you're going to take that approach, you do have to account for the entire Earth system, including the deep oceans, which Pielke tends to ignore (including in this "response" post). Taking the deep oceans into account invalidates his argument.
  10. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    jpat, re you comment about integrative systems, the only way this would be of sigificance would be if the small rise in solar output from around 1920's to early 1950's was sufficient to drive the tropospheric temperature towards a significantly raised new equilibrium. However, in such a case the rate of temperature response would have been largest at the earliest part of the response (specially for the troposphere which responds quite quickly to forcings). That's incompatible with the empirical temperature data. In any case the solar scientists that address the earth temperature response to solar variation have determined that the early to mid 20th century increase in solar contributions are rather small. For example, this paper by Lean and Rind (2008) (solar scientists like Lockwood and Frolich) is an accessible account and also describes the earth surface response to the solar cycle which S-F "rediscovered"!
  11. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    "Similarly, weblogs such as Skeptical Science, if they want to move the debate on the climate issues forward, need to move towards a more constructive approach." A comment like this makes Pielke seem like a concern troll. He has very little of substance to say on the things we're saying, but rather is highly critical of how we're saying it. There is, in my opinion, little room for this kind of attitude. If the fake skeptics are lying to the public, we have no obligation to be polite in pointing it out.
  12. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Dr. Kerry Emanuel has some sage words in an op-ed: "Science tells us that the extent and severity of climate change faced by our children's generation will be determined by the hard choices we must make today. Political leadership is about ensuring that we adults face up to this task. We cannot afford to have those leading our nation misrepresent, or be silent about, the reality and risks of climate change." That last paragraph also applies to scientists, including Dr. Pielke. While some scientists are turning a blind eye to the risks, others (including SkepticalScience) are being pro active in this regard.
  13. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    jpat, It would help if your criticism of the PMOD composite comes from a reputable source (aka peer-reviewed science). For a very thorough discussion of the ACRIM/PMOD/(IRMB) composites and the justification for using PMOD see Lockwood 2010 Not sure what you're trying to say. The data in S-F Fig. 2 is a straightforward confirmation that solar variation can have had little contribution to the secular warming trend that is especially apparent since the 1970's. That's due to the massive enhancement of greenouse gas concentrations. Can't see your basis for suggesting that might be due to "natural greenhouse gases". That seems very odd indeed! What do you mean by that? If you're saying that the solar cycle variation induces a tropospheric temperature response I doubt anyone would disagree. That's well established, but rather irrelevant both to mid 20th century to contemporary global warming, and to the possible contribution from cosmic rays. It's simply not possible from S-F Fig 2 to seperate the contributions from solar irradiance (which we know categorically has an effect on temperature) and from cosmic rays. They have essentially the same (antiphase) profile with respect to the solar cycle. So S-F confirm that solar contributions (TSI, CRF, open solar flux, sunspot number) has had an insignificant contribution to the recent and contemporary secular (greenhouse gas forced v. likely) temperature trend, and that solar variability through the solar cycle has an effect on tropospheric temperature. Nothing controversial about that at all, and it's certainly not in conflict whatsoever with Lockwood-Frolich. S-F clearly misunderstood the Lockwood-Frolich paper and produced a rather redundant and unpublishable web report.
  14. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    >In other words the cumulative warming has nothing to do with changes in solar outputs which have been broadly trendless (trending in a cooling direction since the mid 1980's) This statement is nonsense. In integrative systems, it is the area under the stimulus curve that counts, not the trend. And in non-linear systems, even symmetrical inputs can give rise to trending outputs.
  15. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Well, you can't expect such characters to objectively re-evaluate the actual quality of their work. They are perfectly aware of what the truth actually is, they just have a desperate need to hide from it. Trying to discuss rationally with them as if they can be convinced of anything is futile. The important thing from a scientific standpoint is simply to continue being right, and equally important is to make sure everyone is concretely aware of the exact position of the scientific consensus and where those representing political interests are wrong. Eventually there will come a point where general public hits the tipping point of overwhelming acknowledgement, and the next manipulation from the denialists will be attempts to distort the public's memory of what the science had been saying all along. I imagine there is a degree to which I must be preaching to the choir.
  16. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    WRT Dr. Pielke's most recent post, he says: Skeptical Science writes "A large amount of warming is delayed, and if we don’t act now we could pass tipping points." However, there is NO delayed warming when we measure in units of heat (Joules). A measurement of the heat in the oceans at two different time periods tells us what heating has occurred over this interval... This is appallingly wrong. A measurement of ocean temperatures tells us only the current temperatures, whereas the 'delayed warming' describes the warming that will continue to occur until the forcing imbalances are cancelled out. This is warming that we are committed to by the forcing changes such as GHG increases. This is a completely bogus statement on Dr. Pielke's part. He should know better, and I'm saddened to see someone of his stature producing it.
  17. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Rob @23, I agree. Look for a very long time now, those who are concerned about AGW have given "skeptics" a lot of leeway, too much leeway. Well, you can only turn the other cheek so many times. This is an important issue, so "skeptics" can no longer expect to cherry-pick, distort, and misrepresent the science at will. And their apologists can expect to be criticized for doing so. I will concede that the names of the series in question are "cheeky", but they were intended to be catchy. Predictably, Pielke is hiding behind that as a weak excuse to dismiss the severity of the misinformation propagated by Spencer and Christy; but him doing so does not change the fact that Spencer and Christy are in the habit of misinforming and spreading doubt and confusion. Would Pielke prefer if we were more direct by saying Christy's half truths" or "Christy's misinformation"? That would be a very accurate description of the statements that are discussed in the series. So Dr. Pielke can save us his indignance, especially in light of the disparaging remarks that he has made against his colleagues and his clear double standard.
  18. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    I would suggest that Dr Pielke perform a little experiment. Read a dozen or so articles from WUWT and rate them for inflammatory tone. Then read the same number of articles on SkS and rate them for inflammatory tone. After that go check the website stats for each of these websites. From this information please tell us which side of the debate needs to cool their heels.
  19. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    Your second point does not address the ocean temperature correlation presented in the paper. As to 3, in what universe is a .47 correlation "dismal". One need only observe the fit to refute your disparagement. And de-trending data prior to correlation analysis is standard practice, especially when one is trying to separate stimulus from response in non-linear systems with memory. In such systems, the variance is often rectified and when integrated, the resulting ramp will always de-correlate the system's dynamic response. The authors address this issue: As for the upward linear trend removed from Fig. 2 (lower), it is customary to attribute to greenhouse gases any increase in global temperatures not due to solar changes. While that is reasonable, one cannot distinguish between the effects of anthropogenic gases such as carbon dioxide and of natural greenhouse gases. In other words, whatever the source of the trend, it is safe to assume it is a response to a forcing. If all of the forcing stimuli can be accounted for through regression, how is it possible to attribute the trend to some other stimulus?

    Perhaps you could elaborate on your final point and respond to the criticism of the PMOD data used by Lockwood/Frolich. To the untrained observer, it is non-obvious where the charge of poor science should land.

  20. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Dr Pielke states in his response... "Skeptical Science would do more of a service to the science community if they accurately presented their (and my viewpoints), even when they disagree, rather than disparage those who disagree with them." My jaw is agape at the sheer audacity of this statement. Has Pielke never read Spencer's blog? Anthony Watts blog? Goddard's blog? McIntyre's blog? Dare I say, JoNova's blog? Dr Pielke seems to be completely and utterly oblivious of the tone that has been set by the climate deniers in this public debate. Literally, this is like saying we should stop shooting real bullets at the planes that are carpet bombing the place.
  21. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    jpat#33: "Unless the data and/or analysis can be challenged" Done and done; see the prior intermediate and advanced rebuttals It's cosmic rays.
  22. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    A truly astounding response by Dr. Pielke Sr.. Dr. Pielke - Your first article, Scientific Robustness Of The University Of Alabama At Huntsville MSU Data, inaccurately accused the SkS site of attacking the MSU data, and of ad hominem attacks against Spencer and Christy. The MSU data is valued by every poster and presentation here that I've seen, and you really really need to look up the definition of ad hominem - the articles here address the science (and science failures, and misrepresentations before Congress and the press) presented by Spencer and Christy, not personal attacks. After you have refreshed yourself on that definition of ad hominem, I suggest you take a critical look at Roy Spencer's blog, including his consistent ad hominem statements about the IPCC and motivations thereof. You then follow up with My Response To The Skeptical Science Post “One-Sided ‘Skepticism” a Gish Gallop of nonsense attacking this thread without ever addressing a single point made in the article. I hope you have some idea of just how poor a light you are currently painting yourself with...
  23. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    first off jpat, Svensmark and Friis-Christensen's (S-F)web report isn't "published" at all. It's a report posted on the web. Secondly the data in Figure 2 has nothing in particular to say about the relationship between global temperature variation and cosmix ray flux (CRF). Since the CRF marches pretty much in (antiphase) step with the solar irradiance (TSI), any apparent correlation between tropospheric temperature is likely simply to be due to the TSI variation which is known to affect tropospheric temperature. Thirdly the correlation is pretty dismal anyway -0.47. Fourthly the apparent correlation only works when the actual seculr warming trend has been removed! In other words the cumulative warming has nothing to do with changes in solar outputs which have been broadly trendless (trending in a cooling direction since the mid 1980's) as Lockwood and Frolich have described pretty categorically. Fifthly, S-F's "response" to Lockwood/Frolich is based on a completely misguided interpretation of Lockwood/Frolich as is apparent from reading S-F's first paragraph. It's poor science, and would never have passsed peer review if an attempt had been made to publish it.
  24. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Dr. Pielke responded very quickly to Dana's post, yet he doesn't seem to be able to find time to answer a very simple question originally posed to him: "Do you or do you not approve of John Christy's misleading testimony to US Congress, including his assertion that predictions of global cooling in the 1970s were the same as predictions of global warming today?" Waiting. Alas, so far all we have is this.
  25. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    dana1981 - your comment presumes the climatic system exhibits time invariance, which would be quite surprising given that high-order, non-linear systems generally are not TE. As I said, the correlation is quite convincing. Unless the data and/or analysis can be challenged, the proof would seem to be in the pudding, as they say.
  26. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    jpat - your link doesn't work, but considering that CR flux on Earth hasn't increased in the past 60 years, somehow I doubt the accuracy of Svensmark and Friis-Christensen's purported correlation.
  27. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    Fixed link to the paper referenced above. Sorry for the slip.
  28. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Oh dear, after reading Pielke Sr's "response" SkS may have a whole bunch more 'skeptic' myths to dispel. For example, his claim that: "There has not been warming significantly, if at all, since 2003, as most everyone on all sides of the climate issue agree." Not relevant and it depends which metric you are using and if it is OHC how much of the data one uses (does one use all the argo data or does one use the top X metres that gives the desired lack of warming?) But Dr. Pielke, you also say on your blog, in response to Santer et al. (2011) that: "There has been NO long-term trend since the large El Nino in 1998. That’s 13 years." We'll ignore the blatant cherry picking of 1998 for now, but it does raise an interesting question. Dr. Pielke did the warming cease in 1998 or 2003? You cherry-picking 2003, also seems to fly in the face of this statement made by you on your blog: "I agree with Santer et al that “[m]inimal warming over a single decade does not disprove the existence of a slowly-evolving anthropogenic warming signal.”" Why then select a statistically meaningless short window of time?
  29. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
    @ CBDunkerson - At times it certainly could be 95%. - Water vapor varies by 3 orders of magnitude... http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/Fundamentals/AtmosphereCompIV.pdf ... and a major defect in the CO2 models is that they assume it is constant. - It is also different in concentration [and behavior with light] at different altitudes in addition to varying between humid and desert areas near the surface. - Plus it's been going up right along with CO2. The CO2 models I've dug into all assume cloud configurations that are 10 to 40 years old. - With a ~10 day Residence Time it not only varies greatly it varies quickly -and- it also moves a great deal of heat around with it when it moves. - Assuming a huge and rapidly changing factor [one that varies by 3 orders of magnitude] as a constant is a lapse of reasonable thought. - There isn't gong to be a good climate model until water vapor is properly accounted for. .
  30. CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
    A balance discussion of this topic should include the work of Svensmark and Friis-Christensen, the challenge of Lockwood and Fröhlich and especially their reply. Fig 2 shows a convincing correlation between global mean tropospheric temperatures and CR data when the data is properly adjusted for known forcings. Any comments/refutations of these published results?
  31. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    It will be very interesting to see what Joe Romm and crew have to say about this brouhaha.
  32. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Dr. Pielke, Let me remind you what you wrote: "As a result of the persistent, but incorrect (often derogatory) blog posts and media reports on the robustness of the University of Alabama MSU temperature data....The ad hominem presentations on this subject [i.e.., the UAH data] include those from the weblog Skeptical Science who have sections titled Christy Crocks and Spencer Slip Ups" That statement by you was wrong-- you were clearly trying to implicate SkS in some strongly worded recent critique of the UAH product and its developers (which reminds me, you seem to have a very selective memory as to how that all unfolded), and you would have known that it was wrong of you to state we were implicated had you read the series. It is unfortunate that you cannot concede error on your part. Equally unfortunateis that you elect to turn a blind eye to the repeated misinformation and half-truths propagated by Watts, Spencer and Christy and others. Yes, Spencer and Christy undertook some novel work with the MSU data, but that does not mean they now get free pass to continually berate their colleagues, misinform, float conspiracy theories, politicize science, confuse and mislead the US Congress. Or do you disagree? Again, you were wrongly trying to implicate SkS in some strongly worded critique of the UAH product, and your "arguments" to the contrary on your blog do not hold up. We have of course discussed the UAH product here at SkS, why wouldn't we for goodness' sakes? In fact, it is stated at SkS that: "The original discrepancy is an excellent example of how science works and of critical thinking. With many different indicators showing warming, it did not make sense that the troposphere would be cooling. This discrepancy was taken very seriously by the scientific community, and the consistency and accuracy of all relevant data were examined intensely. Science advances by trial and error. The result is an increased knowledge of how to measure the temperature of the troposphere from space." In both Spencer's and Christy's bios shown at the beginning of the series, we mention that they received an award from NASA for their work with the MSU data. But by all means please do continue to choose to think what you wish to.
  33. Santer et al. Catch Christy Exaggerating
    The most disgraceful aspect is the cherrypicked starting date in 1998, which Pielke knows was a huge El Nino year. But yes, Santer et al. used both RSS and UAH data.
  34. Climate Communication: Making Science Heard and Understood
    pirate, I think you should be putting a lot more energy into advancing our discussion before you teach too much one way or the other about climate science to your students. Based on where we are so far in the discussion, I know that you have huge gaps and misunderstandings about the science. It would be best if we filled those gaps and corrected the misunderstandings as soon as possible. One of the hardest things to do with a student is to un-teach something once they've learned it. Their misconceptions then go on to poison everything they attempt to learn afterwards.
  35. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Of SkS he says it "is not balanced in the presentation of the existing research findings in climate science". Should we learn from him, with a rapidly spiralling credibility? But don't worry, maybe he'll recover, just like arctic sea ice after 2007.
  36. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Pielke Sr.'s response sure does beg a lot of questions.
  37. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    True Albatross, Pielke's "response" has just confirmed the basis of this post. I've updated the update to note this.
  38. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Dana, I thought that, in a way, Pielke Sr's "response" rather enforces your points. Re "comprehension", I think that he may be seeing/reading what he wishes to see/read. I encourage, no urge, Dr. Pielke to defend his accusations and statements here at SkS.
  39. Santer et al. Catch Christy Exaggerating
    Dana, It is a double-cherry pick by Pielke. The RSS trend for the cherry-picked window is slightly negative. He claims that he used RSS b/c that is what Santer et al. used, when in fact they clearly used both RSS and UAH as shown in Fig. 6. What he did is quite disgraceful really.
  40. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Yes the post has been updated to reference Pielke's "response", if you can even call it that. It's more of a goalpost shifting Gish Gallop which doesn't address a single thing we said here.
  41. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    And just as I predicted, instead of trying to engage SkS is a constructive and open discussion here, Pielke has just posted another 'attack' on SkS on his blog, in which he argues so many strawmen that I lost count! It is essentially a Gish Gallop, with some misinformation thrown in for good measure. It does not constitute a "response" at all, and he did not answer the questions put to him about Christy And I note again, his site does not allow comments. I expect that his post will soon appear on a "skeptic" blog like WUWT. Perhaps he did answer one question posed to him, it is clear from his response that Pielke Sr. is more interested in covering up the misinformation propagated by "skeptics" than he is interested in standing up for scientific integrity and honesty.
  42. Santer et al. Catch Christy Exaggerating
    Albatross #7 - even if we go along with Pielke's absurd cherrypick of 1998 as a starting point (ENSO is amplified more in the satellite data than surface temps, and 1998 was the strongest El Nino in a century, not to mention that, as you note, 13 years is shorter than the 17 required as noted by Santer et al.), UAH still shows a trend of 0.06°C/decade over that period. It's small, and certainly not statistically significant, but it's not zero either, despite the utterly absurd cherrypick.
  43. 2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
    Rob @409, Sorry, probably poor wording on my part. I was taking a dig at claims made by "skeptics" claim that the models are too sensitive, and that the IPCC exaggerates things. But that is wrong and you raise an important tissue. From the abstract of the paper that you linked us to: "State-of-the-art climate models are largely untested against actual occurrences of abrupt change. It is a huge leap of faith to assume that simulations of the coming century with these models will provide reliable warning of sudden, catastrophic events."
  44. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Riccardo @8, Yes, those were egregious examples of cherry-picking by Pielke Sr. and was promptly dealt with by RealClimate. Sadly, he seems to be at it again, see my post at SkS here.
  45. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Pielke Sr., being 'constructive' "In conclusion, the EPA Endangerment findings is the culmination of a several year effort for a small group of climate scientists and others to use their positions as lead authors on the IPCC, CCSP and NRC reports to promote a political agenda." Here: "[T]he paper was received 11 August 2011 and accepted 29 August 2011. This is some type of record in my experiences as editor, and indicates that the paper was fast tracked. This is certainly unusual" Constructive is nice and the goal, but let's get it 'right' first. Here: "Of course, it is always pleasant to have documentation that these individuals are inappropriately using their senior positions to prejudice the scientific assessment and publication process, as I have reported on my weblog for several years. What is more important, however, is that the significance of this breach of the scientific method be recognized by the policymakers and other scientific colleagues who have requested climate assessments."
  46. Santer et al. Catch Christy Exaggerating
    Now I am going to turn my attention to Roger Pielke Sr.'s intriguing critique of Santer et al. (2011). He makes some odd claims. Unfortunately, he (despite demands for the climate community to be more open and transparent) does not permit comments on his blog, so I'll do it here. His first comment is rather bizarre. He says "This is an unusual number of co-authors for a technical paper, but I assume Ben Santer wants to show a broad agreement with his findings." It is not at all that unusual, he clearly missed the authorship of the recent Kirkby et al. (2011) paper in nature. Anyways, such an irrelevant observation is rather petty. He is then perturbed that Santer et al. ignored his important paper that he co-authored with Christy et al. in 2010. He then stretches, I mean really stretches, to try and make a link between Santer et al. (2011) having the temerity to ignore their "important" paper (published in an obscure journal (Remote Sensing) around which a controversy is raging for giving a free pass to a dodgy paper by fellow 'skeptic' Spencer. But I digress, this framing by Pielke Sr. smacks of desperation, because the papers deal with two very different issues. From the abstract of Santer et al. (2011): "We compare global-scale changes in satellite estimates of the temperature of the lower troposphere (TLT) with model simulations of forced and unforced TLT changes . While previous work has focused on a single period of record, we select analysis timescales ranging from 10 to 32 years..." From Christy et al. (2010): "Updated tropical lower tropospheric temperature datasets covering the period 1979–2009 are presented and assessed for accuracy based upon recent publications and several analyses conducted here." They were clearly looking at very different areas of the planet, global versus tropical only, additionally Christy et al. (2010) also looked at the ratio of warming aloft and that at the surface in the tropics, with Santer et al. looking at the warming over the lower troposphere. Pielke then takes issue with this statement in Santer et al. (2011): "….temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.” Not sure that he makes a compelling case, he just interprets the text differently. But why I pint this out now is that later, says this: "I agree with Santer et al that “[m]inimal warming over a single decade does not disprove the existence of a slowly-evolving anthropogenic warming signal.” OK, so far so good, but then Pielke make this ludicrous assertion: "There has been NO long-term trend since the large El Nino in 1998. That’s 13 years. [His underlining] So after just saying that he agrees with Santer and knowing that one of the major findings of the paper was that one cannot use trends calculate dover periods of less than 17 years to infer anything about the rate of warming, Pielke goes and says "there has been no warming for 13 years", and he conveniently chooses 1998 as his start point! Unbelievable. And Santer et al. find that the signal-to-noise ratio for 10 year trends is near one, and Pielke proudly states no warming for 13 years. Now how about we actually calculate the trend in the RSS satellite data for a minimum period of 17 years as found by Santer et al. (2011), so for 1994-2010: That trend is slope = 0.11 C per decade. For 20 years the trend increases to 0.18 C per decade. So if one look sat the appropriate data interval then the warming continues. Now here is another interesting fact, and an ironic one at that given that Pielke is accusing others of ignoring his "important" research. In 2010 two papers came out, Thorne et al. (2010) and Johnson and Xie (2010). Sks discusses the papers here. Both those papers' findings refute the claim made in Christy et al. (2010) that: "This result indicates the majority of AR4 simulations tend to portray significantly greater warming in the troposphere relative to the surface than is found in observations." Specifically, Thorne et al. (2010) find: "It is concluded that there is no reasonable evidence of a fundamental disagreement between tropospheric temperature trends from models and observations when uncertainties in both are treated comprehensively." Johnson and Xie (2010) find: "We conclude that, in contrast with some observational indications, the tropical troposphere has warmed in a way that is consistent with moist-adiabatic adjustment, in agreement with global climate model simulations." Can I find a discussion of Thorn et al. (2010) or Johnson and Xie et al. (2010) on Pielke's site? No. I did find this though :) Pielke's critique of Santer et al. is far, far from objective, his biases are clear. In fact, is nothing more than an effort to dismiss their results and try place the focus on their perceived "important" work which has since been refuted by Thorne et al. It also shows that Pielke Snr. is still determined to cherry-pick data to arrive at preconceived (and biased) conclusions. And let it also be noted that at no time did Pielke Sr. acknowledge that Christy had grossly exaggerated his numbers and misled congress.
  47. Arctic sea ice low – what does it really mean?
    Micawber, very interesting. Thanks for the first hand perspectives. I've often wondered about the amount of heat 'imported' into the Arctic ocean from the Atlantic and Pacific and whether this will change as the ice breaks up and new current patterns emerge.
  48. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    We should not forget that Roger Pielke Sr. is the one who claimed that oceans have not been warming in the last few years, artic sea ice was recovering after 2007, sea level rise has flattened after 2006, etc. That was blatant cherry picking or confusing variability with trend. This time he managed to do worse, attributing to SkS a claim which is nowhere to be found in this site. A retraction would be appropiate.
  49. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Rob @6, "This is an absurd statement given the tone of most all of Roy Spencer's posts on his own website." Agreed Rob. And ironic too how Pielke turns a blind eye to the real culprits who are sabotaging constructive, polite and civil discourse, for example WUWT. Pielke Sr. doth protest too much. Given his response to the SkS post and his disparaging remarks made about his colleagues, it is becoming increasingly difficult seriously entertain Dr. Pielke Sr.'s indignant pronouncements of others allegedly behaving badly.
  50. Arctic sea ice low – what does it really mean?
    Judging from a regression analysis of Cryosat Today’s ice area data, there was no significant trend toward earlier or later minimum dates over 1979-2010. By a thin margin, CT area also reached a new low point in 2011: 2.90m km^2 on Sep 10. http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/the-modern-area-of-ice.html

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