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Comments 117351 to 117400:

117351. Ned at 06:15 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Despite some real misgivings, I'm going to accede to Lon Hocker's request and show the results of a "Hocker-style" model that estimates CO2 concentration as a function of fossil fuel emissions: The data are from ORNL-DAAC. The model, again designed to have the same structure as Hocker's, is as follows: Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 + [2.02748E-05]*(Month(n) emissions + 553.59116) where "emissions" is the annual global total from the source provided, in million metric tons C (monthly data are not available). Obviously, the emissions model looks like a very good fit to the observations. Does that mean we can conclude that anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions are the cause of the long-term rise in CO2 concentration? Well, yes, we can conclude that, but not from this model! The point that Lon apparently still does not understand is that in this model, like his model at WUWT, the overall rise in CO2 is "built in" to the model, and the independent variable (T anomaly in Hocker's model, emissions in this one) only contributes a small fraction of the explanatory power of the model. So you can't use this kind of model to conclude that factor X is the primary cause of the rise in CO2. The "beautiful correlation" that Lon is so impressed by in this comment is not provided by the temperature data at all, just by the constant term in his model! So, how do we know that the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is caused by anthropogenic emissions (from fossil fuels and land-use change), rather than from volcanoes or a warming ocean or something else? It doesn't require calculus. It doesn't require statistics. All it takes is the ability to look at two numbers and say "A is bigger than B" ... something most children can do well before arriving in Kindergarten. We know (from various accounting studies) how much CO2 we are contributing to the atmosphere each year ("A"). We know how much CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere each year ("B"). Since "A" is bigger than "B" it is blindingly obvious that our emissions are responsible for more than 100% of the annual increase in CO2. As icing on the cake, though, we also know with a very, very high degree of confidence that the oceans are NOT the source of the observed rise, because there is a net flux of CO2 from the atmosphere to the oceans. This has been very, very well established through decades of direct measurement of C chemistry in the upper ocean. (Once again, I direct those who have questions about this to Takahashi 2009 and Sabine 2009). See also points 1-4 from my comment above, which still stand.
117352. Doug Bostrom at 06:02 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon, just a quick point that quite apart from mathematical misunderstandings your hypothesis is foundering because it's incoherent with a mountain of other research findings. The issues Ned brought up are just a few twigs of the thicket you need to negotiate. There's no shortcut here, you needed to reverse a host of other results -before- you started working your "simple correlation." This has happened before (the famed G&T false falsification) and is a classic error for a physicist. Don't feel alone.
117353. JESTL at 05:58 AM on 17 June 2010
        Abraham reply to Monckton
        Uh, was it unacceptable to post that Monckton is misrepresenting Abraham and also that he is demanding a professional courtesy even though he's not a professional?
        Moderator Response: The "lying" and "lie" in your comment violated the comments policy.
117354. Doug Bostrom at 05:51 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon: "(2) That overall increase is coming from anthropogenic sources, not the ocean. Emissions have been well quantified; about half of the annual anthropogenic emissions accumulate in the atmosphere while the other half is taken up by various sinks in the ocean and the terrestrial carbon system." I disagree. Well, if you disagree and your hypothesis depends on maintaining and defending that disagreement you're not done with your work, yet. Some might even say you've not even started to make a case or at least have skipped over a vital dependency. You need to show why and then how you disagree. You're saying "I doubt it" without actually contradicting the observations you're doubting, an insufficiently persuasive argument. "(3) CO2 is on net moving from the atmosphere to the ocean, not the reverse (see the references to Takahashi 2009 and Sabine 2004 at the top of this thread)." I assert that the CO2 concentration is calculable from the temperature. No anthropogenic contributions and it comes from the ocean, enough anthropogenic contributions and it goes into the ocean. The concentration still correlates to the ocean temperature" So -where- is the C02 you're correlating with temperature coming from? Atmospheric C02 is still increasing, the quantity in the ocean is increasing. What physical process driven exclusively by temperature is causing observed C02 to increase simultaneously in the ocean and atmosphere? As an additional complication, isotope ratios indicate that a substantial amount of the observed increase is derived from fossil fuels, unless you can show how it is not, in detail as opposed to punting with "I disagree." Assuming you can make a persuasively detailed argument against using isotope ratios as a fingerprint, an argument sufficiently powerful to supersede accepted research on that topic, then how does the increase in temperature change the isotope ratio of carbon found in C02 samples?
117355. Lon Hocker at 05:08 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        I think we are stuck in a loop. gp2: Why does El Nino affect the rate of change of CO2, not the CO2 level directly? Albatross: The temperature anomaly explains ALL of the CO2 change if you reference the anomaly to about 1850 when temperatures are generally accepted to have been constant. Global SST rise caused by the CO2 induced greenhouse effect definitely does not fit the data. The anomaly would be linearly dependent on CO2, and it isn't. It depends on the rate of increase of CO2. No, I do not address any other of the "greenhouse" gasses. I'll leave that to others.
117356. Albatross at 04:22 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon, "I have no idea how my model illustrates this, and accordingly I disagree." [referring to a positive feedback] That response is woefully inadequate. With respect, I do think that you do not understand the carbon cycle, and the feedbacks which form part of that cycle. It is no surprise that variation in ocean temperature "explains" about 35% of variation of the rate of change in atmospheric CO2. As others point out that R^2 value is indicative of a positive feedback at work. Of course, correlation does not suggest causality, and what do you attribute to explaining the other 75% of the variability in the rate of change of CO2? Have you considered applying a Granger causality test? Ned and others have soundly refuted your misguided assertion (e.g., in the main post, and at #70, and at #71). I also find it odd that some "skeptics" are trying to argue that the oceans have not been warming, yet it its that very warming that lies at the heart of your hypothesis. You also might want to ask yourself what has been causing the increase in global SSTs. Answer, a positive net energy imbalance on account of an enhanced greenhouse effect. It is well established that about 45% of anthro CO2 remains in the atmosphere, with the remainder being sequestered into the oceans and vegetation. Or do you question that fact? You model also does not address why other greenhouse gases such as N2O and CH4 have been increasing. There is an anthro connection there too. Do you trump that up to coincidence? Your hypothesis is also not consistent with global ocean pH declining. What you work does seem to support the well-established fact that as the oceans continue to warm, their ability to act as a sink for carbon will be inhibited.
117357. NewYorkJ at 04:09 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        "Correcting and Clarifying Hulme and Mahony on the IPCC Consensus" It looks as much like a correction as it does a clarification. The original Hulme statement: "Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies;" So only a "few dozen" experts (involved in the IPCC process?) have input into anything involving the influence of human activities? Hulme seems to "correct this" somewhat. "Third, it is the chapter lead authors – say 10 to 20 experts - on detection and attribution who craft the sentence about detection and attribution, which is then scrutinised and vetted by reviewers and government officials." So it's not a "few dozen" after all. Other things to consider: - The contribution from human activities is not confined to the "detection and attribution" section. It's also dealt with in the sections on radiative forcing and paleoclimate, for example. - Do contributing authors (not just lead authors) to the relevant sections have no say? - What of the many scientists who are co-authors on papers referenced in these sections but are not lead authors on those sections? - Aren't authors from other chapters reviewers as well? This gets at the "binary" approach Hulme is taking that Heraclitus refers to. Lastly, Hulme states: "And for the record .. I believe that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations " But he's not a lead author of the detection and attribution section. How can his view possibly be relevant? (sarcasm) I think Hulme's original statement was poorly written and the correction insufficient.
117358. gp2 at 04:06 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        @Lon Hocker It is explained in the paper that i have linked before Satellite temperature anomaly lags enso by aprox. 7 months that's because it requires times before warming/cooling in the tropical pacific affect the entire world. Also carbon dioxide short term fluctuations lags enso by approx. the same time...that's because el nino reduce rainfall over tropical rainforest and it requires several months before this lead to decreased gross primary productivity and increased plant and soil respiration (the forest do not dry out within 1 month...)and the opposite for la nina. So the strong correlation is due to different mechanism that both lags enso by approx. the same time and assuming you have computed correlation between enso and co2 at lag 0 no doubt that this is lower
117359. Erin at 03:11 AM on 17 June 2010
        We're heading into an ice age
        Thank you chudiburg. So I have another question. If you look back on the 100k year cycles in figure 4 they all peak at about where we are now and that peak is sharp. Why does the projection for the natural cycle in figure 4 predict the same estimated high temperature for the next 50,000 years if that has not happened in the past (at least in that figure)?
117360. Tom Dayton at 03:05 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Many journal submissions are rejected by editors without the editors sending the submissions to reviewers. That is normal, expected, and necessary. See also this comment.
117361. Lon Hocker at 03:00 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        doug: "(1) The actual rate of increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration isn't linear; it's close to exponential (but actually a bit steeper than exponential)." Actually it correlates beautifully to the integrated temperature anomaly referenced to about 1850 when temperatures are generally accepted to be reasonably constant. That is the thesis of my post. "(2) That overall increase is coming from anthropogenic sources, not the ocean. Emissions have been well quantified; about half of the annual anthropogenic emissions accumulate in the atmosphere while the other half is taken up by various sinks in the ocean and the terrestrial carbon system." I disagree. "(3) CO2 is on net moving from the atmosphere to the ocean, not the reverse (see the references to Takahashi 2009 and Sabine 2004 at the top of this thread)." I assert that the CO2 concentration is calculable from the temperature. No anthropogenic contributions and it comes from the ocean, enough anthropogenic contributions and it goes into the ocean. The concentration still correlates to the ocean temperature" "(4) What your model actually illustrates -- the existence of a carbon-cycle feedback whereby CO2 warms the climate, and that warming results in the addition of more CO2, further amplifying the warming -- has been known to scientists for at least three decades, and is discussed in the IPCC reports. This is not news." I have no idea how my model illustrates this, and accordingly I disagree. As for your first order problems, perhaps you are referring to the 0.58 term which puts a starting point to the anomaly at about 1850. Beyond that I am at a loss to understand your objections. Also doug: I asked Ned to calculate CO2 based on the anthropogenic contributions because it's a lose lose for me if I do. If I can't come up with a good fit, you will claim that I didn't do it right, if I do come up with a good fit, and you disagree with the equation, you'll say it's wrong. If Ned does it, you won't argue. Ned appears to be a bright guy, let's see what he can come up with. Willis had a shot at it a while back on WUWT, maybe Ned can do better. gp2: The rate of increase of CO2 correlates to enso. Why should that be? Also, the rate of increase of CO2 seems to correlate a lot better to the temperature anomaly than it does to enso. Does that fit your understanding?
117362. dhogaza at 02:35 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Stephen Baines, I hate to do this but ... "I must apologize for all my mispellings now and in the future." You've misspelled "misspellings". Keep on hammering BP, though, misspellings and all! :)
117363. dhogaza at 02:27 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        

        Agreed. However, science has its share of powerful personalities who dominate the scene by their presence (and not always by their integrity). This applies to the sceptical side as much as (in some cases more)to the AWG side.

        In this case, the six editors who resigned included von Storch, who leans towards the skeptical side of the argument. In other words, the paper (Soon and Ballunis) really was crap.
117364. dhogaza at 02:26 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        

        Well then I don't want to sound like a little bitch, but there was some contreversy as Spencer tried to publish hi's own latest paper that got rejected from Journal of Climate and Geophysical Research Letters without no reason and is finally getting published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. I would call that a bitt odd.

        Cloneof, as Tom Dayton says, it's not odd at all. It's not at all unusual for a scientist to have to trot around a paper before it gets accepted. Think of journals like Science and Nature, where 90-95% of the submissions get rejected. Do you think the authors of those papers just round-file them, or do they shop them around looking for a journal that will accept it? What's odd is Spencer trumping this up in the denialsphere, when he knows perfectly well that there's nothing unusual in not getting accepted into the journal one picks as one's first choice.
117365. Doug Bostrom at 02:21 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon, "cutting to the chase" necessarily requires you to reasonably address at a minimum the inconsistencies noted by Ned here. Since you're so strong on maths, you should probably do so in detail. Don't expect other people to do work for you, you're making an extremely bold claim based on what you yourself describe as "a simple correlation" and it's up to you to make it function. Can you defend your hypothesis against first-order problems, yes or no?
117366. Albatross at 02:14 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Riccardo at #167, an excellent assessment Riccardo. Thanks. Another observation that has been made regarding "skeptical" arguments is the contradictory nature of their arguments. For example, a little while ago John posted this story "Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?" So there "skeptics" acknowledge that the oceans are warming and indeed use that very fact to try and claim that warmer oceans are driving the increase in atmospheric CO2 (FYI commentator Ned has just posted an excellent rebuttal to that misguided hypothesis). Yet, here we have skeptics arguing (#162 and #168) that the oceans are not warming, or more specifically that the warming trends are not robust. It seems that they chose to ignore Fig. 1 shown in Trenberth's comment on the Lyman et al. (2010) paper which clearly shows otherwise. And that introduces another tactic used by "skeptics", cherry-picking incredibly very short windows (e.g., 2001-2003) to try and make a case that OHC or global surface temperatures are no longer warming or to claim that the long term trends are not robust.
117367. Rob Honeycutt at 02:13 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Argus quoted... "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" If I remember correctly, the papers in question here actually ended up being mentioned in the IPCC report. It's a perfect example of what this article is discussing. Peer review can be a very competitive sport. Sometimes it's bare knuckle and back biting but what comes out as a result is that better science generally prevails. I seem to also remember that there were equally bitter battles waged in science when it was proposed that some dinosaurs and modern birds were related. So, I don't believe this is confined to climate science.
117368. canbanjo at 02:11 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        John Mc, I understand and agree with that. But I thought the point about AGW theory is that it is a theory which is constructed from an array of disciplines - can there be a single discipline that has more authority or understanding level of the overall AGW theory than others? And if so (as Hulme seems to be saying) what is the significance of this? What point was Hulme trying to make when he wrote: "statements such as “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” is a very specific piece of knowledge crafting which I – and most other experts engaged by the IPCC - are not qualified to engage in at first hand." and what does 'knowledge crafting mean'? this is crazy.
117369. gp2 at 02:04 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        @Lon Hocker There is no surprise that the rate of change of CO2 correlate well with satellite temperature anomaly since both have a common cause(enso), both satellite temperature and carbon dioxide lags enso by several months however this doesn't mean that carbon dioxide short term fluctuations are due to ocean outgassing...as i have pointed out before it is well known instead that oceanic carbon anomalous fluxes and enso are anticorrelated while tropical land fluxes and enso are correlated and this is mainly due to precipitation change associated with enso driven atmospheric patterns not temperature. Also this mechanism cannot account for long term co2 increase because forests are a net carbon sink in the last two decades.
117370. john mcmanus at 01:57 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        I think Hulme said that although he is not a ranking expert in areas within climate science outside his niche he does feel well enough educated in climate science to judge the merit of papers others write and had no trouble agreeing with the vast majority of the scientists that write them. Only a specialist on pollen will get a paper concerning pollen in sediment published. Many , however, with other scientific foci will read such a paper and be qualified through mathematical and statistical training etc. to make a judgement on the value of the paper. John McManus
117371. Lon Hocker at 01:54 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        OK, cut to the chase: I have a simple model that relates the rate of change of CO2 to the temperature anomaly, or conversely shows that you can derive the CO2 level from the temperature anomaly (I used the ocean temps). You folks apparently believe that this is false, despite the correlation. You would also seem to believe that the anthropogenic contributions are important. Ned, you made an excellent plot using decimal date, how about making a similar plot, but starting with some function of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. You might even want to modulate it with the temperature data.
117372. canbanjo at 01:49 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Philippe, I normally find it very clear cut that deniers interpretation of events do not stand up to scrutiny unlike the articles on skeptical science. However in this case I cannot see how Hulme's statements could be clear to anyone - you can interpret them how you want to. Does "at first hand" mean something certain in the scientific community that laymen would not appreciate? I don't see how his response has clarified anything. So who are these people at the extreme end of the spectrum you mention?
117373. Stephen Baines at 01:45 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        BP, "So you are welcome, start that falsification job and let others join in. At least give it a try." That's what others have been doing previously. My point at #148 was that you responded to many of their arguments (which were based on apparent consistency among data sets) with an apparent attack on any approach that appealed to such consistency as evidence. I was also correcting your interpretation of KRs use of the term "robust." KR meant it in a different way that you took it. While I didn't actually say (in #148 at least) that science produces provisional and probabalistic statements(e and KR were making that point, and quite well I might add), I agree with the idea. Read the Popper link in e's comment for context. Scientific theories, because they project beyond the realm of experience to make predictions regarding new data, are inherently inferential. Deduction is only possible when the the logical loop can be closed. Deduction is useful in specific circumstances, obviously. Ken Lambert. I didn't comment on the OHC data in my post at 148. I think you're addressing someone else?
117374. Tom Dayton at 01:37 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        cloneof, it is extremely unlikely that Spencer was given no reason for his paper's rejection. Most likely is that he didn't like the reason that was given. That's not odd. Rarely is an author happy with the reasons for rejection. Nor is it odd that his paper eventually was accepted in a different journal. It happens most of the time.
117375. Philippe Chantreau at 01:12 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Chriscanaris @ 4. Yes, some behave like that. Can you cite precisely climate scientists who try to pretend that uncertainties do not exist? And then there are the Beck and Limbaugh. So, really who's doing the worst howling out there?
117376. Philippe Chantreau at 01:07 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Indeed cabanjo. This is what happens when language appropriate for describing what we know of reality and how we know it (i.e. how assured we are of that knowledge) gets thrown into the "public debate" type of situation. It does not work. Hulme statements were perfectly reasonable, in accordance with what really happens in the IPCC process and in fact a good description of reality. Then they were high-jacked.
117377. chris1204 at 01:04 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        dhogaza 2 29: So in other words, you're saying that journal editors are under pressure to not publish junk science. I would hope you don't consider this a bad thing. Agreed. However, science has its share of powerful personalities who dominate the scene by their presence (and not always by their integrity). This applies to the sceptical side as much as (in some cases more)to the AWG side. Moreover, the metric of success for any academic is mainly their publication record - publish or get no grant. Somewhat off topic, but Henry Kissinger disingenuously liked to pass himself off as a naive academic and newcomer to politics when recruited by Richard Nixon. In fact, he already had a giant footprint - how else do you get to be a professor at Harvard?
117378. e at 01:02 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        BP > it does not and should not make the truth-value of the proposition itself probabilistic. You are quite simply wrong, and yes we are talking about the meta-level of science not within science itself. Any scientific knowledge applied to unobserved events (inductive reasoning) is strictly probabilistic. Did you read the Karl Popper essay? Surely you don't think we can have positive knowledge with 100% certainty? If we can't say anything with certainty, and if we can't say anything probabilistically, what is there left to say? Here's another link that neatly summarizes the topic of scientific "proof". I quote: "Thus, it is important that you shift your frame of reference from one of proof and certainty of knowledge and interpretation of facts to one that is PROBABILISTIC in nature, where our confidence in whether or not we understand something properly is not and never can be absolute."
117379. cloneof at 00:51 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Well then I don't want to sound like a little bitch, but there was some contreversy as Spencer tried to publish hi's own latest paper that got rejected from Journal of Climate and Geophysical Research Letters without no reason and is finally getting published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. I would call that a bitt odd.
117380. Berényi Péter at 00:49 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        #148 Stephen Baines at 10:15 AM on 16 June, 2010 If you showed any willingness to acknowledge that this situation raises questions about the validity of your method, and that maybe it needs revision or rejection as a consequence, people would be more receptive. As it stands, its appears your idea is the one that is unfalsifiable and subject to confirmation bias. Hereby I do acknowledge that this situation raises questions about the validity of my method. However, the questions raised should be formulated. Having done that answers are to be supplied. So you are welcome, start that falsification job and let others join in. At least give it a try.
117381. Stephen Baines at 00:43 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        As was pointed out in the Nature editorial on the topic of those two mysterious papers.. "A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists' conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick Energy Environ. 14, 751–771; 2003 and W. Soon and S. Baliunas Clim. Res. 23, 89–110; 2003) and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers."
117382. Alexandre at 00:40 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Argus, Lindzen gets published, even if his evidence against the known climate sensitivity is fragile. Pat Michaels gets published, even if it´s rubbish. No grounds for suggesting group thinking prevents "mavericks" to have their space. Papers that confirm AGW, on the other hand, not only survive peer scrutiny, but also get confirmed by independent research.
117383. Berényi Péter at 00:36 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        #148 Stephen Baines at 10:15 AM on 16 June, 2010 modern scientific theories are probabilistic Yes, they are. But you should always keep meta-level and subject-level propositions apart. In scientific propositions probabilistic concepts are of course allowed. However, it does not and should not make the truth-value of the proposition itself probabilistic. The proposition "mean and standard deviation of measurement is such-and-such" is not a probabilistic one, but a proposition having definite truth-value about probabilistic phenomena, which is a very different thing. There are some preconditions of the very applicability of probability theory for any subject matter, the first one being the existence of a predetermined event field. Until it is given, it does not even make sense to guess the probability measure. If you try to apply probabilistic reasoning at the meta-level of science, as IPCC AR4 tries

        Where uncertainty in specific outcomes is assessed using expert judgment and statistical analysis of a body of evidence (e.g. observations or model results), then the following likelihood ranges are used to express the assessed probability of occurrence: virtually certain >99%; extremely likely >95%; very likely >90%; likely >66%; more likely than not > 50%; about as likely as not 33% to 66%; unlikely <33%; very unlikely <10%; extremely unlikely <5%; exceptionally unlikely <1%.

        you run into trouble. Based on this scheme they state for example "Overall, it is very likely that the response to anthropogenic forcing contributed to sea level rise during the latter half of the 20th century" (IPCC AR4 WG1 9.5.2) Now, by very likely they mean something with an assessed probability of occurrence between 90% and 95%. OK, we have the probability measure for a specific event. But what is the entire field of events? What kind of events are included in the set with an assessed probability of occurrence between 5% and 10% for which it is not the case that the response to anthropogenic forcing contributed to sea level rise during the latter half of the 20th century? Does this set include counterfactulas like "people went extinct during WWII" or not? What is the assessed probability of occurrence for that event? Does it include worlds where sea level is declining? Or is it rising for all elements of the complementer set in the field of events considered, just with a 5-10% assessed probability of occurrence the response to anthropogenic forcing has somehow not contributed to sea level rise at all during the latter half of the 20th century? Does this sentence make sense at all? Without any doubt some message is transmitted by the qualification "very likely" in this case, but it has nothing to do with probabilities as they occur in science. The field of events is not defined and can't be defined, therefore the numbers supplied can't possibly be estimated values of a probability measure, but something else. True, all kind of things happen all the time and we seldom have the luxury to know all possibilities in advance. That's simply human fate. While staying in NYC a crane collapsed at a construction site crashing the roof of a nearby hotel and killing a guy in his bed instantly who slept in the top apartment at high noon. Now, what's the assessed probability of occurrence for that event? Can it be taken into account in any prior risk assessment? Has the guy considered the probability of a crane coming down on his head before taking a nap? Still, people somehow manage to handle risks in situations where preconditions for applicability of probability theory are lacking. There are empirical studies on this with some weird findings. It is not even easy to construct a conceptual framework where actual human behavior in obscure risky situations can be interpreted as rational. But the fact people have managed to survive so far indicates it can't be too irrational either. BTW, these things have far reaching consequences for e.g. economics. This kind of ability of experts is relied on when assigning "probability" to various propositions being true or false. It has nothing to do with science as such and it is utterly misleading to mix everyday language used in this semi-instinctive risk taking behavior with scientific terms. I don't know what the term "post-modern science" even means No one knows for sure. But everyone seems to do it.
117384. caerbannog at 00:19 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        "Wrong", says Chemware (#12) about my reflection on peer reviews (#8), whereas the moderator of this site seems to partly agree with me: ''This is a fair comment. It can be difficult to publish something that goes against the grain ...''. I think climate science may have problems that other sciences do not have - everybody likes a new possible cure for cancer or a new dwarf planet, but the atmosphere within climate research seems infected. Here is a quote from The Washington Post: One must make the distinction between innovative papers that truly "go against the grain" and papers containing errors that a professor would flunk a freshman college student for. In the email messages cited by the Washington Post above, Mann et al. were discussing the latter. If a journal editor demonstrates a pattern of approving "freshman f*&@up" papers for publication, it should not surprise anyone that scientists would complain about said editor in private email messages. Denialists need to learn the difference between censorship and professionalism.
117385. Ned at 00:11 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon writes: Show me that your model fits the data as well as mine. No hand waving, just do it! If you can't, your model is wrong. As explained in my previous comment it's not really necessary to do this -- one can invalidate Lon's conclusions based just on understanding the math, without any kind of actual demonstration. However, sometimes people like to see things visually. If Lon is right and the temperature anomaly is actually causing the rise in CO2, then a model that does not include temperature anomaly should be a very poor fit for the observed CO2 trend. If the rest of us are right, then a model that omits temperature anomaly should provide almost as good a fit as one that includes it. Lon's model to predict CO2 as a function of temperature anomaly is: Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 + 0.22*(Month(n) Anomaly + 0.58) For comparison, here's a model that predicts CO2 only as a function of time, without temperature (I've deliberately structured it to be similar to Lon's): Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 + 0.00178*(Month(n) date - 1915) where "date" is the decimal year (year + (month-0.5)/12, e.g., 1979.042 for January 1979) Here are the results of the two models, compared to observations: To be clear, I'm not proposing this as an alternative to Lon's model; I'm using it as an illustration of the fact that temperature anomaly has only a small effect on the overall trend of CO2. One could further improve on this, if one wished to make it more physically realistic. But the key point here is that Lon's conclusion just does not stand up to even a very simple test.
117386. dhogaza at 00:11 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        And this is just bad journalism:

        In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree.

        It's not disagreement that's the point, it's the fact that the paper under discussion was absolute crap. It was so bad that later, one half of the editorial board *resigned*.
117387. dhogaza at 00:08 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        "As Argus has pointed out, journal editors may indeed be out of a job if key members of a scientific community rightly or wrongly decline to submit papers. A journal which gets no submissions goes broke. Academic publishers are not charities." So in other words, you're saying that journal editors are under pressure to not publish junk science. I would hope you don't consider this a bad thing. In biology, there's the example of an editor of a relatively obscure little journal, whose term was expiring, allowing a paper "disproving evolution" to be published. Absolute crap. Got a similar "WTF???" response from the evolutionary biology community as the one Argus thinks is so heinous:

        In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes. "I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replied.

        What I can't wrap my head around is why anyone thinks such a response to crap being published is a bad thing.
117388. Ken Lambert at 23:36 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Stephen Baines #148 Regardless of the inconsistency of the team's curves, they roughly follow the same pattern; the problem is the transition from XBT to Argo. The exampled 'Upper Ocean Heat Content Chart" shows a huge increase in OHC from roughly a 2 year period 2001 to 2003 in which the OHC rises from the zero axis to about 7E22 Joules or about 700E20 Joules. This is about 350E20 Joules/year heat gain. Dr Trenberth's 0.9W/sq.m TOA energy flux imbalance equalled 145E20 Joules/year. Therefore a rise of 350E20 Joules/year in OHC equals about 2.1W/sq.m TOA imbalance - a seemingly impossible number. BP identified the same issue in the "Robust Warming of the global upper ocean" thread and showed that the year to year satellite TOA flux data showed no change anywhere near 2.1W/sq.m. Coinciding with the start of full deployment of the Argo buoys around 2003-04 this impossibly steep rise in 2001-03 looks like an offset calibration error. In such case, fitting a linear curve from 1993-2009 and calling it a 'robust' 0.64W/sq.m is just nonsense. One might also note that the better the Argo coverage and analysis gets from about 2005 onward - the more the teams curves converge on a flattening trend - no OHC rise - no TOA imbalance. No TOA imbalance seems to present a problem for CO2GHG theory which requires an ever-present increasing warming imbalance at TOA.
117389. Tom Dayton at 23:16 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Heraclitus, I think that when Mike Hulme wrote that not everyone is qualified to make judgments "at first hand," he was using stringent criteria that are common among people at the highly knowledgeable end of the spectrum. He was using a magnifying glass at the extreme end of the spectrum.
117390. Marcus at 23:10 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Need I point out that Anthropogenic Global Warming, about 30-40 years ago, was the *new* paradigm on the block & took many years, & a *lot* of evidence, before it got accepted as the *new* paradigm for recent warming. So this helps to disprove the idea that only stuff which fits the existing paradigm will get accepted via peer-review. Yes some articles get through that have no business getting through, & others don't get through that should have but, with a little hard work & persistence, these *errors* in the system usually get corrected eventually.
117391. OPatrick at 23:02 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        There seems to be an assumption in Mike Hulme's argument, to some degree at least, that knowledge (or qualification to craft knowledge) is binary in nature. Either an expert has that knowledge or they do not. Either they are qualified to draw conclusions or they are not. Is it not a better reflection of reality that there are shades of grey in the depth of understanding each of those 2500 / 4000 / n scientists will have of any given point? There will be some whose expertise is concentrated almost entirely in the one narrow field of focus, others who may have a broader range, and presumably less depth, of specialisation. There may be some who have a great depth of understanding of a closely related field an so may well have good transerable knowledge and judgemnt. Many more may well not have the in-depth understanding to come to direct conclusions about a particular point but can a) say whether the conclusions fit with their own areas of expertise and with the broader picture of climate science and b) critically examine the scientific process behind the conclusions reached. This is how I would understand the concept of 'consensus' - as something like a web of mutually corroborating strands of evidence accepted and understood to varying degrees. Similarly, when a body such as the Royal Society endorses the position of the IPCC on climate change I think they become part of the consensus, not because they are claiming an exact understanding of each scientific point, but because they have confidence in the process and, hopefully, have scrutinised at least samples of that process to justify this.
117392. Riccardo at 22:58 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Here we're seeing a sort of master on skeptics strategy. There are schematically three possibilities: 1) attack one single point regardless of the others, then switch to the next tolerating contradictions; 2) find trivial and sometimes plain wrong math or analisys allowing the claim that AGW or some aspect of it are hoaxes; 3) "invent" new physics throughout. Point 1 can be easily seen following the discussion in this post from comment #10 onward. It all started with population impact on temperature measurements in a very special situation, then UHI in general, GHCN quality, satellites, OHC and who knows which will be the next. Only radiosondes are found correct, ignoring, this time, their well known and documented biases ... A good example of point 2 is Lon Hocker in another post or the infamous PIPS images analisys of ice volume. For point 3 you have an ample choice elsewhere over the internet, here we're relatively safe. All in all, two out of three of the strategies pertinent with the topic of this post are confirmed here. Not bad Mr John Cook, good job :)
117393. canbanjo at 22:47 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Am I getting this right...Hulme has said: "statements such as “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” is a very specific piece of knowledge crafting which I – and most other experts engaged by the IPCC - are not qualified to engage in at first hand." But Hulme also says: "I believe that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations " Does this mean that Hulme is not qualified to engage in this at first hand, but in his unqualified opinion it is true? 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”.
117394. chris1204 at 22:46 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Thank you for removing the ad hominem (feel free to delete this line from the post if you wish - and the rest of the post if you must). Couple of points. I do a little bit of peer reviewing myself (not much but just enough to have a sense of what it's about). It is interesting and challenging and a thought provoking paper can send you hunting references - it is an excellent learning exercise. A journal like Nature or Science naturally turns away 90 - 95% of submissions. Smaller journals in more specialised fields face the opposite problem - attracting submissions. I've no idea what the 'reject' rate would be in the major climatology journals. One measure of the quality of a journal is the number of articles I would actually read. Thus, staying within the bounds of my field, I'd read 75% of articles in, for example, The American Journal of Psychiatry. I guess this is a measure of traction. Other journals which shall remain nameless fare rather poorly. The more technical the journal & the 'harder' the science,the more rigorous the peer review process &the more arduous the publication process. I have no doubt that most peer reviewers try to do their job conscientiously. However, in some areas with major policy implications, processes such as those described by Argus @ 23 and rebutted by the other Chris @ 24 may gain salience. Finally, lets not forget banal human motivations such as professional rivalry, personal dislikes, and all the rest. Doug @ 16. As Argus has pointed out, journal editors may indeed be out of a job if key members of a scientific community rightly or wrongly decline to submit papers. A journal which gets no submissions goes broke. Academic publishers are not charities. Please note, I am in no way entering into the rights and wrongs of the Soon Baliunas debate or the email exchange between Jones & Mann purportedly related to the paper. Finally,I did write somewhat provocatively: 'But some (by no means all or even most) proponents of AGW do behave more like Scientologists than scientists.' I think I have made it clear in posts elsewhere that I have grave reservations about the MO of much of the sceptical commentariat.
117395. skywatcher at 22:43 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Yes, a single property, measured with different equipment at different locations and with different corrections applied. Lyman et al 2010 is all about assessing the reasons for those differences, and therefore establishing what is the most likely "right" answer based on those different measurements. Maybe you should read Trenberth et al 2010 which is freely available, especially the bottom of column 2 and the top of column 3, and not the graph posted above which is before th edetailed analysis of the errors and why the discrepancies exist. I would be more concerned if some of the curves showed decreasing OHC, but they don't, all are increasing, and there are good reasons why the measurements don't exactly correspond. Quite clearly, reducing these uncertainties is a key area of research, but it hardly invalidates the previous analyses, and I think Lyman's assessment is a step forward in that regard.
117396. johnd at 22:37 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        skywatcher at 19:39 PM, re "did it cross your mind that it might not be very much energy?" That may or may not turn out to be the case once it has throughly been researched, but at the moment they see it as a significant flow, not previously properly allowed for. However the Southern Ocean is considered one of the most important of the worlds oceans but perhaps the least understood. Scientists believe that until they understand its circulation they cannot make really confident predictions about future climate change.
117397. johnd at 22:00 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        skywatcher at 21:22 PM, BP is correct. The graph in question does indeed represent a single property, attempted to be arrived at by a variety of reconstructions each apparently using different measurements and formulas. If the true value of that single property is "X" then "X" should fall within the error range of each reconstruction for each reconstruction to be considered valid. Each of the curves were derived from a combination of real world measurements, assumptions and formulas. If within each reconstruction, the combination and relationship of all the inputs are valid, then each reconstruction has an equal chance of determining the true value of "X", but they all cannot be right, unless "X" falls within the error bars of each reconstruction. If that is not the case, there are two possibilities, either one reconstruction is correct and the others are not, or they are all incorrect. The error bars should be such that they account for the reality of real world measurements.
117398. mspelto at 21:45 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        I review about one paper a week. I find it an invaluable learning experience as you have to scrutinize and understand the science at a different level than just simply reading the paper. It is also a joy to be able to make good suggestions for improving a worthy paper. From an authors viewpoint there are two things that stand out about peer review for me. First of all how long it can take to get a paper published, it usually takes me at least three submitted drafts spanning about a year. Second my papers emerge much better than the original draft, so we will all gain, if the authors and the reviewers put in the time and effort.
117399. skywatcher at 21:22 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Pedantry will get you nowhere BP - "robust" is perfectly acceptable as a term to define a theory, based on observations wich are subject to greater or lesser error. For example, the graph you point to is not a measurement of a single property many times over, it is measures of ocean heat content where the measurements are taken in different locations with different instrumentation, each subject to different errors but, due to the variability in sampling locations, would not necessarily record an identical depth-temperature curve anyway. Each one of those curves can be correct within error, yet not overlap - ie not 'flawed' as you suggest. That's the nature of real-world measurements. And the 'if...then' point is absolutely valid as a result, based on those observations. BP, are you going to suggest that the oceans are not warming? When I was a kid at school, I would get an F for producing that kind of conclusion from the data available. I fear you are desperately unaccustomed to dealing with observations from the real world.
117400. ProfMandia at 20:55 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        I think that this is a very good synopsis of the process. Another very good post related to this topic is by Dr. Steve Easterbrook. He allowed me to repost his comments on my blog: How Scientists Think. FYI: Nature only published 6.8% of the submissions in 2009. See the stats for the previous 22 years. Science averages less than 8%. Scott A. Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences Selden, NY Global Warming: Man or Myth? My Global Warming Blog Twitter: AGW_Prof "Global Warming Fact of the Day" Facebook Group

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