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dana1981 at 10:46 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
HR #12 - There is a measured global energy imbalance. Therefore, there is 'warming in the pipeline'. -
Albatross at 10:08 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
HR @12, I think you too are missing the point of Dana's post. You said a great deal @12 without really saying anything. Lindzen is wrong to say "the greenhouse forcing from man made greenhouse gases is already about 86% of what one expects from a doubling of CO2". Yet "skeptics" (including you it seems) choose to ignore that and try and focus attention on something else. Lindzen needs to correct the public record on this matter, and other issues as well... -
Albatross at 10:04 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Polar @11, He has been known to do more than that I'm afraid. Anyhow, posting the corrections at WUWT is pointless. -
Riccardo at 10:03 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
HumanityRules even ignoring the heat in the pipeline the heating of the ocean takes times. As simple as this. -
HumanityRules at 09:59 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Dana it seems impossible to judge the error in Lindzen's work without contemplating the strength of the 'heating in the pipeline' idea. I realise we've discussed this often here but you present it here in an uncritical (unsceptical) way. For it to be of value it needs to be based on real world physical processes and be observed. From what I can see neither of these are true. In fact it's more of a convinient conceptual idea to fill an inconvinient gap in an equation. So far the best explanations for it (by Trenberth) are based on unsubstaniated criticism of a particular data set (ARGO) or physical processes that don't seem to fit with our present best understanding of how the world works (i.e. all this energy entering the abyss). 'Heating in the pipeline' may be favoured by the IPCC but it's far from a fully developed theory. If you're going to criticise Lindzen's work based on that it seems prudent to include some sense of the limitations of the competing arguments. -
Polar Bear at 09:49 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Does anyone post on What's up with the correct info...Mr Watt can censor I suppose.. -
arch stanton at 09:44 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Mr. Watts is not known for correcting denialists’ mistakes (except when he finally threw Goddard under the bus). -
Riccardo at 09:29 AM on 22 January 2011Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995
Tamino disagrees with Phil Jones: the trend IS statistically significant since 1995. Indeed, it is since 2001. But I'll let you read the original post. -
Bart Verheggen at 09:25 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Lindzen remained sufficiently vague so that the implication to the echo chamber is clear, but so that he can defend himself from outright falsehood. But looking at the substance, he’s making very much the same mistake as the NGO did indeed. Lindzen implied (though left it somewhat vague) that since CO2 equivalent was already at 86% of a doubling, the warming according to the consensus estimate of climate sensitivity should have been much higher than waht is observed, and that therefore this sensitivy is overestimated. His argument goes wrong because 1) it ignores the negative aerosol forcing and 2) it ignores thermal inertia. 1) and 2) are the same issues as where the NGO went wrong. Further discussion also in the comments of http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/food-gap-ngo-2-4-degrees-2020-no-way/ -
Bob Lacatena at 08:58 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Chemist1,Dr. Lindzen is correct, if not dead on, his figure is darn close.
An interesting, if unsupported, appraisal. I, on the other hand, find nothing new in Lindzen's recent article, and much of it to be flawed. It contains little to no substance, speaking only in generalities, and repeats talking points that are close enough to the truth to deceive the unwary, and yet wildly inaccurate. He starts with the (incorrect) "there's too much noise iun the system to see any true warning" meme. Then he goes on about the same cloud theories which he has been unable to prove in scientific publications. No one stops him from talking about it whenever he wishes, because it's a free country, but why can't he prove this stuff in scientific journals? Next he goes on to basically quote himself (or rather his 2009 Lindzen and Choi paper), saying that the ERBE data proves there is a negative feedback, despite the fact that his 2009 paper with Choi was roundly refuted, and he has been unable to publish any improvement on that flawed work. He goes on to make the mistake outlined in this SS post (implying that warming must be instantaneous, and if it's not, then it must not be happening). Then he finishes by drawing the conclusion that global warming must not be happening, in which case there's some sort of sinister conspiracy of bureaucrats, politicians and environmental groups and even nations to use such a hoax to their advantage. Really, Chemist1, I think you could be a little more critical of what you support. -
LandyJim at 08:49 AM on 22 January 2011It's the sun
I am sure most here may not check the Astronomy sites unless they have a specific interest, but I thought you might all like to read this article. Improved measurements of Sun to advance understanding of climate change The article details the launch of a new satellite to more accurately measure total solar irradience so that better calculations can be made as to how much the Sun either does or does not contribute to the changing climate. From a selfish point of view, it should help astronomers better understand the Standard Solar Model which has some faults to it and thus enable us to get a better and more accurate model of the Sun, which would also help climate forecasting. -
dana1981 at 08:47 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
I echo Albatross' request, particularly since you seem to be making a completely different argument than Lindzen, Chemist1. -
Albatross at 08:44 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Chemist1, "I will provide equations, references and further explanation upon specific requests to show what I mean." Please do. And I think you have missed the point of Dana's post. Can you please identify and speak to the specific error Lindzen has made to which Dana is referring? -
Chemist1 at 08:38 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Oceans not only slow warming but they actually reduce the total long term trend too in their great buffering capacity. -
Albatross at 08:37 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
Ken @64, "So what does that mean Albatros? The data is useless from both Argo and XBT, or XBT only, or Argo only?" Please do not toy with me Ken, and please do not misrepresent what I said. I said nothing about either data set being "useless". Having allegedly read the literature, you should know that both data platforms have issues, but that does not render the data "useless". In all my years doing research (and I bet my scientific colleagues are in the same position) I have never yet worked with a perfect data set, each and every one of them has had issues to varying degrees. Yet, despite those problems and limitations, the science has advanced and breakthroughs have been made (some of them significant). -
Chemist1 at 08:37 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Dr. Lindzen is correct, if not dead on, his figure is darn close. In this case it is the IPCC who has made an error. IFR and heat does not just transfer vertically in a column, but also horizontally as well. Hurricanes tranfer heat/IFR to space as well and most interestingly greenhouse gases do not trap in heat like a blanket. A blanket analogy depicts a closed system which the earth, ocean/atmosphere interface is not. The planet is an open system. The other error on the IPCC's part is assuming equilibrium thermodynamics. In fact non-equilibrium thermodynamics applies here. To perform non equilibrium calculation on the entire planet is impossible, but using equilibrium assumptions leads to great errors which require very large assumptions independent of actual data. I will provide equations, references and further explanation upon specific requests to show what I mean.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Please do not take this thread off-topic. If you are intending to address heat transfer and/or thermodynamic mechanisms, there are more appropriate threads. This thread is about specific issues with Lindzen's work and the ethical imperative of admitting/rectifying a mistake. -
Albatross at 08:30 AM on 22 January 2011The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
Dan and Muoncounter, Thanks for those links. Beautiful image on the front of the PDF Dan... Some of the links therein inspired me to dig a little deeper and I found some recent papers on trends in precipitation and heavy precipitation (it would be great if someone had the time to do an up to date meta analysis). Anyways this is what I found: Wentz et al. (2007, Nature): "Climate models and satellite observations both indicate that the total amount of water in the atmosphere will increase at a rate of 7% per kelvin of surface warming. However, the climate models predict that global precipitation will increase at a much slower rate of 1 to 3% per kelvin. A recent analysis of satellite observations does not support this prediction of a muted response of precipitation to global warming. Rather, the observations suggest that precipitation and total atmospheric water have increased at about the same rate over the past two decades." Zhang et al. (2007, Nature): "We estimate that anthropogenic forcing contributed significantly to observed increases in precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, drying in the Northern Hemisphere subtropics and tropics, and moistening in the Southern Hemisphere subtropics and deep tropics. The observed changes, which are larger than estimated from model simulations, may have already had significant effects on ecosystems, agriculture and human health in regions that are sensitive to changes in precipitation, such as the Sahel." Lau et al. (2008, JGR-A) Allan et al. (2010, Env. Res. Letters): "Analysing changes in extreme precipitation using daily data within the wet regions, an increase in the frequency of the heaviest 6% of events with warming for the SSM/I observations and model ensemble mean is identified. The SSM/I data indicate an increased frequency of the heaviest events with warming, several times larger than the expected Clausius–Clapeyron scaling and at the upper limit of the substantial range in responses in the model simulations." Allan and Soden (2008, Science) "We used satellite observations and model simulations to examine the response of tropical precipitation events to naturally driven changes in surface temperature and atmospheric moisture content. These observations reveal a distinct link between rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods. Furthermore, the observed amplification of rainfall extremes is found to be larger than that predicted by models, implying that projections of future changes in rainfall extremes in response to anthropogenic global warming may be underestimated." New et al. (2001, IJC): "Data from a number of countries provide evidence of increased intensity of daily precipitation, generally manifested through increased frequency of wet days and an increased proportion of total precipitation occurring during the heaviest events. Over most land areas there has also been an increase in the persistence of wet spells." -
dana1981 at 08:28 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Thanks Albatross and Daniel. By the way, it's worth noting that Lindzen has long been making this same argument with these same errors, including in a public debate involving Gavin Schmidt and Michael Crichton back in '07."we're three-quarters of the way to a doubling of CO2 already and the planet has warmed less than a degree"
And Stefan Rahmstorf called Lindzen on making these errors back in 2008 as well. This case study focused on the reaction to the errors by both sides, but Lindzen deserves a lot of criticism for continuing to make the same erroneous claims for well over 3 years now, despite other climate scientists pointing them out. -
Daniel Bailey at 08:20 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Indeed. Isn't that the strength of the age-old saying about TV weathermen: "Not having to worry about keeping your day job if you're consistently wrong is a wonderful thing." Joking aside, wonderful post, Dana. (Doesn't the graphic at top remind anyone of a six-toed bear track?) The Yooper -
dana1981 at 07:41 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #4: Climate Sensitivity
Eric #27 - at this point we have a pretty good idea how strong of a positive feedback water vapor will be. It's easier to measure and assess than the cloud feedback. At this point the only way climate sensitivity could be low is if there's a strong negative cloud feedback (which isn't looking very promising, based on recent studies). -
Albatross at 07:32 AM on 22 January 2011A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
Great work Dana, and you make some very pertinent and damning points concerning the observed behaviour of "skeptics". "One wonders when Watts will correct his own blog's propagation of Lindzen's errors." I doubt that very much. In fact, part of the allure of being a "skeptic" is that you are apparently not expected by your fellow "skeptics" to admit errors or correct wrongs, while at the same time being encouraged to admonish and berate climate scientists for each and every error, no matter how trivial or inconsequential. Quite the blatant double standard, and not how science is done. -
ProfMandia at 06:37 AM on 22 January 2011Infographic on where global warming is going
John, I edited my blog post because the cup of coffee example was not accurate unless one thinks of the air above the coffee as outer space and the coffee is the planetary system. The oceans are not really heating the air. My mistake and I did slap both of my wrists today. Here is what I have now on my blog: The simplest way to look at this is that the planetary system (ocean, surface, air) is warming because, due to increased heat trapping from gases such as CO2, the outgoing heat to space is not as large as the incoming heat from the sun. This means that the entire system has extra heat. We see that extra heat going into the oceans that are warming, the air that is warming, and the ice that is melting. To establish a thermal equilibrium (outgoing heat equals incoming heat) the entire planetary system must reach a new higher T. Most of the net heat imbalance caused by increasing CO2 is going into the oceans. This will continue until the surface ocean warms up enough to balance the radiative forcing. (Thanks to Gavin Schmidt for the previous two sentences.) For these reasons, one often hears that “there is about 0.6C (1F) warming still in the pipeline even if we stop adding CO2 today.” See: Hansen et al. (2005) for the details. -
muoncounter at 06:29 AM on 22 January 2011The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
#4: "more recent papers on trends in heavy precipitation events" Here's another resource for rain, snow and temperature extremes: NOAA Climate Attribution: Assessments and Factsheets Interesting bit about global sea surface temps, not ENSO, being responsible for US drought conditions: An SST-induced dry signal did exist in 2007, spanning much of the southern U.S., and originated from SST conditions outside the tropical Pacific. This dry signal overwhelmed the ENSO wet signal, and we estimate a large increase in the probability of U.S. drying having intensities as large as observed in 2007 due to such a global SST influence. That would verify that global SSTs are warm. -
Riccardo at 05:59 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
Robert Way #23 in the monthly series the baseline is calculated separately for each month; if not, we'd have a significant annual cycle. The problem of the starting point in presence of a cyclic signal arises instead when using absolute values. Monthly series are usefull when looking at seasonal changes or to try to improve the statistics on relatively short series, but at the expenses of a large autocorrelation and a much larger variability. -
Daniel Bailey at 05:58 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
@ Robert (24) Not my understanding. Both RSS and UAH use data from the AMSU device aboard NOAA-18. UAH developed the TLT Channel (70S to 82.5N), used by both UAH and RSS. Therefore, neither are a true global picture. Until 2013,when the next generation AMSU goes up. NOAA-18 is indeed in a polar orbit Daily data available here: http://www.amsr-data.com/idx/ion-p.exe?page=amsre_daily.ion NOAA-18 Information page: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=2005-018A NOAA-18 real-time tracking page: http://www.n2yo.com/?s=28654 "Christy and Spencer also developed the first version of the TLT dataset. For a global average extending from 70S to 82.5N, we find a warming trend of 0.163 K/decade , while Christy and Spencer (version 5.2) find a warming trend of 0.147 K/decade ." "Globally averaged trends computed over latitudes from 82.5S to 82.5N (70S to 82.5N for channel TLT) are shown in the table below, and include data through December, 2010:"
"We do not provide monthly means poleward of 82.5 degrees due to difficulties in merging measurements in these regions, and because these regions are not sampled by all central fields of view."
Source:
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#version
The Yooper
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robert way at 05:29 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
Someone indicated that UAH was a global temperature record because RSS truncates at the poles. I was wondering whether or not this is in fact the case. My understanding is that the orbit would never permit the satellites to give a truly global picture. -
robert way at 05:19 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
A little note for some of the individuals who have used monthly data to calculate trends. Note the following post and RomanM's suggestion to use yearly data. http://statpad.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/anomaly-regression-%E2%80%93-do-it-right/ -
Daniel Bailey at 05:13 AM on 22 January 2011The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
@ Albatross (4) Not a global study, but here's a regional study done in the NE US in 2010: Trends in Extreme Precipitation Events for the Northeastern United States 1948-2007 The source notes cite several other pub's between 2006 and 2009. The Yooper -
MattJ at 05:10 AM on 22 January 2011Spanish translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
I had to chuckle when I saw the name of the translator: "la mentira" means, "the liar";) -
Albatross at 04:23 AM on 22 January 2011The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
Yay, another episode :) On a more technical note though, John thanks for the Groisman (2006) and Alexander (2006) papers, I have been looking for something like that. Does anyone know if there are more recent papers on trends in heavy precipitation event around the globe? Yes, I'm being lazy, sorry. -
Alexandre at 04:23 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
JMurphy #28 That´s an interesting speculation, but well, I think 600 million years is already way beyond any creationist callendar... -
muoncounter at 04:21 AM on 22 January 2011Oceans are cooling
#33: "No warming imbalance for 7-8 years is a terminal inconsistency in the whole theory of AGW" Looking at the graph in #34, I would have to agree; The current 7 year flat spot, if real, is terminal. Just like the flat spot from 1982-1988 was terminal. Guess AGW stopped then, too. Or like it stopped in the late '60s on the graph in #25. Or maybe OHC does have an upward trend, with some more complex behavior that gives rise to these occasional residuals. Funny how one can argue that there's no warming based on a shoulder in the upward trend, all the while ignoring the upward trend itself. -
michael sweet at 04:11 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
Ken, Data is never useless. As John says: you need to look at the whole picture. There is not a "recognized standard of reliability" for data. Have you ever worked with real data?The data needs to be evaluated carefully and the reliability has to be assessed by people who know what they are doing. That is why professionals get paid to do their work. Bloggers who try to over evaluate the data, especially over short periods like the time the Argo floats have been established, contribute little to knowledge. See Yoopers graph for the most recent data. The trend is up in OHC. That data is still not the final word, more work is being done to pin down the OHC. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:34 AM on 22 January 2011Oceans are cooling
Kinda sez it all:
Source here
RC commentary on Lyman et al 2010 here
The Yooper
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Ken Lambert at 01:37 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
Albatros #60 "The fact is both the ARGO and XBT data have issues. But do not presume that the researchers and experts in the field are not aware of this and that they are not working incredibly hard to address the issues." So what does that mean Albatros? The data is useless from both Argo and XBT, or XBT only, or Argo only? I would have thought the proper scientific method (peer reviewed of course) would be to disclose the reliability of the measurement and not use it if not meeting a recognized standard of reliability. Surely the greater the coverage and numbers the more accurate the measurement unless there is systemic fault which applies to all the instruments. -
HumanityRules at 01:30 AM on 22 January 2011OK global warming, this time it's personal!
John, I'd sort of assumed your observation that increasing SST is acting as an engine for these extreme rainfall events was correct, the basic premise sounds good. But it's one thing to put forward a plausible physical process and another to show that it has any significant impact in the real world. The BOM data (see #6) doesn't seem to show any simple relationship between SST and rainfall. There's still a better relationship between rainfall and variations in the Pacific Ocean that amount to far more than just SST changes. But we can save this argument for when you produce your more sciencey article. Hopefully you can show then not just a plausible physical process but that that process is working it's self out in the real world. (I'll try back up my own vague comments then as well) -
Ken Lambert at 01:21 AM on 22 January 2011Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
Anne-Marie Blackburn, Marcus, Albatros http://www.skepticalscience.com/cooling-oceans.htm#comments Why don't you pop across to the 'correct' thread for some more good banging about. -
Ken Lambert at 01:09 AM on 22 January 2011Oceans are cooling
Albatros, KR, Asteel Is BP's OHC chart posted here at comment #69 wrong?? viz: http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=519&p=2#37765 Well indeed why don't we invite Palmer, Lyman, Trenberth, Levitus, Domingues, von Schuckmann, Good,Gouretski, Ishii, Komoto, Johnson, Smith, Haines, Murphy, Reseghetti, Antonov, Mishonov, Garcia, Locarnini, Boyer and Willis to comment on BP's analysis. Surely John Cook has some contacts with some of these scientists who could be asked to comment. The nub of BP's argument is simple: Satellite measurements of absolute TOA imbalance is poor to useless (not even the sign is sure), but month on month and year on year precision is good (ie the deltas). The jumps in the OHC charts published 1993-2009 (Trenberth 2010 above) and Lyman composite show OHC gains 2001-03 of about 7E22 Joules (700E20 Joules) which is a rate of about 350E20 Joules/yr. Trenberth's 0.9W/sq.m TOA imbalance equates to 145E20 Joules/yr. To get a 350E20 Joules/yr increase in OHC, the TOA imbalance must have leapt from 0.9 to 2.2W/sq.m in the period 2001-03. Satellite measurement shows no such change in that period. The period coincides with the XBT to Argo transition, so which is right? - high precision delta measurement by established satellites or XBT-Argo in transition?? I would plug for the Satellites. The conclusion is that the step jumps in OHC Charts in this period are an artifact of the transition, and the greater deployment of Argo shows flat OHC since ARO 2003. Therefore, drawing a linear curve fit (the red line on Trenberth 2010) from 1993-2009 and calling it a 0.64W/sq.m (or 103E20 Joules/yr) rate of TOA warming imbalance is bogus if the step jump is incorrect. The blue line (o.54W/sq.m) looks like a dodgy fit as well as it should terminate somewhere near the end of the red line I would have thought. Arguing that BP's 7-8 year period is ridicuously short, is ridiculous itself in the context of OHC Charts which only span 16-17 years (1993-2009). BP's Chart referenced above shows flat OHC with seasonal variations 2003-2010. This means no TOA warming imbalance; because a linear OHC increase has to result from a constant positive warming imbalance (positive net forcing). No warming imbalance for 7-8 years is a terminal inconsistency in the whole theory of AGW by CO2GHG forcing and positive feedbacks. -
muoncounter at 00:43 AM on 22 January 2011The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
#2: Yooper, The image of 'its raining Lake Erie' is too ghastly to consider. -
Daniel Bailey at 23:40 PM on 21 January 2011The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
@ Steve Meacher (1) I had read that CP thread & remembered Leif's analogy as well. Some time back, I mentioned it to Lou Grinzo on his blog & between us we came up with this:Volume of water in the atmosphere = 1.27 x 1016kg Volume of water in Lake Superior = 1.21 x 1016kg
Too close for Lake Superior to equal a 4% increase, as it was roughly equal to the volume of moisture in the air itself. However, Lake Erie is 4% of Lake Superior (119 3 miles vs that of Lake Superior at 2,900 3 miles). Interestingly, that is about equal to the volume of ice Greenland lost last summer (500 gigatons)...Lake Erie, a useful metric? Whodathunkit? Thus, the 4% increase in humidity can be said to equal the volume of Lake Erie raining down on you...hardly an encouraging thought, in more ways than one. The Yooper -
JMurphy at 23:01 PM on 21 January 2011Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
Why did Monckton stop at the "past 600 million years" ? Surely he would have achieved a far more dramatic effect by stating "Since far greater temperatures than this have been the rule on Earth for most of the past four and a half billion years..." ? Or is it something to do with not wanting to upset his Creationist followers by saying the Earth is too old ? -
Steve Meacher at 22:54 PM on 21 January 2011The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
Thanks John, I picked up on the "900 Sydney Harbours" comment as I recently read a similar calculation stating the additional global precipitation in "Lake Superiors" (here). The most authoritative source I can find for the volume of Sydney Harbour (other than Wikipedia, which gives approximately 500 gigalitres ) is this - "An informal unit of storage capacity commonly used in Australia is the “Sydharb”, which is the amount of water in Sydney Harbour, about 530 000 megalitres or roughly half a cubic kilometre of water", (in Water History - Lessons for the Future) Also, The Honourable Craig Wallace, in a media release, December 13, 2007 says, "A sydharb is used as a unit of volume of water in Australia. One sydharb is the amount of water in Sydney Harbour - approximately 562,000 megalitres at high tide". The Encyclopedia of Earth figure used in the Lake Superior calculation (13,000 cubic km water in the atmosphere) came from an article on the Hydrologic Cycle and is consistent with the 1970 figure you used. I'd be interested if anybody can refine your calculation. -
Mighty Drunken at 21:40 PM on 21 January 2011Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
I am thinking what a poor argument Monckton makes when he say, "Since far greater temperatures than this have been the rule on Earth for most of the past 600 million years, there is no sound scientific basis for the assumption that “significant environmental and economic damage” would result from so small an additional warming. " Six hundred million years! Think how epically different Earth was then compared to now, it is just not comparable. From eye balling some graphs for temperature over the last millions of years, 2C warming from pre-industrial times seems to be the upper bound for interglacials over the last 500 thousand years. It is not till about 3 million years ago that it was that warm for any length of (geological) time. Our species has existed only since then! How can Monckton put human civilisation at such risk? -
JMurphy at 21:40 PM on 21 January 2011Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
A link in the latest thread from John Cook (which is very informative, as usual) led me to this : The SOI values confirm that we are in the middle of either the strongest La Niña event on record, or the second strongest. The SOI values for October 2010 and December 2010 were each the largest positive values on record for those months, as was the three-month average October-December 2010. If we take a longer perspective (July-December) then 1917 was stronger than 2010, but 2010 was still the second strongest in the historical record. Using either the October-December or the longer July-December periods, the strong La Niña events on 1973 and 1975 were both ranked as weaker than the 2010 event. AMOS -
MarkR at 21:18 PM on 21 January 2011Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
#22 thingadonta: Like dhogaza said. We can use climate changes in the past to model what might happen physically, but we can't directly model economically because there was no human economy back then. So we can estimate things like how high sea levels or temperatures will rise. You can't say that 'well, GDP damage back then was 0 so it will be 0 now', that's stupid. You can estimate future damages based on knowing what the economy is like today and the damages you can expect (which you calculate from observations, models and palaeoclimate data). Imagine we had an meteor coming to hit us. Monckton would tell us not to worry, over the Earth's history meteor strikes are the norm rather than the rule. 65 million years ago when a meteor hit us, economic losses were 0%! But a scientist would use the impact evidence from 65 million years ago to work out what would happen today. -
dhogaza at 15:58 PM on 21 January 2011Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
thingadonta:"We cannot infer the amount of environmental and economic damage we will experience based on the state of the climate 600 million years ago. " Then how do you justify using climate changes in the past to model what is happening/will happen in the next 100 years?
Probably because 600 million years ago there were no economic damages due to climate change because humans hadn't evolved yet. While some of us hope that, despite the denialism-driven obstacles to action, that humans will still exist 100 years ago. If you can't understand the fact that climate change today, when humans exist, will have more impact on humans than climate change 600 million years ago, when humans didn't exist, did ... Lord help us. -
Albatross at 15:15 PM on 21 January 2011Oceans are cooling
BP @85, "Of course I am the person responsible for radically decreasing MBT coverage in 1991 and XBT coverage soon after it while restarting measurements in 2003 by ARGO..." Come on, you are arguing a strawman.... Do you deny saying this @53? "Except there's no "planetary energy imbalance" there for the last eight years." Do do deny saying this @69? "In fact there's no heat accumulation in the system even from mid-2007 to mid-2010. Given you insist on posting on this thread, and insist on focusing on short periods of time, please allow me to post this:
Caption: Changing heat content of the global ocean. Black curve is changes in upper ocean heat content (0 to 700 metres). Pink line is trend in upper ocean heat content. Blue line is trend in ocean heat content down to 2000 metres (Trenberth 2010).
But then again it seems that you think that you know more about OHC than Palmer, Lyman, Trenberth, Levitus, Domingues, von Schuckmann, Good,Gouretski, Ishii, Komoto, Johnson, Smith, Haines, Murphy, Reseghetti, Antonov, Mishonov, Garcia, Locarnini, Boyer and Willis.
You are railing against an awful lot of grey matter, experience, expertise and training BP. Something else to consider, according to Palmer et al. (2009):
"Deep ocean warming may account for some of the missing energy (Johnson and Doney 2006; Johnson et al. 2007; Johnson et al. 2008a). Only with a truly global ocean observing system can we close fully the global energy and sea level budgets, so we must improve our observations of the ocean below 2000 m where Argo floats currently do not reach."
Moderator Response: This is Albatross's reply to BP's comment on a different (and inappropriate) thread. -
skywatcher at 14:52 PM on 21 January 2011Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
(O/T) rpauli #21: Canute was not a British king, but was king of England (but a Danish prince), who then unified the Danish and English crowns and subsequently claimed the Norwegian one. Don't think he ever ruled north of the border, where Malcolm II was in charge of the early Scottish kingdom. You're dead right about the wiseness of his actions though - commonly misinterpreted to this day! -
Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
whatdoweknow - I would have to agree, the MEI is not perfect. However, as a general index for the strength of the ENSO, it appears to correlate very well to the temperature forcing, as Tamino shows. So - regardless of whether you feel the SST alone is the most important, Tamino shows that the total index of sea-level pressure, zonal and meridional components of the surface wind, sea surface temperature, surface air temperature, and total cloudiness fraction correlates well to actual global temps. That's not really surprising - SST, SAT, and cloudiness are major factors, and winds spread energy around. The only factors I could think of as less correlated would be sea level pressure (due to location dependencies) and possibly winds, so 3-5/6 factors have a distinct influence. I think that your "apples and oranges" analogy doesn't hold up under statistical analysis. The MEI shows an excellent correlation with short term (<5 year) temperature variations, and as such MEI is a reasonable metric for ENSO. -
skywatcher at 14:38 PM on 21 January 2011Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
#22: The models the IPCC uses are based on the physics of the atmosphere and scenarios of emissions, combined with constraints established from palaeoclimate and supported by further physics. Monckton uses... the climate of the Earth before multicellular life was widespread (even before the Ediacaran fauna), when the Sun was sugnificantly fainter, the composition of the atmosphere was different, and the continents were in a completely different configuration. That's a great analogy with which to gamble the stability of agriculture and modern human life isn't it? This year we've seen ruined harvests due to flood in Pakistan (and Queensland), and due to heat/drought in Russia, with the latter responsible for a record and ongoing spike in the FAO food price index. And given how much higher sea levels were in the last few million years with temperatures just a degree or two warmer, it's safe to say that significant sea level rise is very likely. I forget off the top of my head the proportion of human population that live within 5m of sea level or has marginal food security...
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