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chris1204 at 23:36 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
HumanityRules: I hope John reconsiders - I share your feelings about WUWT. -
Passing Wind at 23:05 PM on 5 June 2010Abraham shows Monckton wrong on Arctic sea ice
chris at 20:01 PM on 5 June, 2010 I should also add that Huang et al paper is indeed 1997, although Monckton does cite it as 1998 (which is the point I was making above). The full citation is: Huang, S., H. N. Pollack, and P. Y. Shen (1997), Late Quaternary temperature changes seen in world‐wide continental heat flow measurements, Geophys. Res. Lett., 24(15), 1947–1950, doi:10.1029/97GL01846. Chris, I didn't single out Huang, or any of the other references, Abraham did. He chose to debunk Monckton's claim by examining 4 of the 9 charts Monckton uses on that slide. My only interest was whether Abraham had provided evidence that Monckton misrepresented the data in his slide. Further, I only examined that proposition from Abraham's argument. I completely agree with you regarding what Monckton should have known about CURRENT literature regarding the MWP. This most likely means Monckton "cherry picked" his citations, but that was not the point Abraham was trying to debunk. -
Berényi Péter at 22:43 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
#40 gallopingcamel at 15:31 PM on 5 June, 2010 One of the many gems is Figure 20 which predicts temperature increases ranging from 2.5 to 7 Kelvin by the year 2100 Camel, there are problems with Fig. 20 (and the related text) in The Copenhagen Diagnosis indeed, but your interpretation is not among them.
(click on image for enlarged version)
The Report (pp. 44) gives Kaufman 2009 as reference.
Science 4 September 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5945, pp. 1236 - 1239
DOI: 10.1126/science.1173983
Recent Warming Reverses Long-Term Arctic Cooling
by Kaufman & al.
However, Fig. 20 is not the original one from this paper, but, according to the caption is "modified by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research".
The original (except some explanation in indigo) looks like this:
From this figure it is obvious that according to Kaufman 2009 the step-like temperature increase occurred in the first half of the 20th century when CO2 emissions were an order of magnitude lower than they are today. Therefore it does not support the claims expressed in the Copenhagen Diagnosis, quite the opposite (I've told you it was soot). But the text of the Report fails to mention this particular detail.
On top of that there is the modification done by UCAR (the red patch in Fig. 20). You can have a closer look at it.
As it extends the graph to about 2040, it can hardly be anything else but an attempt to mix up fact and fiction. This small detail also goes unnoticed in the text and the modification is not supported by any peer reviewed reference either. What can I say? One simply never ever does such a thing in a scientific report.
One more thing (and here we return to Camel's claim). The last segment of the red line looks really steep and frightening, but actually it has a slope of about 2°C/century. Taking into account Arctic amplification, (even if it were real) it would suggest a 1°C/century global average temperature rise, lower than the low end of IPCC projections. Needless to say, the Report also fails to elaborate on this question.
So no, Camel, Fig. 20 of the Copenhagen Diagnosis bogus it may be, definitely does not "predict temperature increases ranging from 2.5 to 7 Kelvin by the year 2100"
Don't do that please. The discussion here, taken as a whole, is self-correcting. By deleting posts simply because they don't suit your personal taste, grave obstacles are raised against this process.Moderator Response (to gallopingcamel #40) Would you prefer to demonstrate your case or would you instead prefer to have your opinion deleted without trace? If you can demonstrate your case, please do so in a constructive way. In either event this particular post will be deleted; this is simply a courtesy explanation of why that will happen and how you can avoid such wasted effort in the future. -
Passing Wind at 22:26 PM on 5 June 2010Abraham shows Monckton wrong on Arctic sea ice
chris at 20:01 PM on 5 June, 2010 Monckton's slide as shown by Abrahams cites Huang et al (1998), not 1997 as you suggest. See Abraham's slide 25. In that paper, Huang et al state, "Temperatures were also warmer than present 500–1,000 years ago, but then cooled to a minimum some 0.2–0.7 K below present about 200 years ago." If this comment, which I plucked from the abstract, is not supported in that paper, I'd like to know as I only have access to the abstract. -
Ned at 21:49 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
HR, please review the previous comments on this thread. Your mistaken assumptions have been responded to clearly. There is such a thing as common sense, and we can informally apply it to assess whether a given claim is moderate and reasonable or extreme and improbable, in light of current scientific understanding. Consider the example I used above. Suppose someone were to come here and suggest that we need to cut CO2 emissions now because "doubling the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere would lead to a runaway greenhouse effect a la Venus, where temperatures rise high enough to boil away the oceans". Most people, I think, would recognize that as a rather extreme claim. There is no known physical process operating today that could amplify the warming from 2XCO2 that way. No model or paleoclimate study suggests such a thing is possible. So if I were to make that claim, you really ought to expect me to provide some non-trivial reasoning or justification. Does this expectation really seem unreasonable to you? Frankly, I would be insulted at the idea that my ideas are so poorly grounded that I need to be exempted from providing any evidence for them. -
Passing Wind at 21:29 PM on 5 June 2010Abraham shows Monckton wrong on Arctic sea ice
I am not surprised to see how much interest Abraham is receiving within the blogosphere since his attempted take down of Lord Monckton's St Paul presentation. Monckton is well know for his anti-AGW position as well as his eloquent speaking style. Some have claimed Monckton is loose with facts and high on rhetoric. A thorough fact-check seemed overdue. Abraham starts off by explaining why he feels qualified to bring Monckton down, then compares Monckton's, Al Gore's and the IPCC's sea level claims, and then polar bears. Hardly central issues until we get to slide 24 - The MWP. Finally, some meat. Abraham makes the following statement. "If 700 scientists say the medieval warm period was warmer than it is today, why are we concerned? That's a legitimate [garbled] If, if it was warmer than it is today then maybe we are in a natural warming period." Abraham's slides from 25 to 32 attempt to debunk Monckton's claim that 700 scientists believed the MWP to be warmer than today. He attempts to debunk this by looking at some of Monckton's citations, Esper and Schweingruber (2004) , Keigwin (1996), Noon et al (2003), and Huang et al (1998) by reading some of the papers and asking the authors. "Let's do something crazy, let's either read the actual papers or ask the authors..." How well did he do? Here are some of my observations: 1. Abraham makes no mention of actually reading Esper and Schweingruber (2004). Perhaps he did, but fails to mention it. Abraham emails Schweingruber "to ask whether Monckton correctly interpreted his findings". Schweingruber tells him he's retired, so he refereed [sic] him to his mate Frank instead. Frank claims "temperatures now, are indeed much warmer than the Medieval period." This may be the case, but it clearly isn't evidence that Monckton misrepresented Esper and Schweingruber. Why didn't Schweingruber say Monckton was wrong himself? A quick look at the paper in question clearly shows a MWP (figure 10) that was much warmer than it is today. 2. Abraham emails Keigan and once again makes no mention to having read the paper in question. Keigan does not claim Monckton is misrepresenting his research or that the graph Monckton shows is incorrect. Keigan asks for a free trip so he can come down and explain himself, "if someone was willing to send me down to St. Thomas I would be delighted to explain in person", and he also agrees with Monckton regarding constructing nuclear power stations. The abstract to Keigan et al (1996), states "Results from a radiocarbon-dated box core show that SST was ~1°C cooler than today ~400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and 1700 years ago, and ~1°C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period).". This seems to support the existence of the MWP. 3. Abraham then shows the cover of Noon et al (2003) but rather than comment on the contents, he looks up the website of Viv Jones, one of the Noon et al (2003) authors instead. There he finds the following statement, "The Arctic region is currently undergoing rapid climate warming" and accordingly uses this as evidence that Monckton cited Noon et al (2003) inappropriately. 4. Finally, Abraham attempts to show Monckton's use of Huang et al (1998) graph is wrong, not by reference to that paper, but to a paper by Huang in 2008. Never mind that in the paper in question, Huang et al stated "Temperatures were also warmer than present 500–1,000 years ago, but then cooled to a minimum some 0.2–0.7 K below present about 200 years ago." The use of Huang by Monckton seems rather selective, especially given Huang's later work no longer supports a warmer MWP, but does not claim the MWP did not exist. All in all, Abraham has not provided any reason not to accept Monckton's evidence for a MWP, with perhaps the minor point that Huang has partially recanted his earlier claim. However, since Monckton was, in part, suggesting the IPCC had disappeared the MWP, but does not explicitly state this, I'll call this small point a draw. Perhaps Abraham would have been better served had he approached debunking these points by showing that the authors to the cited papers had since changed their mind and that Monckton should have been aware of this. Alas, this is not the direction he chose, even though a teenie weenie part of this argument does leak out, even though never explicitly stated. Overall, I find that Abraham has very much failed to disprove Monckton in the most important question. I have no idea if he managed any better in other parts as I did not examine the rest as closely (yet). Sorry for the longish post. Hopefully it was not too boring. I look forward to any comments or corrections. -
HumanityRules at 21:26 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
damn looks like this blog is going to go the same way as WUWT and RealClimate. A borefest of mutual backslapping. Can somebody point me to the peer-reviewed paper that delineates what idea is acceptable and what is extraordinary? -
chris1204 at 20:54 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Thank you Ned. That's very kind of you. I guess I prefer chriscanaris. Commenting in the blogosphere under your real name with no semblance of disguise can overamplify your Internet footprint. I did think your comment @ 18 about the things we do know to be very valid. In dealing with an area like AWG, we have to do the best we can with what information we possess. Part of the problem in an area like AWG is that we are dealing with an issue on a global scale. Today's knowledge explosion however forces most of us to be 'specialists' - the polymaths of yesteryear are rare indeed. A specialist is sometimes described as one 'who knows more and more about less and less.' Hence, attempts at consensus in a field often involve simplifications which often irritate the specialist. I found your comments on economic alarmism @ 24 very relevant - economists of necessity simplify very complex systems sometimes with major unintended consequences. Yet policy makers do have to make decisions balancing out popular perceptions, pressures from special interest groups, etc (ie getting votes) whilst taking advice from economists. In the political sphere, this can translate into an argument that is 'clearer than truth.' I see parallels between the AWG debates and competing economic paradigms. -
Ned at 20:43 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Chris, thank you for that very clear and reasonable explanation of 21st century temperature projections. -
Ned at 20:40 PM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
shawnhet writes: Well, maybe it's simply the folks that I talk to, but I know a fair number of people who if you had a cost-free fix to AGW(say viable fusion) would be disappointed, because it would make it more difficult to make the sorts of changes they are in favor of. and then elaborates: Well, I never said that they would *reject* it, I said that they would be disappointed by it because it would make their other goals more difficult to achieve. I don't personally think that this is all that unusual a position. You will often find members of "green" parties who oppose research into fusion, even though it is comparatively inexpensive. I would be very surprised if there was any substantial number of people who would not be thrilled to have an inexpensive and effective way to "fix" AGW. Furthermore, inventing a hypothetical case and then making negative assumptions about how people would respond just doesn't seem like a useful way of promoting cooperation or understanding. In particular, your comment about "it would make their other goals more difficult to achieve" is a bit disconcerting to me. Perhaps this isn't what you meant, but I do read a lot on "contrarian" sites about how concern for AGW is really just a fig-leaf for people who want to impose a big-government agenda on the world. Strangely enough, despite some familiarity with climate change activists, I really don't see any evidence of that. I really think this is a case where people are ascribing dark motives to their opponents because if you find yourself opposed to someone it's more psychologically comforting to believe that they're trying to impose some nefarious agenda on the world than that they really do just think there's a global environmental crisis that needs to be solved. (My apologies if this is not what you mean, shawnhet, and I realize that this paragraph may be venturing into issues that are properly considered offtopic and inappropriate on this site). With regard specifically to fusion, there are a number of reasons why people you've talked to might be less than enthusiastic. First, we don't yet have economically viable fusion, despite its being allegedly "just around the corner" for half a century or so. So people might be concerned that you're suggesting doing nothing about carbon emissions today based on the promise of a solution that might or might not arise at some point in the future. Second, the (fission-based) nuclear industry has historically required large government subsidies, and in the US there is certainly a perception that other forms of government support are necessary as well (e.g., limits to legal liability in the case of an accident). Given that history, one can understand why people might be skeptical of the nuclear industry as an "inexpensive" solution to our energy problems. I personally think that it has to be part of the solution, but let's be realistic about the costs involved. My preference really would be for a market-based solution. Ideally we'd have a high price for carbon, no government subsidies for any particular alternative solution (solar, wind, hydro, nuclear....), no other artificial supports (like legal immunity) and then the market can work out what the most effective mix of energy sources is. If cheap and safe fusion becomes viable, great. If it doesn't, there are other options. -
chris at 20:24 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
gallopingcamel at 15:31 PM on 5 June, 2010 Yes, it's Figure 20. And of course it has to be interpreted correctly, so we should look at the various projections (not "predictions") and assess these in relation to the scenarios investigated. It also helps to look at the supporting text. This indicates that the 21st century temperature rise is projected to be in the range 2-7 oC of warming above the 1800-1990 (pre-industrial) baseline, depending on emission scenarios, and given known uncertainties (see shaded areas on graphs). Since we've already had nearly 1 oC of this warming, it's not too surprising to expect that even if we take rather dramatic steps to reduce greenhouse emissions, we're not going to avoid at least another 1 oC of warming this century (B1 scenario; 2.5 oC mid-range projection over pre-industrial baseline, with a lower bound near 2 oC). At the top end (essentially a "business as usual" scenario with unconstrained economic expansion and a heavy reliance on coal; A1F1), a mid range temperature rise near 5 oC above pre-industrial temperatures (~4 oC of 21st century warming to come) is projected. Since our uncertainty in climate sensitivity (Earth surface response to radiative forcing equivalent to 2x[CO2]) is large (2-4.5 oC of warming per doubling), this really has to be included in the temperature projections. So the (unlikely) A1F1 emission scenario combined with the (less than likely we hope) top end of the climate sensitivity gives a possible temperature rise near 7 oC. Is that alarming? Yes indeed. Is it alarmist? No not really. It describes a specific (and hopefully unlikely) emissions scenario and accommodates the (hopefully!) top end of the uncertainty in climate sensitivity. Of course if one was to assert "The IPCC and Copenhagen Diagnosis says we're going to warm by 6 oC during this century." that would be alarmist. But they don't. These groups carefully spell out the range of likely temperature rises according to various emission scenarios and accommodating known uncertainties in the Earth surface temperature response to greenhouse forcing..... -
DrTom at 20:20 PM on 5 June 2010Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
@theendisfar. Aloha. I am not very clever and I won't try to parse words with you. In fact, I will accept your theorem until it is either proved or disproved to our mutual satisfaction. First, let us toss out the concept of AGW. Then let us throw out GHE. We don't need them. Can you agree that for some reason, 2010 is the hottest year on record? Can you also agree that temperature records were set ten times during the past fifteen years? And finally, can you agree that these must be cause by something, even if it a completely natural cycle? -
chris at 20:01 PM on 5 June 2010Abraham shows Monckton wrong on Arctic sea ice
O.K. so I seem to be addressing thin air... There was a rather snarky post insinuating illogic against Dr. Abrahams analysis of Monckton's treatment of paleodata....it seems to have gone AWOL incidentally I meant: You consider that Monckton's use of Huangs 1997 (not "1998" incidentally) borehole data that apparently shows greater MWP warming than contemporary warming is acceptable evidence in support of Monckton's notion. -
Ned at 19:55 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
chriscanaris writes: The possibility that I might be commenting so transparently reflects the respect I have for this Blog and John's efforts in maintaining fair debate. :-) A nice statement. Likewise, my question (of whether you prefer to be addressed here as "chriscanaris" or "Chris Canaris") reflects the respect I have for your generally polite, thoughtful, and on-topic contributions here. -
chris at 19:50 PM on 5 June 2010Abraham shows Monckton wrong on Arctic sea ice
Passing Wind at 18:57 PM on 5 June, 2010 That doesn't make too much sense Passing Wind. Monckton is asserting that the MWP was warmer than now. In order to pursue this point he shows a selection of data which is either rather old or is not representative of global or hemispheric temperatures. So he's misrepresenting the evidence that bears on our understanding of the temperatures of the last 2000 years. You single out SP Huangs work so let's look at that. You consider that Monckton's use of Huangs 2007 (not "2008" incidentally) borehole data that apparently shows greater MWP warming than contemporary warming is acceptable evidence in support of Monckton's notion. However Huang has repeatedly pointed out that his 1997 paper has nothing to say about the relative warming of the MWP and current temperatures since there are essentially no post-19th century temperatures in his borehole record since data from the top 100 metres of the boreholes wasn't used so as to exclude artefacts due to non-climatic influences. This could hardly be stated more clearly in one of Huang's more recent papers:"[8] One very important aspect of data selection relevant to the debate about whether the MWP was warmer than 20th century temperatures, is mentioned explicitly in HPS97 in the section on Data: “We excluded data with representative depths less than 100 m … [because] …the uppermost 100 meters is the depth range most susceptible to non-climatic perturbations…; moreover, subsurface temperature measurements in this range yield information principally about the most recent century”. [9] The consequence of excluding the upper 100 meters is that the 20,000 year reconstructions in HPS97 contain virtually no information about the 20th century. As the authors of HPS97 we can be criticized for not stating explicitly in the abstract and figure caption that the ‘present’ (the zero on the time axis) really represents something like the end of the 19th century, rather than the end of the 20th century. At the time we published that paper our focus was on trying to extract a broad-brush representation of Late Quaternary surface temperature variability that might be overprinted on the ensemble of world-wide continental heat flux measurements. We did not anticipate that a comparison of late 20th century and Medieval Warm Period temperatures would later become a contentious issue.
That's pretty clear. Monckton surely knows it too. The issue is whether we are interested in what the evidence shows with respect to historical temperatures, or whether we are interested in creating an "impression" of what we would like the evidence to show. It's only in the latter case would we pretend that very well know clarification of previous work doesn't exist. -
johnd at 19:14 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Riccardo at 18:13 PM, basically the weather comes from the west and the northern tropics across the country, at times north western cyclones bring rain to the south east. The eastern regions bounded by the Pacific Ocean do come under the influence of systems originating there, but the mountains that follow the east coast all the way down, the Great Dividing Range, are aptly named and provide some barrier to systems heading inland. The effects of systems originating in the Indian Ocean means that the weather over some of Australia, Indonesia, India and Africa are all interconnected, something that was observed from the early days of settlement with settlers in the north who had lived in other regions bounded by the Indian Ocean, made the connection. This is now being recognised more so since the identification of the IOD about a decade ago, and it is all still being digested, still with some differences of opinion as to the how it all relates. Given that some cycles take many decades to complete, the debate may continue for a long time yet. The El-Nino phenomenon is historically identified with South America, Peru, which is logical given how systems move around the globe. The Southern Ocean is also being given more consideration as to how it all helps influence the mix. -
chris1204 at 19:10 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
I think gallopingcamel might be talking about figure 21. -
DrTom at 18:51 PM on 5 June 2010It's cooling
Aloha e, Doug. Mahalo for your kind words. I shall not post regularly but it is really a very pleasant place to visit. a hui hou, kakoa T -
Riccardo at 18:13 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
johnd, corect me if i'm wrong, i do not know much about precipitations in Australia. As far as i can understand, IDO affects mainly the south and south-east of Australia while ENSO central and north Australia, or something like that. This should be the reason why, in general, we see different patterns in different regions. Australia is huge, after all, and bound by two different oceans. -
johnd at 17:18 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 16:23 PM, doug, basically yes. I'm not sure whether we will ever understand on how all the complexities interrelate or even if we can be sure we have the relationships in the right perspective, clear on cause and effect. Just an aside which relates to El-Nino and the IOD. El-Nino was given greater significance by Australian scientists when it was found that a high proportion of El-Nino events coincided with drought years in Australia, which was true, thus El-Nino became a supposedly reliable indicator for forecasting droughts in Australia. However those who observed what was actually occurring on the ground noted that a much smaller proportion of all drought years happened to coincide with El-Nino events, indicating that perhaps El-Nino was instead a relatively poor indicator to forecast droughts, less than an even chance. When the appropriate IOD cycles were worked into consideration, the correlation jumped substantially, to about 80% I think. It was interesting comparing the initial conclusions reached by those whose primary focus was El-Nino, as against those whose primary focus was droughts. -
Riccardo at 16:55 PM on 5 June 2010On temperature and CO2 in the past
You are walking on very thin ice with your last sentence, Berényi Péter. If nothing can be calculated using known physical laws we can have no CO2 nor temperature reconstructions; nothing, i'd say. Science would not exist at all. -
Doug Bostrom at 16:23 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Johnd, I think I see what you're driving at. ENSO is a driver of natural variability on a large regional scale, much of the Northern hemisphere really, and thus is of relevance on a fairly short interannual time scale. So models work better for modeling regional climate on short time scales as ENSO is better simulated. But on an interdecadal scale ENSO does not seem as though it is an important factor; ENSO does not offer a means of shedding heat from the globe, only rearranging it. That being said, the better models handle ENSO the better they'll work in finer time and space resolution. That about it? -
johnd at 15:22 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 13:36 PM, Doug, where my interest really lies with the Japanese researchers is the work they are doing with the Indian Ocean Dipole. They are the ones that identified it about a decade ago and it's relevance to the Australian climate, and beyond, is gradually being appreciated. Previously our most eminent researchers had hopped on the El-Nino wagon and it became identified as supposedly the dominating influence over most of Australia. However for those whose understanding of the Australian weather and climate was based on what actually can be observed or happens on the ground, rather than what is being said in the media, or even in peer reviewed papers, a lot simply didn't reflect what was being, or had been observed for generations. Then some other independent researchers and forecasters started working the IOD into their calculations and models and suddenly a lot of what had been attributed to ENSO began to appear as being due to the IOD, at least over wide parts of Australia. This began to show how the independent cycles of each system could at times either enhance or offset each other, or remain neutral, thus throwing a completely different understanding into the picture. Now as I understand it, research is being carried out in other parts of the world to determine if the ENSO system is as dominant an influence as previously considered. Given that ENSO is relevant to the climate research and how the climate is modelled, particularly with models having to be validated by backcasting, if the understanding of ENSO changes, that may require some aspects of the models to change. That's where I see the relevance. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:48 PM on 5 June 2010It's cooling
Mahalo and Aloha, Dr. Tom! -
DrTom at 14:41 PM on 5 June 2010It's cooling
Aloha All, I am new here but I am not new to the subject matter. Pardon me for writing simply. I am retired and simplicity appeals to me. It is becoming difficult to pretend nothing is happening. Even if we discard anthropogenic causation, we cannot disregard our observations. The earth is getting warmer every year. 2010 is already the hottest year on record. 128.3°F was measured at the town of MohenjuDaro, Pakistan, on Wednesday, May 26. As I write this, temperatures in parts of India are 125°F and both the flora and fauna are dying. How is that possible? Well, in fact, it IS possible. The earth used to be much warmer than it is now. Before humans existed. Whether the fluctuation is natural or not doesn't concern me any longer. People will rationalize arguments that the ecosphere is not warming because they don't want to believe it is. Either way the outcome is the same. We are entering an extinction event. We will last longer than Atlantic Bluefin tuna; they will be extinct within a couple of years. The human race may have 25 years left...or fifty...or ten. Even assuming that we are simply at the beginning of the next natural Milankovitch warming cycle or, on a shorter scale, a Bond Event or a natural orbital perturbation or a solar max or for no discernible reason whatsoever, we can interpolate that the oceans will become net exporters of CO2 before 2040 just as the forests are now. By that time we will have a CH4 problem. If we happen to be in one of the 'abrupt' climate changes, we can expect temperature increases within a few years to a few decades, depending on the causality, to increase right past the sweet spot at which humans can survive. Potentially thirty to fifty degrees Fahrenheit warmer. We have an historical record of those sorts of temperatures. And that assumes the 20 BILLION tons of CO2 we are happily pumping into the atmosphere annually is not a factor. That the 7 billion people on earth are not a factor. That the hydrological cycle is beginning to fluctuate is not a factor. That the annual loss of millions of Hectares of arable land to erosion and millions more to desertification are not factors. Because, in fact, they are no longer factors if we have jumped the shark. The tropics have encroached into sub-tropical zones by four degrees of longitude in the recent past. The weather, never predictable, was at least stable within recorded history. Now it isn't. Now EVERY flood is a 'hundred year' or 'thousand year' flood. Now there are going to be hurricanes for which another level of intensity will have to be made. Category 6. Now the once-predictable seasons of the year are changing. Everywhere. Given that weather is dynamic, I still defy anyone to tell me the weather where they are is not anomalous. The type of anomaly and the direction of temperature variation at any given point is of no import. That we cannot account for some of the trapped heat merely means we don't know where to look. It could be hiding in the AMO but it could just as easily be involved in a previously unobserved chemical reaction of which we know nothing. My suspicion is that it is charging the clathrate gun but I do not care to debate postulates. Imagine a spinning top as a metaphor. As the rotation decreases, a wobble begins but it wobbles through it's steady state enough that the wobble is barely noticeable. During that period three observers could debate whether it is speeding up, slowing down or naturally imbalanced at a steady momentum. The only way to know is when it collapses. Predicting the collapse event is not possible until it happens; there is a real possibility that it might never collapse. Schrödinger's top. My belated point is this: If you live on Easter Island, cutting down coconut trees for the nuts might seem like a good idea until you have cut down the last one. After that, further debate about whether to do it becomes meaningless. a hui hou T -
chris1204 at 14:40 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Ned @ 18: '...or should that be Chris Canaris?' The possibility that I might be commenting so transparently reflects the respect I have for this Blog and John's efforts in maintaining fair debate. :-) -
Doug Bostrom at 13:54 PM on 5 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part II – Here Comes the Sun?
Monckton notices Dr. Abraham, blows up, covered at deSmogBlog -
Doug Bostrom at 13:36 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Johnd, I'm wondering how a problem with a seasonal weather or interannual climate forecasting application of a GCM relates to the application of GCM's to produce projections of global climate? The two objectives are not the same. The initializing conditions allowing the model to produce specific regional forecasts of seasonal and interannual climate behavior will cause this application to suffer from the same issues as other weather forecasting systems. More, they'll be sensitive to small perturbations such as those alluded to in the correspondence you quote. In all probability the issue there is w/the compiler change, btw. The goal of the SINTEX application you're worrying over is that of producing -forecasts- of specific weather and climate behavior in specific regions of the globe. That's not the same objective of GCM application to describe gross behavior of the global climate over multi-decade periods. In short, your concern with this problem w/SINTEX is not relevant, or at the least you've not shown how it is. More here on SINTEX applications for seasonal and interannual climate forecasts, for the curious: Seasonal Climate Predictability Using the SINTEX-F1 Coupled GCM -
Marcus at 13:34 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Sorry, another point I'd like to raise. If its off-topic, then please delete. A false assertion some "skeptics" make is that those who accept AGW are completely closed minded towards the possibility of the warming being caused by something else. This is patently *untrue*! About a decade ago, the blogs lit up with claims by the skeptics that "the sun was to blame"-with links to papers that backed up that position. My first response was not disbelief. No, my first response was "well, it certainly *sounds* plausible". My second response was guarded relief. After all, if the last 60 years of warming was just a part of the suns larger cycle, then it meant we had nothing to worry about! However, when I read all the papers on the subject, it made it clear that-though solar variation could explain the bulk of climate change over the last 12,000 or so years (if not more) it was completely *unable* to explain the warming of the last 30-60 years. Needless to say I was not happy because-contrary to some people's opinions-I gain no pleasure about being on the "right" side of the AGW debate. If being "right" is a victory, then its an extremely bitter victory to me-because in this case being "right" means that-unless something is done to correct the problem-we're very likely headed towards a bad end. That knowledge gives me no joy whatsoever! -
Marcus at 13:22 PM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
dhogaza @ 35. Very good point. Although I have only a rudimentary understanding of particle physics, I'm certainly flummoxed by the more complicated ideas. In such cases, I defer to the greater knowledge of those who've made Particle Physics their life's work, even if I don't understand it myself. I certainly don't go around saying "well I don't understand it, so a boson & muon can't actually be real". Yet this is, in some respects, what the more extreme "skeptics" seem to be doing. Worse still, is they seem to do the equivalent of saying "well I don't believe in a muon or a boson, because I don't understand it, butsays that atoms are actually made up of gnomes. That sounds much more plausible to me, & I like the person saying it, so that's what I choose to believe!" -
johnd at 13:05 PM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
Ned at 12:23 PM on 5 June, 2010, as I understand it the Goddard problem come about due to the older image used not representing the total ice extent. The reasons are not explained but apparently the data that created the image was sourced from NSIDC. I think all that was explained in the link I provided earlier, including the actual images in question. When the corrected image was processed by Goddard, his result was a close match for the NSIDC results even if there is some question over whether or not he gave the correct weighting to the pixels. -
johnd at 12:51 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Tom Dayton at 11:52 AM, there is a fundamental similarity however, in that weather is about redistributing heat imbalances. But where does it start and stop in limiting the rate of incoming heat or removing heat from the system. -
Marcus at 12:46 PM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Speaking of vested interests, I'll highlight some key reasons why I think electric cars still haven't made it big (forgive my use of Australian costs & units of measure-but that's all I have to go on ;) ). As I stated earlier, the average electric car consumes around 12kw-h of electricity for every 100km traveled. In Australia, the average cost of grid electricity is about 25c/kw-h, or around 15c during off-peak. This means that your car will cost about $1.80 to $3.00 for every 100km traveled. By contrast, an IC engine vehicle uses an average of 10L of petrol per 100km (closer to 12L if you factor in peak-time idling). At a current cost of around $1.30 per liter, this means that you'll pay $130 for every $13 for every 100km you travel. See why there's so much opposition? Add to that the fact that electric cars tend to break down less often, require less maintenance & require far less replacement parts (as they have far fewer parts subject to general wear & tear) & you start to see why EV's are a God-Send to the average consumer, but are so hated by the oil & automobile industries ;)! -
johnd at 12:41 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 11:06 AM, just adding to my earlier reply to you. It may be of even more value to non-sceptics over sceptics to wade through the "Cloud Swamp" and become more familiar with the complexities of clouds. I would be surprised if many do, yet it is probably more vital to understanding climate change than many, perhaps most other issues given it is the least understood,. -
Marcus at 12:31 PM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Shawn, I consider myself "left-of-center", & if someone said that they had a viable means of generating 24/7 electricity with a lifetime CO2 footprint of less than 10g/kw-h, then I'd say BUILD IT! One reason I'm a huge fan of bio-sequestration is because its a *proven* method of reducing CO2 emissions at the source of generation. On the demand side of things, I'd love nothing more than if my local energy suppliers sold the concepts of energy efficiency & green energy with the same vigor as they flog kw-h from more conventional sources. The problem with all of these, though, is that vested interests often seem to get in the way-which is where the government usually has to step in. -
johnd at 12:30 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
KR at 11:51 AM on 5 June, 2010, KR, I have copied an email exchange relating to the change of computer which may be of interest to you. The email was not to me so I blanked out the recipient, but they are available on the internet to view. The most recent reply is on top. From: Jing-Jia Luo [mailto:jingjia.luo@...com] Sent: Monday, 22 June 2009 2:35 PM To: ====================== Cc: Toshio Yamagata Subject: Re: Seasonal forecasts from 1 June 2009 (monthly mean maps) Dear Peter, Nothing except the computer has changed since 1 April 2009; the forecast model is the same as before. We repeated the forecasts initiated from 1 March 2009 (with the same model and initial conditions), 9-ensemble mean did show certain differences as I mentioned before. I am still not quite sure what the actual reasons for this difference are. One possible factor can be due to the different FORTRAN compiler. This means the executable codes of the coupled model are different now though the source code itself has no any change. I asked NEC system engineering. The answer is that it is basically no way to get the same results on the new Earth Simulator (like chaos). Theoretically, if we have infinite ensembles, the results may be equal if the new compiler does not change the code systematically. But who knows (sometimes, bug fix in the compiler can induce big changes in the model results). We are planing to redo the hindcast step by step (we are facing another technical problem. Our model speed become slower despite the much faster new machine). Bets regards, Jing-Jia On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 1:08 PM, -
Tom Dayton at 12:24 PM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Explanation of "initial value" (weather) versus "boundary value" (climate) models is provided by Steve Easterbrook at his site Serendipity. -
Ned at 12:23 PM on 5 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
johnd writes: "Clearly NSIDC also use pixel counting. If you think about, if weighting was not given to the pixels, any error would cause an UNDER estimation, not an OVER estimation. " John, I work with projections of gridded geographic data every day. The problem here isn't with "counting pixels", it's with a failure to understand the scale variation associated with non-equal-area map projections. Apparently Steve Goddard made this mistake at WUWT, Berényi Péter makes it here, and no doubt lots of other people are doing the same thing elsewhere. Different projections will have different patterns of scale variation. I'm guessing that the PIPS2 images people have been grabbing are in a polar stereographic projection with the planar surface tangent to the earth at 90 north. But it could be secant ... or an orthographic projection rather than stereographic ... or something else entirely. This is why it's essential to have metadata describing the characteristics of the data you're working with. Maybe there are metadata for these images somewhere, though I haven't seen them. But unless you have the specific projection parameters used to create the images, you cannot simply count the pixels on date 1 and date 2 and draw any conclusion about whether ice area increased, decreased, or stayed the same. -
Tom Dayton at 11:52 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Most relevant to this thread about climate models, is this snippet from the Spencer Weart site that Doug linked to:That was a fundamentally different type of problem from forecasting. Weather prediction is what physicists and mathematicians call an "initial value" problem, where you start with the particular set of conditions found at one moment and compute how the system evolves, getting less and less accurate results as you push forward in time. Calculating the climate is a "boundary value" problem, where you define a set of unchanging conditions, the physics of air and sunlight and the geography of mountains and oceans, and compute the unchanging average of the weather that these conditions determine.
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Marcus at 11:52 AM on 5 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part II – Here Comes the Sun?
What I loved was that, on the UKIP Website, they mention how "Climate Change Expert, Lord Monckton, is giving evidence to Congress....". Say what?!?! By their standards of Expertise, my long-time interest in the planets, astronomy & space travel makes me an Expert in all these fields! In that case, maybe NASA should speak to me about their next mission-before they speak to those "egg-heads" that actually work for them. After all, that's effectively what the US Congress is doing-talking to someone who proclaims to be an expert instead of talking to those people who actually *know* something about the subject. Whose next on their list of witnesses-Plimer? Kinninmonth? -
KR at 11:51 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
johnd, with regard to the Sintex model and changes based on computer platform - it might be worthwhile for them to look at any differences in floating point calculations: IEEE compliant or not, single versus double precision, compiler/math library updates, etc. That kind of change is enough to make a difference on these scales. The original work on chaos and the Lorenz attractor came out of a very simplified weather model (3 variables, planar planet, etc.) that exhibited chaotic behavior - extreme dependence on starting conditions. Lorenz found that restarting his simulation with values rounded by 1/1000 (from a printout) was sufficient to get entirely different results! That result in the early 70's was sufficient to jump start non-linear system analysis and chaos theory. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:44 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Further to fusion, here's an interesting little comparison of the costs of fusion R&D versus other things we're buying: The Cost & importance of Fusion Research in Perspective Written by an interested physicist, I suspect but the numbers are the same regardless. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:29 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
Shawn, try as I can I do not see sufficient grounds for violent disagreement with your last reply. I maintain that the market has been ineffective in tackling some problems, notably (and sorry to be so boringly repetitious on this) municipal sewage system. The market provides vital bits and pieces to be plugged into sewage treatment systems but there just does not seem to be sufficient profit in the actual collection and treatment process per se. Yet there's not doubt that creating a market for trading pollution credits can be a boon by the simple act of imposing a price on those pollutants. Personally I like the concept of a fusion reactor but at the same time I can't help but notice the really large one we are orbiting and that is a dominant feature of our daytime sky. Many people find themselves frustrated that we are attempting to build a little puny one down here before harnessing the article already having the virtue of existence. Fortunately it's not a matter of mutual exclusivity; we can do both. -
michael sweet at 11:23 AM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
The basic science of climate HAS been shown in a transparent and understandable way in the IPCC reports. The NAS report is also written in a transparent and understandable way. The people who deny this are not reading what has been put before them. While we engage them here, we often have to review basic physics that is well understood (like the long review of heat released by fossil fuels last week). This is not because the science is not clear, but due to a lack of effort to understand by the "sceptics". I like this give and take because I often have to engage students who read the sceptic websites and have the same talking points. From Sceptical Science I learn how to counter these arguments. -
shawnhet at 11:15 AM on 5 June 2010Why does Anthony Watts drive an electric car?
actually thoughtfull, "www.capanddividend.org - a web site devoted to the idea. Senators Cantwell and Collins have introduced a bill to create this tax as law." I have to say that this seems to be a pretty good idea based on my limited reading of it. doug:"Regarding your second remark, what I fail to see is how considerations of the "free market" are useful or appropriate when discussing an almost exact analogue to other pollutants, of the sort we've discovered are technical problems amenable to solution, with a scientifically demonstrated compelling requirement to be corrected, and which the free market has historically always proven incapable of addressing on its own." Perhaps, the market has been unable to address these issues on its own, but it has always been part of the solution. To pretend OTW is to pretty much ensure that whatever position you advocate will either a.never be adopted or b. Effective long-term action is always economical in nature IMO. "Finally, there has never been a functioning example of a pure "free market" any more than there ever has been one of communism. Fortunate, because each would be intolerably obnoxious in its own unique way, more so than we've experienced with the corrupted implementations with which we've so far experimented." Well, clearly communism never worked, but I think that the vast majority of markets function pretty darn well. If your point is that no markets are 100% free, then OK I will accept that arguendo (kijiji may not be completely free but its close). This doesn't mean that we should ignore the market, though. "Your assertion in #96 is rather difficult to believe, by the way. Have you actually explicitly asked these folks you speak of whether they'd reject a quick and reasonably clean path to solving both our energy requirements and our present C02 pollution problem?" Well, I never said that they would *reject* it, I said that they would be disappointed by it because it would make their other goals more difficult to achieve. I don't personally think that this is all that unusual a position. You will often find members of "green" parties who oppose research into fusion, even though it is comparatively inexpensive. See the Wiki page on the ITER reactor for a couple examples: "Jan Vande Putte of Greenpeace International said that "Governments should not waste our money on a dangerous toy which will never deliver any useful energy". "Instead, they should invest in renewable energy which is abundantly available, not in 2080 but today."[15]" "Rebecca Harms, Green/EFA member of the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, said: "In the next 50 years nuclear fusion will neither tackle climate change nor guarantee the security of our energy supply." Arguing that the EU's energy research should be focused elsewhere, she said: "The Green/EFA group demands that these funds be spent instead on energy research that is relevant to the future. A major focus should now be put on renewable sources of energy." French Green party lawmaker Noël Mamère claims that more concrete efforts to fight present-day global warming will be neglected as a result of ITER: "This is not good news for the fight against the greenhouse effect because we're going to put ten billion euros towards a project that has a term of 30-50 years when we're not even sure it will be effective."[20]" Cheers, :) -
Doug Bostrom at 11:06 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
This review article is a little long in the tooth but is pleasingly boggy in terms of showing the difficulty wading through the complexity of cloud treatments. It's also a nice illustration why so few skeptics are capable of emerging from the other side of the cloud swamp bearing useful contributions to the problem; one might say the "Cloud Swamp" is a test capable of identifying what real skepticism looks like. Cloud feedbacks in the climate system: A critical review -
johnd at 10:38 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
doug_bostrom at 10:28 AM, with regards to your last comment. They do, and we have. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:28 AM on 5 June 2010Models are unreliable
Johnd, let me reiterate that general circulation models are not used to produce forecasts in the sense that we use the word to describe predicting weather. GCM utility lies in predicting tendencies. There's a huge difference between the two objectives. With regard to clouds, from all that I've read any real skeptic would do well to zero in on those as the single largest possible weakness of GCM's. But don't get your hopes up. -
dhogaza at 10:14 AM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
"Whenever some piece of natural science is actually settled, researchers should be able to make it transparent and understandable for anyone outside the field provided she has a firm grasp of some basics like the underlying physics and some inclination to math. If they fail to do so, the science is not settled. It is as simple as that." Yeah? How many people outside of particle physics really understand the standard model? It might be wrong but ... if it's wrong, it's not simply because it's complex and largely impenetrable to those outside the field. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:01 AM on 5 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
BP: As [homeopathy enthusiasts] have peer reviewed journals as well, to be a denier is obviously foolish. Now that's a twist. First definition that popped up via Google: "Peer, a person who is of equal standing with another in a group." But there are distinctions between groups, of course. Let me point out redundantly that a peer group called the National Academy of Sciences accepts anthropogenic warming as what scientists regard to be factual: A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems... Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities. Read the facts here. So for virtually all of us denizens in the lower orders of peer groups, the remaining quibble is "very likely." In order to best the peer group called the National Academy of Sciences, find a more likely explanation it's necessary for us to substitute better research than what lead the NAS to its conclusions. That's not very likely.
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