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Riccardo at 22:48 PM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
HumanityRules, the 60 year cycle in the temperature record should not be taken for granted, it's what we are looking for. So, the choice of the trend cannot be that which shows it; and you can not say that n=1 or 4 are not good choices just because they do not show the cycle. Just for clarity, I do not "wish" there isn't a cycle as you insinuate. My wishes, as well as yours, are (supposed to be) irrelevant here. I just showed that the analisys provided by Scafetta does not allow him or anyone else to claim there is this cycle, let alone that anthropogenic warming after the '70s has been exagerated. -
chris1204 at 21:51 PM on 19 June 2010Peer review vs commercials and spam
Steven Sullivan @ 52 Unless PLoS Medicine behaves much differently from the PLoS journals I know about, the Ioannidis article itself was peer-reviewed. And therefore...most likely false? The old chestnut: The statement on the other side of the paper is true & The statement on the other side of the paper is false. Actually, the PLoS Medicine article simply highlights the pitfalls of even rigorous statistical approaches and good scientific method conducted in good faith. Publication bias is also a problem - few authors ever strive to publish negative findings which languish between the dusty covers of someone's long forgotten thesis (I ought to know - I sent a torpedo in the sides of my erstwhile supervisor's then pet theory way back in 1979). However, I don't think the world of science has been impoverished by the non-publication of my work. This can be corrosive, however, when looking at effectiveness of treatment interventions and drug trials. One attempt to address this bias is the Cochrane set up for registration of clinical trials to prevent negative findings from being buried. I don't know if any equivalent exists in the physical sciences. However, I recall a suggestion that we ought to have 'A Journal of Negative Findings' which could be quite illuminating and reminiscent of the IgNobel Prizes for Research That Ought Not To Have Been Done Or Repeated. -
HumanityRules at 19:27 PM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
#37 Riccardo Obviously the volcanic input is random, short-lived and wouldn't contribute to a regular cycle. Surely they would just add noise to the analysis? Again each ENSO event is random and short-lived and couldn't contribute to a regular 60 year cycle. So we seem to be left with just denying the 60 year cycle exists. Ithink the solar cycle is much shorter and my understanding is that the AGW theory only allows for a very low amplitude, nothing like the amplitude seen in the phases of HADCRUT3. I still see 1850-1880 an upward phase 1880-1920 a downward phase 1920-1940 an upward phase 1940-1970 a downward phase 1970-2000 a upward phase You could even see 2000 onwards as the turning to a downward (it's generally been flat) Obvious the noise caused by ENSO and volcano's is in there (you can see the volcaic activity of the mid-60s causing a blip upwards in the middle of the down stroke). It is a shame that Scaffetta didn't try 'cleaning up' the signal by removing these short-lived affects. I still think you identified short-lived processes that just dirty the analysis, they are not explanations of the longer phases. Just on your analysis. There is either a cycle or there isn't. You seem to wish there isn't. If the cycle exists and it is influenced by the regular movements in our solar system then surely you would expect the amplitude of those cycles to be fairly regular as well. It would seem only right to attempt to detrend to give such regular amplitudes. This may in fact be a self proving process but it seems in appropriate in your example to choose n=1 and n=4 for the very reason these give very irregular amplitudes. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:30 PM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Having spent some time over at Jo Nova's site trying to rebut at least some of the more outlandish claims, I can tell you it is a very frustrating experience. But here afficionado's lap it up. For example, SHB 1 doesn't 'get' the hotspot, doesn't get how wind shear could actually be a valid method. Why can't you just rely on the thermometers. Then in SHB 2, she rolls out A Watts and the SurfaceStations.org stuff. We can't trust the thermometers because of site specific influences. But we should trust the thermometers on the radiosondes. No site specific influences there.. Then the real howler. Right there on the graphs of the missing or not hotspot is another signature of AGW - Stratospheric Cooling. No comment on that one. Also we have the deep historical record of CO2 vs Temps, 500 MYrs worth and NO CORRELATION. Apart from the lack of mention of long term solar output changes. David Archibalds Bar Chart of Temp vs CO2 per 20 ppm and there 'isn't much effect left'. Without connecting the dots... Solar Increase with time explains the deep historical record when CO2 was MUCH higher...Therefore, more CO2 obviously does have an affect for many doublings to come. Jo argues that the debate is about the magnitude of feedbacks and climate sensitivity, which it is. But her 'handbooks' drag in a lot of old tired denialist rubbish arguments as well. Sceptics Handbooks they ain't. Denialist recruiting manuals? well... Be careful John. Take on Jo and some of her followers will probably come calling. Or she will probably call you all sorts of bad names. Just ask Andrew Glickson or Stephan Lewandowsky. On another note, relating to finding the hotspot, and also an analysis of the satellite data, particularly UAH, this paper is interesting. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/nature02524-UW-MSU.pdf By Fu et al, written a year or so after the major discrepancy between the satellite and surface data was resolved in the early naughties. They argue that the T2 temperature record from the satellite data, the troposphere, is prone to 'contamination' from part of the temperature reported being due in part to the lower stratosphere. With startospheric cooling, this may be biasing temp records for the troposphere down. They are critical of the T2LT series from UAH which is often used by sceptics. This was produced to try and compensate for the 'bleed' from the stratospheric data and they feel the methods used are not reliable. They present an alternate strategy, using Radiosonde data to try and get a temperature profile vertically and use this to produce a weighted combination of T2 (troposphere) data less some of the T4 (lower stratosphere) data to factor out the stratospheric cooling effect. They then apply this to both UAH & RSS series, producing an adjusted set of trends. The interesting item to note is Fig 3. Their adjusted trend for the RSS data shows a clear difference between the Surface and the Troposphere for both Tropics & Southern Hemisphere. There is the 'hotspot'. -
iskepticaluser at 16:43 PM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Re the limits of scientific certainty, a recent essay in the Economist (copy here) had an interesting take on how different audiences weigh evidence: “In any complex scientific picture of the world there will be gaps, misperceptions and mistakes. Whether your impression is dominated by the whole or the holes will depend on your attitude to the project at hand. You might say that some see a jigsaw where others see a house of cards. [Climate scientists] have in mind an overall picture and are open to bits being taken out, moved around or abandoned should they not fit. Those who see houses of cards [deniers] think that if any piece is removed, the whole lot falls down.” -
kdkd at 15:59 PM on 19 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
BP #217Also, perceiving (pictures) and understanding (propositions) are two very different human abilities. Critical thinking is only possible in the latter domain.
This looks like a logically fallacious argument (e.g. you're indirectly claiming we are unable to critically reflect on art, which is fundamentally a perception based activity). Lots of scientific and quasi-scientific disciplines require critical reflection on perception. How on earth do you think that a problem space is defined in the first place! Anyway, the fact that you have to perform such logical contortions to defend your argument is interesting, as it gives us a way to critically reflect on the validity of your position. -
Chris Colose at 14:09 PM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
By the way, another community very interested in this "hotspot" stuff is the hurricane people, since hurricane strength is a function of SST and the upper level outflow areas. One issue brought up in the recent RealClimate article (in the comments) was stratospheric cooling and its influence on the uptick of tropical cyclones. Similarly, studies have pointed out that you can get more storms by reducing the moist stability of the atmosphere (i.e., by getting rid of the amplification in the upper atmosphere.) See e.g., T. R. Knutson, J. J. Sirutis, S.T. Garner, G. A,. Vecchi, and I. M. Held, 2008: Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first century warming conditions, Nature Geosciences, doi:10.1038/ngeo202 -
Marcus at 13:56 PM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Gary-to say that anything in science is 100% certain is to betray an ignorance of science. If we only accepted those things we were 100% certain of, then we'd still be living in the Dark Ages! I've worked as a scientist for some 15 years now, in a number of non-controversial fields, & I've yet to come across any where our body of knowledge was based on 100% certainty-or even 90%. Yet this *only* seems to be an issue in Climate Science-WHY?!?! The inability to detect a Tropospheric Hot Spot doesn't-by itself-negate the existence of AGW because, as John & Chris have rightly pointed out, this Hot Spot is supposed to exist independent of Global Warming. So our inability to detect it could simply be the result of (a) an incomplete understanding of how this effect responds to a warming climate or (b) a lack of instruments sensitive enough to detect it. Even if the Tropospheric Hot Spot is proven to *not* exist (as unlikely as that might seem), we'd still have more than 100 years of knowledge about how certain gases contribute to the planet's natural energy balance-& how they might contribute to an energy *imbalance*-combined with a strong correlation between near-surface/tropospheric warming & rising CO2-in the absence of rising solar activity; the reduction in detectable outgoing IR radiation & the cooling of the stratosphere. All of which are very consistent with an enhanced Greenhouse Effect being the most likely contributor to global warming over the past 60 years. What Jo Nova-& yourself-are promoting is what is referred to as "manufactured uncertainty"-which is directly antithetical to scientific endeavor IMO. -
Chris Colose at 13:43 PM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Alexandre, you are right that it's hard to imagine a strictly isothermal atmosphere, although a very weak lapse rate is important for the dynamics of the winter hemisphere in a snowball Earth, or winter-time in Mars, but the hypothetical example is only used to illustrate the importance of the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere in general. This is useful for not only understanding the GHE but interpretation of outgoing spectra. Consider the following diagram from Petty's book (which John Cook also used here in discussing the paper I helped co-author with Halpern et al. for the G&T rebuttal):What you're seeing in the top figure is the outgoing radiation from a sensor looking down at the Earth (or looking down at 20 km, which is almost the same thing). In the atmospheric window (from about 800 to 1000 inverse centimeters, with wave number being the dimension on the x-axis) the sensor is seeing emission from the surface and lowermost atmosphere, since there is little absorption by atmospheric gases in this spectral region. Thus the emission follows relatively smoothly along the dotted Planck emission line corresponding to the warmest temperatures at the bottom of the atmosphere. In the optically thick regions, such as between 600 and 800 inverse centimeters where the CO2 has strong absorption, the emission is only being detected from the colder layers of the atmosphere. For example, the center of the CO2 band is following along the 225 K Planck emission line. Consider the case where you are situated in a region with a temperature inversion, which is a persistent feature in polar winter for example: http://www.sundogpublishing.com/fig8-3ab.pdf (it's a PDF file so I cannot readily display the image via HTML, see bottom graph for the Antarctic ice sheet). Here the temperature is increasing with height in the atmosphere. Now you're still seeing emission from the surface in the window regions. In the CO2 band the emission aloft is coming from warmer areas, and so the CO2 is actually producing somewhat of a "negative greenhouse effect." If the planet had no atmosphere with a blackbody surface you would see a smooth emission spectrum at ~255 K (assuming present-day albedo). In the typical case where the temperature declines with height, what the greenhouse gases are doing is taking a bite out the Planck spectrum, and so the total area beneath the curve is reduced, which means the planets emission is reduced. This therefore reduces the emissivity of the planet and so it must heat up until the temperature is such that the area under the Planck curve is the same as before (i.e., it balances the incoming stellar flux). This occurs because increasing the temperature of a body increases the intensity at all wave numbers and so the total area under the Planck curve increases. But in order for this "bite" to occur from the CO2 band, the sensor must be looking at emission from a different temperature than the surface. If the whole atmosphere were of uniform temperature, then the emission spectrum the sensor records would simply follow that temperature, and one could make no distinction as to whether or not the emission was coming from the surface or aloft. Since the area under the Planck curve would not change, you would not change the temperature by absorbing more of the outgoing energy. Even if the atmosphere were so optically thick that emission were coming from the uppermost layers, those layers are the surface temperature in the isothermal limit, so top-of-atmosphere radiation balance requires equilibrium with the absorbed solar energy at that temperature. By the way, there again are some exotic cases. On planets where you can get CO2 clouds or other very effective infrared scattering, you can get a greenhouse effect through IR scattering rather than through traditional absorption and re-radiation. This could produce a greenhouse effect regardless of the temperature profile. This may have been a big part of getting Early Mars above freezing. Re David Horton. Consider this image: Here we see three curves which correspond to three hypothetical and idealized temperature profiles. Lines "A" and "B" are the same slope, the only difference is the intercept of the curve, so that the absolute temperature at any height in "B" is warmer than in case "A" (Say, that planet absorbs more solar energy but has the same lapse rate). However, in a global warming situation (in the tropics) we expect the adjustment to look something more like the transition from "B" to "C." In this case, not only do you get temperature rise at the surface, but the slope of the adiabat changes in such a way as to produce amplification aloft. If you're looking for a more detailed contour plot that shows the temperature change with height and with latitude, here is a simulation for 2xCO2. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/efficacy/Rc_pj.1.06.html All of a sudden this change of slope in the adiabat becomes a feedback, because now the air at any given altitude (now at a warmer temperature) would radiate more energy to space. This partially offsets the water vapor absorbing effect. Hope that helps -
Marcus at 12:26 PM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Ken Lambert, it might surprise you to know that there are significantly large holes in the fossil record that make it extremely difficult for scientists to show how life evolved from single-cell to the current, wide array of multi-cellular organisms-so are you suggesting we abandon Evolutionary Theory in favor of Creationism? Indeed, the fields of biology, physics & chemistry consist of theories & models which lack some pieces of the puzzle to make our understanding of them complete. If we were to apply your attitude to AGW to the rest of Science, then we'd simply abandon science altogether. Whatever pieces of the AGW might be "missing", the pieces we have paint a very telling picture-we have near-surface & troposphere warming at an accelerated rate-a rate that is strongly correlated (ca. 75%) with the accelerated rate of CO2 emissions into our atmosphere; we have extensive knowledge of the various gases that contribute to the natural-& enhanced-Greenhouse Effect, most especially their ability to absorb & re-emit Long-Wave IR radiation; we have measurements of the Stratosphere showing how it has cooled at almost the same rate as the troposphere has been warming (which wouldn't be happening if the sun were to blame); of the remaining, inter-annual climate variability for the past 60 years, we can explain virtually all of it in terms of either (a) the 11-year solar cycle, (b) changes in Ocean Oscillations (most especially the El Nino/La Nino cycle & (c) changes in the atmospheric concentration of other-more potent-Greenhouse gases (most especially methane, which had been leveling off since the 1990's, but which has started to rise again recently). Now, when the skeptics can come up with a feasible model to explain the observed changes in temperature throughout our atmosphere, then maybe I'll listen to them. Scafetta's paper, though, doesn't even come close. All Scafetta does is engage in some truly Herculean levels of mathematical contortionism to make the trend fit his theory (something that the correlation between CO2 & climate variability doesn't need). -
Jim Meador at 11:51 AM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
It strikes me that a lot of the recent activity by skeptics is to perform some "analysis" that looks like science from far away. The fact that real scientists can come in to close range and debunk it does not really matter to the skeptics, because thay are playing to an audience that a) is relatively unsophisticated scientifically and b) does not trust or care what "real" scientists have to say about the original work. This debate is political, not scientific. The skeptics are winning the political debate, because their side is winning converts, even though their science is bunk. I am not sure how to respond, but I think that the present situation demands new tactics, which involve more that just debunking bad skeptic science. -
David Horton at 11:41 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
I'm missing something too, or being particularly thick today. Can John and/or Chris explain why the "tropospheric hot spot" (which in itself is a funny term, shouldn't it be layer rather than spot?) should change with global warming, and how it changes (higher, stronger, thicker?) as the surface warms. The implication of the "moist adiabatic lapse rate skeptic" is that someone is doubting the process, I can (I think) understand the process, what I can't understand is how it relates to global warming. -
Alexandre at 11:09 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Chris Colose #11 I´m trying my best to grasp your explanation here and on the Climate Change blog, but my steps forward are still short. One particular issue seems to be important, and I could not understand it: why is it that the GHE depends on the lapse rate? It´s quite difficult to me to try to imagine an atmosphere without a lapse rate, but it would seem to me that this uniformly warm fluid would have downward radiation and GHE as well... What am I missing? -
Doug Bostrom at 11:05 AM on 19 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
A friend just remarked on how prone I am to using analogies and resorting to metaphor. Indulge me please once more. The tools and techniques we have to create a "big picture" in science produce the net effect of what artists call pointillism. Tiny bits of knowledge appear on a canvas and if they are mutually consistent and compatible a picture of a large system encompassing all the colors and positions of those dots will emerge. If there are too few dots or too many appear in the incorrect position or with the incorrect color no coherent picture can be perceived. I think most of us understand our science in this manner, a way that is imperfect, even impressionistic but is still useful. Because of our personal limitation and as well as defects in our knowledge and measurement capabilities we cannot say what the exact value of a particular dot in the picture is, we cannot say that each dot is in exactly the right position, but we can nonetheless see a picture emerging from the collection of points on the canvas recording our inquiry. When I think of counter-arguments to anthropogenic climate change, my conclusion is that the picture that can emerge from the number and type of dots supplied by the very few valid research results in contradiction to the theory as well as the galaxy of frankly wrong opinions contrary to the other school is incoherent, so abstract as to convey little or no meaning. But by contrarians we are asked again and again to focus on just a single dot whether from the coherent picture on one canvas or the incoherent image on the other. -
canbanjo at 10:57 AM on 19 June 2010Andrew Bolt distorts again
Steven, I also have not made my points clearly enough. its not me that needs persuading. I am on the 'frustrated at the science communication failure' bandwagon. i would like to do something about it. -
How climate skeptics mislead
BP, perhaps our disagreement is mostly definitional. From Merriam-Webster, defintion 3a: science is "knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method" (emphasis is mine). The "general truth" part is where the "big picture" belongs. The "obtained and tested through scientific method" part is where your descriptions belong. Both are within the domain of science. This particular blog post however is about the "big picture" part. -
How climate skeptics mislead
BP >Of course the "big picture" or rather whatever picture you can put together by whatever means can have a tremendous heuristic value. But mark me, science is not about pictures. I'm not sure what you mean by that second sentence. Are you saying that a broad understanding about how things work (or as you put it, understanding the problem space) isn't a part of science? That seems like an awfully provincial definition of what science does. To what domain does the "big picture" belong to then if not science? -
Sean A at 10:22 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
"we lack the rock-solid data to prove without a shadow of a doubt one side of the argument or the other" Science never claims anything to be 100% proven. Uncertainty is always admittedly, explicitly part of the picture. Doubt about science is easy to manufacture. Is the science settled? Doubt mongering works -
Berényi Péter at 10:06 AM on 19 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#216 kdkd at 07:28 AM on 19 June, 2010 Failure to look at the big picture, rather inappropriately insisting that a reductionist approach is the only possible way to understand the problem space Let me humbly note I was not talking about understanding the problem space. Of course the "big picture" or rather whatever picture you can put together by whatever means can have a tremendous heuristic value. But mark me, science is not about pictures. It is about propositions. And what you call a reductionist approach is not for understanding the problem space, but for understanding specific propositions, for debugging if you wish. Logic, deductive reasoning and focus on details are invaluable tools in this quest. Also, perceiving (pictures) and understanding (propositions) are two very different human abilities. Critical thinking is only possible in the latter domain. -
Chris Colose at 09:35 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Good post. Perhaps I can shed some more light on the question by NewYorkJ in reference to my article. The lapse-rate feedback is defined as the difference between total-temperature feedback and surface-temperature feedback. It is thus a measure of how the radiative budget is perturbed by shifting the vertical thermal structure of the atmosphere. In the isothermal limit where the temperatures aloft are the same as the ground temperature, there is no greenhouse effect and the planet's emission must satisfy equality with the absorbed incoming solar flux. As the atmospheric opacity increases, the atmospheric/surface temperature gradient will increase, with the TOA/surface temperature ratio approaching zero as the atmospheric opacity approaches infinity. As the globe warms, the tropical temperature gradient between the surface and free atmosphere must decrease, and consequently, emission increase from upper layers of the atmosphere providing a negative feedback. The situation is reversed at the poles where the low-level anomalies tend to be amplified relative to the free atmosphere since water vapor is so low and surface albedo feedbacks dominate. This thus provides a local positive lapse rate feedback. If the tropics behaved analogously and the upper atmosphere was not amplified relative to the surface, then the lapse rate could only be less negative (or even positive). Note that cynicus' comment does not really make sense in this regard, because the surface can warm independently of the lapse rate. The lapse rate just sets the difference in temperatures between the surface and layers aloft, it says nothing about the absolute temperature at any point. In models however, those models with the greatest reduction in outgoing radiation from water vapor also produce the greatest enhancement of emission aloft from temperature feedback (in the tropics). This is the definition of the so-called "hotspot" and it has nothing to do with the direct increase in CO2. For those still not convinced that the lapse rate is intimately connected with water vapor (and thus the WV feedback), you can see from the following diagram that, interestingly, the uncertainty in the WV+LR feedback is actually much smaller than the uncertainties in either the WV or LR feedback considered individually.
Because of this connection it is quite common to consider the WV+LR feedback collectively. So the hotspot is indeed due to the moist adiabat, and the lack of such amplification is neither a disproof of anthropogenic global warming, nor is an argument against a high sensitivity.
In some exotic cases, it is conceivable that greenhouse gases themselves can alter the thermal structure of the atmosphere in such a way as to produce a large reduction to the greenhouse effect in condensation. This might happen for example in an atmosphere that was strongly absorbing to incoming solar radiation. If you replace radiation at incident at the surface with radiation absorbed aloft, you can generate an anti-greenhouse effect and make a deep layer that is nearly isothermal. It is thought that if the ratio of methane to CO2 concentrations approaches one, you can get a "haze layer" that absorbs solar radiation in the upper atmosphere and radiates it back to space, whilst cooling the surface. This has implications for early Earth evolution. In the modern however, water vapor does absorb some solar radiation and is dominant in the lower atmosphere where humidity is greatest and the polar regions where you have a good chance of absorbing upwelling photons from high albedo. This shortwave component of the water vapor feedback is positive by causing an increase in shortwave absorption and accounts for about 15% of the total water vapor feedback.
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Steven Sullivan at 09:28 AM on 19 June 2010Andrew Bolt distorts again
canbanjo asserts: "Clarifying what Hulme is saying is very important. It sounds like we now need to know the identities of all of the people that are 'qualified at first hand' to confirm the statement: “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely [greater than 90% likelihood based on expert judgement] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”. " Not terribly. The science doesn't change. Hulme is mainly concerned with the third of three primary questions of climate change (as noted by by Philip Kitcher in his June 4 review of recent books, including Hulme's in Science): "First is the issue of whether human activities, specifically actions that increase the emission of greenhouse gases, are contributing to a signifi cant average warming of Earth. (As all the expert authors point out very clearly, there is no suggestion that the temperature of every region will rise during the next decades.) Second are questions about the probabilities with which various phenomena (complete melting of ice sheets, for example) will occur and about their consequences for human beings and other species. Third are considerations about what might be done to halt (or even reverse) the warming and to limit the damaging consequences. Hulme emphasizes the complexity of the third set of issues" I think the main lessons of this incident are for Hulme -- think about how your words may be (mis)used -- and the 'denial' community -- be careful what bandwagon you leap on. -
Riccardo at 08:20 AM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Berényi Péter, I do not trust Scafetta exponent 2 nor any other, as clearly stated, so it's not at all my job to play with it. My "job" has been to show that we can not extract valuable informations from this kind of analysis and that the strong conclusions of that paper lack solid bases (euphemism?). P.S. You used a different functional form from Scafetta (and me) and dropped part of the data, no surprise you got different results. This confirms, once more, my point. -
kdkd at 07:42 AM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
BP #49 And that analysis is basically meaningless without some kind of regression analysis. The only way to attribute causality via regression is inductively, by looking at how the error component of the model changes with inclusion and exclusion of various parameters. This helps us to understand the behaviour of the system. My crude statistical analysis of climate data using these kinds of techniques clearly showed that there would have to be evidence of unprecedented quality if CO2 was not to be the main and increasing driver of the current increases in global termperature. -
Berényi Péter at 07:34 AM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
#44 Riccardo at 21:38 PM on 18 June, 2010 naively looking at radiative forcings as you did reinforced my findings, if anything I am surprised. Just try the following. As we do not know the correct exponent, look for the best fit using the form a×tξ-b, where ξ is also to be found. If you do it for the 160 years between 1850 and 2009, 3.35 (not 4) will be the optimal exponent. However, it is not because the actual trend is accelerating so fast, but because the 60 years long dominant cycle fits 2+2/3 times to this timespan. If you choose an integer multiple of 60, like 1890-2009, the optimal exponent is 1.82. On the other hand if you try to fit the expression to a simple 160 years long sinusoid with a 60 year period, you may get extremely large exponents (depending on phase). Therefore the source of the apparent super-quadratic trend is the cyclic component, not secular change of forcing. On top of that the acceleration computed this way seems to diminish with time. 1850-1969 2.69 1855-1974 2.29 1860-1979 2.13 1865-1984 2.28 1870-1989 2.11 1875-1994 2.02 1880-1999 1.97 1885-2004 1.99 1890-2009 1.82 It's not physics, just plain data analysis. Of course it could be done somewhat more correctly with joint least square fitting of trend and sinusoids, but it is a job for you or Scafetta. -
kdkd at 07:28 AM on 19 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
This thread is very interesting. And with BP being one of the most prominent so called sceptics on this site, he's given us a lot of interesting information about his approach. The fundamental issues seem to be:- No understanding or acknowledgeement of the fundamental difference between scientific problems and engineering/mathematical/logical problems
- Related: misapplication of logic, with some confusion between what is an inductive approach and a deductive approach. As well as the inappropriate of the logical inverse where convenient (e.g. #215)
- Failure to look at the big picture, rather inappropriately insisting that a reductionist approach is the only possible way to understand the problem space. It's pretty well established that in the non experimental sciences where complexity is a significant component, that reductionism will not result in a comprehensive explanation
- Weighting evidence based on how it is perceived to bring the evidence for AGW into doubt, rather than on its quality, or the provenance of the source
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How climate skeptics mislead
BP, No, I do not want you to prove it. Where did you see that? Disprove, that's what you need to do Sorry, you're right I mispoke. What you suggest is that we take your hypothesis as true until we can disprove it. I maintain that that is a silly approach. -
How climate skeptics mislead
BP, again you're ignoring my point that this post is about the big picture of AGW, a theory that is inherently predictive. Anyways, in order to form a constructive proof of your claim, you would need to go back in time and place thermometers at various distances from every site measured in the temperature record. What you are actually doing is taking limited data and then extrapolating a generalization: that there is a logarithmic UHI effect relative to population. You are then retrodictively applying that generalization to the entire temperature record. Sorry, but that's induction. And yes, I have read Spencer's post and understand the principle he proposes. Where exactly does he say that his analysis is conclusive? I will wait and see if some peer-reviewed research comes out of it, until then it is an interesting question, but it provides no reason to seriously doubt AGW as it stands. -
Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon Challenge response: Pull back to 1850. According to most data, the temperature was pretty much flat at a value about 0.8C less than now. My model would show CO2 would stay constant. No! It would show the RATE of CO2 accumulation would be constant. You have to integrate to get back to the change in LEVEL. Why do you persist in making this elementary error? The question remains, is the rate your model predicts accurate? How about you actually try it out? Ned at least put a little effort into his argument. -
Berényi Péter at 06:08 AM on 19 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#212 e at 05:02 AM on 19 June, 2010 As it stands now, the only evidence of this hypothesis is the contents of a blog post by Roy Spencer Puh-leeze. Not that Spencer mantra again. Go back and read, would you? Spencer was the first to notice logarithmic dependence of UHI on population density extends well below rural levels, but. As I have already told you several times it can be demonstrated in a much simpler way. And lo and behold I have given here, in this fine blog all the details you may need to understand it. such a proof will never be available, it cannot exist when empirical science seeks to make predictions Listen. I know my English is substandard, but how can you read "predictions" where I ask for "you find the actual error and show it"? I do not want you to make any prediction just some debugging job. If an instance of something (i.e. error) is actually shown, it is called a constructive proof as opposed to an existence proof, where only the existence of such-and-such an entity is proven without giving a clue how to find it. Just in case you have not studied math. how we must keep going until we have "proven" your hypothesis No, I do not want you to prove it. Where did you see that? Disprove, that's what you need to do. Really, is your tendency to attack straw men intentional? -
Doug Bostrom at 05:57 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Gary, it might help your understanding to carefully consider what is implied by "questioning the data." Many of these questions resolve to doubt without substantial justification for that doubt. UHI is s great example of that phenomenon. Published scientific literature is the most useful refuge from confusion. The farther you go from the journals, the more pointless noise you're going to encounter. -
NickD at 05:53 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
"I have yet to see data in support of a position on either side of the AGW debate go unquestioned." And you likely never will. Personally I look at what evidence stands up to the questioning and scrutiny rather than calling it a wash because it is all questionable in some way. To each his own, I suppose. -
cynicus at 05:51 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
NewYorkJ: I think that's a good question because a 'real' skeptic might conclude from this discussion: no tropospheric hotspot thus no change in adiabatic lapse rate. So apparently the surface hasn't warmed -> see, the surface temperature measurements are all flawed and scientists are just suffering from confirmation bias, or worse; fraud! -
garythompson at 05:36 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Great post John and like always I enjoy learning from your site. For a long time now I've been struggling with the reason why so many intelligent, well meaning people can't seem to come to the same conclusion with regard to AGW. And based on the people who post on this site I lump roughly 90% of them into that category of general truth seekers and not those on the fringe who only have an interest in confrontation and 'winning' the argument. While reading this article, it has occurred to me that the complexities of Climate Science are so daunting and our understanding of it so in its infancy that we lack the rock-solid data to prove without a shadow of a doubt one side of the argument or the other. I thought the one solid measurement upon which we could agree was OLR but obviously from John's article and the Science of Doom article there is still plenty to debate with regard to measurements and interpretations of OLR reduction due to CO2. Surface temperatures are erroneous and biased by UHI, proxy data are questioned, satellite data is questioned (in this posting), etc. It seems that both sides are 'skeptical' when it comes to measured data that don't support their position. When will this end? When climate science has advanced far enough where the models are complete and account for things such as clouds, aerosols and other variables that are poorly understood? When, after decades, these AGW predictions don't materialize? I have yet to see data in support of a position on either side of the AGW debate go unquestioned. I welcome links to papers/articles that the community feel meet that lofty goal. -
How climate skeptics mislead
BP, >I have not talked much about other lines of evidence, much less the entire theory in this thread. Then why bring the issue up in a post about the "big picture" of the theory AGW? Surely you see there are some implications made in doing so? You're beginning to sound disingenuous. I take no issues with you trying to find evidence for this singular hypothesis, I take issue with its implied relevance to AGW theory as it stands today - not some hypothetical future where your claim has been "proven". As it stands now, the only evidence of this hypothesis is the contents of a blog post by Roy Spencer. Even he admits it's extremely preliminary. There is no way that our discussion here is going to change that, only peer-reviewed research can be the foundation for solid evidence of this claim. It is from this current state that I claim the hypothesis is implausible. Does that really seem so outrageous? Furthermore, KR makes the point that even in this hypothetical future where such evidence exists, your evidence would still need to be weighed against all other evidence if we are to make any conclusions about broad theory. This is exactly the point made by this post to begin with. >However, a constructive proof is always stronger and if available, is preferred to existential ones. I don't think this point is sinking in for you BP: such a proof will never be available, it cannot exist when empirical science seeks to make predictions. The proof you speak of - whether constructive or existential - is the sole domain of mathematics and formal logic. You can never "prove" that the UHI effect exists as you say it does, you can only show evidence that it exists. Even if you were able to produce some peer-reviewed evidence on the subject, that evidence itself would still be subject to uncertainty. You cannot assume your own evidence is gospel truth while other evidence is "shaky" or uncertain. If you were able to show some hard evidence for this particular UHI effect, we would be left with at least two contradictory theories that are both plausible: a) the earth is not warming to the degree scientists believe, and SST's and satellite measurements are in error (not to mention all the other evidence of a warming earth) b) the earth is warming, and your evidence for UHI is in error or some other error exists in the land surface measurements that imposes a cooling bias. Again, both of these theories would plausible with the given evidence. You cannot simply declare with certainty that one is true and another is false. If we want to come to any conclusion whatsoever, we are forced decide whether one theory is "better" or more likely than the other. This is not an arbitrary scenario, this situation (multiple mutually exclusive plausible hypotheses) is the case in any field of empirical science of non-trivial complexity. You can never truly eliminate the possibility that an alternative hypothesis - either known or unknown - is true. This is the core problem with induction that has been debated by philosphers for centuries. It's a philosophically interesting problem, but in the end, if you seek to remove the tools that allow us to compare and rate plausible hypotheses relative to one another, then you are seeking the elimination of nearly all scientific knowledge. I think we're starting to run in circles here. We keep explaining to you that there is no such thing as certainty in science (whether we are talking about conclusions or evidence for those conclusions). You seem to agree, but then go off on tangents talking about how we must keep going until we have "proven" your hypothesis or "completed the job" of removing uncertainty from our measurements. I'm starting to wonder whether you are arguing for the sake of argument. -
NewYorkJ at 05:01 AM on 19 June 2010Peer review vs commercials and spam
Svensmark: There was no substantive criticism of our work Translation: We didn't like the criticism of our work. Svensmark: We sent it to 4 different letters, but each time met with refusal. This shows that if you keep submitting sub-par material to one of the many dozens of relevant journals, you'll eventually find a lax, incompetent, or non-independent reviewer. In some unfortunate cases, the editor will just roll with the individuals you've "recommended" as reviewers, which removes the independence entirely. This happened with Lindzen and Choi. L&C, GRL, comments on peer review and peer-reviewed comments -
NewYorkJ at 03:56 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Chris Colose had a nice post on this awhile back. Skeptics/Denialists Part 2: Hotspots and Repetition He mentions that lack of a tropical tropospheric hotspot (assuming the questionable studies that claimed this were correct) would likely imply a greater climate sensitivity. Any comments on that aspect? -
carrot eater at 03:29 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Alexandre, AGW has nothing to do with it, in particular. If the surface warms, regardless of why, there should be somewhat amplified warming in the troposphere. If the surface cools, regardless of why, there should be somewhat amplified cooling in the troposphere. On a perhaps simplistic level: If the lapse rate did not change, then the troposphere and surface would warm or cool at the same rate as each other. But with some warming, the absolute humidity of the air can increase, and this will change the observed lapse rates, due to the moisture effects mentioned above. If the lapse rate is changing over time, then the trends at the surface will be different from the trends further up. Take that as a rough sketch, but I hope nothing is fundamentally wrong there. If there is, others will jump in. -
Alexandre at 03:17 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
I second carrot eater´s question. A trend is mentioned, but I failed to understand what causes it. Is there any projection about the hot spot trend as a response to AGW? -
carrot eater at 02:23 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
This treatment is missing some clarity I think. Tropospheric amplification (relative to the surface) means that the lapse rate is itself changing, due to changes in humidity. I see it written here that there is a lapse rate, and that dry and moist lapse rates are different from each other. What I don't see here is a discussion of why the observed lapse rates would change over time. -
Albatross at 02:16 AM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Chris @39. Heading out of town, so I don't have time to address HR's "points". But I see that you did, excellent job as always Chris, thanks. Ken Lambert, "Chris, this “nice AGW trend” is not looking so nice when the purported energy flux imbalances are not showing up in OHC for the last 6 years and probably not much in the last 16 years." Sigh. Really, why do people feel the need to keep resurrecting long debunked myths. Your "argument" has been addressed here, and specifically in Fig. 1 of Trenberth (2010). Climate scientists (e.g., Dr. Latif) have warned us not to expect a monotonic increase in global surface air-temperatures. Yet "skeptics" continue to jump on every perceived short-term slow down or cooling period in the data. Nothing is being hidden here-- the official record is quite noisy, and scientists now know that internal climate variability can be an important modulator of regional temperatures (e.g., NAO, AO, PDO) and some even of global temperatures (e.g., ENSO). Not to mention the short-term impacts of volcanism, and the known (and limited) impacts of the solar cycle. That noisy record is one of the reasons why one needs to consider 20-30 years of temperature data to derive a statistically significant trend. In addition to the very troubling problems with the paper and method identified by Riccardo: If there is some solar element to this, why does the Stratosphere continue to cool (yes O3 destruction explains some of that cooling but not all of it). Also, it would have been useful for Scafetta to quantify the forcing strength of his mechanism in WM-2. How does the strength of this alleged forcing compare to that of CO2? If real, it may have been comparable in the past, but will it be int he future as CO2 forcing continues to escalate? If his hypothesis is correct, we should see a marked downturn in global temperatures between until 2018 or so. Personally I have no intention of waiting/delaying another 8 years to (in all likelihood) see this hypothesis falsified, and I doubt very much that policy makers will either. Trying to take comfort in the belief that some hitherto undiscovered natural cycle is somehow responsible for the observed warming is not pragmatic, scientific or responsible. Especially when the overwhelming evidence and data points to an significant anthro component. -
dhogaza at 02:16 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
It's worth pointing out that radiosondes were never meant for climate work, but like surface stations, were deployed to gather data for improved weather forecasting. "Close enough for horseshoes, hand grenades, and weather forecasting" ... This particular misunderstanding of the meaning of the "tropospheric hot spot" has been explained so endlessly that Jo Nova has to be intentionally misleading people. -
Steven Sullivan at 02:11 AM on 19 June 2010Peer review vs commercials and spam
Unless PLoS Medicine behaves much differently from the PLoS journals I know about, the Ionnadis article itself was peer-reviewed. And therefore...most likely false? And no, chriscanaris, peer review isn't 'as good a system *as any*'. And CoalGeologist, no one has ever claimed that peer review has a nonzero failure rate; there is no denial among scientists that peer review isn't perfect. If AGW skeptics require something impossible, then it's their problem, not science's. richard.hockey, the EMBO J model is still peer-review. It's just more *transparent* peer-review. Why should peer review's 'days be numbered'? To the chagrin of internet warriors, the fact is that in matters scientific, all opinions are not equally valid. -
monckhausen at 02:00 AM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
As expected, Scafetta's paper is used as evidence for the sun being the driver of climate change: http://friendsofscience.org/assets/files/documents/2010_June_Newsletter.pdf Derek, FoGT -
monckhausen at 01:56 AM on 19 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Same principle applies to cooling (granite) plutons...there referred to as crystallisation heat. Derek, FoGT -
Berényi Péter at 00:35 AM on 19 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
209 KR at 12:46 PM on 18 June, 2010 picking one line of evidence, bringing up some objection (of varying strength), and then stating that based on that singular objection to a particular data set that an entire theory supported by many lines of evidence is now suspect - that all supporting lines of evidence/data sets (such as the several satellite sets you refer to) are therefore invalid I have not talked much about other lines of evidence, much less the entire theory in this thread. It were you guys, who did it. I've just mentioned if UHI is proven to have a significant effect on past land surface temperatures, something has to be done to restore consistency. And this conditional statement is simply true, don't even try to argue with it. You have managed to force me into some guesswork on conceivable sources of error in satellite lower troposphere data (it was the atmospheric model used to convert brightness temperatures to air temperatures which is not independent of other datasets), but I would not stick to that on all cost, since I didn't have a sufficiently thorough look at the satellite issue (yet). At the same time I do maintain my stance on UHI adjustments of past surface temperatures as they're done in mainstream climate science being fundamentally flawed. I have shown you in detail why I think it is so and why proper adjustments should be almost an order of magnitude higher. The whole thing is pretty simple and easy to understand. If you really think there must be an error in it somewhere, because multiple independent lines of evidence contradict it, that's fine. It's like an existential proof in math. You can convince anyone who firmly believes in the external evidence you cite. However, a constructive proof is always stronger and if available, is preferred to existential ones. To see its validity, much less is to be assumed. Therefore as soon as you find the actual error and show it, even people not impressed by other lines of evidence would be either forced to get convinced or demonstrate for everyone to see they would never listen to reason. You all have chosen not to follow this constructive path, either because it was impassable or you are actually not interested in convincing anyone by reason who is not convinced already, but hope to succeed by other devices like appeal to authority, emotional extortion, referring to irreducible complexity or any number of such techniques. Unfortunately it is not an exceptional attitude, but an everyday experience of outsiders dropping into the midst of the AGW crowd. It does demonstrate something, I'm just not sure what. But it gives that sinking feeling of sorrow. Thank you for the demonstration, Berényi. You are welcome. -
Riccardo at 00:30 AM on 19 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Berényi Péter, Scafetta used an arbitrary trend without discussing it, so did I. -
thingadonta at 00:21 AM on 19 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
The IPCC 2007 Himalayan glacier error was not a typo. I dont know here you get your information from, but since you deleted my previous comment suggesting lead authors knew the IPCC 2007 report's statement on himalayan glacier's was dubious, but decided to put it in anyway, for political reasons, here is the statement by the lead reviewer himself: "Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action. ‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’" Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0rDKrbbIi To any normal-thinking person, this is what is called exagerating for political reasons. -
Berényi Péter at 22:51 PM on 18 June 2010Astronomical cycles
#44 Riccardo at 21:38 PM on 18 June, 2010 one may always show that a model is wrong using its same logic Huh? -
Riccardo at 21:38 PM on 18 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Berényi Péter, one may always show that a model is wrong using its same logic. Anyways, as you might have anticipated, I looked at GISS radiative forcing and fitted them with similar polynomials. Radiative forcing is quite flat for a while and then increases sharply, a second order polynomial just can't do it. Then, naively looking at radiative forcings as you did reinforced my findings, if anything. I didn't talk about it because it is not necessary to show the weakness of the paper and I did not want to see the discussion hijacked by topics like radiative forcings, aerosols, clouds, uncertainties on all of them and the like. I just wanted to show that the astronomical theory does not stand even the slightest scrutiny. -
chris at 21:30 PM on 18 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Ken Lambert at 20:58 PM on 18 June, 2010 "Unless this 'imbalance' heat shows up in the oceans; warming is not happening.." That's an extraordinary bit of flawed deductive reasoning Ken. Since global warming clearly is happening (all years of the 2000's warmer than all but one of the 1990's; Jan-May 2010 temperature average the highest on record), even despite the fact that the solar cycle has only just come out of a very prolonged minimum and we're in a supposed cooling ocean fluctuation "cycle"....and sea levels are continuing to rise at a rate that cannot be accounted for by land ice and glacier melt...there's something very wrong with your logic. Usually when deductive reasoning leads to conclusions that oppose extant reality, it's pertinent to look at the premises that drive the logic. In your case these are clearly flawed. There is no question that OHC has risen "during the last 16 years". Has OHC stopped rising "for the last 6 years"? Probably not. The sea level data and land ice melt data are incompatible with that conclusion. As usual in science we should wait until these apparent discrepancies have been sorted out before attempting ground-breaking interpretations.....
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