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Passing Wind at 00:12 AM on 13 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus, Clearly you are uncomfortable unless you are pigeonholing opponents. If I wanted to make easy points I would have posted on what you call a "denialist" blogs and sat back to bask is glory because nobody there would have questioned my arguments at all. For the record, my view is that the science is far from settled, and both sides are manifestly overstating the certainty of their case. Monckton is showman and not a scientist, so a) it doesn't surprise me if his presentation contains errors, and b) I would not turn to a showman for anything other than entertainment. He is no more credible and just as error prone as Al Gore. What galls me is how Abraham's claims have been swallowed whole by the pro AGW blogs - errors and all. How many people that are posting congratulatory comments have bothered to fact-check even one single claim Abraham has made? I'll bet you that some of those, "I'll swallow whatever claims my side makes guys", have for the first time actually looked at some of the underlying questions because of these exchanges we have been having. What about all those people that think Monckton is presenting a true and factual show without cross-checking his claims, I hear you ask? If they want to believe showmen, that's there problem. I don't, and I doubt you do. I am demanding a higher level of accountability and scrutiny from all sides. Right now Abraham is in my sights because he stuck his head up to attach Monckton. When Monckton releases his promised rebuttal, I will scrutinize his work too, only doubly so, because I will check his rebuttal against his original claims as well. Like it or not, AGW is as much a political debate as it is a debate about the science. -
daniel at 00:04 AM on 13 June 2010There is no consensus
Clearly this article shows that approximately 1 in every 5 earth scientists could not say that AGW was a fact. Also that 1 in every 4 non-climatoligists could not say that AGW was a fact. I know that's not a majority for the anti-AGW view and you could say that it is a general consensus for the pro-AGW view but when expressed this way (rounding to the nearest integer of course) I believe the true extent of dissent is portrayed. What is frustrating is that in the media the word "consensus" is used often with the catch phrase "a handful of dissenters" or "deniers" or "trouble makers" or something like that, but that is clearly not the case. ~20% is not an insignificant figure. I also make the point that those of us in fields other than the earth sciences who criticise climate science for poorly collected and presented data coupled with poorly argued conclusions (in my/our opinion of course), specifically on AGW, would not have a high level of respect for the publications that come from climatology and to a lesser extent earth sciences on this issue. You are not providing much of an argument to us by quoting phrases like "peer-review" and "consensus" when refering to climate science. If wikipedia's explanation of the peer-review process is accurate then in light of the figures given in the article above, the "peer-review" process in the field of climatology (or more widely in earth sciences) may be a very biased excercise indeed. Here is a link to the article: The wikipedia article seems to imply that only a few reviewers are needed as a minimum and the editor of a journal does not need a consensus amongst them since their role is advisory only. The wikipedia article implies that only "experts in the field" would be invited to review and so the survey results provided in the article above reveals an obvious potential for group think during the peer-review process. A survey of scientists outside of these disciplines would be much appreciated. How often is it said that climatology is a relatively new field? Well then... let some of the professors in the more distant fields of Physics, Chem, Mathematics and Statistics "Peer-review" these articles and we will see what kind of conlcusions are published then. It is ultimately a discipline on trial and I would ask the question "Are experts from other disciplines even bothering to spend time critiquing publications on climate science or are the police left to police themselves?" You may then say that the list of endorsing scientific organisations in the article above implies that the level of dissent in a broader scope of disciplines is roughly matched by the survey. Then please provide figures of % endorsed of worldwide scientific organisations etc. and I will be more willing to accept that. However, if the level of dissent within these sci. orgs is greater than that portrayed in the survey above then the picture of a "handful of dissenters" in my opinion may fall apart. Only the heads or a majority of the higher management of these organisations need to support the AGW view in order for the entire sci. org. to be listed. Many dissenters within these organisations may not be speaking out about their position on AGW even in private to their colleagues due to the potential for work place friction on this highly emotive issue. They may also be fearing dis-favour with their own organisational heads/management, who have already made their position offically known. I'm not talking about a conspiracy just the complications of work place issues that arise when speaking out about this subject. Sure majority rules and you may have it.. but don't tell me you have an overwhelming consensus until you can provide the overall numbers. -
Marcus at 23:56 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
I think the point, The Ville, is that CO2 released from non-vegetation sources (such as the CO2 stored in oceans) will release CO2 in virtually equal levels of C-12 & C-13. Whereas the CO2 from burning fossil fuels will have a signficantly higher level of C-12 rather than C-13. Not surprisingly, there is strong evidence that, until the mid-20th century, levels of C-12 & C-13 versions of CO2 have remained about equal, but over the last 60 years, the levels of 12-CO2 have risen sharply, whilst levels of 13-CO2 have remained largely unchanged. The only difference is the significant increase in burning of fossil fuels. Either way, though, it definitely shows that the ocean can't be the source of the CO2. -
Marcus at 23:48 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Like I said, PW, warmer in the Sargasso Sea does not imply warmer across the entire ocean-nor does it say *anything* about land-surface temperatures in that same region, or globally (after all, in the first part of the 21st century, Ocean temperatures cooled slightly whilst land-surface temperatures continued to rise). Keigwin is rightly circumspect in his conclusions, but Monckton happily misrepresents his work by turning this warming in one corner of the world's oceans into proof that the entire planet was warmer than in the present day. Yet rather than deal with this-& all of other Monckton's gross misrepresentations (like those highlighted by Chris above)-you'd rather Crucify Abraham for saying "Significantly Warmer" rather than "Warmer" in his e-mail to Keigwin. It's clear that you're being so pedantic as a desperate bid to deflect attention away from Monckton-who rightly deserves to be hung out to dry for his constant bastardization of Climate Science. -
caerbannog at 23:35 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Wouldn't this confuse the C13/C12 ratio issue, so that it would be difficult to distinguish fossil fuel CO2 from general vegetation CO2? That's where C14 comes in. C14 is radioactive, with a half-life of around 5800 years (approx figure, too lazy to look up the exact number). Fossil-fuel carbon is depleted in C14, while carbon in vegetation isn't. So fossil-fuel carbon is depleted in both C13 and C14, which makes it easy to distinguish from other sources (including vegetation). -
Paul D at 23:24 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Well I'm glad isotopes were brought up. When I read the article I was wondering why this wasn't mentioned. I thought however that C12 was preferred by vegetation in the photosynthesis process and hence why fossil fuels have higher levels of C12? In which case couldn't the seas release CO2 with more C12 as well? Wouldn't this confuse the C13/C12 ratio issue, so that it would be difficult to distinguish fossil fuel CO2 from general vegetation CO2? Feel free to correct me! -
Marcus at 23:10 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Wow PW, the lengths you'll go to in order to defend your mate Monckton are truly beyond belief. Any last semblance of credibility or neutrality you had has just vanished with your most recent posts. For the record, if someone asked me the question "is your understanding of current temperatures that they are higher than the MWP and/or are a cause for concern?" I could easily see myself saying "You're absolutely right"-or, to expand on that "You're absolutely right, that *is* my understanding of current temperatures-& I would very much like to have the chance to explain why that's my understanding". You see, nothing loaded in the question, & the response from Keigwin is perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. Even if he was responding to Part 3 of Abraham's e-mail, it would constitute the same answer as if he gave a simple Yes answer to his final question. That you simply refuse to see this simple fact, & would instead rather accuse Abraham of misrepresentation shows that you're simply so scared of Monckton getting knocked off his pedestal that you're prepared to plumb the depths of pedantry to "shoot the messenger". Unless you can provide PROOF that Professor Abraham has willfully misrepresented Monckton-the way that Monckton has willfully misrepresented the work of *dozens*-if not *scores* of scientists, then you're really just exposed as a partisan denialist looking to score cheap points. If that's what you are, then you'd really be better off at a place like WUWT than at a site like this, which is more interested in the SCIENCE of climate change than the POLITICS. -
chris at 23:01 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Passing Wind at 15:15 PM on 12 June, 2010”I would argue that where one knows a scientist has changed their view because it is common knowledge, then one should say so. With regard to the MWP, Monckton is claiming the IPCC wanted it to disappear, and he presents 9 slides out of a claimed 700 papers to show that it did once exist. He should have said that some of those scientist out of the 9 slides he shows have since claimed the MWP was slightly cooler than today. But he was absolutely correct in using them.”
That’s a travesty of even the bare minimum of an ethical approach to communication of science. You’re proposing that in purporting to present the consensus view of a scientific field [*] it’s acceptable to make unsupported assertions that are completely contradictory to the scientific consensus, to cherrypick a handful of graphs of known or unknown provenance, to misrepresent the science related to these specific sets of data, and to hunt back into the old scientific literature to find bits of analyses which give the impression of supporting your assertion even when the authors of this data have subsequently reassessed their data and analyses. One of the problems with Monckton’s presentation is that it’s vague, and that gives you latitude to jump around from one position to another in your defense of his scientifically illiterate presentation. Monckton's claims about the IPCC and the MWP are bogus since the IPCC have always acknowledged the presence of the MWP and no one suggests that it doesn't/didn't exist. But Monckton made a rather specific assertion about the current consensus on the MWP [*] so we can address that quite specifically; let’s remind ourselves what Monckton was asserting as he showed his selection of graphs (on Figure 2 of the top article of this thread): [*]”Here are just a few papers, 8 or 9 of them, out of the papers contributed during the last 20 years by more than 700 scientists, from more than 400 institutions, in more than 40 countries establishing that the Medieval Warm Period was real, was global, and was warmer than the present. That is the scientific consensus if you do science by consensus which the UN says it does”
Dr Abraham (and me for that matter) is judging Monckton’s (patently scientifically false) assertion that the papers “establish that the Medieval Warm Period was real, was global, and was warmer than present. That is the scientific consensus…”. Monckton shows zero evidence for the “more than 700 scientists” and supports his assertions only with this single Powerpoint slide, so that slide is what we are addressing. It’s straightforward to show that at least the bulk of the graphs don’t support his bogus assertion at all: ONE: We’ve already seen that the work of Huang et al (1998) and Esper and Schweingruber (1994) cannot be used to support Monckton’s assertions. Each of these groups has concluded that in their spheres of study (Huang global boreholes; Esper and Schweingruber extratropical NH and Alps) the MWP was less warm than current temperatures. Their data lends itself to a diametrically opposed conclusion to Monckton’s. TWO: We can eliminate Wilson et al. (1979) and Dansgaard (1969) as evidence in support of Monckton’s assertion. After all he did assert that his analysis referred to “papers contributed during that last 20 years” and these are 30 and 40 years old respectively. As Dr. Abraham states in his top article, very old papers are less likely to be reliable contributors to the “consensus” and in any case miss out much of the warming of the last 30-odd years that Monckton is specifically referring to when he makes his bogus assertion about the relationship between temperatures during the MWP and “the present”. THREE: Monckton cites Schonweise (1995) in support of his scientifically unjustified assertion. Note that typically he gets this wrong (it’s “Schonwiese”). More problematically it’s easy to show that Christian Schonwiese’s papers strongly support the conclusion that present temperatures are warmer than during the MWP. If I have time I’ll make a brief post on this. FOUR: Monckton cites Noon et al (2003) in support of his assertion. However this is problematic for reasons further than those discussed by Dr. Abraham. The first relates to the reliability of the temperature proxy since this hasn’t been calibrated against a period of measured temperature. So, for example, the proxy hasn’t captured any of the very marked warming (more than 1 oC) directly measured in the region during the last ~100 years. The second relates to the temporal period of apparent warming. This is shifted around 200 years later than the period of the MWP in the NH. Clearly this data set can’t be used to support assertions that the MWP was warmer than now, or that it was global, if by global one means “globally synchronous”. FIVE: Monckton cites Keigwin (1996). This data set refers specifically to a location in the Sargasso sea. If one was to address this particular data set scientifically, one would likely conclude that it was consistent with a growing consensus that the temperature variations during MWP (and to a lesser extent) during the LIA, were significantly related to ocean current and wind transport regime changes (solar driven?) that changed the distribution of global heat, with a large contribution involving “Gulf Stream” heat transport to the high Northern latitudes. It’s not surprising that temperatures in the Sargasso sea are particularly sensitive to these. In support of this interpretation Keigwin and Pickart (1999) have shown that if one samples historical temperatures from cored proxies in the Laurentian Fan area to the NW of the Bermuda Rise, Sargasso Sea data, that sea surface temperatures were apparently much colder during the MWP compared to the LIA, and the temperatures of the Bermuda Rise-Laurentian Fan vary in “antiphase” as current regimes change. So if Monckton were to have selected Keigwin and Pickart (1999) rather than Keigwin (1996) he would have come to the opposite conclusion. If 6 out of the 9 studies that Monckton uses as "eye-candy" to front his false assertion [*] don't actually support his assertion at all then it doesn't leave very much in the way of corroboration of his assertions. Hwever, we know anyway that his assertion [*] is demonstrably false, just as we know that Monckton's aim is specifically to misrepresent the science. -
Esop at 22:59 PM on 12 June 2010It's cooling
It has been unusually quiet from Mr. Svensmark and the rest of the "it's the sun" fraction of the denialist movement over the last six months. For good reason. Instead of continuing cooling as they predicted in 2008 and early 09, temperatures bounced back with a vengeance once the La Nina calmed down. The last 12 months is the hottest 12 months in recorded history, with even the skeptic run UAH dataset setting records, despite continuing tweaks to bring the anomalies down. With all time high temperature records being set when the cooling effect from the deepest solar minimum in more than a century is at its peak, Svensmarks hypothesis has failed in a spectacular fashion. It would be good if the MSM would start focusing their attention on the massive failures of the denialist predictions instead of harassing the real scientists. -
Passing Wind at 22:51 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
doug_bostrom. Misrepresentation - false or misleading statement. Dishonest - behaving or prone to behave in an untrustworthy or fraudulent way. Notice the difference. If Monckton said "warmer", but Abraham claimed he said "significantly warmer", it is fair and reasonable to say Abraham misrepresented Monckton. At least we can agree on this "It's hard to take that sort of incoherence seriously." Indeed. -
Passing Wind at 22:48 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus, Keigwin's response, "You are absolutely right" can only be in reply to a statement of fact. Of which, there are three statements of fact contained in the body of the email. 1. "Pardon this interruption but I am a professor of thermal sciences and I frequently give public lectures on global warming." States a) Abraham is a professor that, b) frequently gives GW lectures. 2. "I noticed that recently, Christopher Monckton has been giving presentations where he uses your research to suggest that the MWP was significantly warmer than today and that the recent warming is not of concern." States a) Monckton has been giving presentations. b) Uses Keigwin's research to suggest the MWP was significantly warmer than today, and c) that the recent warming is of no concern. 3. "I don’t believe that is your conclusion but I wanted to verify this." States Abraham does not believe that is the conclusion Keigwin. The final sentence, which is composed of a two closed questions, asks: 4."Can you tell me, very briefly, whether your understanding of current temperatures is that they are higher than the MWP and/or are a cause for concern?" Could be answered by Yes and Yes. No and No, No and Yes, and Yes and No. No other permutations exist. You are absolutely correct is not a suitable answer to a two-part closed question. It is, of course, a suitable answer to any of the three proceeding questions, with the most likely candidate being the third question. Simply stated, You are correct to say my 1996 paper did not conclude that the MWP was significantly warmer than today or that the current warming is of no concern. It's worth noting that Abraham has amped up Monckton's claim that the MWP was warmer than today, to significantly warmer. Also, if you would care to take a look at Keigwin's 1996 graph is significantly warmer than the 1996 present it applied to. Keigwin's graph shows current temperature at 22.8, and peak MWP at about 24.2 - 1.4 C warmer. What isn't so clear is exactly where year zero BP is. Even if year zero was 1900, 1.4 C gives us plenty of latitude for observed warming since then and still allow the MWP to qualify as warmer than today - 2010. Here are some quotes from Keigwin 1996 These results are exciting for a few reasons. First, events as young and as brief as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period have never before been resolved in deep sea sediments from the open ocean. The Sargasso Sea data indicate that the Medieval Warm Period may have actually been two events separated by 500 years, perhaps explaining why its timing and extent have been so controversial. Second, it is evident that the climate system has been warming for a few hundred years, and that it warmed even more from 1,700 years ago to 1,000 years ago. And some quote from Keigin in a letter to ExxonMobil dated December 2000. I should point out here, a key element in this discussion centers on the Medieval Warm Period. Most authors would acknowledge that this interval was probably warmer in the North Atlantic region, but few feel strongly that it was global. My data make it seem that it was warmer then than now, but it is very misleading to use those data to argue against important climate changes that began a century ago. -
James Wight at 22:18 PM on 12 June 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
Regarding the argument “450 peer-reviewed papers are skeptical of AGW”, the Popular Mechanics list is now up to 700. (That’s what the title says anyway; I haven’t actually counted them.) -
Doug Bostrom at 16:59 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
It's not considered cricket here to quote prior posts but sometimes that rule necessarily must be bent. PW, post: I have never claimed Abraham was dishonest Later, in the same post: ...please take the time to read my post post on Deltoid for evidence that Abraham asked Keigwin a loaded and heavily biased question that did indeed misrepresent Monckton's claim. It's hard to take that sort of incoherence seriously. -
Marcus at 16:28 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Here is Abraham's question to Dr. Keigwin "Can you tell me, very briefly, whether your understanding of current temperatures is that they are higher than the MWP and/or are a cause for concern?" & this is Keigwin's reply "You are absolutely right, & if someone was willing to send me down to St. Thomas, I'd be delighted to explain it in person." How is that a loaded question? In what way has Abraham misrepresented either Monckton's position (he claims that 700 scientists support his contention that the MWP was real, global & warmer than today) or Keigwin's reply? Monckton's claim represents yet another audacious statement which, upon even modest scrutiny, just doesn't stand up! -
Marcus at 16:22 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
It was only warmer in the Sargasso Sea region-& using methodologies which, by today's standards, might not have a high level of accuracy (again, look at the inaccuracy in the earlier data of Briffa or Mann, & compare it with the more accurate data people are getting over the past 5-6 years using more advanced techniques & a greater reliance on multi-proxy analyses). Other studies using better methods-& in other regions-show temperatures *lower* than the late-20th century & some again show temperatures only marginally warmer than the late-20th century. What *none* of them show is that global temperatures were warmer at the height of the MWP than today-which makes Monckton's claim FALSE! I read Abraham's e-mail to Keigwin, & see nothing loaded in it at all. I also see nothing factually wrong in Abraham claiming that Monckton was wrong to use Keigwin's data to back his claims of a global MWP that was warmer than today. It follows from this that Monckton's claims of 700 scientists that support his view are equally fallacious-& that Abraham has rightly exposed that. For the record, claiming that someones "facts" don't stand up to close scrutiny, & saying scientists might change their views because it no longer "supports the company line" are accusations of LYING. If you're going to make such accusations, then you really owe it to readers to present EVIDENCE to back up the claim-as Abraham has done with Monckton. -
Passing Wind at 15:57 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus, I have never claimed Abraham was dishonest and I have provided very detailed evidence that Abraham's evidence is as flawed as he claims Monckton's is. I am not supporting Monckton and have not claimed so. Marcus, please take the time to read my post post on Deltoid for evidence that Abraham asked Keigwin a loaded and heavily biased question that did indeed misrepresent Monckton's claim. Keigwin's response that "you are absolutely right" is to Abraham's claim that: "I noticed that recently, Christopher Monckton has been giving presentations where he uses your research to suggest that the MWP was significantly warmer than today and that the recent warming is not of concern. I don’t believe that is your conclusion but I wanted to verify this." In other words, Abraham is correct in saying that Keigwin's paper did not concluded that the recent warming is not a concern. Also, Keigwin says he's never hear of Monckton. But Keigwin's paper does conclude that the MWP was warmer than today by a bit over 1 K. Monckton was wrong to use Keigwin to support his claim that the MWP was global when Keigwin's paper is only about the Sargasso Sea. Keigwin doesn't support Monckton's claim the MWP was global. A fairer question would have given more context, and have at least provided a link to Monckton's presentation. It also would have put Monckton's claim accurately. -
Marcus at 15:49 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
You obviously don't get it, do you PW? If a person like Monckton is going to interpret the conclusions of another persons work-as he sees fit-then he really owes it to the scientists, & himself, to make sure he has got the interpretation correct-unless, of course, Monckton was planning to misinterpret the conclusions (which seems more likely). From my reading of most of the papers presented above, the majority that Abraham looked at *at no point* claimed that the MWP was a global phenomenon-or that temperatures were globally warmer than the global average today. That is merely what Monckton is claiming the papers say-& HE IS WRONG! He is also wrong in claiming the IPCC wants the MWP to disappear (when each update shows the MWP & Little Ice Age more clearly than the one before-that's a strange way to make it disappear). Indeed, Climatologists *like* the existence of the MWP & LIA-as it *proves* the climates sensitivity to forcing (in this case changes in volcanism & TSI-as you'd know if you'd BOTHERED to read any of the papers I cited). Lastly, if Monckton is going to claim that 700 scientists support his contention that the MWP was global-& warmer-than today, then he really should provide more than a mere handful of papers which-at best-are ambiguous about how extensive the range of the warming was, or how warm it actually got compared to the Modern Era. You also still haven't addressed Monckton's tendency to cherry pick the data he uses in his figures, his failure to provide proper citations for his figures & his deliberate mis-citing in several figures. Of course, this is to be expected from someone who is determined to defend the behaviour of Monckton even in the face of OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that he is engaged in falsehoods. Your attack on Abraham (& on the scientists he has contacted-via your claim about them just towing "the party line") is just a blindingly obvious attempt to distract people's attention away from just how full of holes Monckton's presentation actually is, & highlights again the fact that you're not some objective witness-no matter how often you try to claim otherwise. Anyway, I'm really bored arguing with you, as you clearly show NO INTENTION of listening to facts that threaten to undermine your opinion of Monckton. -
gp2 at 15:46 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
@Coalgeologist You are right, i should have said that the anomalous fluxes are negative(positive) for el nino(la nina) over the tropical pacific and that this signal dominates the global ocean carbon flux anomalies. However i think that this relationship(correlation between land carbon fluxes/ENSO and anticorrelated oceanic fluxes/ENSO) is not surprising, it is well known that el nino reduces rainfall over tropical land masses, during 2009/2010 el nino for example several countries had severe droughts and drastically reduced hydropower generation so there's no surprise that el nino decrease gross primary productivity and increase plant and soil respiration thus leading to higher atmospheric concentration after some months. -
thingadonta at 15:17 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
Excerpt from Wiki on Ocean acidification: "Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[36] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.[37]" This process doesn't have to happen sometime in the 'future' as stated above, any change in ocean pH would be expected to have an immediate impact on the rate of dissolution/precipitation of carbonate sediments, meaning the ocean is naturally buffered (to what extent is the issue) with regard to atmospheric C02 changes. This sort of negative feedback with regards to ocean pH is just one example that has been completely ignored by (some) coral reef researchers. -
Passing Wind at 15:15 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus. I do not know what academic training you have, and therefore, how much you know about the rules of citation. Please forgive me if I am explaining something you already know but have not expressed well. Here's an example from Wikipedia "A prime purpose of a citation is intellectual honesty; to attribute to other authors the ideas they have previously expressed, rather than give the appearance to the work's readers that the work's authors are the original wellsprings of those ideas." Another site, covering the ethical dimension as well. Academic Integrity and Ethics Simply stated, there is there is no such an academic indictment as "failing to contact the scientist whose work he presents". Abraham is using this devise to deflect the fact that Monckton accurately cited paper about regarding the MWP and to paint Monckton as dishonest for not having contacted them. Anyone writing an academic paper is entitled to take a written work as it stands. Even if they are claiminbg the earth is flat. If this were not the case, people could publish anything they wanted, then claim you misrepresented them for quoting it because they have changed their mind, or the opinion they expressed is no longer the "company line". I would argue that where one knows a scientist has changed their view because it is common knowledge, then one should say so. With regard to the MWP, Monckton is claiming the IPCC wanted it to disappear, and he presents 9 slides out of a claimed 700 papers to show that it did once exist. He should have said that some of those scientist out of the 9 slides he shows have since claimed the MWP was slightly cooler than today. But he was absolutely correct in using them. -
Sean A at 15:09 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
gallopingcamel, doug_bostrom brings this up and provides a link in the comments above. -
gallopingcamel at 15:04 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Marcus (#29), Ad nauseam, to many of the faithful on this blog I have pointed out that correlation does not imply causality. I have also said that cause should precede effect. Consequently, I am with you when you reject Hocker's hypothesis unless it can be shown that a rise in temperature preceded a rise in CO2 concentration. -
gallopingcamel at 14:41 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
HumanityRules (#28), Thanks for that WUWT link. However, I think that Willis Eschenbach has got his carbon isotopes confused. C12 and C13 are stable but C14 is not. C14 is created in the atmosphere by incident cosmic rays. Once living creatures die the proportion of C14 in their remains falls as the C14 decays (5,730 year half life). Fossil fuels buried underground are shielded from most cosmic radiation so the C14 is not replaced when it decays. Thus fossil fuels have much less C14 than atmospheric carbon has. -
Marcus at 14:34 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
gallopingcamel. I'm still searching for the C12/C14 ratio data you're asking for but, in the meantime, another means of detecting the origin of CO2 is via its C13/C12 ratio. According to my reading, terrestrial plants (which form the basis of our fossil fuels) have a lower C13/C12 ratio than what exists in the atmosphere. So if the CO2 were coming from the oceans, then we wouldn't expect a change in the C13/C12 ratio either. According to this previous post by John Cook the C13/C12 ratio has been falling over the last 20-years, which does seem to debunk Hocker's claim that the CO2 is coming from the ocean in response to global warming. Its further debunked, though, by the fact that CO2 levels have been clearly rising since at least 1959 (when Mauna Loa first started measurements) yet temperature measurements show a cooling between the mid-1940's & mid-1950's which, if anything, should have caused a *fall* in CO2 emission (in fact, the delta T was too low to cause any real change-any more than delta T over the last 30-50 years has been greater enough to cause the oceans to release significant amounts of CO2), as well as the fact that-whilst there was no warming trend between 1951 & 1970, there was a highly significant 1ppm rise in CO2 concentrations between 1959-1979. If temperature were truly the cause of the CO2 emissions, then there should have been a rise in temperature *before* the rise in CO2! -
HumanityRules at 14:20 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Paul W at 00:18 AM on 12 June, 2010 Nice to see another debunk. Maybe that's over stating it. Even Hocker states "I am not wed to the theory I present" It's fair to say that WUWT also posted a Willis Eschenbach article that firmly states 20th century CO2 rise is caused by burning fossil fuels Some people claim, that there’s a human to blame … -
Doug Bostrom at 14:01 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Thingadonta you've not explained yourself. Here's a hint: you'll need to provide more detail than the papers you cite as incorrect in order to show why that is so. Another way of saying it is that you'll need to advance our understanding. -
Marcus at 13:55 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Here's my point, PW: On all the specific points about Monckton (his lack of citations on slides &/or his mis-citation of slides; his failure to contact the scientists whose work he presents; his misrepresentation of data in slides; his deliberate misinterpretation of the conclusions of these scientists' work & the use of pseudo-science to "debunk" the work of those scientists whose work he can't misrepresent) Abraham's facts actually *do* stand up to close scrutiny. Oh sure a nitpicker-like yourself-might be able to find small technicalities in which Abraham is incorrect, but that's a far cry from the rampant dishonesty displayed by Monckton in his snake-oil salesman show. Yet from the moment you came here, PW, you've assumed-without evidence-that Abraham is being dishonest, yet you seem to assume that Monckton is honest & decent-when *all* the evidence says absolutely otherwise (just look at his recent attack on Abraham if you want proof-honest & rational people don't resort to ad-hominem attack as their first line of defense; & his hypocrisy was totally outstanding!) This proves to me that your claim to be an "impartial observer" in this lacks any real credibility! -
gallopingcamel at 13:40 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
If Hocker is right the additional CO2 in the atmosphere is coming out of the oceans in which case there should be no detectable change in the atmospheric C12/C14 ratio. If the additional CO2 is coming from burning fossil fuels as the IPCC claims, the amount of C14 in the atmosphere should be falling. My understanding is that this is the case but I can't remember where I read it. Hopefully BP or some other learned gentleman can set me straight. -
CoalGeologist at 13:31 PM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
GP2 @15 wrote:Actually the pacific ocean is a net co2 sink during el nino due to reduced upwelling of carbon rich deepwater(and the opposite for la nina), the strong correlation is due to land carbon fluxes; enso and oceanic co2 fluxes are anticorrelated:
Thanks for correcting my simplistic notion of what's occurring. On the other hand, I'm not sure you've got it exactly right either. Assuming (!) I understand correctly, your statement would apply not to the entire Pacific Ocean, but only to the equatorial region, which is generally a zone of upwelling. Colder parts of the ocean remain a CO2 sink at all times, and the ocean as a whole remains a net sink. Actually, the equatorial Pacific region remains a net source of atmospheric CO2 even during El Nino events, although at a substantially reduced rate, owing to the lower pCO2 of the warmer surface waters (See diagram below from Feely et al. (1999), who concluded that the sea to air flux of CO2 from the equatorial oceans is 30-80% lower during El Nino periods.) Jones et al. (2001) begin their paper by noting that atmospheric CO2 is observed to increase during El Nino events, and decrease during La Nina events, and that this relationship has been known since the 1970s. Thus, at minimum, we can conclude that some combination of processes brings about this net result, and as you've noted, it's interpreted (AR4-WG1, Parts 5 & 7) to be dominated by terrestrial processes. I think it's safe to say, however, that we don't have the full picture yet. In any case, while I can barely begin to understand the complexity of the CO2 cycle, it's evident that a simple empirical correlation between tropospheric temperatures and CO2 may be an important observation, but sheds little (direct) light on the underlying climate processes.
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Mal Adapted at 12:57 PM on 12 June 2010Request for mainstream articles on climate
I just submitted an article from The Register to John's database. I started following El Reg in the last century, for breaking news in the IT sector, and in the broader scientific arena as well. It has a huge audience. Some years ago one of their staff writers, Andrew Orlowski, started reporting on climate issues from a gleeful denier POV. I've tried to defend science in comments on most of their climate-related articles, but recently I've had comments rejected for no discernible reason. I'm soliciting SkepticalScience regulars to monitor climate-related articles on El Reg, and submit comments in defense of science to counter the denier hordes. As with other denier sites, it's a tough job, but it needs doing. -
thingadonta at 12:52 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
re 42 Doug Bostrom "Thingadonta, would you please elaborate on the integration you speak of and how it leads to the conclusion you mention? Failing that, I don't see how the remarks you make about Mann and Weart cannot better be applied to you yourself". The question is one of uncertainties and weaknesses in datasets, and how these lead to 'toxic' effects when attempting to 'average out' data. Exactly the same mathematical fudging cocurred with sub prime mortgages, if you attempt to 'average out' or spread 'risk' by mixing uncertainties/risk with good data/low risk you can just make things more skewed. It's a mathematicians trick to say if you 'average it out' it gives a better picture, uncertainties can multiply in such cases and make the dataset 'toxic'. This is what the recent papers by eg M.Mann do, they mix in weak data and fudge the uncertainties to give a false picture of 'averaging out' the weak and sparse data to make it seem as if the MWP wasnt global. The lack of data for the MWP in the southern hemisphere speaks for itself, you cannot draw the conclusion that it was not global by averaging out the lack of data, or the differential response by different proxies. Mann is well known in his various papers for bunchng (tranching) and treating proxies the same. It gives a false picture. -
Marcus at 12:47 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Wow, PW, you're certainly willing to "die in a ditch" to defend Monckton's honor-but you're drawing some massively long bows in claiming that Keigwin's Paper somehow proves Abraham's *entire* presentation wrong. For starters, it's only a *single* paper, & not an especially recent one-other, much better paleo-climate studies have come along to supersede these kinds of earlier studies (just look at the refinement of the original Mann 1998 Hockey Stick). Secondly, Monckton uses Keigwin's 1996 paper to "prove" his point that the Medieval Warm Period was "real, global & warmer than today"-in truth it only proves the first point-namely that the MWP was real (hardly surprising given that the MWP isn't exactly controversial). However, given the limited scope of Keigwin's 1996 paper, it certainly does not prove that the MWP was globally warmer than it is currently-only that it was warmer around the Sargasso sea region. Therefore Monckton was misrepresenting Keigwin's research by using it to back his assertion (a classic denialist trick of comparing apples with oranges)-this fact is further backed by Keigwin's reply to Abraham's e-mail, where he agrees with him that he understands current temperatures-globally-to be warmer than in the MWP. So no, PW, Abraham's claims do *not* fail close scrutiny-wheras Monckton's fail even the most cursory of examinations (as highlighted in Chris's reply at #45). That you're so quick to attack Abraham's credibility on the flimsiest of pretexts, yet apparently have *nothing* to say about Monckton's obviously flagrant misuse-& mislabeling-of data, prove that you're certainly not a true skeptic! -
thingadonta at 12:38 PM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
ned 37: Pick any major period of volcanic activity in the geological record, and see how long it takes to disrupt coral ecosystems. -
muoncounter at 12:09 PM on 12 June 2010Websites to monitor the Arctic Sea Ice
There are interesting similarities between sea ice extent and snow extent from the Rutgers Snow Lab mentioned at the bottom of the website list in the body of this article. And I couldn't resist the teaser "if you want to make graphs;" so I made graphs. For each of the following two graphs, I averaged the three months of maximum or minimum snow extent (area) and plotted the corresponding ice extent (one month, September min or March max). The snow data break out Eurasia, North America (Canada/US) and Greenland; I used the total snow area for the Northern Hemisphere. I then calculated the period average and plotted the percentage difference between that average and the snow extent for each year. The snow data are much noisier; for some minimal smoothing, I used a 2 year trailing average.JFM= Jan-Feb-Mar, JAS= July-Aug-Sept Note that both graphs have the same vertical scale; we see some impressive variation in the summer minima. However, the winter change is much smaller (so much for the anecdotal stories that run rampant during the winters: ‘What global warming? Its snowing here!’) The summer data steepens in slope, reminiscent of the logistic trend discussed here. Further, it would seem reasonable to conclude that if the winter snow-covered areas remain consistent while increasingly smaller areas are snow-covered each summer, more freshwater is changing from frozen to liquid back each year. Where does this water go? Increasing sea level? Then why don't we a corresponding up/down signal in sea level? Or could the snowmelt be fueling more precipitation? We observe that each melt season leaves a smaller snow-covered area, but each winter has about the same snow area; there must be more snow falling each winter. Here is a graph showing the growing disparity between winter snowfall and summer snowmelt.
Or maybe global warming actually does result in more snowfall.
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Passing Wind at 11:20 AM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
michael sweet @ post 48. I have NOT watched all of Abraham's presentation in one sitting. I have concentrated on Abraham's slides 22 to 32 inclusive, which equates to Monckton's St Paul presentation from 32:40 to 37:59. I have transcribed both Abraham and Monckton and compared Monckton's argument with that which Abraham claims Monckton is arguing as well as checking each of Abraham's available emails and citations. I find that Abraham does not correctly express Monckton's argument, causing Abraham to partially attack a strawman. Further, I find that Abraham's evidence regarding the MWP section being discussed is very weak and does not provide support to his argument with anywhere near the certainty Abraham is claiming. Surely the "not enough space for citations" argument should also be extended to the other side? I have never compared the conclusions of a 1996 paper to to that of a 2009 paper by Mann. I am not trying to make a case for Abraham, merely demonstrating Abraham is not making his. michael, If you don't want to listen to logic, that's your decision. Is telling Keigwin that Monckton is using his paper to claim the "current warming is of no concern" when Monckton makes no such claim about it a diligent and fair representation of the argument? Keigwin's paper clearly does support a MWP much warmer than today for the Sargasso sea. Look up Keigwin's website yourself and see if he refutes it. Why not email him and ask him. Is a website quote about the Arctic suitable countering evidence for what happened in the Antarctic? Of course it is not. Yet this is the evidence Abraham provides regarding Noon et al. I'd seem Monckton's presentation before. I though it comparable with its liberal use of facts as Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth". I did side with it slightly more than Gore's because I don't like horror films and I do like happy endings. If you find Monckton loose with facts, where do you stand regarding Al Gore? Sean A. I am only defending Monckton in so far as Abraham has put forward his own "facts", that unfortunately fail close scrutiny. If you think I am sockpuppet, you best start calling me Lord Passing Wind - what a preposterous suggestion. -
Sean A at 10:44 AM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
doug_bostrom at 15:15 PM on 11 June "Why Inhofe would ignore actual scientists for learning about this topic is a matter of speculation but his home state and its history of connection with the oil industry is a reasonable clue." There's also a lot of coal in OK: "Oklahoma contains the most significant deposits of bituminous coal west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains." Oklahoma Coal This is pure speculation, but Passing Wind's writing style and tone has some resemblance to Christpher Monckton's, and PW is defending Monckton rather vigorously, in a rather detailed way. (Yes, I'm suggesting they could be the same person.) -
michael sweet at 10:26 AM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
PW: Have you listened to Dr. Abrahams full lecture where he provides much of the text that you are asking for? Dr. Abraham has summarized his information for these postings. For him to post all his correspondence would take up too much space here. I find it quaint that you are citing a 1996 paper and comparing the conclusions to Mann 2009. Do you think that scientists have not advanced their data sets since 1996? Do you think Mann has failed to consider these old conclusions when he reviewed his much larger, more detailed data? Do you think anyone has measured new data in the southern hemisphere since 2003, making current conclusions about southern temperatures during this period more robust? Provide modern papers that show your assertions have merit. If you want me to listen to what you say, you need to provide RECENT citations, say the last 3 or 4 years, not these outdated papers. Otherwise you are just passing wind. -
Passing Wind at 09:45 AM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
I have put together an in-depth analysis of the emails with Keigwin (see John's reply to comment 12 above), as well as a critique of how well Keigwin supports Abraham's Monckton rebuttal. Here is the link to my post to the "Monckton is wrong" thread at Deltoid. For those not interested in reading the entire posting at deltoid, here's my conclusion: Does Keigwin 1996 support Monckton's claims or not? On the question that IPCC deliberately disappeared the MWP? Of course not - N/A as it predates the hockey stick. On the question of was the MWP real? Keigwin 1996 does claim the existence of the MWP. On the question of was it global? Keigwin 1996 was not a global study - it only covered the Sargasso Sea. On the question of was it warmer than present? Keigwin 1996 indicates the MWP was about a degree or so warmer. So the only points I can score to Abraham regarding Keigwin is that Monckton incorrectly displaying Keigwin's graph of Sargasso Sea temperature as support for his claim the MWP was global. An error Monckton could correct by simply stating his global MWP claim is made up from many global, as well as local reconstructions, like Keigwin 1996, and Esper and Schweingruger 2003. -
NewYorkJ at 09:17 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
"The response from Hocker's defenders was that the ice core records of CO2 must be unreliable." Entirely predictable. "The data is wrong" is kind of a catch-all fallback argument when doctrine is in danger of being shaken. But here's an interesting question I'm throwing out here. Can the amount change in CO2 concentration from temperature feedback be determined precisely? Obviously, almost all of the change is from human activities. Doug's link in #21 indicates the chemical human fingerprint. But perhaps there's a few ppm related to long-term temperature feedbacks as I briefly covered in #19. Can this be determined with reasonable precision, either from observations of the isotope signature, or from short-term temperature-CO2 concentration fluctuations? If so, could that be a reasonable proxy for pre-industrial temperatures? You'd have to account for feedbacks as well. -
Ned at 08:27 AM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
chris, your comments here are always worth reading but this one is far above and beyond the call of duty. You deserve some kind of a medal for this. (John, if people keep doing this kind of thing we're going to need to set up some kind of Skeptical Science commenter investigative journalism awards ....) -
Ned at 08:19 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
BP writes: Not so interesting, perhaps. Phase relation was messed up. Here is another try, this time against MSU/AMSU Ch. TLT (Lower Troposphere) Brightness Temperature History. OK, that looks more like what one would expect. For a moment there I thought you might have discovered some new unknown CO2 source at the South Pole ... but alas, 'tis not to be. What about the global argon thermometer? => #6 I've been looking for that. I can't find anything anywhere. Was it your own idea, or has someone else suggested this? The closest I've come is people using the O2/Ar ratio to study biological processes in seawater (O2 and Ar have similar temperature/solubility functions). But none of the global databases of atmospheric gases seems to have a time series of Ar. -
Ned at 08:14 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
NewYorkJ, that objection was raised over at WUWT, actually. Several people were upset about the implications for MWP. The response from Hocker's defenders was that the ice core records of CO2 must be unreliable. (Don't blame me, I'm just reporting what they said). -
snapple at 07:55 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
I have read some Russians say this. Inhofe's advised the Russian geographer Andrei Kapitsa reportedly claims: “It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round.”... http://www.hinduonnet.com/2008/07/10/stories/2008071055521000.htm -
Doug Bostrom at 06:53 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Unless I'm missing something there's also the matter of carbon isotopes as a means of fingerprinting the source of recently appearing C02, which Hocker does not address. Isotopes as a tracer of anthropogenic C02 are nicely covered in this article at Real Climate. -
Berényi Péter at 06:30 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
#11 Ned at 03:15 AM on 12 June, 2010 that's interesting Not so interesting, perhaps. Phase relation was messed up. Here is another try, this time against MSU/AMSU Ch. TLT (Lower Troposphere) Brightness Temperature History.
No lag.
Did you use the monthly or annual data?
Annual, last column.
----
What about the global argon thermometer? => #6
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chris at 05:57 AM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Passing Wind at 14:57 PM on 11 June, 2010” ….you might as well ask for a copy of the correspondence with Schweingruber, and correspondence he may have received regarding Noon et at, and Huang et al.” and…. ”For example: Schweingruber said he has retired and passed him on to Frank. But Abraham does not show even a snippet of an email from Schweingruber. Perhaps, far fetched though it may sound, Schweingruber said, "Monckton is right, but don't quote me, you better ask Frank what he thinks."
O.K. we’ve already done Huang et al in detail, and I dom't mind scanning a few papers while watching World Cup football on TV. So let’s look at Esper and Schweingruber 2004. ONE: You are commenting on Schweingruber who arises in relation to the graph on Monckton's slide (reproduced as Figure 2 in Dr. Abraham's top article). This is the dataset in the lower right-hand corner of Monckton's slide labelled "Esper and Schweingruber (2004)", which he shows to support his assertion that the Medieval Warm Period “was real, was global, and was warmer than the present.” TWO: The first question to explore is what that data actually is. It's easy to determine that Jan Esper and Fritz Schweingruber published one paper together in 2004. This is: Esper, J., and F. H. Schweingruber (2004), Large-scale treeline changes recorded in Siberia Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L06202 abstract That paper doesn’t contain the Figure shown in Monckton’s slide or the data. Esper and Schweingruber (2004) analyze treeline data in Siberia during the period from around 1750 to around 1980. THREE: Clearly Monckton’s Figure labeled “Esper and Schweingruber (2004)” isn’t from Esper and Schweingruber (2004). Might it be from a different paper by these authors? [note that Monckton has mislabeled the data set designated “Huang et al (1998)” at the top left of Figure 2 of the intro article for this thread, so another mislabeling wouldn’t be surprising]. Esper and Schweingruber have published 4 other papers together since 2000. These are: Esper, J; Schweingruber, FH; Winiger, M (2002) 300 years of climatic history for Western Central Asia inferred from tree-rings Holocene12, 267-277. Esper, J; Cook, ER; Schweingruber, FH (2002) Low-frequency signals in long tree-ring chronologies for reconstructing past temperature variability Science 295, 2250-2253 Esper, J; Cook, ER; Krusic, PJ; et al. (2003) Tests of the RCS method for preserving low-frequency variability in long tree-ring chronologies Tree-Ring Res. 59 81-98 Neuwirth B, Esper J, Schweingruber FH, Winiger M (2004) Site ecological differences to the climatic forcing of spruce pointer years from the Lötschental, Switzerland. Dendrochronologia 21, 69-78. Perhaps the data is from one of those? Nope it isn’t; we can look at them and establish Monckton's figure doesn't come from any of these papers. FOUR: Even if we can’t locate the source of the data Monckton shows since he’s neglected to cite it properly, can we get a clue what it might be? Obviously we can’t determine whether it’s global, hemispheric or local. But presumably it’s a temperature vs time series (since Monckton is using it as part of a justification for his assertion that the MWP was warmer than now). Actually, it isn’t. The Y-axis has values encompassing the range 260 to 310. The data range from ~ “270” to ~ “305”. I can’t read the Y-axis label, but it’s unlikely to be temperature in Kelvins (-3 oC to 32 oC!?). Anyone have any ideas??? FIVE: O.K. Even if we can’t find the data in the place Monckton is supposed to have sourced it from, nor find it by assuming a citation error and looking more widely, nor determine what is actually being plotted, might we be able to assess what these authors considered their data to say about global temperatures during the MWP and now? The first answer is no, since Esper’s data only relates to extratropical N. hemisphere temperatures. What did they consider their data said about comparison of this region in the MWP and now? We can’t say for sure, regarding Esper and Schweingruber’s joint work, since none of the published papers fully address that. However, if we consider all of Esper’s work of the period (2004-ish) we can do a little better since Esper published a paper in 2004 that directly discusses current (NH extratropical) temperatures and those of the MWP. In this paper it is concluded that:The temperature signal in the ECS reconstruction is shown to be restricted to periods longer than 20 years in duration. After recalibration to take this property into account, annual temperatures up to AD 2000 over extra-tropical NH land areas have probably exceeded by about 0.3degreesC the warmest previous interval over the past 1162 years. This estimate is based on comparing instrumental temperature data available up to AD 2000 with the reconstruction that ends in AD 1992 and does not take into account the mutual uncertainties in those data sets.
Cook ER, Esper J, D'Arrigo RD (2004) Extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere land temperature variability over the past 1000 years. Quat. Sci. Rev. 23, 2063-2074 Likewise in 2005, Esper’s analysis of proxy temperatures in the Alpine regions concluded:”The new central Alpine proxy suggests that summer temperatures during the last decade are unprecedented over the past millennium.”
Buntgen U, Esper J, Frank DC, Nicolussi K, Schmidhalter M (2005) A 1052-year tree-ring proxy for Alpine summer temperatures Climate Dynamics 25, 141-153 So even in 2004/5 Esper's analysis supported the conclusion that in his area of study (N hemisphere extratropics; Alps) current temperatures are warmer now than during the MWP in those regions. More recent analysis reinforces that conclusion. It’s very difficult to justify Monckton’s use of Esper (and Schweingruber’s) papers from 2004/2005 to support the assertion that “the Medieval Warm Period “was real, was global, and was warmer than the present.” Of course we'd really like to know what Monckton's Figure labelled "Esper and Schweingruber (2004)" actually is, and where it came from. Since Monckton is only using it as "eye-candy" to front scientifically-unjustified assertions about the nature of MWP temperatures it’s possible he doesn't know or care. -
NewYorkJ at 05:47 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Here's a possible simplification, which might help the WUWT readers who can't follow the ever-so-fancy math (folks here can point out if it's reasonable or too simplistic). Figures here are ballpark. The temperature change during a big el Nino event like 1998 is around 0.2 C. The additional PPM of concentration from such an event is perhaps 1.5-2 ppm. So the 0.8 C of warming would lead to a 6-8 ppm change. But using WUWT's alternate reality, we can also logically conclude there was negligible temperature change between MWP and LIA periods. 0.8 C leads to a change of 100 ppm of CO2, right? So why only about 5 ppm change of CO2 concentration between these periods? http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif -
CoalGeologist at 05:19 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Further to my previous post @#12, and in consideration of the comment by MarkR @#17 that the oceans are, in the long run, a net sink for atmospheric CO2. An increase in surface water temperatures will decrease the rate of uptake of atmospheric CO2. If humans keep cranking it out at the same rate, this would be manifested as a net increase in the accumulation rate in the atmosphere, as indicated by a positive anomaly in Fig. 2. This is discussed in the IPCC AR4 WG1 report in the Summary for Policymakers, section on "Projections of Future Climate Change":-
• Warming tends to reduce land and ocean uptake of
atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing the fraction of
anthropogenic emissions that remains in the atmosphere.
For the A2 scenario, for example, the climate-carbon
cycle feedback increases the corresponding global
average warming at 2100 by more than 1°C. Assessed
upper ranges for temperature projections are larger
than in the TAR (see Table SPM.3) mainly because
the broader range of models now available suggests
stronger climate-carbon cycle feedbacks. {7.3, 10.5}
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Malachi at 05:17 AM on 12 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
I think a stronger argument could be made if the focus was on the scientists interpretation of their cited work. Getting their opinion on the current state of affairs is only parenthetically related to the science of the cited work. The best example would be if the scientist stated that his particular graph, data, etc did not show what Monckton claims it show. The next best would be if they said that the cited work did agree with Monckton, but they've since learned things that make them doubt their earlier work. The difference would teach us a great deal about Monckton's approach to science. Is he referencing (perhaps debunked) science honestly, or is he (likely willfully) distorting the available science on the subject. -
MarkR at 04:57 AM on 12 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Humans are emitting ~30bn tons/yr. The amount in the atmosphere is going up about ~15bn tons/yr. The pH of the oceans is falling. It takes truly remarkable mental acrobatics to perform and then believe a bit of mathematical sleight of hand and misinterpretation that in one swoop disproves conservation of particle number and the chemistry of carbon in seawater.
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